Dumat: The Dragon of Silence (nearestvessel) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2014-02-13 17:44:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, michael, samandriel |
Who: Samandriel & Michael
What: Samandriel and Michael talk about the angel thing.
When: 2/4 - directly after this
Where: Michael’s and then Samandriel’s
Rating: High
Status: Complete
Samandriel hadn’t actually been doing anything when Michael texted, but he thought it best to let the man have a moment or two to gather himself before he just showed up in his brother’s house. Pinpointing his exact location was only going to get easier once he started dreaming and gaining something of himself back, but Samandriel was very much not looking forward to that for...rather obvious reasons.
“How mad are you at me?” he asked as the sound of wings heralded his arrival in front of the dark haired young man. It seemed easiest, cleanest somehow to just get the elephant out of the room as quickly as possible.
Michael had attempted to watch Snakes On A Plane, he really had, but the DVD menu had made his headache worse and so he had shut it off. In the low light of his covered windows and dimmed lighting of his living room he finally worked himself up to telling Samandriel. Maybe a text wasn’t the best way to do it, but for him it was easier. He hadn’t wanted to see those beautiful blue eyes change when they looked at him, he hadn’t wanted to see them so sad, but deep down he had known that Samandriel would want to see him. When he said he was coming Michael had gotten up to grab himself a bottle of beer from the fridge and when the angel finally appeared he was back on his couch taking a long swig.
After Gabe had appeared literally right in front of his face Michael had done his best to keep himself from reacting to any displays of power the angels thought to throw at him. It was why Michael was able to look over Samandriel now and not jump at his sudden appearance or react to his vision going a deep, dark blue when he spoke. “I’m not mad.”
The angel nodded and found himself moving to sit next to Michael on the couch. “I wanted to tell you,” he said softly, “but...I told Gabriel before he began dreaming and things didn’t go so well.” They’d gone fine with Lucifer, but Lucifer actually knew and cared deeply for Samandriel at that point. He looked down at his bare feet on Michael’s floor. “It’s why I can’t heal you completely. I want to. God help me, but it hurts to see anyone in pain like you are, but...what I was when Dean shot Gabriel was one thing. What I am now is slightly different.” He honestly didn’t know what it might do. It could heal Michael like it was nothing, or it could be somehow damaging when he did start to get his grace back. He kept quiet and ashamed for secret keeping.
He looked down at the angel’s feet as well, though only because for the moment it felt safer than looking at his face. He didn’t want to become overly emotional, didn’t want to take him in his arms and say it would be okay because then they wouldn’t talk. Michael needed to talk about it with someone who understood what he would be going through, which hadn’t been Dean, and with someone who could be honest and patient with him. Gabriel had tried but while he could be serious he wasn’t built for talks like that. He wanted to embrace the absurd as a way of ignoring or coping and Michael simply wasn’t like that. Samandriel, thankfully, was the only one he had.
“You did the right thing.” Michael agreed. “In not telling me and in not trying to heal me. The fact is, I’ve known for a few days now. Gabriel asked if I wanted him to tell me and when I said I did he told me. One of the first things I thought of was you the other night. When you were frightened that you would lose me. And I thought I really didn’t want to see that sadness on your face again so I tried to ignore it for a while. I even lost my cool with Dean and ended up talking to him about it. He told me to man up and talk to you.”
Samandriel listened to that, trying to digest it as best he could. “You’ve been just letting yourself sit in pain because you didn’t want to see me hurt like that again?” he asked, frowning as he lifted his head to look at Michael. “You…idiot.” That he lost his cool with Dean shouldn’t have been any surprise. Dean was fairly good for that. It wasn’t any wonder why the two men both did and didn’t get along. At least somehow Dean had gotten through to him. He reached over and smoothed some of Michael’s hair back.
