Work Text:
So here we are at the end now
I need to leave
But I only wanna stay with you
You never asked to be the one
To set me free
Another mask you wore
That only I could seeLet me take you when I go, when I go
I don't wanna do this on my own, on my own
I'm breaking free but of these chains
Oh, let this one remain
Let me take you when I go
♫ Of These Chains by Red
-
Ever just look back on your life and want to tear it all down? Michael thinks Lucifer had that inclination every day. The desire to... to go back. Not to fix things, but to break them.
Michael's realizing more and more that he's not so different from his brother and it makes him sick. He was supposed to be better than this. His Father made him better than this—wrote him that way and that's... that's the crux of the matter. His Father as a writer, as a liar, putting so much of himself into Lucifer and none of their other siblings and it's just funny, Michael thinks.
Everything is funny, made more so because Adam knew. Adam tried to tell him. Again and again, even before they crawled out of Hell with a layer of soot and sulfur and caked blood. Adam talked about faith and psychology and hypothesized on things that were Michael's life, that weren't theory to Michael; they were real. Adam talked in ways that sounded like he knew Michael's Father and Michael knows the writings he made sure were strewn about the world, made sure God could never be forgotten, but Adam was just a boy—a Winchester in spirit, and he had little faith, little knowledge, was all just—
Talk.
(Adam's nothing now and Michael has made mistakes and Michael just wants to claw apart the world because his brother's grace is still under Adam's fingernails and his Father's forsaken him and Adam knew, Adam knew, and Adam is gone and—)
“I just want it to burn,” Michael whispers in the little corner of the planet where he's dead but alive and whole but Fallen and he's weak but so, so brimming with power, an overwhelming counterpoint to Jack Kline.
Willpower is everything. He never understood that before. Never knew how humanity could keep fighting when there should be no fight left. When they kept pushing instead of staying down where they belonged.
Michael is barely a being but he's pieced together Adam's body, meticulous, remembering. Every detail down to the last even as Lucifer's last burn is there, too. Will always be there. To think he thought they could have had their fight back in that cemetery. To think it wouldn't have broken him in some way.
Michael is power and Jack is there now, alarmed, concerned, but—curious. The human side of him, Michael thinks. Raising a hand not to stop him but just... just there. Hung, suspended, between them.
Michael still sneers and laughs at him and he wonders if Jack sees his father instead and Michael laughs again, collects his wings around him and nestles the equivalent of a nuclear bomb that is his grace close to Adam's heart.
“This might change everything,” Jack warns.
“I don't care,” Michael growls.
“It changes you, and him,” Jack continues. “I don't know what you're planning, but it might just unwind him.”
And Michael does care about that, but it doesn't matter. “I have to try,” he croaks, the first of his wounds that he allows Jack to witness.
Jack smiles sadly. “I know. I... I should stop you.” He looks away, beyond, eyes luminous and maybe seeing all the possibilities, all the destruction that Michael knows is bound to happen because even if he banks on hope he's not stupid. This can't succeed. Jack drops his gaze. “Good luck,” he says anyway.
Maybe Lucifer's a stain on Jack, too, and that desire to tear it all down is riding along with him.
Michael doubts it. Jack was...
… Adam would have liked Jack.
He doesn't know what he's planning either, not really, but he knows the where and when and as he flies it tears his wings to shreds and his scream breaches realities and time and space. Then he's in a familiar room where he's only been once before, where everything started, where he first connected with Adam Milligan, and he's twisting a hand around and enacting the same pain on Zachariah that the angel just did to Adam.
“Don't,” Michael seethes, “touch him.”
Zachariah chokes on blood and staggers back, hand to his throat, eyes wide as he looks between the two of them. He laughs through his coughing. “What—what's this? What's going on? How are there two of you?”
“Don't recognize me?” Michael chides, tilting his head.
“Hey, um,” Adam says from his chair, wiping his chin of blood, “I'd actually like to know what's going on, too.”
Michael taps a hand to the kid's shoulder and heals him. It... takes more out of him than he'd like to admit, truthfully. He can feel the stretch of time fissure through his body, reminding him that he doesn't belong here.
“I know, kid,” he says. “Sorry about that. Just, whatever you do? You hear a loud, angry voice in your head? Don't say yes. I don't need to duke it out with my younger self.”
