Control

Control

A Supernatural story by Emmy @Yorkshire_SPN

Our next entry in the #SPNWishList fic and art challenge! Emmy responded to the prompt: "Dean and Adam talk about their different experiences with the different Michaels." I found Dean's fear, confusion and resolve in this story absolutely authentic, and I hope you do too. -- Jennie

It took more than Dean would ever admit to bring Michael to the Bunker. 

It wasn’t just that it was their home, their one point of constancy and safety in this messy, violent life. It wasn’t just that last time Michael was in here, people died. 

It was that behind his weathered, defiant exterior, Dean was scared. It wasn’t so long ago that Michael had used him like a puppet, making him do things – things that Dean couldn’t face up to even now, though he wore the weight of it like a second skin. 

And even though he knew, rationally, that that had been a different archangel, a different world, he couldn’t quite shake the thought that the two couldn’t be so unalike, really. Dean was the Michael Sword, after all. The perfect vessel. 

So once they had the son of a bitch locked down, Dean made sure to pick up his gun before he went to speak to him. It would only take one bullet to make sure Michael never had a chance to get inside his head ever again, and Dean didn’t flinch from the knowledge of who that bullet would be aimed at.

Sam and Cas were a few paces ahead of Dean going into the study, so they didn’t see Dean hesitate, running his thumb over the grip of his pistol a few times to reassure himself it was there as an option.

They didn’t see the emptiness that flickered across his face when Adam – not Michael, Adam – spoke. They only saw what Dean wanted them to see – grim determination set over absolute self control. Dean was good at that. 

So, in the end, with the archangel uncooperative, Sam and Cas were happy to leave Dean to try and reason with the pair of them, the handcuffs enough to reassure them that Dean would be okay.

Dean waited for his family to leave, then walked carefully across the room to the table, making sure that he never turned his back to the man sitting calmly in the other chair. 

Again a moment of panic blared in his mind, that they had allowed this angel, this monster, to be in their home at all, but Dean clamped it down almost before it had registered. His hands barely shook at all as he placed his gun on the table between them and sat down. 

“Hey. Can I, uh... Can I talk to Adam?”

Michael looked across, and Dean thought he was going to say no, but then there was the tinny ringing sound and the archangel’s eyes flared blue, and when he looked back at Dean, his whole body had changed.

“Dean. If you’re gonna try and persuade him again--”

“It’s not that,” Dean said, quickly. He licked his lips, then hated himself for it. The silence grew while Dean suppressed the urge to fidget with his gun.

“Look, while you were away, things changed,” Dean said, before he again broke off. This wasn’t what he was trying to say; he couldn’t work out why his words were sliding off it like this. Adam leaned back a little in his chair, hands clasped, waiting. 

Dean let his gaze drift down to the weapon on the table, let his mind rest on the simplicity of it, the certainty. Then he spoke again.

“There was another Michael.”

The reaction was immediate, blue light flashing from Adam’s eyes as Michael took over again, and this time Dean did lay a hand on his gun because he’d be damned if he was gonna get jumped by 150 pounds of pissed off archangel.

“Say that again,” Michael hissed, his voice thin and furious as he glared at Dean. Dean opened his mouth to explain, but Michael suddenly looked distracted, and then the eyes flared again. Adam was back.

“Sorry about that. Sometimes we have… disagreements.”

Dean felt his jaw drop slightly.

“You have disagreements?” he demanded. “Why hasn’t he just destroyed you already, get himself a nice quiet meatsuit instead?”

Adam raised his eyebrows. “Because when you’re in a box for a few dozen centuries, it kinda helps to have someone to talk to?”

Dean passed a hand over his face, squeezing his eyes closed briefly.

“So, let me get this straight,” he said. “You spent however long in the cage with Michael, and you’re what, buddies? You just… share?”

“Uhh, yeah. What are you talking about, Dean? What other Michael?”

Dean took a deep breath. Without even realising he did it, the hunter assumed a defensive pose, his eyes flicking to the exits, to his gun, and finally back to meet Adam’s eyes.

