Dean stomps around the stage.
(I watched season 14 and remembered that on a Drama Queen scale of 1-10 Archangel's are a 15. This has been corrected appropriately.)
Okay so it's technically Sunday but this is 3x as big as the last few chapters so...
And images. Those will happen definitely by next chapter because next chapter's the last and I don't have a choice. Fear not however as I have plans for spin off sequels, namely Raphael – suffering younger sibling dealing with older sibling pinning. Also I'm going to check this again when I wake up so sorry if there's something really bad that's been missed in editing but I should have everything.
Enjoy.
Dean POV
23rd November 2009
"Are you fucking joking?" Dean crossed his arms and glared down the sixth most powerful being in the universe. At least he tried to anyway, Gabriel rolled his eyes at him and muttered in Enochian under his breath.
"It's the best plan there is." Gabriel collapsed backwards onto the dining table chair next to where Sam was sitting, his laptop open tracking omens announcing Lucifer, at least until Gabriel showed up and explained his super sucky plan that's what he'd been doing.
"If you think I'm going to let some sort of Archangel meet and greet happen inside my brothers head-" Dean growled.
"They won't do anything." Gabriel threw up his hands and almost hit Sam in the face. Sam dogged and went back to looking at the Archangel with not outright horror at the idea. No wonder Gabriel was pushing it. "The moment they both show up they'll know that Sam's also the others True Vessel, no soul touching needed," both Dean and Sam shuddered at the memory of Gabriel's 'True Vessel Test', "once they both know that Sam is both their Vessel they'll know that they can't fight and boom no apocalypse. That was the end goal, right?" Dean ignored him.
"But what if-" He started.
"I think it's a good idea." Sam interrupted.
"Sammy-" Dean growled.
"It's going to happen eventually." Sam snapped back. "As long as I keep saying No they'll keep showing up in my head, at some point they're going to come at the same time and who knows what they'll do, at least with Gabriel there they have to listen and I can wake up." They stared each other down until Dean turned to Gabriel.
"You're sure you can pull him out."
"I'll be physically connected to his body and have access to his soul. Once we're in we'll all be equal but I can wake him up at any time." There was only a minor note of irritation in the Archangel's voice and Dean scowled at him.
"I'm coming with you."
"What? No. Dean-" Sam startled.
"I'm not letting you have the apocalypse in your frigging head." Dean whirled round to look at him. "I'll just take a shot of dream root and we'll be good to go."
"What if they do something to you?" Sam stood up and gestured at him.
"You heard Shortstop." He nodded at Gabriel who looked way too offended at the nickname. "We'll all be equal. Besides, I want to punch them in their smug faces for all the shit they've put us through." Sam swallowed before nodding.
"Okay." He paused. "But they don't really need to be punched."
"They really do." Gabriel said.
"Okay." Sam clapped his hands together. "When are we doing this?"
"As soon as you can get Cassie here to guard our bodies from anyone who might take advantage." Gabriel replied and they both turned to look at Dean. He rolled his eyes then closed them and turned away from his audience.
"Hey, Cas. I know you're busy but we've found a solution to our little problem and need your help so if you could swing your ass by that would be great. We're in Green River, Utah." There was the sound of wing beats then Cas's voice next to him.
"Michael and Lucifer are not a little problem."
"Hey Cas." Dean grinned at him. Behind him Gabriel coughed loudly then yelped.
"What is your plan?" Cas asked.
"We're going to go into Sam's head and get them to recognise that they can't take him as a vessel and that the apocalypse is off. We need you to stand guard." Cas nodded sagely.
"I understand." They stood there for another minute, Cas's blue eyes trapping Deans own and staring into his very soul.
"Right." Dean cleared his thought and clapped his hands together. "I'll go get the dream root." He nodded at Sam and left for the Impala. When he came back Sam was lying on his bed looking nervously at Gabriel sitting on a chair between the beds. Dean quickly mixed the dream root and took the offered hair from Sam before downing it. He grimaced at the taste and walked over to his bed. It was a little weird removing his shoes and lying down while being watched by an Archangel, but he didn't let it show.