“Michael,” Zachariah rasps, awestruck. “Boss—I, I don't understand but... everything... it's all going to play out the way that you—that you said...”
“No,” Michael interrupts, “it won't. I won't allow it. The Winchesters are on their way and they're going to get their brother and leave.”
Zachariah continues struggling against the hold Michael has him in. He's only let up enough that Zachariah is going through the deterioration of his vessel in a languid pace, eating through from the inside, hollowing out his core.
Michael wishes he got to kill him the first time around, like Dean wanted. He would have taken that bargain.
“But what about,” Zachariah tries. He puts out a hand to the wall to steady himself. “About Lucifer?”
“I'll deal with my brother.”
“How? You're not—from here. I-I can see that. But you clearly got that monkey,” he points at Adam, “as your vessel so I don't—see what the big deal is.”
“Of course you don't, Zachariah. You always saw things so... small. I suppose I did too. I didn't inspire enough in... anyone.” He grins, twists his hand further. He steps towards the angel and knows the moment he's gone passed Adam that the kid is bolting out of his chair like he'll find any way from here.
“Please,” Zachariah begs, “whatever you want, Boss, I-I'll do it.” His vessel is breaking down, light poking holes at skin. Michael makes sure he's blocking Adam's line of sight.
“I think this is enough,” Michael tells him. “I know you don't understand.” He chuckles, shakes his head. “No one would.”
“M-Michael—”
He doesn't want to hear him anymore. He splays his fingers once and then clenches them into a tight fist and Zachariah burns, grace erupting through his vessel, and then his body drops and there's ash on Michael's tongue and he stares down dully at the burnt-out form.
The pleasure in the death is already fading.
Maybe this was why Lucifer killed so much. Chasing that revenge high.
He scrubs his hands over his face.
“I-I don't understand,” Adam says, pressed into the corner of the box. This box was his design, not Zachariah's. He hates it. He wants to take Adam anywhere but here, wants him gone, far away from the Winchesters.
Not yet.
Zachariah wasn't wrong; the brothers will always save each other over the planet and sure as hell over Adam, but he's safer with them right now. Adam's smart, even before the Cage tried to tarnish his brilliant soul. He'll run. He'll free himself from the leash of family.
“Why would you save me?” Adam continues.
“You won't believe me,” Michael whispers. “But you and I? We were together for a very long time.”
“A-Am I... am I there?”
Hurt flashes across Michael's face. He looks away and swallows, his voice coming out unnaturally shallow, “No.”
“Oh.”
“Losing you wasn't my intention,” Michael whispers. “My Father...” He smiles wryly, glancing back to Adam. “He's a cruel man. Always has been. I was just... blind.” He chuckles. “I was always so blind.”
“I'm... sorry.”
Michael's breathing hitches. “Not your fault, kid,” he says weakly. “Nothing was your fault.” He steps towards Adam. “I don't know if my being here will tear the timeline apart. I... don't particularly care. If it saves you.”
Adam stares at him. “What...?”
“You... were the only bright spot in my entire existence, you know?” Michael says softly. “I had always thought... being allowed the rite to serve my Father when my brother went astray... I thought that was everything. It should have been everything. But even just the chance to have that again...” He shakes his head. “Didn't compare.” He tips his head and smiles at Adam.
“I-I don't think... maybe you have the wrong guy,” Adam says, then makes a confused face as he stares at the older version of himself. “Somehow.”
“No,” Michael says simply, “I don't.”
Adam shuffles his feet. There's a fight going on outside. The remainder of the angels, not realizing that their commander is dead. Castiel will banish himself and them, his last rejection of Heaven, and then the Winchester brothers will be storming in like they can act for one moment that other family matters to them.
“Hey... no one's ever done something like this for me,” Adam is saying. “Am I... am I going to see you again?”
That twists something in Michael's gut. “... No. I... no, I don't think you will.”
Lucifer's just sent off a nest of demons, scurrying into the wilds. Michael wonders if he heard what happened, but supposes he wouldn't. Lucifer has eyes and ears everywhere, but no demon was in the radius of that warehouse.
“Michael. You... shouldn't be here. It's too early. What—who are you wearing?”
“I changed the story,” Michael answers. “Look harder.”
