ᴀʟʟ I ᴋɴᴏᴡ ᴀʙᴏᴜᴛ ʙᴇɪɴɢ ᴀʟɪᴠᴇ ɪs ᴛʜᴀᴛ ʟɪғᴇ's ғᴏʀ ᴛʜᴇ ʟɪᴠɪɴɢ (open.)

[righteously]

Who: Dean Winchester & Others.
When: Post-Event.
Where: Cadens, the Horizon, Nocwich.
What: A catch-all of open & closed starters.
Warnings: A little grief, a little alcoholism, probably canon-typical violence and suicidal ideation. Mentions of fruit turbo-hell.

I ᴀɪɴ'ᴛ sᴇᴇᴋɪɴɢ sᴀʟᴠᴀᴛɪᴏɴ
Nᴏᴛ ᴛᴏᴏ ᴡᴏʀʀɪᴇᴅ ᴀʙᴏᴜᴛ ᴅᴀᴍɴᴀᴛɪᴏɴ
I ɢᴏᴛ ʟɪᴛᴛʟᴇ ᴇxᴘᴇᴄᴛᴀᴛɪᴏɴ, ᴀɴᴅ ᴀs sᴜᴄʜ I ᴀɪɴ'ᴛ ᴇᴀsɪʟʏ ʟᴇᴛ ᴅᴏᴡɴ
Aʟʟ I ʀᴇᴀʟʟʏ ᴡᴀɴɴᴀ ᴅᴏ ɪs ʙᴇ ᴄʟᴏsᴇ ᴛᴏ ʏᴏᴜ
ᴡʜɪʟᴇ ᴡᴇ'ʀᴇ sᴛɪʟʟ ʙᴏᴛʜ ᴀʀᴏᴜɴᴅ.

Comments

[righteously]

Look, knowing he had the opportunity to inject a little more humanity into Michael is a victory as far as he's concerned. The more little pieces of himself he can leave behind in that stick-assed archangel, the better for everybody that ever has to interact with him. The better for humanity, potentially. If he'd have known there was a chance he might've done that a decade or so ago, he might've considered saying yes a little more seriously.

Probably not, but you know. Maybe.

And while he knows that request is like ninety-nine percent sarcasm, he's still completely, utterly serious in both expression and tone when he answers, "Yes."

Absolutely. Let's hear it. Name all five correctly, and he'll answer whatever the hell you want.

(Probably.)

[familysucks]

Fair is fair. Whether or not it has any sway over him, Dean's left with a bit of Michael he can't easily rid himself of either.

It was definitely sarcasm. He's going to ask his question either way. They both know Michael was in his head long enough to have the answer key, so is this a test of memory, or of how willing he is to play along (or just an excuse to answer a question without a fight)? He's less resistant to indulging silly little human games when he doesn't have an audience. Michael folds his arms over his chest again and levels a confident look at him as he launches into a short list, artist and all so Dean can't make any arguments about partial credit.

"You Shook Me All Night Long, AC/DC; Hold On Loosely, Thirty-Eight Special; Here I Go Again, Whitesnake; Hurts So Good, John Mellencamp; Glory Days, Bruce Springsteen.

"I'm surprised Rock the Casbah didn't break your top ten."

A bit annoying but catchy, a lot like the man himself. He knows it's on the list somewhere though.

"I'll accept you put my nephew on the throne of Heaven. You would put a four year old in charge of all of creation." He can't help but stress what a terrible idea he thinks that is. He almost gets it. Jack had been a sweet-tempered creature, for all of the twenty minutes or so he'd known him, but he's still ultimately a child. "What became of my Father in all this? Is He dead?"

There's a tension in his voice, restrained emotion that has nothing to do with fearing for his creator's well-being and everything to do with knowing what Chuck is like when He's angry. He hopes they finished the job.

[righteously]

Dean seems to spend a second debating each song as it's listed. Whitesnake earns a briefly screwed-up expression as though he might be considering arguing that one, but then he seems to reluctantly accept it as fact, and he nods along with the rest of them.

Really, it's a combination of all those things Michael had been thinking — a test to see if they were worth remembering, a test to see if Michael would play along with him. A test to see how much both those songs and Dean's request matter to him. They don't have to matter much. They just have to matter at all.

He's tempted to point out that Rock the Casbah is overplayed, but opts not to waste the effort.

Besides, the follow-up question is worth a little more seriousness than that. Dean's lips press into an unhappy line, and he- debates, for a second, whether or not he should answer. It's just- even as impossible as it is, even knowing both of them are too dead to ever go back to their home world, part of him still retains this stupid, irrational fear that Michael will find a way to go home, hunt down his father, and restore him to power.

If they hadn't bonded, if he hadn't shared thoughts with the guy, he probably wouldn't have answered. Reluctant as he is to admit it, part of him trusts that won't happen now.

"He wanted me to kill him. He really did." Which could sound like an apology, or an explanation — until he follows it up with a clearer, "But I wouldn't. He's human. He gets to spend the rest of his tiny, stupid, human little life running around dealing with human bullshit, until he gets sick and dies like the rest of us."

[familysucks]

Michael would have gotten caught up on the details enough to argue the exact placement or inclusion of a particular song. Dean can take the fact that he doesn't as proof that he is still wholly himself. At the time Michael didn't remember his decade-old promise to put him back together good as new, but as off-putting as it might have been at the time, it had come from an honest place. He has more care for his tools than Chuck ever did.

He'd have trouble quantifying it, and he'd be loathe to admit it out loud, but Dean does have some inherent value to him now. Not as something he can wear, but as an individual.

