The ring warbled on the table before coming to a stop, famine's black stone before him as he sat in Gabriel's construct, unsure how wild his human family was about having him bumming around Bobby's right this second.

He was surprised Gabriel was willing to put his neck this much on the line, even if it had been an easy in and out. Returning after dropping Sam off with the old man, he had expected his brother to have spread his wings and bury himself until the sun went supernova. There was a part of him that worried more than he let on about Gabriel willingly following an order and actually doing it, not using it as an excuse to escape.

"Where?"

"Some little town, people doing all sorts of wondrous things like eating each other during sexy fun times," Gabriel said and Dean made a face at that news. Definitely not sexy fun times, then. "Oh, and the place was full of demons. So guess the ulterior motive there, just in case."

"Don't remind me," Dean said picking up the ring feeling the taint of the horseman on it. War and Death he had always been able to understand to some degree but the other two, no. Just destruction for destruction's sake without morality or reason.

His brother was watching him tight-lipped, a few paces away now and Dean sighed, seeing the angel in there. Gabriel was letting him actually see under his plaster of wards and sigils and all the other maiming he had done to himself to keep him off heaven's radar. Except the archangel, all wrapped up and folded inside that small body that glowed like amber was far more welcoming than Gabriel's human face.

"We need the other two rings. Have they surfaced?"

"No. But one of them probably will with Luci's little plan with famine shot to hell."

He stared down at the ring on the table trying to calculate what Morning Star would do next to torture Sam. He wouldn't know that he wasn't in heaven, wasn't up there leading the charge. What Raphael was thinking with this he didn't know outside of maybe trying to lure him back. Or things had gotten so bad that his little brother was just insane and didn't care anymore. That was a genuine possibility. At least Sam was safe, with Bobby and Castiel and he could figure a way out of this corner. Since even if he wanted a world-ending battle he couldn't fight it like he was now.

"So, if that's –"

"One of the last memories of heaven I have is the day you abandoned me," Dean said, spinning the ring on the table, watching the disgusting thing fall and clatter on the wood. Gabriel was still but remained where he was. At least he hadn't run away yet.

"Can't change it. What do you want from me?"

"I don't know, Gabriel. I'd ask for a promise that you just won't bolt before we have to send Lucifer back but we both know how well that went last time."

Gabriel's hands were in tight fists, the angel in there brighter than he had been, something close to rage, and Dean smirked at him. As if something that bad could be forgotten even with the patchwork job he had going on. Words like eternally and always had been used. Right before his brother skipped on out the door after dear old Dad and Raphael was becoming distant and cruel, blaming him for being too weak.

"I'll find a way to clean it up. Like I always do, like all of you make me do." He can't help the bitter tone, the fine carves he knew his brother felt from them. "Can't fix Lucifer but have to lock him in hell and be commanded to kill him. Then blamed for it and abandoned. Expected to run everything, everything!" He hit his fist against the table watching the ring bounce slightly. "Even here I get the messed up family where I'm raising Sammy and patching up dad and being told I have to lock up my brother and then kill him. Jesus, I'm like some fucking tragic hero destined to lose everything over and over again on some sick loop."

He couldn't say the last words, that maybe it was like this because he had failed so badly and kept failing. Kept doing the wrong thing over and over again but he never had a chance. He followed commands and he failed. He went against the commands and failed. Nothing was ever good enough and it wouldn't matter anyway. If they could spare the earth and sort out heaven maybe he could be somewhere else.

DARBS OL PASH OD DOBIX GE DE ORS DA I ASCHA Q TELOC

That charge thundered through him, ripped into his grace and soul combined and he shook. He couldn't disobey. To disobey was death in its own right –

OL BIA I A CRIP FAFEN OL TRIAN G TRIAN

"Michael!"

Gabriel's voice finally reached him, the warmth of his brother flowing through him, over him soothing that hollow, that torn fray of what he was and he bowed his head. He was shaking, grateful that he could not have pulled his weapon here as Gabriel held his arms. There was terror and worry in those eyes, in that angel deep inside.

"You may need to kill me when this is over," he said quietly and he watched horror mix in with all the other emotions, like a cascade of grief that had never been shed. "I hear the old commands," he couldn't finish and for the first time, he felt like all Michael instead of a soul mixed in with grace. It was a strange sensation of his age and loss, of how bad it could get.

This seduction of absolute obedience from so long ago which would wipe away the weight that was crushing and riping him wide open, drown the doubt he was never designed to feel, resting just under his skin.

"Let's take one major problem at a time, okay?" Gabriel was saying, head against his shoulder and he knew to save them Gabriel would. He could give permission for this, to put him down before he went on an unintentional murder spree. He'd already killed Anael, who knew how much blood was on his hands not spilled from wars.