Lucifer does, and then Lucifer growls. Michael, expecting that, can't help but smile.
“So what, brother?” Lucifer sneers. He takes three steps towards Michael, aggressive, before aborting. Testing. Michael rewrote the script and now Lucifer has to find his footing, understand the moves. “Decided to play a new game? What happened to Daddy's Most Whipped?”
“He killed my partner,” Michael replies bluntly. “I've taken exception to it.”
Lucifer draws up short, staring. Michael tilts his head at him.
Lucifer laughs, once, a weary breath of sound. “You're joking.”
“I'm not,” Michael says. “The 'me' you're expecting is still without a ride. Both his options are adamantly against him. He's going to be angry, and desperate, for awhile. He doesn't... understand any of it. I didn't. Not until days ago. I didn't understand you, either.”
Lucifer is shaking with hatred, hands balled, filled with more rage than Michael remembers ever seeing in him. More rage than when Michael cast him out of Heaven.
“You dare to lie to me,” he snarls, “about understanding me!”
“It's not a lie,” Michael tells him. “You want to break it—all of it. You want to make him hurt, you want to make him acknowledge you, even if you have to wipe out all life on Earth to do it.” Michael pulls in an unsteady breath. “If Adam wasn't alive on this world, I'd help you.”
Lucifer sways. He doesn't respond. He's watching Michael like he was when they were children; when he was the big brother that Lucifer could never contend with. Someone to fear, not adore.
Michael doesn't want that.
“Can we just... go?” he asks. “You and I. Away from here. I-I need to... try and find that soul. If he's out there, anywhere.”
“You want me to waste my time helping you find a human soul.” Lucifer leans forward, slapping his palms to his knees with a bark. “I realize maybe it's been awhile for you, but I'm kind of in the middle of something!” he yells the last few words and his power pulses out of him. A nearby tree splits down the middle with a deathly moan. Lucifer glares at him.
“You said to me once,” Michael starts, “'let's just walk off the chessboard.' Please. I don't want to fight you. This time I'll go with you.”
“I—this is a trick,” Lucifer says, voice cracking.
Michael spreads his arms. “No tricks, Lucifer. I'm not our Father.”
“What did he do to you?!” Lucifer demands. “You said he—but that doesn't—”
“He showed me who you always knew him to be. I'm tired, Lucifer. I'm tired of being manipulated, I'm tired of fighting.” He holds out a hand, and says again, “Please.”
A lot of things happen.
“Lucifer's gone” and “Heaven's quiet” and Apocalypse What Apocalypse?
A whole lot of confusion and a whole lot of new problems and Chuck Shurley doesn't know why his printed pages have all caught fire and that's new even for him. He tries to peek further beyond the curtain to figure out what's up even if he enjoys surprises in the storyline like any other person, but he's met with a piercing pain and he's dizzy and weak and scared.
The Winchesters forge Adam new documents and “reinstate” him into the land of the living. He gets back into a pre-med program and it's absolutely not running away from family if they're the ones that helped him get there, right? He dreams. He dreams of his mom. Of the monsters. About being buried alive. He dreams of someone wearing his face, but older.
He dreams about someone looking exactly like him in the outfit he was wearing the day before, same age and everything, expression stone, but quizzical; they read him like a math problem and say using a cadence different than his own voice: “I don't need a way in, I'm just trying to understand you.”
He dreams of them a lot.
A timeline hop away and the travel should be easier with two archangels but they're intercepted partway and dumped crudely into a space devoid of reality.
“Oops,” Jack says, picking himself back up from where he bodily sideswiped the brothers' flight. “Sorry, that was rude of me. I didn't mean it to go like that. It's just... you can't. Come back.”
Michael stares at him. “Why not?”
“I'm trying to hold things together enough as it is! I don't need to also worry about you two getting hunted! It's a mess, okay, and my head hurts, but I'm trying.”
“Who are you?” Lucifer demands.
“Um.”
“The new God,” Michael answers for this kid. “I think. Are you?”
“Yeah,” Jack answers. “It's complicated. Two gods allows for two realities. Maybe three? The third is weird. Unrealized. Shifting between the two, I guess. Because there's still... him and the changed reality and so—no, that's not the point.” Jack breathes hard. There's a strain to his brows, like he's not only mentally but physically trying to hold it all together. “You—you can't come back. I'm sorry.”
