Soul's Weight - Chapter 1
Masterpost
Chapter 1
Just like that Sam is gone, taken over by Lucifer, and Dean’s alone. Utterly and completely alone. The small hope that he’d had that their crazy plan would work is gone, along with his brother. Lucifer’s got control of him and has taken him who knows where. The world’s going to end now and he can’t do a damn thing to stop it. All he wants is to get to Sam somehow. It’s like a thrumming need in his gut, gettosamgettosamgettosam. He needs to be there when he battles Michael, he needs to be there for his brother, he can’t abandon him now, he can’t give up, not now, not while he still has a job to do, to look out for his brother. As soon as he gets the word from Chuck about where the final battle is going down, Dean takes off, leaving Castiel and Bobby surprised with how he’s not giving up. He drives even faster than he usually does, risking everything to get to Kansas in time. All he can hear is an overwhelming drumbeat in his ears, gettosamgettosamgettosam.
Dean finally pulls up to the cemetery in Stull after a solid ten hours of driving eight hundred miles; it should have taken him twelve. But he can instantly tell that he is already much too late, LuciferSam is beating MichaelAdam to a bloody pulp. Damn, he knew the kid wouldn’t be able to stand up to Sam. The angels don’t even stop battling long enough to acknowledge his presence. Dean doesn’t know if Sam can see him from his place inside Lucifer, but he hopes that there is some part of Sam that can feel his presence, or at least know that Dean didn’t abandon him, that he’s here for him at the end of everything. It’s a hard thing for Dean to watch his brother’s body fighting all out like this when he knows Sam’s not in control of it. The grace of an angel using a human vessel is beautiful and terrifying all at the same time, mesmerizing and impossible.
Right away, it is apparent that Michael is at a disadvantage because he’s not in the right vessel, his true destined vessel. Dean should have said Yes when he had the chance. Now he knows that this is his second chance to do the right thing. He’s got to try to get Michael’s attention long enough to have him hear his “Yes”, it’s the only thing he can think of that might help. Dean knows that if he says Yes to Michael it means he’s going to have to maybe kill Sam. But he’s got to try or he’ll never be able to live with himself or explain himself to Sam if they end up in Heaven together. If the world is lost and he could have done something, Dean knows he’d never survive the guilt that would then be his.
First Dean makes an attempt to approach the two fighters by just walking up to them, but as soon as he reaches within ten feet, he’s thrown back by the energies released in their battling. It’s not just a normal human fist fight or bar brawl, there’s angel power being released with every punch thrown that resonates and reverberates around the empty cemetery. Lying near the Impala where he was thrown and attempting to stand back up and try again, he hears another vehicle pull up nearby, it’s Bobby and Cas who jump out of Bobby’s van and Dean hears Cas yell “Hey Assbutt!” He sees Cas throws a Molotov Holy Oil right at the two warring vessels. Both of them stop and howl in pain as parts of them catch on fire.
Dean sees his chance now that they’re distracted and runs over as close as he dares and yells again as loud as he can manage, “Michael, I’m here, I’m saying YES! Yes, Michael! Do you hear me god damn it?! YES! Take ME!”
Michael eventually hears him, looks over and smiles with his poor half-brother’s ruined face and that bright, hot light that Dean felt back in the Beautiful Room focuses on him, invades him, takes him over, and he is no longer just Dean, he is now MichaelDean. Adam collapses the instant Michael leaves him, legs burnt, body beaten and broken. Another used toy discarded carelessly by the angels as they play out this final game of apocalypse.
MichaelDean stands up straight and tall, rolls his shoulders, and brushes the last crumbling burned bits of his pants leg off, “So Lucifer, here I am now as I was meant to be. Shall we start over?”
LuciferSam looks up from where he’s finishing patting out the flames from his legs. “Michael, this is how it always should have been.” They fall into each other’s arms in a passionate embrace, hugging, touching, lips brushing cheeks, hands in hair, lips finally slotting together.
After what seems an eternity of unbridled joy at their reunion being expressed in a loving, breath-stealing embrace, MichaelDean pulls back to search his brother’s face, “Oh my brother how I’ve missed you.”
“I’ve missed you too Michael, so much. I wish we didn’t have to do this to each other.”
MichaelDean meets his eyes, squeezing his shoulders firmly, “I know, but it is our destiny, you know it cannot be changed.”
“Why can’t we both just decide to walk away, together?” LuciferSam pleads, knowing that it useless, but needing to ask anyways, just in case his big brother has somehow impossibly changed his mind.
“I can’t Lucifer, you know I can’t my brother.” MichaelDean gently caresses the side of LuciferSam’s face with the back of his hand, filled with sorrow that he cannot give his brother what he wants.
