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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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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."

"That's what you think," Michael says, shaking her head ever so slightly.

"But we both know you're not in your right mind."

And, in point of fact, haven't been for some time.

"Go drink some water, Sam. Sober up. And stop thinking you're Atlas before you break under the strain."

She studies him for a moment, jade green gaze heavy.

"I'd hate to see you so lost that even I cannot find you."

And with that, she turns to go, wings fading away to nothing as she departs.

He stays where he is, hands shoved in his pockets, watching after her until she's out of sight.

Only then does he turn to go -- and not inside. He doesn't want to see anyone else right now.

It doesn't matter. I-- it can't.

Sam moves slowly down the trail to the water and starts the long walk around the side of the lake, head down, trying not to let himself think about anything at all.

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