Michael feels a swell of panic. “But I have to find—”
“I know!” Jack interrupts quickly. “He's not in Heaven or Hell; believe me, I've looked. And your Father isn't talking.”
“I'll make him talk!” Michael yells, and he's startled by Lucifer's hand on his shoulder and for a moment he thinks Lucifer must somehow know that Jack is his son, but then he sees concern in Lucifer's eyes fixed on him and it smothers his fire. Of the two of them Lucifer is the embodiment of Rage; to see it on Michael must be jarring enough to worry him.
“Where exactly are we supposed to go, buddy?” Lucifer asks. He likely misses Jack's flinch at the use of “buddy” but Michael winces.
“Planets, stars, galaxies,” Jack whispers. His eyes are fixated to what serves as their ground before he shakes himself out of it. “He destroyed all the other worlds this side of things, but the cosmos is still in tact.”
“Wait,” Lucifer says sharply, “other worlds?”
“It's a long, boring story,” Michael says to him. “I'll tell you later. If Adam's not in Heaven or Hell, what else do I have?”
“Anywhere,” Jack says. “Everywhere. Your Father was... awfully mad with you, right? Why not send Adam far, far away? You'll find him. I know you will.”
“No, seriously, who was that? How the hell did your timeline end up with a new God?”
“He's your son.”
They're in another solar system. Michael isn't sure which side of the change they ended up on. Jack made it seem like it didn't matter either way. As archangels they break a bit of the laws of time; maybe Adam now, however his soul is, does too.
“I'm sorry, what?”
Michael would explain more about Jack except he doesn't know much and he doesn't realize that stings until this very moment. They're not supposed to go back but now he wants to, he has questions and so does Lucifer.
Instead, Michael tells him about their Father. About the multiple worlds. About the parts of Apocalypse World that Castiel dumped into his head. About what happened to Lucifer in the end, about himself, about God. He found out that last part after the fact. After Michael died but didn't. After Michael died but he clung so desperately to that remaining sliver of love and it was enough.
(Lucifer scoffed at that, but Lucifer is still traveling with him anyway to help him find that same love again so Michael doesn't get upset with him.)
“You could go to college,” Michael had told him. “I don't mind.”
“Oh yeah?” Adam joked. “You wanna take classes with me?”
He got some funny looks as he walked the street, looking to the rest of the world like he was talking to himself. Michael knew that Adam preferred voicing his thoughts instead of just conversing through their minds. Said it felt real. That Michael was truly next to him.
“Well, I don't know a great many things. You can only guide me for so much.”
“Aw, classes would be like... a guide for both of us. That could be fun. You'd help me with my studying, right, Michael?”
The look he had given Michael could not at all be accidental but Michael had absolutely no idea what to do with it.
“You're a terrible big brother, you know that, right?”
“Mmhm.”
“The absolute worst. You manipulated me. You played into my weaknesses.”
“Mmmm.”
“Taking me on this awful trip. I want to go home, but you made it so we could never go home again. Who does that?”
“At least you're not in the Cage,” Michael says.
Lucifer gasps in mock shock. “The nerve!”
“If it's any comfort,” Michael says, and it's strange he wants to offer “any comfort” to his brother, “I hate this trip, too.”
They are, currently, stranded on a moon because some high merchant had the keen eye to recognize them as angels and thought they'd fetch a good price. Why the merchant had any experience with angels was a horrifying question that neither of them were sure they wanted the answer to.
(No matter how obvious the answer was. Re: their Father.)
“I hate you,” Lucifer replies.
By his tone Michael can tell his brother isn't serious. That's interesting, despite everything. His brother doesn't hate him. His brother should hate him. Just because they've been traveling together for months doesn't fix everything that they tore asunder.
“I want to go home,” Lucifer says again, this time quieter.
Michael looks to him, nervous. “I'm sorry.”
Lucifer looks away.
They break out, eventually, because of course they do. This far from the Host hasn't made them powerless, it just sometimes takes them a bit to amp up their juices.
Michael tells Lucifer he's sorry again.
He doesn't tell Lucifer that the weight of his apology encapsulates everything that happened to them in the Beginning. He wants to, but he's still trying to find the words.
(Adam was the one who was best with words. Michael just kept everything lodged in his throat until it was too late.