Once he was settled, he checked Cas standing at the door like a sentry and Sam lying on his back avoiding everybody's eyes. He steeled his resolve and looked up at Gabriel who was watching them with a grin and nodded.
"Go for it." He closed his eyes and concentrated on breathing. A minute later he felt Gabriel's fingers on his forehead, slightly warmer than a humans. They stayed there for a moment then he removed them, Dean waited another beat before opening his eyes to stare at the same ceiling he'd seen before he'd closed them. He sat up and stared around the motel room.
"You were supposed to put us to sleep." He snapped at Gabriel. Gabriel snorted and stood, brushing invisible dust from his trousers.
"You are asleep dumbass." He marched over to the kitchenette and materialised a bowel of what looked like skittles on the side. Dean looked at the lack of Castiel by the door then at Sam where he was standing up and stepping away from the bed.
"You dream about motel rooms?" He asked incredulously. "Man, you're boring." Sam shot him a bitchface then his head snapped to his left. Dean followed his gaze and saw a man materialise in the space next to Sam. He only came up to Sam's shoulder and had black hair that curled around his face and a small beard, his face had sharp angles that matched his wide shoulders and his hands were calloused and held loosely by his side. He was dressed in loose cotton clothes, white shirt and black trousers, and old boots. He stood loosely, more like Gabriel than the other angels Dean'd met, but still had the solid stance of a solider.
"Sam." He said smiling up at Sam softly like he was genuinely pleased to see him. "Dean." He added a little more sharply, glancing over to him. The contrast allowed Dean to easily spot the doe eyes the angel gave his brother when he looked back at him.
"Michael." Sam answered, smiling shyly and Deans thoughts screeched to a stop. He hadn't expected Michael to be so normal or Sam to be so comfortable with him or for them to be flirting. Considering Gabriel looked at Michael's back like one of the candy's he'd just eaten was more sour than he expected he probably felt the same way.
"What's going on?" Michael asked Sam, reaching out and placing a comforting hand on his arm.
"I could you the same question Brother." Came a cold voice from behind Dean and he practically jumped off the bed in an effort to stand up. The new man, Lucifer presumably, was an inch or so taller than Dean and had blond hair, he also had a beard and was dressed in jeans, t-shirt and over shirt all of varying faded blue shades. He again held himself in an unangelic air like his brothers but this time was coiled with fury that blazed through his piercing blue eyes as he stared at Michael. Dean stumbled back away from the Devil and looked back at Sam and Michael to see that Michael had stepped in front of Sam, his own piercing blue eyes narrowed as he stared back at his brother. Sam stepped around Michael and shot Lucifer a small grin.
"Lucifer." He greeted and Lucifer nodded back, eyes flickering over to him and softening. What had Sam got himself involved in?
"Sam." Lucifer replied, tone almost an exact match to Michael's earlier before it turned cold again as he addressed the other Archangel. "What are you doing here Michael?" Lucifer spat the name like it was a curse.
"What am I doing here?" Michael repeated incredulously. "What are you doing here?" Lucifer scoffed. "What are you doing influencing the mind of my True-" Michael cut himself off with a small chocking noise, his eyes widening as he presumably found the True Vessel connection, or whatever bullshit the angel's wanted to call it, that lead to Lucifer. From Lucifer's sharp intake of breath next to Dean he'd found Michael's link.
It was then that Gabriel decided to let himself be known through the median of slow sarcastic clapping. Michael and Lucifer's heads both snapped around to glare at him until they realised who he was then Michael jerked back like he'd been given an electric shock and fell into Sam who caught him automatically. Lucifer had the opposite reaction and took several stumbling steps forward reaching out with him arms as if he wanted to grab Gabriel before he seemingly remembered where he was and snapped up straight.
"Gabriel." He breathed. Dean glanced over at Sam to see how he was taking everything and saw him twisting worriedly between the two Archangel's like he wasn't sure which to comfort first.
"You're okay." Michael added, standing straight and staring at Gabriel like was going to vanish into thin air. Gabriel shifted under the attention and shoved a handful of skittles into his mouth.
"You haven't seen each other in millennia, and you want to talk about me?" Gabriel scoffed when he finished eating. "How about we talk about the elephant in the room? There's no avoiding now that Sam's both your True Vessel's."
