Michael remembers the first day he set his eyes upon them, he remembers how he didn't understand.
His father, God, had worked so hard for this newest creation of his and he was proud of his work. He loved them already. He wanted his children to do the same too. He ordered the angels to bow down in front of them because those two, Adam and Eve they were called, were beautiful, better and far greater than any angel, he said. And Michael didn't understand back then.
Of course, he obeyed his father's command immediately setting the right example for all the other angels as always. He didn't understand. But he was Michael, the Prince Of Heaven. He was good, loyal, faithful. He would never dare to go against God. He would never dare to question God because that would mean doubt. And Michael, the first angel was not allowed to doubt his father. God's will was always just. God was the most caring, the fairest and the wisest. God was always always right. So Michael bowed.
Yet he didn't understand.
Adam and Eve were allowed into the Garden Of Eden on the day they were created. Below Heaven, the Earth was also created for them. The Garden, his father's sacred haven were given to them, the little blue planet, the best of his father's craft was made specially for them. So it was true. They were better, God loved them better. Enough to gift them with the most precious of everything, enough to demand his first children to respect them as much as they did him and love them more than they did him. And that was exactly what Michael couldn't comprehend.
He wasn't alone in his thoughts at first.
None of the angels knew what made the pair so important. No one understood why they were suddenly told to serve them when they were created to worship and serve their father, their God only. So were they divine entities too? Didn't the God always told them there was no other being as strong as himself? Didn't he create everything? Why were the humans granted an equal position as him in the angels' minds?
Michael had those questions too. Though the only one brave enough to voice them were none other than Lucifer. Of course. Lucifer was the brightest, most beautiful angel ever. He was the Morningstar, the Bringer Of Dawn. He was the only one who carried their Father's light itself. He was the favorite. Yet suddenly, he was casted down to second best without a reason. What surprised them was that God was angry with him for asking. Lucifer was his favorite, he had always answered every question the young, curious mind of his son produced up to then. Why? Why did he immediately ask Lucifer who was used to asking and didn't know he wasn't allowed to do so that time if he was rebelling against his will? Why was he so stern on his order and why did he expect for them to understand it?
Michael didn't know. Yet he didn't dare to ask. Not after witnessing how his father reacted to Lucifer doing the same thing.
Slowly, things changed.
God talked to angels about the humans all the time. He told them he had big plans for the two. He told them of their intelligence and beauty in every opportunity. He continued to love angels, his children and never failed to tell them how the humans were his children too and how he loved them too. Ever so slowly, the angels started to get used to the idea. Michael did too. He tried to think like he just had more siblings. Only these new siblings were supposed to know more than him and be able to do more than him but their father would love all of them equally. Kind of like how he himself was in the eyes of his younger brothers and sisters. He could accept that.
Lucifer couldn't.
He never stopped trying to prove that the humans were inferior when God himself told him otherwise. He never stopped hating them. His malice grew day by day. And Michael still didn't understand. Especially when his own brother insisted the humans were broken, flawed. He had accepted their existence yet he still couldn't love them like his father asked him to.
One day, Lucifer had a big fight with God. Their father openly told him that his behaviour wasn't going to be tolerated anymore. His next outburst would end in Hell. Lucifer stormed away. Michael merely watched. So these two small beings whose existence was no longer than the blink of an eye to them angels were more valuable than even Lucifer. Not managing to love them would mean the ultimate punishment to even God's favorite thus to all the angels.
God summoned Michael next.
He knew.
Of course he knew.
Michael braced himself for his father's anger. Yet what he heard was no other than the sweet voice who would tell him about the seas, skies and stars before they were created, before his brothers and sisters were born.
Adam and Eve are my greatest creations. You shall love them. Such is my order to you. Wait. Observe. You shall find reason to love them. When the time comes, if you still can not then go to Adam. He will show you what you need to see.
Wait and observe.
Michael did just that. He went to Eden, to the humans. They welcomed him with smiles. From that day on, Michael went to see them in every minute of his free time.
He told them about his battles against leviathans. He told them about the Earth, the Sun, the whole universe. He told them about the rest of Heaven, his siblings. They listened to him with wide eyes and looks of awe. To them, Michael was God's angel, a gift from their creator, a gift. They talked about God. They talked about their love for him. Michael realized that the humans reserved a piece, just a fragment of that beautiful love for himself. Simply because they loved God, and Michael reminded them of his father. Because Michael talked to them, shared God's wisdom with them.
Time passed. Michael started to know more about the two. There wasn't all that much to know really and nothing special. Sure, it was hard to dislike them when they were clearly amazed by him. But there was no reason to love them so far. Nothing other than their devotion to his father at least.
With every passing day, Lucifer got angrier and Michael, more desperate.
Eve was gentle, kind in spirit. She didn't understand much of what Michael told them. She passed her time around the different plants in the Garden. She liked flowers, sometimes she would put some in her hair. God would let her kill the poor things just so she would feel happy and beautiful.
Michael didn't pay much attention to her after the first few months. His father had told him to go to Adam for answers. Apparently he was supposed to be the more clever between the two. He was nearly the same as Eve though. He too didn't understand Michael. He too loved the Garden and spent his time either worshipping God or exploring Eden with Eve. His soul shone bright yes, but Michael had seen better. There was Lucifer for example. He loved God yes, but Michael liked to think no one could love his father more than himself. He was good looking, a beautiful being yes, but even some of the animals were better at that.
