Notes: Thanks again for the reviews dixia. :) Yes, John is not a good guy in this story. I'll be updating this story every day until it is caught up with the posts on ao3, which shouldn't take much longer since it's only up to 7 parts currently. Here's the next part!


Part 4 - you don't know us


Sam felt a chill run up his spine at the voice. It belonged to Dean but the tone was wrong, the nickname said almost mockingly. He tensed up, realizing instantly that the man behind him was, "Michael."

"One and the same, kiddo," Michael said, turning Sam around. Dean's familiar smirk was staring back at him and Sam found himself swinging his arm in a wide arc, hoping to connect with the angel's smug face, but Michael was ready for him. He grabbed Sam's arm in mid swing in a tight grip, causing Sam to grit his teeth as pain set in. He leaned over as he effortlessly twisted Sam's arm behind him. "You never could win against your brother, could you, Sammy? What makes you think you stand a ghost of a chance with his body juiced up on angelic grace?" It was true. On a good day, even with all of Sam's training, he would be evenly matched against his brother.

He wasn't sure he could stand a chance against something like Michael, but that didn't matter. He glanced over at his brother still on the ground, staring up at them in horror. He wasn't sure if it was really Dean or just another memory, but he couldn't let Michael do anything to him. He started to struggle, even though he knew he wasn't getting out of the archangel's grasp unless Michael wanted it. "Maybe you're right," he said. "I probably don't stand a chance against you, but that's only if we're fighting in the outside world." He stared up at the angel, not actually sure if what he was saying was true or not. Michael frowned down at him, his eyes narrowed for a moment. He worked up the courage to continue, "Don't you think the one with the most control here is Dean? After all, this is his mind, not yours or mine." Sam thought maybe he scared Michael since the angel just continued to stare him down.

Then, to his surprise, the archangel threw his head back and laughed. He tried not to show how the sudden action unnerved him. "What's so funny?"

Michael didn't answer him immediately. Soon enough the laughter died down to a few chuckles and he looked back at Sam with a grin that didn't reach his eyes. "You really think your brother's in control here? That's rich, Sammy," he said, sounding too much like Dean now. He dropped Sam and walked over to where Dean was still curled up on the ground. Sam tried to move, but Michael glanced over at him, his green eyes glowing like a cat's, and Sam found himself frozen on the floor, staring back at him with undisguised horror once he realized what was happening to him. He was helpless to stop Michael as he crouched in front of an unmoving Dean. Was this actually Dean?

Michael seemed to be studying his brother closely before grasping Dean's chin and forcing him to look back at his own face. "You want to know why your darling brother's trapped in this memory of all the other memories, Sammy?" he asked casually, smoothing out Dean's hair in a gesture that looked almost loving. It made Sam want to throw up. Like the archangel actually cared about Dean. He was wearing Dean like a cheap prom dress as he experimented on monsters.

"It's Sam," he snapped, hating how the angel was talking to him in that same familiar easy way his brother always did. He didn't like the way Dean was trembling in the angel's grasp. He tried to turn away, not wanting to see what Michael was going to do next. He gasped as pain shot through him and his head was being forcefully turned back so that he was staring at the two of them again.

"Eyes front and center, little brother," Michael said. He wasn't even looking at Sam though. "This was the year, wasn't it, Deano? Spring of 1995. Just turned sixteen, didn't you? You were ecstatic. John had been acting nice lately, teaching you how to drive, teaching you how to put down the salt line and shoot a target. For your birthday he'd come back to the motel with a cake and the keys to the Impala and said she's all yours, boy. You didn't think you could be any happier. You've always hoped to get the keys to the Impala, thought for a while that Sam, here, was going to get her instead, the way dad always seemed to dote on him, acting like he was the favorite, you couldn't help that it might've crossed your mind once or twice." Sam watched in horror as Michael continued his batshit rendition of their childhood. That wasn't right. Dean couldn't possibly think Sam was the favorite growing up. John Winchester might not have been a great dad at times but he loved them both equally.

This was just a trick Michael was using to get into Dean's head and by the way his brother was staring back at him in shock and horror, he knew it was working. Sam knew Dean didn't have the best self-esteem. He tried to move again, but it was like something invisible was holding him in place. He grit his teeth, hating the helpless position he was in. "Dean!" he called out, realizing he could still talk. "Dean, you know that's not true. None of it is. It's just Michael trying to mess with your head. You have complete control here, you can take it all back!" He wasn't sure if Dean believed any of the stuff he said but he knew Dean at least heard him with the way his brother just slightly turned his head to him.

"You don't think what I'm saying is true, Sammy?" Michael said. Sam glared at him. "My, my, just how many secrets do you Winchesters keep from each other?" He hated how Michael seemed so smug, like he knew something Sam didn't. This was just Michael's way of messing with him. He did that kind of stuff, it was in his nature to manipulate just as Cas said. He did that in his own home world so why wouldn't he do it here when he knew it would work to his advantage?