"I haven't seen you in almost as long." Lucifer countered.
"I thought you were dead." Michael stepped forward so that he was standing level with Lucifer, only the bed between them. "We thought you were dead. We mourned you." It was Dean's turn to scoff then and all three Archangel's turned to him.
"Since when do either of you dicks care about your family?" He glared at them. "You want to kill each other for God's sake, and you don't care who you'll hurt to do so." Michael made an outraged noise.
"That's not true. I'm going to kill Lucifer because it's my destiny and-"
"How's destiny working out for you?" Dean sneered at him. "You needed two meatsuits to fight to the death for your destiny and that's not happening is it? You're just using it as an excuse to avoid thinking about how much you're hurting everybody you care about, either that or you don't care."
"I care." Michael snapped back. "Of course I care, you know that?" He turned back to Gabriel who was intently studying the bowl of skittles like he'd rather be anywhere else. He could pinpoint the exact moment that Michael realised that no Gabriel did not know that because his face broke. "Oh Gabriel." Michael pushed passed Lucifer who was staring between Dean, Gabriel and Sam with something like hurt in his eyes, and pulled Gabriel into a hug pulling Gabriel's head into his chest and wrapping him in his arms like he never wanted to let go. They stood for a moment then Gabriel relaxed and the dream shuddered slightly, everything started to fade and blur together until Lucifer snapped his fingers and it sharpened back with a few extra points.
Dean gaped as surrounding each Archangel were three sets of massive wings. Gabriel's and Michael's were wrapped up in each other's until he couldn't see whose were whose, their golden halo's blurring together into the mess of bright red, dark blue, silver, orange and yellow feathers entwined with tiny golden bones. Dean switched his gaze over to Satan to see his own three wings of bright and dark red and light blue, except instead of golden bone and halo his bones were a dark purple and his halo a sickly yellow full of purple cracks.
Dean removed his gaze from the Archangels when Lucifer turned to look at him and looked over at Sam instead, gasping at the soft red that emitted from his brothers body that slowly turned to blue and then a bright green in the centre of his chest. It took him a moment to realise that he was seeing his soul and another to process it. From the way Sam was staring at him he could see Dean's soul, Dean rubbed his hand over his leg nervously knowing that after Hell he was nowhere near as bright as Sammy was and afraid to check for more than the soft orange glow he could see out the corner of his eye now he was trying not to look.
"Okay. Chick flick time over." Dean cleared his throat and turned back to the Archangel's. "You need to cancel the apocalypse." Michael and Gabriel parted reluctantly although they still stood next to each other, wings brushing against each other.
"It's not that simple." Michael said and Lucifer snorted.
"Of course it's not. It's not like you just need to tell the brats to back off and flutter off back home. Must be terrible for you not being able to kill me."
"Oh and how are your demons doing?" Michael snapped back. "All you've got to do is tell them to stop attacking humanity and causing chaos."
"Oh because you care about humanity, you just want an excuse."
"You are not a victim!" Michael yelled and Gabriel stepped back towards Sam and behind Deans fear that yes the apocalypse was happening inside Sam's head he noticed that Gabriel's wings held the silver, red and yellow feathers while Michael's had the blue, red and orange ones.
"And you are not blameless!" Lucifer yelled back. The ground started to shake and out of the corner of his eye Dean could see Sam grab his head and collapse to the floor, Gabriel dropped down next to him and grabbed shoulders before raising his hand to snap, eyes wide. Dean knew that this wasn't going to go away though, Sam had been right when he said that eventually Michael and Lucifer would meet back in his head and now they knew about each other it was more likely. Leaving would just delay the problem and make next time hurt more.
So he did what was the stupidest thing he'd ever done.
He jumped between two arguing Archangel's and shoved them away from each other.
"Hey." He yelled at them and they shut up in surprise. "You're hurting Sam." It was the only thing he could think of to get them to stop, especially if what he saw a hint of earlier was true. They both turned to look at where Sam was curled up trying to bury himself in Gabriel's feathers. "And you wonder why Gabriel knows you don't care about him."
