Summery: True Vessels are complicated. They are millennia in the making and the work of coincidence as much as anything or anyone else but when they are they are tied to their angel with an intricacy few understand and unbreakable by anyone. The lack of understanding means that when you try to direct who True Vessels will be things go wrong.

Which is how Sam Winchester ends up becoming the True Vessel of both Michael and Lucifer.

Problems ensure and the only person who seams to be enjoying themselves is Gabriel.

Characters: Dean; Sam; Michael; Lucifer; Gabriel

Pairings: Sam/Michael; Sam/Lucifer (note: True Vessels are angel's soulmates)

Alternate Season 5

Hey, just a note to start I have taken liberties with angel physics and how alternate universes work, nothing crazy but change none the less and explained in this first chapter.


1st

'And it is written, that the first Seal shall be broken when a Righteous Man sheds blood in Hell. As he breaks, so shall it break.' - Alastair, On The Head Of A Pin

Time does not exist.

Space-Time, however, does. It is a rolling mass of reality that weaves and fuses together everything so each plane of existence can connect, twisting with each thought to form new planes, mostly copies of the original planes where small actions change the course of history until they are unrecognisable from each other. Sometimes they are new brought to life by hope and prayer and the imagination of all who believe in it, and God, if He's feeling creative. But Space-Time is not infinite. It is bordered by impenetrable walls and shaky locks and when it reaches the edge folds back onto itself pressing down so the planes of existence are closer together and occasionally bleed through or merge.

This means that more often than not the outcome is favourable to whoever is guiding the change and inconvenient situations with few outcomes are avoided although the impossible happens with surprising regularity.

Sam Winchester died at 7:36 on the 30th of April 2007 and Space-Time split, in most planes his soul ascends to Heaven where little happens until it is returned to his body, although there are exceptions. In some he stays on Earth as a spirit or is guided to a different afterlife and rarely returns to his body immediately causing a few problems. In fewer still he goes to Hell, either for his tainted soul or because of hard held grudges.

So when Azazel grabbed Sam's soul tight and plunged down into Hell Space-Time shuddered and split, then when the first Seal was broken it caused shock-waves that rippled through the past and the present and the future and splashed harmlessly against the wall surrounding it next to a Lock.

Not that anybody noticed the behaviour of Space-Time the people in the universe those particular planes of existence formed had more immediate issues. Such as the impending Apocalypse.

Then again, the breaking of a Seal was new, very few recognised it for what it was although everybody knew something had changed.

The Archangels knew of course, but Lucifer in his Cage saw it start to open, felt the ripple of victory it accompanied, and he crowed; and Gabriel on the Earth continued on as if nothing was wrong all while making plans to disappear; and Raphael in Heaven ordered that preparations for the apocalypse begin in earnest; and Michael disappeared to try to open a connection with his True Vessel.

They all forgot to mention to the choirs of Heaven and the hordes of Hell that the Righteous Man who starts the apocalypse need only be virtuous of Michael's line and upon breaking the First Seal would become Michael's True Vessel.

It was also never clarified whose blood must be spilt in Hell to break the First Seal and Sam Winchester is a Hunter; stabbing Demons is his job, a small thing like dying isn't going to get in the way of that. What dying does get in the way of, however, is throwing ability and in the chaos that follows a lot of blood is spilt without ever knowing who spilt it: from the demons, from Sam himself and from the souls on the racks surrounding them, and physical torture is not the only way to break a person.

Words work just as well, especially from somebody you trust. The 46 hours that Dean hesitates to make a Deal to bring his brother back is 7 and a half months in Hell.

The problem is that Lucifer's True Vessel is forged not in one less-than-shining moment but in many over a lifetime and Sam has been groomed for it since birth, as he is told by Jessica Moore when fighting for his soul in Hell.

Not that he remembers any of it when his soul is returned to his body and he wakes up confused and disorientated but having stopped the apocalypse at the moment of its inception.

Not that anybody told Michael or Lucifer.


Hey, so I've decided that I'm going to write daily this year and post a chapter of something every Saturday, so by the end of the year I will have written 52 chapters. Since I'm terrible at getting motivation you get the one thing with a prewritten chapter and a promise that the rest will be done because yes I will actually do this it's only been 5 days. Either way next Saturday there will be something.