“Just because I might lose you doesn’t mean you’re going to lose me. I’d… I’d rather be emotionally wounded than have you feeling like somehow cutting yourself off from me is going to stop me from being sad. We were all hurting then, not just because of the Fall but because Gabriel walked out on us.” Samandriel had known the other archangel wasn’t dead. He’d been feeling every single one of his brothers as they were killed in that battle. It was a kind of empathy that made it impossible for him to actually join in the fight, had forced him to seek shelter and solitude as much as possible instead of anything else.
Michael had to laugh when Samandriel called him an idiot. He hadn’t meant to but the angel had pretty much hit the nail on the head with that one. He might be stern, faultless Michael in his future dreams but for now he was the same old Michael who was very much aware of all of his faults and flaws. The laughter had slowly faded when he felt a hand over his hair, it took all the strength he had not to turn into that touch. He couldn’t give into those sweet caresses just yet.
“I hadn’t intended it to be long, I just needed a few days. I always had every intention of calling you. I just couldn’t take seeing it on you for a while.” But then he was talking about Gabriel and suddenly the archangel’s answers when he had asked after God started making sense. He took another slow sip of his beer then shook his head. “I’m sure he had his reasons.”
When Michael didn’t respond to touch, Samandriel kept his hands to himself. “It doesn’t really matter now anyway,” he pointed out quietly. The young angel’s gaze returned to his own space, something he was resolutely keeping for the time being. “So you tried to talk to Dean and he yelled at you to talk to me. What...what would you like to know?” He didn’t want to ask how he could help. It implied he could help at all and Samandriel wasn’t sure that was possible.
“Am I still going to be me?” he put the bottle down and finally looked to Samandriel, finding it easier than he had first thought it would be. “When I have these dreams and, what are they, memories? Will I still be me or am I going to be Michael? I’m not much of an angel as I am, I’m not even like you or Gabriel. Is he just going to move into my head and I’ll…” his brow furrowed. “I’ll just cease to exist? I’m prepared to… To go, I just… If there isn’t going to be anything left of me in here there are some things I would want to take care of first.”
With his next question he had to look back at the floor, worried that his composure might fail him if he kept looking into those eyes. “If I’m going to be in here still. If Michael and I meld or whatever where there is still some part of me still left, will I still be able to love you?”
Samandriel let out a slow breath, trying not to jump on the last question first. It was, in his mind, the most important one. It was the one thing that really truly gave him hope amidst all this mess. "Your existence, particularly looking the way you do, is actually something that answered a big deal question for us. Me, Castiel and Gabriel? What you see now is how our vessels appear in the dreams. We had no way of knowing if we had always been ourselves or if somehow we took over our bodies as we change. But you...you in that body makes it clear that we are ourselves." He swallowed a small lump in his throat. "In the dreams, your vessel, the one that looks like you right now is John Winchester circa 1960 something. However, Dean's father is still very much alive. I wouldn't say well, but he's alive."
He took another deep breath, wanting to stretch his wings but he left them where they were. "I don't know how much of who you are you'll retain. I think in a sense that some of it up to you or at least in your control. None of the rest of us were too far from who we were in the first place. Castiel is very much Castiel. Gabriel is Gabriel and I... I was seventeen when I started dreaming. I don't think I lived long enough to truly come into myself before suddenly I was something else completely."
Finally, though, Samandriel looked over at Michael. "I don't know why you wouldn't still be able to love me, why you might lose some of who you are now, but who you are now is...so very different than the brother I last saw. In many ways you have an even harder road ahead of you than any of the rest of us. It's even harder than for Lucifer, because Lucifer is...his dreams aren't from the same world as ours and he managed to will himself to get it all done in the span of one night instead of over the course of weeks and months and his only comment about the whole thing was that I didn't exist in that universe and it was disappointing." He couldn't resist the urge to bring his wings out again, to stretch one out and behind Michael. "I believe you can retain enough of yourself to still love me or...or somehow I'll maintain enough hope to believe that something deep inside you still loves me. If you can't fight anymore, I'll carry you. I'm strong enough for that."