He hopes it won't be too late for him and Lucifer.)
Jack Kline is a broken-limbed, torn mess. There's blood down his right side and he's half collapsed at their feet.
“What the hell?” Lucifer demands, going to his knees to catch the kid before he fell completely.
They were on their way to an orchestra. It was Michael's compromise for their search that week. Lucifer had seemed interested in it ever since they got to the planet.
The Lucifer that Michael killed didn't even have this much care for his son. It alarms Michael enough that he just ogles the scene in front of him.
“I—” Jack tries, then groans, coughing up blood.
“Shut up,” Lucifer commands. He looks up at Michael. “We have to get him out of the streets.”
The short-circuiting part of Michael's brain wants to ask what about Lucifer's show. Because surely his brother is selfish enough that the things he wants comes before... well... anyone else.
The logical part of his brain is looking at the rest of him like he's crazy.
“Okay,” Michael successfully speaks. He helps Lucifer and they fly to the single-room studio they had been hunkering down in for this galaxy's tour. He tries to breathe healing through Jack, but the boy's body refuses to hold it. Healing a god is no joke. “Jack, what happened?”
“I found him,” Jack rasps.
Michael goes rigid. He once again can't find his words.
Lucifer glances at him, then back to Jack. “Adam?” he asks, and for the first time since the Beginning, Michael wants to hug him.
Jack nods. “I-It's not good. I thought I could do it. I tried. But I'm not strong enough, not alone.”
“Strong enough? Why?” Michael finally asks.
Jack meets his gaze. “His soul is suspended near a black hole.”
Michael sinks back on his heels. A gurgled laugh startles out of him. He presses the back of his hand to his mouth and bites teeth into his knuckles and he laughs until he crumples forward and sobs. He feels a hand press to his spine and it feels enough like an icepack that he knows it's Lucifer and he only cries harder.
“You said 'not alone,'” Lucifer says, “does that mean if we help, you can pull it free?”
“I think so.”
Michael thinks he heard the conversation. Mostly. Every other word.
But then Michael passes out.
“We had so much time in the Cage, you know?” Adam was saying. “I know you said you've been with your Father for an eternity, but for me... that was the Cage. Eternity, together. I guess it felt like we had all the time in the world.”
He was smiling. He was smiling and Michael was crying. He hadn't been able to stop.
“I'm... sorry,” Adam said.
Michael reached out and clasped his hands. Their hands.
“Not your fault, kid. Nothing was your fault.”
“Well, it feels like it,” Adam complained. “Michael, don't cry. It's going to be okay. You're going to be okay.”
“You don't understand,” Michael told him.
It wasn't what he should have said. He didn't have all the time left. He knew that.
'You don't understand.' What a joke. What a cop-out. He was such a coward. An eternity together, when they were finally free and Michael was ready to give him the world, and Michael still couldn't say what he kept so hidden away from Adam.
He should have said: I love you.
He should have said: how am I going to be okay after I've lost you?
He should have said: I'm so sorry for everything, I'll tear reality apart if it meant saving you from this pain.
He should have...
There's a conversation going on around Michael.
“I didn't mean to... I'm not sure there was a more gentle way I could have told him.”
“Maybe if you weren't covered in blood that would have helped.”
“I wanted to come right away!”
“Well, points for effort. He's a big baby anyway. He would've cried snot one way or the other the moment he had the barest hope that you were talking about Adam, so don't sweat it.”
“I just... I know he's been searching for so long...”
“I wouldn't have thought you'd still be looking.”
“I wanted to help. I... I should have tried harder. With everything that happened.”
“You seem like a freakishly good kid which is laughable that Michael says you're apparently mine.”
“Oh. Um.”
A sigh. “I'm not fishing for compliments, kid. Surprised I didn't try to use you to help me take over the world or something.”
“W-Well...”
A groan. “Oh okay, I did, huh? Future me was predictable then.”
“Alternate you.”
“What?”
“Well you don't... particularly have a future... you, I guess. Not drawn out. I've gotten much better at holding the realities together, but it's still weird.”
“... Could we go home, then?”
Michael chooses that moment to sit back up, startling the conversation. Lucifer looks him over in worry before his neutral mask slides back into place. Jack is more healed than he was before, but the dried blood remains sunken in his clothing.