Michael didn't understand. He couldn't find the answers Adam was created to give him. God summoned him again. Just to repeat his words. Wait. Observe. What? What was he waiting for? What was he observing?
Years passed.
Eve ate the apple.
Lucifer fell.
Adam and Eve were sent to the Earth.
God still told the angels that the humans were better than them and they still had to love them no matter what happened. Every time Michael went to see him, he would repeat himself as if wanting to make sure that Michael too wouldn't share Lucifer's fate.
Wait.
Observe.
Michael did.
Eons passed. Adam and Eve died and returned to Heaven to their personal Heavens as many souls after them would. The first was Abel, their second born son. He had been killed by his own brother. The day he arrived in Heaven, angels cried. God summoned him. What happened was called murder. He was told it was what started the history of mankind and it would be what ended it. He was told of the apocalypse.
For the first time ever, Michael was scared.
At least the concept of war was something he was familiar with. He could battle Lucifer to make the Earth into the paradise his father wanted. Lucifer was what poisoned the original one. So Michael could kill him to protect his father's creations. He didn't want to. But such was God's order. It was the second one he was to fulfill. Wait. Observe. God told him that the fateful day wasn't so long away.
Then before Michael knew, it was time.
The apocalypse was going to happen. The humans would all die in the crossfire. So it had to be time. Michael had one last chance to see what God wanted him to see before all humans left the Earth.
He visited Adam's Heaven.
They talked. About God, about Michael's brothers, about Adam's sons, about Eden.
Adam was still the same. Still nothing special. So Michael told him. He explained it all to him and Adam smiled bitterly. He apologized. He didn't have what Michael needed. He didn't even know God gave him such a duty.
Michael left, heart heavy and head down.
This wasn't how God told him it would go.
The apocalypse wasn't too.
He wasn't supposed to take a vessel other than his fated one. Lucifer wasn't supposed to lose control. He wasn't supposed to end up in Hell.
So why?
He will never get an answer, Michael knows.
Sam Winchester escapes.
Lucifer follows.
His father never comes to help him no matter how much Michael prays.
Angels fall.
One by one, his siblings die.
Gabriel.
Raphael.
Lucifer.
A whole millenium passes.
He has no one left. Except for the one little soul he used to shield from Hell and from Lucifer.
They talk. They play games. Michael talks about Heaven and creation, about anything that comes to his mind. He listens the stories of one woman named Kate Milligan, the short life of his son, about every random thing the innocent soul can remember and bring himself to talk about. They build something akin to trust. They come to an agreement. Hell becomes almost peaceful after that.
The first thing they do once they climb out through the opened gates is to find a small place with human food and buy platefuls of disgusting grease and chemicals. But it makes the human happy so Michael lets him take control and enjoy this one thing that reminds him of his old life.
They meet the Winchesters and Castiel. Michael confirms a fact he had been mulling on for hundreds of years at least. God doesn't care he never did. So he tells the three how to trap him and leaves. He can't help any further. Being around his older brothers who abandoned him will make his vessel sad. He doesn't want that.
They find a place to stay. They get a job. They enroll in the nearby college.
Michael gets a separate vessel.
God is gone somehow. The fight against him is won.
Winchesters invite them to celebrate.
They don't go.
That night his human finds a silly series about a demon with sunglasses and an angel along with the antichrist. Michael makes a bowl of popcorn the human way.
Michael gets used to the human way of life. He doesn't return to Heaven.
They build a grave for Kate.
They adopt a cat.
They buy a car.
They go to the graduation party together.
They share drinks and a kiss once they get back home.
Home.
They found one together.
One night, in their seventh year after the Cge, as they lie together on their bed wrapped up with each other in nothing but two gold rings on both their hands, it dawns on Michael.
"It wasn't him.-" His human opens his eyes to squint at Michael in the dimly lit bedroom. "-All this time, I got it wrong. So this is the one thing he didn't lie about." Michael looks down at the pair of bright blue orbs and remembers a time so long ago when he wouldn't have ever dreamt of this warm feeling in his chest. "What?" Michael smiles as his mate, this beautiful human yawns at the end of the single word he utters. "That Adam wasn't the Adam. It was you. He meant you." He talks softly and Adam doesn't understand of course.
There was a time Michael too didn't understand. Now, he does.
You shall find reason to love them. When the time comes, if you still can not then go to Adam. He will show you what you need to see.
Michael thinks of all the time they spent together. Everything they shared with one another. He looks at his human and his heart swells. Indeed this little creature is beautiful, great. He is better than Michael himself. He is sweet, innocent yet determined and strong in a way no seraph he knew could manage to become. He is devoted. He is good. He helps people and smiles, he shares his fries with Michael and grumbles like an angry cat when awoken early. He holds his hand, helps him groom his wings, listens to him, talks to him, stays with him no matter what. He loves Michael. And Michael loes Adam. He loves this human so much he knows nothing can ever compare. Not even God.
Finally Michael understands.
"Mike, I swear to Hell if you don't go back to sleep right now and let me rest I will kick your ass out of this bed." Adam nuzzles his face in his angel's neck and Michael can't help the laughter that escapes his throat as he places small kisses on that wonderful head of sunshine colored hair.
Yes. Michael loves this human with all his being.
He understands.