"Don't, Michael. Not right now."

Dean nodded, just relishing in the feel of his brother close to him for however long it lasted this time.

~x~

"What do you mean he's staying away?" Sam knew it wasn't wise to get up in the face of an archangel but it was his brother, damn it. There was no reason why Dean should feel like he couldn't be with them.

"Woah, kiddo, dial it down a bit." Gabriel was pushing him back gently with no real force.

Sam reluctantly took a step back glad to see both Bobby and Cas not looking too thrilled at this news either. They were in Bobby's study, rain hitting the window in a steady stream like the weather was even unhappy with this turn of events. A crack of thunder and he sat on the couch hoping that the storm outside was natural.

"The problem is that he still has some really old," Gabriel paused, staring up at the ceiling as he searched for a word, "programming for lack of anything better. Older than most of creation, older than the choir which includes you, Cassie. We weren't exactly love and sunshine and lollipops."

"And your point being he might act on it?" Bobby asked looking more grumpy than normal when Gabriel gave a slight nod. "Any way to get him not too?"

"Don't know. I managed to calm him when he flipped his lid but I honestly don't know what he would do if it took over. So, working on avoiding accidentally exploding you lot since I don't need him with more of a complex."

Sam felt a sinking inside of him as he rubbed his face with his hands. This was bad, or at least it sounded really bad. Like they could defeat Lucifer or send him back to hell and save the world and Dean could go bonkers and burn everything down anyways. He leaned his head back, stared at the ceiling, and took several deep breaths because freaking out right now wasn't going to help. It was still his brother, archangel or not, who needed them.

"So what can we do?" he asked.

"Best plan right now is to have Bobby stay here and you and Castiel go palling around in the Impala," Gabriel said summoning up a lollipop. "Make it look normal like nothing's wrong. Don't think heaven caught wind of anything weird on our end yet. So dress up nice, if anything asks, say Dean left and I'll keep an eye on all of you. Let's not sit around looking like we're up to something."

Sam nodded and glanced at Bobby and Cas who looked more determined now.

"Anything we should be looking out for?" the old hunter asked pouring himself out a glass of whiskey.

"Yeah, my sadistic brother sending nightmares for you because Sam is still hot property and he wants it bad."

"Thanks, Gabriel," he muttered. "That will definitely help my sleep problems."

"Anything to help, Sam-a-lam." The archangel gave him a toothy grin that somehow was menacing.

He wasn't sure if he wanted to ask if Dean heard prayers at all, or if it would help, or, hell, what name he should even use. A part of him was terrified that if he started praying to his brother then all this would become too real, that Dean was never coming back to him in any form and the next time he saw them it would be all Michael, all the time, and he wasn't sure who Michael was.

Outside of the fact, that weird little piece that gave him some margin to cling to, was that he had been dead, really and truly dead. That, not just mom and dad being threatened, was what had sparked all that dormant grace that had at some point decided to cling to Dean's soul. The idea of Dean seeing him die, not wanting to fail him, ready to do anything to fix it and he felt something heavy in him, stuck in throat like a sob he could never get out even if it threatened to choke him and he needed to stop thinking for a few minutes at least.

Bobby was pouring himself more whiskey and he was thankful the old man wasn't watching him right at this moment as he got himself a glass, getting another for Cas who had drifted over to the old man's desk to join them.

"Do you wish to follow signs of the apocalypse or simple hunting cases in our time together?" Cas asked him, very serious, as Bobby poured the shots without complaints about needing to buy more whiskey soon if that kept up.

At least Cas didn't look put out over second-string babysitting duties even if he stood soldier stiff, fingers delicate on the glass, and Sam willed away memories of the angel drinking with Ellen before she died. Cas drinking at all, would feel the need to, was unutterably sad and he held in a question about just how the angel was truly doing.

"Hunting, probably fewer demons that way," he said after giving it some thought, the whiskey burning his throat, glad to see Bobby's nod of approval over that one.

What he also didn't miss was the way Gabriel was watching him, his face inscrutable.

~x~

He found him in a cemetery too close for comfort to Bobby, disliking that it had only taken a few days of searching, and he shifted into the horseman's plane. The spectral figure gave him little mind, his angelic eyes taking in his large form beneath the human exterior he liked to wear, dark as the original void and there was something like terror and peace in it all at once. He was rebuilding, the body forming and sculpting under his hands, and Dean made sure to keep himself from being seen by it.

"You found me sooner than expected," Death said, almost pleasantly. "Good, I do not care to be bound for longer than necessary."

"Don't suppose you'll just hand over the ring?"

"I will when this task is done. You may thank me later, despite its implications, as it will buy you more time."