The answer isn't what he's expecting, not that Michael could have expected something like his Father losing to the Winchesters and their adopted nephilim in the first place. This one he doesn't need to see for himself. He pulls it behind his stony exterior and examines it, considering the implications. He's still alive. That's dangerous. Castiel proves that even being consigned to the Empty isn't a guarantee that someone will stay dead, but it's a higher barrier to overcome than wandering the Earth as a human. Then again, how many years are left in that vessel of His—another fifty, another sixty? Less, probably, as he doubts his Father will be a fan of exercise and eating healthy.

"Revenge over finality. Hope that doesn't come back to bite you."

Meanwhile, Michael will hope that doesn't come back in a way that affects Adam. Clearly, Dean and Sam can handle the rest.

"Fitting, however. For all the angels He's sacrificed to make the Winchester story happen, for all the worlds He's doomed, the one thing He's never experienced is being one of the pawns."

Maybe he'll find that unexpected twist He never got from the countless thousands of realities He created.

[righteously]

Hard to be altogether too worried about it when it can't come back to bite him. He's dead. Whatever happens from this point on is some other hunter's problem, whether Dean likes it or not. He's embracing the ultimate retirement.

—except any single person who knows him could tell him how full of shit he was. Not a word of that's true. If anybody were inclined to claw their way back from beyond the grave to continue doing work he hates, it's Dean Winchester. And there's plenty of opportunity for it to come bite him here, in his replacement afterlife. He's trying not to think about any of that too hard.

After a heavy weight of silence, he finally pushes off the edge of the bar. One slow, deliberate step erases the distance between them again, so he can settle a careful hand on Michael's shoulder.

"I'm sorry your dad disappointed you. I'm sorry he was an asshole, and I'm sorry you had to lose him the way you did. Nobody should have to live through that. Not even you. You deserved better."

For all their differences, for all the things he dislikes about Michael, for all the times they were on opposite ends of an issue... all of that, at least, he can say honestly.

He has nothing else to add on the subject of Chuck — it's better that the guy become a footnote. He thinks it's more fitting to make that douchebag as irrelevant as possible.

[familysucks]

They're in the same boat if Chuck ever makes an appearance in Abraxas. Michael's plan is to count on that first week of powerlessness to make no exceptions and commit patricide. It's that or suffer his Father's wrath a second time.

After the holy oil trap and the handcuffs, one might expect him to be wary of a Winchester's approach. An archangel is an archangel is an archangel, though: arrogant to the end. He and Dean have established (an admittedly fragile) trust in spite of their past conflicts, however, and this is the Horizon. What could he possibly do to him here?

While he's not expecting harm, somehow he expects what Dean actually does even less. There's a blink, wings flaring behind him—unseen, but maybe not unheard. Sympathy? He didn't realize he'd made that much of an impression. Dean's not good at apologies, and he figured the end of their close collaboration would cut him off from that deep well of feeling the man has for those close to him. Apparently not.

Still, he's a bit young to be talking to him like that. Michael's pride wars with the side that's charmed by the act. Like a dog bringing its favourite toy over to cheer someone up.

The anger always wins. There's a flash of blue in his eyes. If Dean were one of his younger siblings, he'd have a broken arm. He isn't, though. They're archangel and vessel, even face to face instead of sharing a body, so he's under the same immunity as Michael himself is. Michael's rage finds no target before him.

This bar could really use a second floor for him to march up to.

"I don't need sympathy. He created the universe, and He was a monster. Of course it would be filled with loss, disappointment, the deserving rarely getting their due. What matters is that it's over, isn't it?"

Not just Chuck's reign, but Michael's part in the story. He looks at Dean, gaze hard. He thinks the man will understand him. He remembers that week they spent joined, the need to fight always shadowed by the desire for rest. And that was after only eight hundred years. How heavy would that anchor feel if he'd lived as long as Michael has?

[righteously]

He gets it. This whole reaction, this jump to anger because it's easier, he gets it. He's been there, he's been that guy, he is that guy more often than he likes to admit. He isn't intimidated by it, he doesn't even seem particularly affronted or ruffled. He's just... steady, that same older brother steadiness he developed for Sam, the same steadiness he employs for Steve now, or for Clarisse, or for when Cas is taking his turn having a crisis, or when John got pissed.

Weathering the brunt of someone else's emotional reaction over something unrelated to himself is old hat. He doesn't mind it.

"Yeah," he returns, a mild but not insincere agreement. "It's over."

That matters. It's not all that matters, but sure.

He doesn't know Michael well enough to push any further than this, they don't have the necessary rapport for him to try any harder now to knock down walls looking for something more honest. He'll leave it be.

But they both know Dean knows there's more here, and Michael's anger doesn't do a damn thing to discourage the notion.

[familysucks]

He'd break the other arm if he knew Dean thought he was playing older brother here. Michael is eldest between them, was older brother to thousands before Dean's species was even put on Earth. That they are equals here is not quite the thought that runs through Michael's mind, still arrogant archangel at heart, but they are closer to it than most other humans would be with him.

"Good." It's fine if Dean sees that there's more going on beneath Michael's insistence that everything is over and neatly packed away. He likes it when people don't argue with him. "I think we both have the answer to the question I originally came here with."

They're not exactly good, but they're better than they were. They've found solid ground to build on. What they're going to build is a thought for another day.

Michael turns his head just a touch, looks down at Dean's hand on his shoulder, then back at Dean. If there's nothing else, he'll be on his way just as soon as the man decides to move his hand. He could shrug it off, sure, but once again he'll allow his former vessel to make his own decisions.