Jack draws in a breath that may as well be all the air in the room and says, “Maybe.”
Jack wouldn't lie to them.
They can work with “maybe.”
“Okay,” Michael says. “And Adam?”
Nursing a soul back to health is like incubating chick eggs. Get the right level of heat constantly over the egg and rotate on occasion. When it starts to hatch, don't do all the work for the chick; only help if there seems like there's no other choice and help peel back the shell.
Michael is holding the most important soul in all the realities—it sure feels that way, anyway, if God felt the need to hurl it across the cosmos and nearly into a black hole. Michael knew he had enraged his Father by helping the Winchesters, but he hadn't expected the sheer level of wrath that had come upon him and Adam.
He has Adam's soul and they're in a tranquil, empty part of planet Earth, in the reality that Michael had left, assuming he would destroy it completely by the flight alone. Jack had been clinging to it with glue and string. He said that he had to; it was the only way to keep God out of the picture.
(But the reality that Michael had created by going back and taking Lucifer with him... Jack had smiled and said that Michael would really like how that one was progressing. Michael didn't ask what he meant.)
Michael is with Adam's soul and Lucifer is still with him. Michael had completed his self-imposed mission. They had—in the miracle that was Jack—gotten home. Lucifer didn't need to stay with Michael. Lucifer just needed to stay out of trouble and nothing else mattered.
“Why are you here?” Michael finally asks. If he's going to be abandoned, he'd like to be made aware of it sooner rather than later.
“I've traveled with you for over a year now,” Lucifer says. “What's a few more days? Besides, if I leave you alone with that soul, you're just going to cry about it.”
“So you're... leaving in a few more days.”
Lucifer cocks his head. “Do you want me to leave?”
“Do you want to?” Michael fires back.
“Mature.”
Michael blows out a breath.
“I don't know what to do,” Lucifer says after awhile. “I mean, I suppose I want to find our Father and shout at him a lot. I kind of want to go back to the timeline—reality?—that I walked from, as the only one of the two of us that can. But... no one will welcome me, not anywhere.” He shrugs a shoulder. “You're my brother. You're the only one that wants me around. Or wanted, I suppose.”
“Wants,” Michael agrees. “There's nowhere for me either.” He brushes a thumb over Adam's soul. “Adam was going to go to college. I don't know if he still wants that. I don't know if he'll remember his soul's time at the cusp of a vacuous space. That might change someone's opinion on life.”
“I didn't spend six-thousand years in the Cage to go to school,” Lucifer says dryly.
Michael smiles. “What do you want, then?”
“To not be hunted and slaughtered for one thing.”
“We're in the same boat. I'll be hunted, too, if the Winchesters catch word of me.”
“I don't know what I want,” Lucifer says. He folds his legs up under him. He looks small. Young. He bows his head. “I wanted the Apocalypse,” he murmurs. “I wanted to see you. I didn't think beyond it.”
“So we can figure it out? Together?”
Lucifer chews at his cheek before nodding. “And Adam,” he laments dramatically, breaking some of their tension. “Just don't get all sappy over it.”
Michael does, in fact, get all sappy over it.
He thinks he's allowed.
Once Adam's soul has fully healed it merges back where it belongs in his body and Lucifer has to walk away into the woods with a grumble of “Oh, I'm not staying here for this, holler when you've gotten a hold of yourself and I'll be back” and Michael barely hears him. The last thing Adam had seen was Michael crying and now it's also the first thing that Adam sees, squinting at the light like a newborn and shaking his head and his arms from where he sits across from Michael.
“Hey,” Adam says, reaching out to brush a hand over Michael's cheek, “What'd I say about crying?” And then he makes a quiet oof sound as Michael throws himself at him, wrapping his arms tight and holding him like maybe this time he won't lose him, maybe this time they won't be torn apart, maybe this time...
“I-I never meant...”
“Whoa, okay, what's going on? What happened, Michael?”
Michael can find the words but he's too emotionally devastated to voice them. His thoughts are a rollercoastering clipshow that he offers to Adam: starting with Michael's disastrous, reckless, human mistakes after he'd lost Adam; to his travel through time, and absconding with Lucifer; to the black hole, and the strange alliance that got Adam out of there.
“That's... wow. That's a lot to take in. … Lucifer, really?”
