milliways_bar | (no subject)

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[OOM: We can't afford for me to do the right thing.]

It's been a long time since he'd last really 'powered up,' as Ruby teases him by calling it. Sam can feel the effects twisting through him. Everything seems brighter, sharper, clearer; he feels clearer, stronger, ready for anything.

He can't sit still, and he sure as hell can't go back to the motel room until it wears off a little - Dean'll notice something's wrong in a hot second, and Sam doesn't want to lie to him unless he has to.

He pushes through the door to Milliways instead. Maybe he can walk it off there, at least a little bit.

[OOC note: Sam is currently riding a paranormal high due to the effects of ingesting demon blood. If your character would be able to detect that sort of taint, feel free to have them do so! Just don't expect him necesssarily to admit it.]

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He stiffens, and shoots her a hard glare.

"I never asked for any of you to help me," Sam grits. "But you're right about one thing; I forgot about the kids."

"No," Michael agrees gently, almost contemplatively.

"You never have, have you?"

"I said that already."

He can't stand still any longer. Sam starts in the direction of the water.

Michael keeps pace with him.

"You've said it, certainly, and several times over, at that."

Here she darts ahead, planting one palm solidly in the center of his chest.

"You're just not thinking about it. Not really. Not what it actually means."

He stops where he is and looks down at her.

"I know what it means. It means that no matter how much I prayed, no matter what I did, no matter how much I begged, Dean still went to Hell, and I couldn't help him," Sam snaps.

"No, Sam. You never could. And do you know why you never could?"

She's glaring up at him now, green eyes snapping fire.

"Because his life is his own, as are all his choices, the noble and the goddamned stupid alike."

Her hand never leaves his chest, though she uses it as leverage to shove at him.

Just the once.

"And he's paid for them. God grant he's also learned from them. But you."

Here she shakes her head.

"You. You're blindly determined not to learn from Dean's mistakes, either, or your own. You're not a horse, Sam, strange as that may seem. But I can't even lead you to water, let alone make you drink."

Not unless he asks. Not ever unless they ask.

He brings his arm up under hers to knock her hand away, and glares right back.

"What do you want from me?"

Sam is probably not expecting the jade green wing that buffets him from the left.

Michael is careful to do it gently, at least. This time.

"Three things, Sam. One, to stop being so careless with your soul. Two, to remember that you are loved, and not just by those who love you, or who have a use for you."

Here she folds her arms again, wings mantling over her back in a visible sign of her irritation.

"And three, learn to ask for some goddamned help once in a while. Your willful destruction is not going to make your brother any less likely to jump straight into the fire after you. You know this."

"Hey!"

He staggers a step sideways and gives her an affronted look.

"I'm not being careless with my soul. Okay, not any more - no more crossroads deals, I mean."

Not that the last one had worked.

"And yeah, I know he-- look, I'm just doing what has to be done, okay?"

"No, you're not."

She's got her feet spread apart, looking like someone braced for a fight.

Or she would if she were a couple inches taller and significantly broader across the shoulders.

"You want to think you are, certainly. I'm hardly a stranger to that."

Just look at who her brother is.

"But if you were truly certain, you'd never have tried to spin me a story about drinking too much coffee."

"I didn't say it was good," he admits. "Not all of it, anyway. I know that."

"But I have to. Someone has to."

Michael's gaze is heavy, a burning regard that does not waver.

"If you know that," says the archangel, wings still unfurled, "then tell me, Sam Winchester, why on God's green earth doesn't it matter?"

"It matters so that 'God's green earth' can still be around when it's all over!" Sam yells.

"Don't you get it? You knew about Dean quick enough -- "

"Don't I get it?"

Michael's expression of extreme irritation does not fade. If anything, it grows stronger.

"Hast thou forgotten who I am? Thy experience in thwarting devils is far and away removed from mine. Think'st thou I have naught of value to offer thee?"

Edited 2012-04-13 02:36 (UTC)

It stops him cold.

"Fine."

His temper's lashed back down tightly -- as is the sudden flicker of hope, barely present, but not quite lost. Not yet.

"So what would you suggest?"

"Be not cozened by their wiles."

She is deadly serious.

"Thy soul -- thy self -- shall always be transparent to them, as it is to my kind. Well shall they know where to strike at thee, and how best to drive thee where they will."

Michael huffs out a quiet breath, shoving her hair out of her eyes even as her wings flex, twitching in residual irritation.

"Do not let yourself be driven. Do not let yourself forget precisely who it is that you are, and precisely who and what it is that you love best. From that shall all the rest come."

Here she leans back a fraction, tucking her hands into the back pockets of her jeans.

"Or to put it in plainer words -- when you dance to their tune, Sam, you're playing their game, the house's game. And a shark like yourself surely knows this for fact -- the house always wins."

He listens in silence all the way through, then slowly shakes his head.

"I can't-- it's not enough."

There's an underlying desperation to his words.

"The seals are breaking, Michael. Thirty-four of them are already gone. If we don't stop it -- if I don't stop it, then Lucifer--"

"Lucifer does what he has done since time immemorial."

She doesn't snort, just keeps her casual posture.

"I have heard such stories before. And seen them play out, in point of fact."

Again, Michael takes a breath.

"And your world is not mine. We both know that very well. But shall you let despair drive you further into her embrace before ever you know if despair is warranted? Hope has been the saving of men even in such dire straits than these. Hope, and faith -- and not in God alone."

She shakes out her wings, a brief, quick flutter.

"Dost thou think thy fellows would not stand with thee? Or is it thy pride and thy guilt that pushes thee so?"

"It's not like we're not trying," he argues. "We are. All of us. The angels, too."

"I just can't stand by and not do everything I can. We can't afford for me to."

"The other question, Sam, and one equally as important, even if you cannot see it, is this."

She folds her arms across her chest, chin lifting as she studies Sam.

"Can any of you afford what will happen once you do?"

"If it keeps Lucifer from rising?"

He looks her right in the eye.

"Then yeah, we can."

Michael snorts.

"Oh, Sam."

Her smile is crooked, caught halfway between sad and tired.

"I should know better than anyone. There's always room for another Devil."

Sam stares at her.

"What do you mean?"

"Do you choose to keep walking down this road, Sam, I don't think you really know where it ends."

She is not smiling now, though something in the harsh planes of her face still seems so very sad.

"Nor do I, I will admit. But drinking demon blood? Taking more of them into yourself? You can't think it leads anywhere good. Not for you, and most certainly not for those that love you."

And what, after all, is the world besides that?

"You sound like it should matter."

He shakes his head. All the jittery energy about him is fading now, leaving a bone-weary young man standing before her, instead.

"It doesn't, Michael. It never has."

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