“I know you won’t my brother, which is not the same thing.” LuciferSam returns the caress, his hand lingering on MichaelDean’s face.
“Well then you know me well.” MichaelDean steps back, reluctantly removing his hands from his brother and straightens himself up to his full height.
“I will always love you Michael.” LuciferSam struggles to hold himself back from reaching for his brother once again, but he gives up when he sees how he stands so challenging, straight and tall before him.
“And I you Lucifer.” MichaelDean nods regally towards his brother, acknowledging all that is between them, but bowing to the duty of their shared destiny.
They step forward formally and embrace a final time, both letting go reluctantly and stand back from each other, getting into a preparatory fighting stance and then the battle is re-engaged. This time the two bodies of the vessels are so in sync after a lifetime of sparring practice and hunting side by side so that they are evenly matched. Even though Sam’s body is so much larger, Dean’s body knows exactly how he fights and where his weaknesses are. Minutes go by as they pound fists into each other, the energies pour out from the impact when they strike each other.
For a while it looks like MichaelDean is making some headway and pummeling LuciferSam a little harder each time. But then the tide switches when LuciferSam gets MichaelDean pushed up against the side of the Impala, a fist drawn back for a final killing blow. The sun hits the windshield catching LuciferSam’s eye and he stops suddenly, a new awareness dawning in his eyes, saying in Sam’s voice. “Dean, Dean are you in there? I’ve got him Dean, I‘ve got him! You’ve got to look in the ashtray in the door in the backseat, look and remember. Dean please!”
MichaelDean’s eyes are already facing that way and Dean somehow manages to hear Sam’s words and register what he’s talking about and he sees it, the green plastic army man wedged in the ashtray in the door. And it opens a window suddenly in-between the angel mind of Michael and the human mind of Dean and an avalanche of Dean’s memories comes flooding through, all his years with Sam together growing up in the backseat, everything they’ve ever done in the Impala, all the love, pain, joy, fear, happiness, anger, togetherness and it’s enough. It’s enough of a distraction for Dean to grab control from Michael. “I’ve got him Sam! Do it, you’ve got the rings, quick, you’ve got to open it up.”
Sam tosses the horseman’s rings onto the ground and quickly speaks the words of the spell that Death had taught Dean, and a huge hole opens up, roaring and sucking in what seems like all the air at once. They grab each other around the shoulders and stumble towards the edge, stopping just before it turning to each other. Dean yells to be heard over the roar of the open gateway to Hell, “We’ve both got to jump in don’t we? Michael will never give up otherwise, he’ll just try to get the apocalypse going some other way.”
“You’re right, I’m sorry you have to do this, but I’m glad we’re doing this together Dean.”
“Me too Sammy.”
Sam holds Dean’s head and looks into his eyes as if to memorize his face, “I love you Dean.”
Dean meets Sam’s gaze, doing the same thing, hoping this isn’t the last he’ll ever see his brother alive, “I love you too Sammy.”
They hug each other as closely as possible and fall over the edge together into the spiraling darkness. The hole closes over and with a sucking, final sound all of a sudden it is dead quiet in the cemetery.
Bobby and Cas look at each other in surprise at what they’ve just seen. Neither had expected to see Sam or Dean succeed. They hear a quiet moan and both quickly move to reach Adam. “Can you fix him Cas?” Bobby asks hopefully.
“No, I do not have enough power yet.”
“Then I’ve got to get him to a hospital right away, he’s not doing too well. Can you help me move him?”
“Yes, Bobby, you must take care of him.” They gently move Adam into the van.
“Cas before you go, what happened? Do you know? Is it over?”
“It appears that Dean said Yes to Michael and they both jumped in the Cage together. So yes, it is over, they were successful in caging Lucifer and Michael as well. The Apocalypse has been averted.”
“That’s what I thought. So they’re both just gone, just like that?”
“Yes both Sam and Dean are gone from Earth, from this dimension as I think you call it, as are Michael and Lucifer, all four are in the Cage now.”
“Is there any way to get Sam and Dean out and leave Michael and Lucifer in the Cage?”
“Not that I know of, but I will search out an answer.”
“You do that Cas, and let me know how we do it, okay?”
A sudden loud rustle of wings and a small breeze and Cas is gone.
“Huh, he never did figure out goodbyes. I guess some of his mojo is coming back, too bad it’s not enough to heal you Adam.” Bobby mutters to himself as he drives off to get Adam to the hospital wondering if he’ll ever get to see Sam and Dean again. His heart is heavy and light at the same time. He’s so damned proud of his boys he could just about burst, but he’s sad at what they had to sacrifice to save the world. But when he keeps thinking about it, he discovers that he’s glad that they’re together at least, he can’t imagine trying to take care of either of them if the other was stuck in the Cage.
Chapter 2