“He's complicated.”
“Doesn't actually seem like it.”
“I suppose I wish he still was,” Michael says, quiet.
“So which... reality is this?”
“Home. I don't imagine going to the one I created is... safe. I robbed my younger self of taking you as a vessel, and the need for him to even take one by walking off with the Apocalypse's propagator.”
“You mean I don't get to wear you down?” Adam asks cheerfully.
Michael draws back so that Adam can see his smile. “I wouldn't let you experience all that pain and hardship again if there was a chance I could prevent it.”
“Some good came out of all of it.”
“Not enough.”
“Don't say you're not enough, Michael.”
Michael freezes. “I—”
“What?” Adam asks kindly. “You didn't think after all this time I didn't love you, too?”
“But—how do you—you're not supposed to know that—”
“Oh, was it supposed to be a secret?” Adam's trying to fight back a smile. Michael would be feeling foolish if Adam's earlier words weren't spinning stars around his head. “You were never great at keeping secrets from me, Michael. And this, well... It's really hard to hide something from me when it lights up our entire being.” He frowns and Michael knows he put that expression on his face. “You really didn't know.”
How was he? How was he to expect this sunspot in their being had any match to Michael's darkness? He had taken his vessel under Adam's duress, had wormed his way in because Dean Winchester had wiggled out from him once again and by God, Michael was getting a vessel that day, he was done waiting.
He'd had Adam resurrected, ripped out of Heaven and stuck back on the wasteland of the planet, to be thrust into a war he had no stake in, and sent crumpling into Hell.
Regardless of the friendship they had forged, Michael had ruined Adam's life. He was the one that tried to tarnish that brilliant soul.
“Michael, my soul wasn't bright before Hell,” Adam says, interrupting Michael's straying feelings.
“... What?”
“It was dark and bitter and twisted up. I wasn't bright,” he repeats, “you're remembering wrong.”
“No, but—”
Adam snags his hand with Michael's. “It became that way after it was just you and I down there. When you started to actually pay attention to me. I guess that's why it would seem that way. You were my bright spot.”
“You love me,” Michael states airily, transfixed.
“Yeah, Michael, I really, really do.”
“So, you're Adam,” Lucifer says.
“Right, I guess we haven't met.”
“I will not claim responsibility for anything another me has caused to you.”
“Yeah, that's fair, I guess. I can't promise I won't hold anything against you by mistake. Torture's like that.”
“I tortured you?”
“You tortured Michael; I was just in the backseat, held back, unable to do anything. The Cage sticks with you.”
“Wait,” Lucifer says.
Adam feels Michael gasp from that word alone.
“You both were in the Cage?” Lucifer finishes.
“You didn't tell him that part?” Adam asks.
“It didn't feel relevant!”
“How is it not relevant!”
“He never asked how the Apocalypse ended. I wasn't going to tell him if he didn't ask.”
So Adam tells him.
In the end Adam doesn't go back to college. In the end Jack lets slip that because of the changed reality still having their Father at the peak of his power, that reality still has hundreds of other worlds in it. Jack's had to ignore them because Jack can only do so much.
They, however, can do more.
Jack wonders if he's made a mistake.
They find the powerless version of their Father scribbling notes in a Composition pad in the back of a library, feet tucked up under him to fit his entire small body in the chair. They loom over him and he keeps scribbling and when they don't leave, he grumbles, “I'm busy, go away,” and they clear their throats and he's instantly stricken. His hands clench on the pad and he looks up with a terror that was once unachievable for him. “Oh,” he says, “so I guess it's my time now, right?”
“No,” Michael says.
Chuck's expression falls.
Lucifer kneels before him, expression wicked. “You wanna know something fun?” he sings. “Michael,” Lucifer jabs a finger towards him, “created another reality. One where you, unfortunately, are still in power, and all your little drafts are spinning about.”
There's a flash of hope breaking through Chuck's fear and Michael feels the same contentment that he did when he had Zachariah at his mercy. Adam has no desire to stop them.
“We're going to go to them,” Lucifer declares. “Every. Last. One.”
“Y-You're going to destroy them? But they—”
“We're not,” Michael interrupts. “We're going to fix them. We're going to undo all your favorite tales, set things on the mundane, boring path so it dissolves his power little by little. We're going to break his spirit, and then the only god with any ability will be Jack, in both realities.”