"Dean!" Gabriel snapped and it took him half a moment to realise that it was in fear for him because he was currently at ground zero. Seeing as the probability of his death had just increased to 100% Dean decided that he was going to go all out. He squared his shoulders and looked between Michael and Lucifer.
"You're overlooking in your quest to kill each other that the apocalypse is you two fighting and destroying the planet. All you have to do is not kill each other and destroy the planet. If you both back down most of your army's will back down with you. Or at least take your bullshit to another planet. You obviously don't care about anybody but yourselves but I care about humanity and Sam cares about humanity and as long as you're trying to destroy it you'll never get a fucking meatsuit to go through with your crazy genocidal plans." Dean hurled the words at them like they could physically hurt.
"That's not how this works." Lucifer snarled. "Angels-"
"I don't care about the angels!" Dean cried. "And since the angels want us to all burn I guess we're even. If you want to kill each other fine go for it, but you don't get to go through every other living thing in this universe to do so. We've already proven that destiny is a load of shit, the only reason you have to go through with killing each other now is because you want to, because you've decided that nothing in the universe matters as much as you and your fucking revenge mission but you don't get Sam to do it. I'm not going to let you take his body to destroy him without a care for his mind or soul just because Daddy left you alone and you want to destroy His toys." There was a moment of silence after his little speech and Dean waited for one of them to get tired of trying to be nice and just kill him.
"That's not how True Vessels work." Michael said finally when it looked like Lucifer was too busy trying to murder Dean with his eyes to reply, focusing on the bit that he could change. Typical angel. "That's not even how normal vessels work. It depends on the strength of the soul not the body, that's why we need consent. Sam isn't just a convenient body lying around for me to use and abandon without care for how it affects his soul. True Vessels are, for lack of a better term, soulmates and his soul is the most important part."
"Then prove it." Sam said softly, looking up for where he was curled up. "You say you're doing this out of love. Prove it. Call off the apocalypse. Don't fight each other, tell the angels and the demons to stop causing chaos, go back to normal. I can only be the vessel of one of you so you're going to have to prove it to me if you want my consent to have my body. Humanity is off limits." He struggled to his feet with Gabriel's help. "We all know that you care more about your Dad and yourselves than anybody else, myself and Gabriel included, no matter what you might say otherwise. I care more about humanity than either of you so you're going to have to decide. How much do you want to kill each other? Because if you decide that it's the most important thing then we're going to have to stop you and nobody will be happy."
They stood in silence as the Archangel's took in Sam's words. Dean could see them actually thinking about what he said which surprised him because even though he was sure they had a little crush on Sam (that Sam returned and they were totally having words if they walked out of this alive) he was also sure that they'd disregard it the second it stopped being convenient to them.
"I can't stop unless Michael stops." Lucifer said finally. "It's a matter of self-preservation." Michael shot him a disgruntled look before nodding.
"I'll tell them to stop, but I'll take it back in you also don't within a day." He offered.
"Okay." Lucifer obviously hadn't been expecting the offer. There was another moment of silence as they all stared at each other. Dean was pretty sure now that he wasn't going to die and that that there was a real possibility of the planet getting out of this mostly unscratched.
"I'll go give that order." Michael said finally. "But can I speak to you all privately soon?" He stared at Gabriel as he said it and the Archangel's face twisted but he nodded and Michael let out a relived sigh. "Okay. Okay. I love you all." He blurted out abruptly then raised his wings and with a flap, that Dean could actually see this time not just hear, vanished. Lucifer stared at the space he had just occupied before turning to Sam and Gabriel.
"I still hate humanity." He stated then hesitated before continuing. "But I'll think about what you said. And Gabriel?" He looked at his brother. "I missed you." Then he too also vanished. For a moment nothing happened then Dean burst into laughter and slid down to sit on the chair at the table next to him.
"I can't believe that worked." He got out finally.
"Neither can I." Sam replied grinning at him. "Just never do that again jerk."
"Bitch." Dean shot back.
"You guys are crazy." Gabriel ran a hand through his hair, his wings fluttering behind him. "Who want's celebratory pizza?" Dean burst out into laughter again.