It felt like a lot to take in. Vessels. John Winchester. Lucifer. Michael. Who he was now and what he could become. If he hadn’t had one already he would have sworn just thinking about it all had given him a headache. And then there was Samandriel being as loving and as good as Michael imagined he would be. He did feel for the little angel. He was probably taking on more than he should have with Michael. If Gabriel hadn’t been so… Gabriel, Michael might have kept his questions for him, after all archangels were problems best solved by other archangels. But this little angel, with his beautiful wings stretched making everything else in the room seem utterly dull in comparison, he seemed like the sort that would take on all the troubles in the world if he could manage it.
“So, you knew right away who I was?” he leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees, resisting the impulse to get closer and let those wings wrap around him. “You missed your brother, or did you just… I don’t know. But when you approached me the first time it was because you knew I was Michael, and that was why you wanted to come home with me?” He wasn’t implying that if he hadn’t been Samandriel wouldn’t have given him the time of day, though perhaps some part of him did wonder that. “And you said I’m different. Would Michael have wanted to see you? Would he have allowed himself to be with you, as I did?”
“I knew,” Samandriel admitted softly. “I always know. Like Lucifer happens to actually have an elder brother named Michael and we ended up running into each other at some new year’s fundraiser charity event thing and I had tell Lucifer point blank that that wasn’t Michael. That was just some guy.” He licked his lips, drawing his wings tighter to himself before he put them away again. “I knew what you would be the moment I laid eyes on you. No one else in that room existed because you were there. When I crossed the room to speak to you, it was because of him. When I decided that I was sharing your bed that night, it had nothing to do with Heaven.”
He licked his lips. “Some of us had issues learning our powers as we got them.” Lucifer, of course never did and Gabriel seemed to be doing fine. “Castiel couldn’t stop hearing everything and I have problems when it comes to seeing. I have to...to focus more than most others might to see faces and not the deeper things that make up people’s natures be it someone’s soul, an angel’s Grace or a demon hiding in someone else’s body. Like, I know you have thick dark hair that I really love running my fingers through and I know you’re warm and muscular. I think your eyes are green, but it’s just on the cusp where they might be blue in some lights as well. I know you light up when you smile, but I can’t tell you what that looks like on your face, if your eyes crinkle at the corners or your cheeks dimple even a little bit.”
It was something Samandriel never admitted to anyone. If he hadn’t known Lucifer or Castiel or Dean before he started seeing he’d be just as hard pressed to tell anyone what they looked like either. He barely knew what Damon looked like, had met the man just at the start of everything beginning to come to a head. “But I knew you were wounded even then. Wounded and proud. That it didn’t matter who you were in relation to me, because you were a soldier as I was and you’d been left broken and forgotten and expected to get on with your life. So I decided that I was going home with you and that I was going to give you whatever peace you could find from me, and...and when you started to dream, I’d deal with the consequences.” Maybe in a way those admissions would help Michael understand exactly why the angel heard that he saw colors in sounds and didn’t even bat an eyelash at the thought of it. It truly wasn’t anything out of the ordinary for him.
He looked down at his hands. “I don’t know if Michael would have wanted to see me. I don’t think he would have. I know he would have never admitted to caring about me, much less anything more than that. He is a soldier with a duty and he wouldn’t have wasted his time focusing on anything other than that. I started out as Lucifer’s and the chain of related archangel command for me went from Gabriel to Raphael to Michael after that.” But Lucifer fell and Gabriel left and… “I was never supposed to end up anywhere near Michael, but I did and I think...I think he’d kill me before he ever even thought about kissing me.”
“Samandriel.” He suddenly turned on the couch, sitting up straight once again. His large, warm hands reached out to cup the little angel’s face and hold him there as he planted a kiss on those stunning full lips. If it spoke to his pain, both mental and physical, and his feelings of attachment to the angel, Michael didn’t realize it. He was more concerned with the kiss itself and stopping Samandriel from continuing on about the archangel he was to be. The very idea of anyone being less than kind to his little angel didn’t sit well with him, especially if that person was himself.