“I—but that's not—that's not fair!” Chuck yells, and then he gets control of himself. “No. It doesn't matter. Some of those worlds... they can't be fixed. Like an archangel knows how to put anything right,” he snarls.
Michael's posture shifts as he fades back to allow Adam to step in, who smiles unkindly. “Then it's good they have a human to back them, isn't it?”
“... You,” Chuck whispers, pointing with his pencil. He glances at Lucifer like he'll reveal the trick, but Lucifer just smirks up at him. “You shouldn't be... Lucifer and Michael, they're impossible, but you're Impossible, capital 'I.'”
“It's interesting what can be done when Michael and Lucifer work together, isn't it?” Adam asks lazily. “Is that why you separated them? Well, no matter. I wonder what they'll do next, don't you?”
“I always wanted to smash up all your toys,” Lucifer tells his Father. “This is a very Michael way to go about it.” He stands, brushing his hands over his knees distractedly. “It's been real, Pops. I hope you enjoy rotting away slowly, now with this fresh knowledge in your mind.”
“Wait. Just wait. Just—”
They're gone.
A lot of things happen.
Lucifer is scarred by the fact that he knows when his brother is, essentially, making out with thin air.
They both know, equally, what it's like to remake a broken world. They know what it's like to experience a truly broken world, where it's too dark for even Lucifer and he can't find any of the beauty he usually would relish in.
They go home, sometimes—well, Michael's home reality. They visit Jack as the only ones capable of interacting with Jack. They try to figure out what to do about the Amara on the other side of things, but that's a Future Goal. That requires more of a delicate touch than any of them have developed.
They... relax. They live. Lucifer begrudgingly sits in with Adam in different classes across the worlds even though they all know that Lucifer doesn't have to. No one's actually forcing him to.
And little by little they unmake their Father. They visit that world too, once or twice. Not to corner their Father like they did the other one, but to just... see it. Breathe it in. Raphael and Gabriel are still alive here, both trying to come to terms with the fact that their Lucifer is gone and their Michael is, according to rumors, heavily distracted by a human.
Adam found it hilarious and Michael wonders if this was why Jack thought he'd like how this reality was progressing.
Lucifer was... well. “All the worlds we touch down on,” he says, quiet, “and in none of them the four of us are together. Why is that...?”
“Look at you and Michael,” Adam says. “Kind of unbeatable. I bet if the four of you remained close, God wouldn't be able to stand against you, not really. He needed to be powerful.”
“He needed to be 'Lord,'” Lucifer says, more to himself. He shudders and looks to Adam. “I want to change that, somewhere, if we can. Just one world. Reunite them.”
“You know that's going to be more dangerous than anything we've ever interfered with, right?” Adam asks. “You could die.”
“I know,” Lucifer replies shakily. “I know. I think it's... worth the risk.”
Adam tips his head like he's trying to get water out of an ear. “Michael's here for it. I want to sleep before we throw ourselves into it.”
“You don't need sleep,” Lucifer says.
Adam stares pointedly at him.
Lucifer makes a face and gets up, quick and definitely fleeing. “Okay, goodnight, 'sleep' well, I am going far away, and we can rearrange reality more tomorrow!”
Adam snickers when they're alone. “He's real fun to mess with.”
“Isn't he?” Michael echoes, reaching out to him.
“Oh yeah. And now, hey, we have all night, don't we?”
“Let's make the most of it then, shall we?”
Adam Milligan wakes in his college dorm surprised to the name DEAN blinking on the screen of his phone. He should be getting up soon, anyway. He's got a test in his morning class and he had notes to pass on to a friend for one of tomorrow's.
“What's up, Dean?” he asks, cradling the phone between his ear and his shoulder as he reaches under the bed for his wayward sock.
“Adam,” Dean says, voice... stern? Adam's not really sure.
“Yeah?”
“Adam.”
“What? What's going on?”
Dean makes an aggrieved sigh. “What's going on...” he repeats with a mumble, then raises his voice, “Hey, Adam, rumors flitted from Heaven that the Archangel Michael has been weirdly distracted by a human as of late. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you?”
Adam would, actually, but it's not exactly Dean's business.
“Oh,” Adam says innocently, “that.”