Dean already knew that part of it, why it was so close to Bobby's was to help break them. What Lucifer still thought was a team of humans and a falling angel. He probably blamed Cas for the surprise Famine nuke because Morning Star had always been short-sighted that way.

"Well easier than I thought. Just want me to wait?" he tried for a grin as he shoved his hands into his pockets. The soul and body were released onto the physical plane, they were lost to its sight as it looked around in confusion. Then it made its way back towards the road and to the city, scared and frightened and all parts of him ached for what was happening to the humans here.

"I assume you want answers." Death's voice startled him out of his thoughts and he looked back over the old man forming the next one and was halfway through. A staggered release, a staggered horror when it all went bad. Lucifer hadn't changed one bit.

"Like for what? Why my brothers are douchebags cause not sure I want to know anymore."

"As for why you are the way you are."

Dean rocked back on heels, Death not even glancing over as he finished his work and started on the next. "And you know this how?"

"I was the one who guided the reapers to make sure you survived."

The words were simple, Dean knew he had heard them correctly but it wasn't right. It couldn't be right because that meant he had been injured by something strong enough to do that at the time. Gabriel had been gone, not that he could have ever done it, he didn't think Raphael was that insane yet and there wasn't anything else. He remembered the Cage door slamming, damn it. He remembered quite a way past there, including being the only one left who could hear Lucifer.

"How?" he finally got out as they moved down to the next. Death raised a hand calling the soul to him, one of the only beings able to wrest a worthy spirit from the arms of heaven into something as treacherous as this.

"You maimed yourself, child."

"No!" It wasn't loud and he barely managed to control his anger that rage to reach out and shake the horseman because he shouldn't touch. The angelic part of him screamed about that. He shouldn't manhandle Death who was now looking at him, hands pausing in his formation of the next poor slob to be used. "I would never do that."

"You did," Death said without judgment. "Your heart was broken, even bound I knew that. In the end, you were bleeding out instead of just gone. I whispered to them how to save you. You, Michael, are not something that can be easily rebuilt but the energy can be changed."

"You did this to me. You kept me around to make sure I could help you now, you bastard," Dean hissed as Death moved again picking another stone to start work at. Time was passing, it had been hours on earth by this point. Hours wasted and he needed that ring. Not this, whatever this was.

"I would have brought you peace by reaping you if you were not needed to head off this travesty."

His fingers bit into his palms, he knew he was drawing blood, that it dripped down but there was no pain. Not anymore. He was so tired of cleaning up messes, of being left with it all and he wanted to find his Father and scream 'why me' at him. Shake him till he got an answer or just ceased.

"Hate to tell you but it wasn't a great job," he spat out and Death gave him a glance, something old and amused and a little threatening.

"They did the best they could. I see nothing that needs to be fixed unless you chose not to find a way to control it."

"Sure. Awesome. I feel so much better," he got out. "And my grace? Just what? Floating around in the atmosphere until it was time to come home?"

"I only reap your angelic side; I am not responsible for its location."

Which of course meant it was a Dad thing, probably just some random tree given the time passed, whenever it had occurred. The sickening memory haunting him of Lucifer throwing him against a tree in a tantrum over being shot with The Colt and it seemed like something He would do. The impact had knocked him cold, his grace a fractured bleeding mass of splinters probably just slithering into his body while Morning Star was too busy gloating with his schemes and pettiness to even notice the change.

A little twisted game, all of this was in the end.

He forced himself to refocus. At least this mind screw might explain how Cas was able to find them in the middle of all that mess with pinpoint accuracy since his and Sam's ribs were slathered up in warding, even if the little guy hadn't been fully aware of it. One happy thought floating in a sea wasn't enough to keep his head above water.

Death rose to move to the next and they walked until he saw the grave and all the anger rushed out of him. "No. Just no."

"Now you have learned why he sent me here."

"Give me the ring. Stop this."

"Michael, you know he will be suspicious and you need time. You have the upper hand, I know you are smart enough to use it."

Dean closed his eyes not wanting to see the soul of Karen Singer torn from heaven, the home he could barely hear. He couldn't hear prayers or most of his brothers or anything that had once brought him peace. He was mutilated, his own monster, and according to this thing he had done it to himself. It was impossible but he couldn't remember.

"Some things could not be saved and some memories perhaps are best not sought after," Death said closer now and he opened his eyes.

Karen Singer was making her way home, arms wrapped around her and he knew what would happen to her and to all the others. The horror his brother made, they would clean up again but not before it ate away at all these people trying to survive here. Death was holding his ring out, pinched between his thumb and forefinger.

"I always liked you, Michael, obedient and devoted."

Dean took the ring, alone now with its cold weight in his fingers, and on instinct, he called to Gabriel who was just there. His brother was confused, warmth all around him, speaking to him, and he couldn't stop shaking.