Dean struggled feebly against the crushing grip that Michael had on him; he could feel the angel's strength blazing through his body, licking at corners that had been dead and useless for decades. He realized all too well now what Jimmy Novak had meant by the words "chained to a comet". Dean watched from a surreal distance as Michael reached-with Dean's hands-for Lucifer's face. He traced one of the vessel's pale, mottled cheeks, tilting his head as Lucifer met his eyes with a look of spite that could destroy cities, that could freeze Hell over. "Brother," Michael said, and Dean trembled to hear his own voice reverberating with Michael's otherworldly strength, "I'm sorry we have to do this." Lucifer sneered, Nick's purpling lips curling away from teeth that had started to lose their luster a long time ago.
"Liar."
Lucifer made a sudden grab for the hand that Michael had on his vessel's face, but missed, as Michael flashed out of existence and reformed behind Lucifer. Dean writhed uncomfortably, disliking the sensation of having his body dissembled at a molecular level and put back together within such an incomprehensible burst of time. Michael took a lightning-quick step, bringing him right up to Lucifer, whose back was still turned, and plunged Dean's arm into the flesh of Nick's body. Dean screamed soundlessly at how it felt, tearing through sinew and bone and muscle, his arm plowing against the steady pressure of a body that had still been breathing, no matter how faintly. "This is how it ends, Lucifer. This is me, righting your wrongs." Michael pressed deeper, and blood burbled past Nick's mouth, streams of it spilling downward and staining his already-dirty shirt. Dean shuddered violently as his fingers closed, vise-like, around something—a large, beating something.
Michael drew Dean's arm back powerfully and ripped Nick's heart from his chest with a sound that Dean hoped he'd never have to hear again, outside of his nightmares. Lucifer collapsed, the ragged, gaping hole in Nick's chest making it so it was hard to believe he'd ever been alive. Michael clicked Dean's tongue against his teeth, leaning down to wrench Nick's lolling head up by his sparse hair.
"Give up. Give up, or I will be forced to prolong your death for as long as possible. And we have all the time in the world, don't we."
Dean saw with a dull shock that Lucifer's gaze was still fixed on Michael, eyes flickering like a dying candle. Nick's mouth opened, slowly, crimson teeth gleaming in the fading daylight. "Go...to...hell." The words rasped against one another quietly, and if it weren't for Michael's superhuman presence taking up too much room inside him, Dean wouldn't have heard them at all. Michael laughed, a sound that almost resembled fondness, and broke Nick's neck in one sharp motion. He cupped Nick's lax, gray face for a minute, Dean's bloodied fingers smoothing over patches of discolored flesh, before letting go and wiping Dean's hands on his pants. He strode through the gravestones without so much as a glance back.
Where're you taking me? The job's done now, isn't it? Apocalypse averted? 'Cause if you don't mind, I'd kinda like my goddamn body back. Michael paused mid-stride, and Dean wondered why he was traveling on foot to begin with. "Oh, Dean," the angel spoke aloud, curving Dean's mouth into a remorseful smile. "I regret to tell you that there remains one more piece I cannot allow to exist on the chessboard."
What're you talking about? Enough with the riddles already, you cryptic asshole. Dean tamped down a heady spurt of fear, hiding behind a screen of bravado. "In time, you will understand why this had to be done," Michael intoned ominously, and Dean broke at the chilling promise in his voice, starting to quiver as Michael picked up the pace. Beyond a fringe of stunted trees near the gated entrance to the cemetery, was the impala. Dean felt a jolt run through his entire body at the sight of it, cursing every deity in the book for his little brother's self-destructive stubbornness.
What the fuck is he doing here. I told him to stay the fuck away.
Michael chuckled quietly, and Dean felt delirious with terror, head whirling, as Michael brought them closer to the car, and Sam, with every step. They were close enough now that Dean could make out his vacant eyes, his hands clenched tight around the wheel, his teeth worrying at his bottom lip. Dean's heart ached, and Michael clasped a fist to Dean's chest at the feeling. "It's better this way," Michael whispered to him under his breath, "Trust me. You and Sam, the way you act around each other, it's dangerous." NO. NoNoNoNoNoSamGetTheFuckOutOfHereRunSammyNoNoNoRUN.
"It's all going to be okay, Dean," Michael crooned softly, reaching slowly for the door handle. Sam wasn't turning his head, wasn't heeding the impending danger, was still staring up at nothing with that empty look on his face. Dean wanted to die. Michael swung the driver's side door open, and Sam's eyes snapped to him, unguarded, caught by surprise. "...Dean?" His voice broke before he got the name out, and he seemed to remember himself, thinning his lips and climbing out of the car. "Why are you here, Michael?" Dean, trapped in his body, pleaded with Michael, promised him anything, everything in the world if only he didn't lay a hand on his brother. He questioned briefly, in between the staccato beat of his desperation, why Michael hadn't killed Sam on sight, why he was still standing silently before him instead of behind him with a hand to his jugular.
That, Dean, is because I mean to do this as it should be done.
Michael looked up to address Sam, whose face had grown colder and more closed off by the second. "Know that this is for the greater good." Sam lifted his chin, eyebrows dipping downward. FuckFuckFuckFuckRUN. Michael punched Sam in the face, sending him tumbling to the frosted ground. "Shit!" Sam scrambled back up, feeling at his bruised cheek. As Michael advanced on him again, fists at the ready, Sam sputtered out, "Wait, wait. What is this? What the fuck is going on?" He looked imploringly into Dean's—no, Michael's—face, hands coming up of their own accord to shield him from the restrained punches the angel was showering him with.
"This is what Dean wants, Sam. He realizes, as well as I do, that you pose far too great a risk to be kept alive. Should Lucifer crawl his way back to the surface ever again, you, his one perfect vessel, should be long dead. Think of it as...insurance."