“Look, it happened a while back. We found another world, just like our one, except there, the apocalypse happened, and Michael won. And that Michael, he came through to this world, and, well... some things happened, and he’s not around any more.”

Adam frowned.

“You killed an archangel? What are you guys, superpowered?”

Dean huffed out a laugh at that. 

“Uhh, not exactly. We had some help. But, um, that Michael, he-- Well, I was his vessel for a while. I said yes, like you did. But it wasn’t like it is for you. There wasn’t any talking to anyone. No sharing.” Dean’s words ground to a halt just there, just on the edge of what he was trying to say.

“Huh,” Adam said. “So in the end, Michael got to wear both of us. That’s kinda ironic, considering I only ended up down there ’cause you wouldn’t say it.”

“I know. And I’m sorry, man. I’m so sorry. If we’d known you were still going down there, we woulda tried to get you out, Michael or no Michael.”

“Yeah. Well. That’s not what this is about. You wanna talk about it, don’t you? About being his vessel?”

Dean shifted in his chair and looked away before he spoke again.

“Look. I just wanna know how you did it,” Dean said. “’Cause when Michael had me, there was no… negotiating. Hell, he had me locked up in some messed up dreamworld half the time, and made me watch the rest.”

“It was like that for a while, yeah,” Adam said. “While Michael was fighting Lucifer. But after Castiel came and took Sam’s body away--”

“Yeah, I don’t need to hear anymore about that.”

“Well, after that, neither of us really wanted to watch any more,” Adam continued. “So we ended up talking. Kinda turns out both of us had family issues, no offence.”

Dean just nodded to that, figuring that by this point, Adam had earned the right to say whatever he wanted about him and Sam. 

“So that’s how it was. He isn’t so bad, you know? Even the whole apocalypse thing, he was just trying to do what God said.”

Dean gave a hollow laugh, and Adam felt his stomach drop. He knew Dean just well enough to know that when he laughed like that, something terrible was going to follow. It was the same laugh Sam had had in the cage.

“Not so bad, huh? The Michael I had, he tortured people. He burned out their eyes, made them choke on their own blood, experimented on them ’til their brains exploded. He built piles of corpses and just let them rot, and he didn’t even notice them. But I did. I can still smell ’em now, if I let myself. I can still feel….”

“DEAN, STOP IT!”

Dean blinked. Somehow he was on his feet, leaning over Adam, his hands pulled into tight fists on the table, and Adam was looking at him like he’d lost his mind. He dropped backwards into his seat heavily, barely noticing the blood smeared across his palms from where his nails had dug in too deep.

“What the hell was that, Dean?”

Dean ran a hand through his hair, and Adam had to stop his reflex to wipe the thin trail of blood and sweat he’d left across his face.

“Sorry. man. I’m sorry. It’s been a while since I thought about that. Guess I don’t have it under control as much as I thought.”

“Yeah. Apparently not,” Adam said, letting out a breath in a low whistle. “Jesus, dude, if you’re trying to ask me if you could have stopped your Michael from doing all those things, the answer is no. They’re archangels, Dean. Archangels. They can do whatever the hell they want.”

Dean’s hands were trembling as he picked up his gun again, wiping the handle with his shirt before slipping it back into his waistband. Adam’s eyes followed him every step of the way.

“Yeah, well, you tell your guy, he tries to lay a hand on me, he even thinks about jumping my bones, and I’ll pull the trigger. I ain’t kidding, Adam, I’m not doing that again. Not ever.”

“I’ll tell him, Dean. I’ll tell him.”

Dean pushed himself to his feet, noting absently that the table needed cleaning now.

“All right. You do that. I’ll be back with some food, okay? You still eat pizza?”

“Pizza’s good.”

Dean nodded briefly, like he was going to say something else, but then he turned and headed for the door. He hesitated just a moment more when Adam spoke again, then shook his head and left, leaving just Adam and Michael, alone again.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Adam repeated to the empty room, as Michael paced in his head. “It wasn’t either of our faults” -- and he didn’t fail to notice that Michael nodded too.