"I don't know what you're talking about," Sam said through gritted teeth. "Look. We get it now, okay? You're a god here. But so are you, Dean," he turned to his brother who wasn't looking at him, who hasn't said a word to him since he told him to run. "This is your mind, man. You're in control of this place, not Michael. He wants you to give up, but Dean, you're a hunter, the best damn hunter I know. You're the guy who's saved the world more times than I can count. You beat hell and purgatory, you can beat Michael too." The room was silent for a moment and Sam really hoped he got through to Dean because he was the one shot they had in making out of here alive. Come on, Dean, please, he thought desperately, wishing his brother would so much as twitch a finger. He opened his mouth to try again but Michael was quicker on the draw, lifting a finger at Sam and sending him flying back.

Sam crashed to the other side of the room, his back hitting the wall hard. He groaned, opening his eyes just in time to see Michael in front of him, looking down at him like he was a mere bug on the bottom of his shoe needing to be squashed. He crouched in front of Sam, taking hold of his chin in such a tight grip, Sam let out a pained groan. "You're wrong about Dean," he said. "He can't beat me and he knows it. Deep down, he doesn't even want to." This was Michael messing with him now, like how he was messing with Dean. It had to be. Sam glared up at him.

"You don't know a damn thing about my brother," he spat.

Michael laughed. "I know a lot more than you, chuckles. Like, for example, this memory. You want to know why I buried your brother here? Yeah, I know that look. You're pretending to not be interested in whatever I have to say, but really, deep down, you're just itching to find out what makes your older brother tic. We both know deep down you're just a nosy punkass brat who can't live without his brother to protect him from every moving shadow, ain't that right, Sammy?" The comment made by his brother's voice stung more than it should have. Logically he knew this wasn't Dean, that Dean didn't think of him as a burden, but Michael was inside his brother, he knew ways to twist the words so that it hurt Sam like a physical punch. He tried not to show just how affected he was by the words but he must not be as good as the poker face as Dean was because Michael's smirk just widened.

"What? No words now, Sammy? Did I hit a sore spot? Does it hurt to think that Dean would only see you as a responsibility, a burden, something to get the old man's approval?" He paused for a moment, letting the words sink in. It did hurt. A lot. He used to wonder what Dean's life would have been like if their mom was still alive and he'd never been born, if Dean got to grow up living a normal life with friends and a family that wasn't broken up by the yellow-eyed demon.

But like hell he was going to show this twisted version of Michael his insecurities. He glared up at the angel. "I know what you're doing and it isn't going to work," he said, "because we're going to kick your ass, in here or out there."

"You think you stand a snowball's chance out there? I'm fully charged on angel juice and my army's coming to tear you all a new one. I'd really like to see you try, chuckles." Before Sam realized what was happening, Michael let him go and stood up. Sam dropped like a rock to the ground. "You think you and your brother can kill me?" Sam felt the harsh impact of the boot before trying to roll away, sharp pain shot through his body. "I'm an archangel, Sam, or did you forget? Just the tip of my pinky has the power to annihilate cities. You might be the true vessels of my brother and I, but you're still two helpless little humans." Michael kicked Sam again before picking him up by the collar of his shirt. "You're nothing special, Sammy. Just one in billions of the hairless apes that my father wrongly assumed were better than all his other creations."

Sam was slowly falling unconscious but something in the way Michael was talking gave him pause. It took him a moment to figure out what seemed so wrong. When he realized it, he laughed. Michael sounded almost...jealous.

"What's so funny?" Michael demanded when Sam didn't stop laughing.

How could he not have noticed it? The way Michael talked about wanting to destroy all of Chuck's creations. That was just throwing a tantrum on a cosmic scale but he was raging like a child because he was jealous that his father loved humans more. It was ridiculous honestly. Since Sam and Dean met the angels, they learned more and more that the angels were not above the ugly emotions that seemed to always make humans look so horrible in these cosmic entities. No matter how much they wanted to argue that whatever dispute they had were different from humans going to war, Sam knew that angels really weren't all that different from them. They just had bigger egos.

"You're jealous," Sam finally said, realizing this was something his brother would do if he was in a situation like this. Usually the egging on the bad guy was Dean's thing. Sam liked to think he was more logical than this, that he valued his life more. But Dean wasn't quite here with them so someone apparently had to channel his brother. "You're doing all this because your inflated ego can't take the fact that god likes us better than you." Oh yeah this was definitely a Dean thing. He grinned, showing white teeth. "It's kind of sad really. You claim to be better than us but here you go, showing that there's really no difference between you and me." The look on Michael's face was one of wrath. If Sam hadn't been trained facing down things like Michael, bigger than Michael, his whole life, he'd definitely be shaking in fear and thinking something along the lines of 'Oh shit. What the hell am I doing? Do I have a death wish?'

But because he's Sam Winchester, one of the guys who has saved the world more times than should probably be necessary, all he could think was, 'Damn, Dean. I don't know what I'm thinking but I hope you're real proud of me.'

"You know, you should really show me some respect." The sound of lightning crackled in the air. "I am better than you. You lie and steal and hurt and don't care who gets in the way, as long as you get what you want. You drape yourselves in the lies of being heroes but we know what you really are, don't we, Sam? I think it's time for you to see what your brother's keeping from you. I know you're just itching to know his dirty little secret. Enough talk," Michael said as he pressed his icy cold fingers to Sam's forehead. "You and Dean are like cockroaches but I'm going to bury you here. Even the little angel, Castiel, won't be able to reach you."

There was a flash of lightning and the room shook. Then the floors gave out from beneath Sam and he found himself falling into the darkness.