Sam dropped his hands in shock, receiving a hard fist to the nose as a result. He leaned over, groaned, licked at the blood spurting over his mouth. "Dean...Dean wants..." His eyes shone wetly, and he smiled. Dean's entire being throbbed painfully, incorporeal hands tearing at skin that, for the time being, wasn't his to commandeer. Sam laughed, breathless, strands of hair sticking to the mess of blood on his face. "Okay. Good, this...this is good. Finally, finally." He trembled, pushing his hands through his hair, and said, "Go ahead. I...if it's what Dean wants, do it. Please." He wiped a sleeve across his upper lip, and Dean saw that he had started to cry.
HE'S LYING, SAM, HE'S OBVIOUSLY LYING. WHY ARE YOU ALWAYS SO EAGER TO DIE.
Michael nodded, put a hand on Sam's shoulder and left it there even after he flinched. "I knew you wouldn't resist your fate. I wanted to grant you the courtesy of knowledge, rather than giving you a quick and ignorant death that would have been an insult to your character." I'M GOING TO KILL YOU, YOU GODDAMNED SON OF A BITCH. I'M GOING TO RIP YOUR FUCKING GRACE OUT WITH MY BARE HANDS. Michael ignored Dean, hand tightening so that his fingers were pressing divots into Sam's shoulder. Sam gasped, and all at once he was sobbing, sucking in big lungfuls of air and looking like he was shaking apart at the seams. Michael released his hold on him, took him by the hands instead. "Don't be afraid, Sam. I want to see enlightenment on your face as you die, a testament to your martyrdom."
Sam shook his head, tried to slip his hands from Dean's, but Michael held fast. He leaned his head in carefully, breathed against Sam's mouth. "You are a hero, Sam Winchester." Sam shook his head again, made as if to twist away.
Dean went numb as Michael pressed closer to Sam and caught his lips with Dean's, slotting their mouths together. Sam was crying again, tears tracking clean paths down his dirtied face, but he wasn't pulling away. His arms went up to circle Dean's back, hands clutching at his jacket. Dean felt him shudder as Michael plunged Dean's fingers into his hair, weaving through the strands until he could feel his scalp. You see, Dean, this is what makes the two of you, together, so formidable, Michael commented primly as he deepened the kiss, making Sam's breath hitch audibly. This sinful, alarming heat between you. It compels you to insanity. Dean had lost the capacity for rational thought, fury filling his head with white noise as Michael mouthed at Sam's jaw and licked at his tears. Sam, who seemed on the verge of hyperventilation, allowed it for a second or two more before pushing him away abruptly.
"God. Oh, god. I'm a shit excuse for a brother. He's still in there, right? Dean is? Fuck. He has every right to hate me for this, on top of everything else I've done—" Sam cut himself off, covered his face with his hands. "Just, please, kill me and get it over with."
I don't hate you, Sammy. "He doesn't hate you. You couldn't be farther from the truth."
Michael lifted Sam's hands from his face, cradling them in Dean's, tracing the scars on his palms. He snapped Sam's wrists in an instant, not even giving Dean half a second to protest. Sam screwed his eyes shut, skin taking on a worrying pallor, but kept silent. FIGHT BACK, GODDAMMIT. Michael knocked Sam to the floor by breaking his kneecaps in a sickening burst of noise, looming over him and smiling tenderly at the sweat and tears intermingling on his temples. "We're going to savor this, Dean and I, as should you. I'm taking you apart, learning every piece of Lucifer's vessel before making it obsolete."
Sam returned the smile, watery and joyless. "Thank you."
Dean blacked out.
When he came to, Michael was gone. Relief rushed through him, making him giddy, as he flexed his fingers and stretched his aching limbs. He remembered Sam like a punch to the gut, and whirled around in search of his brother. He immediately wished he hadn't. Because Sam was lying on the floor behind him, torso cracked wide open. Dean fell to his knees, swallowing down a surge of vomit, and crawled weakly towards him.
Sam's eyes were closed, a mocking expression of peace on his still face. Dean touched him, recoiled at the feeling of icy flesh, a scream building and dying in his throat. His eyes roved over Sam's dead body, taking in the damage with a suffocating sense of horror. Sam's arms and legs were twisted unnaturally, his clothes already rust-brown from the blood that coated them. His chest, which gaped open like a macabre bouquet of gore, was missing its heart. Dean saw that Michael had removed it and placed it in Sam's hands, broken fingers arranged delicately around it. A small, strangled noise escaped his throat, and he drew Sam's head into his lap, fingertips brushing over his cracked lips, his battered eyelids.
Dean lost all track of time as he sat in the dirt outside the graveyard, clinging to Sam and listening to his own shallow breaths wheeze in and out, but his daze was disturbed when a group of angels winked into existence in front of him with a collective murmur of wings. "Dean Winchester. To see you in such a state is laughable, really." Dean curled tighter into Sam, as if to protect him. As if. "Don't you want to know how your fellow maggots are doing, what with the end of the world, and all?" Dean didn't respond, couldn't bring himself to focus on their words.
"Pathetic. With your monster of a brother by your side, you're willing to engage the universe in foolhardy battle, but take him away from you and you're reduced to a worthless husk. It's a wonder you've lasted as long as you have." Dean buried his face in Sam's neck, heartbeat sluggish and too-loud in his ears. The angel scoffed. "Well then, you obviously pose no threat at all. It's off to subjugate the rest of humanity. You can sit here and moon over your own wretchedness until the end of time, for all the elders care. Hard to say whether you or Sam will start to rot away first."
After a long stretch of silence, Dean realized that he was alone again.
The sky was starting to darken, an endless day finally coming to an end, but Dean didn't notice, because he was dying.
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