“That’s enough.” he said once the kiss ended, letting that breath-taking face go before he moved back to sit as he had before. He still had questions of course, he hated uncertainty and the idea of going into this blind made him uneasy. Gabriel, Dean and Samandriel had been helpful but he still didn’t know what to expect, even with all of their attempts to explain it. And he was grateful, but in that moment he just couldn’t take anymore, it almost felt as if his heart was breaking.
He ran a hand over his face and then through his hair, “I get it. I think. I just… It took such a long time to remember how to be me again.”
That kiss was both helpful and completely not enough. Samandriel bit gently into his own lower lip to try to perhaps focus on something other than wanting to kiss Michael more. “I’ll do the best I can to make sure you can always get back to you at least with me.” The young angel was going to keep on him, to learn Michael as he was now as best he could.
He turned to Michael, watching him shift and feeling the stress of things rolling off of him more than others might. “Will you kiss me again?” He might have come over just to talk, but he needed contact and comfort as badly as his eventual brother did.
Michael reached out a hand, taking Samandriel’s. He had wanted to talk things out, to somehow find a way for the angel to make him feel better about everything that would possibly happen to him, and yet he found himself wanting silence or at least any other talk than the one they had been having. There was too much pain there, for Samandriel and himself. In the end, for as long as Michael had left to just be himself, he just wanted a little peace.
He did give the angel that kiss though, this one was tender and sweet but it probably didn’t linger as long as either of them would have liked. When he had called Samandriel he had every intention of resisting or refusing any of the angel’s advances, that he was going to get his answers and think on them a while. The sex was great, but it tended to dull Michael’s already dulled mind.
“Why take on all this for a brother that possibly didn’t love you?” he asked after the kiss, meeting his eyes. He couldn’t resist one more question. “Fixing me isn’t your responsibility.”
Samandriel focused on Michael’s face, forced himself to see it and not anything else. His eyes were green. They were beautiful. “I don’t turn my back on family, even if family doesn’t want me.” His gaze dropped again. “I know all too well how it feels to be ignored or forgotten. I don’t… I don’t know if it’ll help you at all, but I’ll remember you as you are now.” Not just Michael, but Michael as well. “You said something once about not keeping around a broken tool. That was how Heaven saw me in the end.”
With that last bit Michael let go of his hand and instead drew the angel into his arms. Dean had pushed him to ask after what Samandriel had been through, he had decided that he wouldn’t, and not just because taking any sort of advice when it had to do with emotions and relationships from Dean Winchester seemed incredibly stupid. He wouldn’t put his angel through that just so he could end up feeling better for a few minutes. But he knew things had happened to Samandriel, terrible things, and even if they couldn’t ever wholly understand what had happened to each other they could still empathize. “You were never a tool, no matter what the Michael who will come says.” he kissed his temple. “You are great and glorious to me and you always will be.”
Samandriel was only small when compared to the other angels around. In an area full of archangels and near gods, he was a tiny blip on the radar no matter how strong he might’ve actually been on his own. He stole another kiss while he could, unable to express himself properly with words but definitely feeling a very muted blue. It was strange imagining himself in whatever colors he thought Michael would see. It went on a little bit longer, felt a little bit deeper before he pulled back. “Love you,” he whispered. “You, and not just who you will be.”
He didn’t want to let Samandriel go, in that moment he felt as if he couldn’t. It really was a mess as far as he could see and there might have been a part of him that wished he hadn’t gone to Lux that night, if only because he could spend whatever few days he had left blissfully ignorant of what was to come and that he wouldn’t have potentially hurt Samandriel when the change came. But he couldn’t regret knowing him or loving him, he knew he had needed him and when he became Michael he would need him to remind him of how he had once been and that he was not as immune to love as he would try to make himself after Lucifer’s fall. “No matter what happens, no matter what he says, I do now and will continue to love you.”
There was no way Samandriel could do anything but kiss Michael in response to that. For all that every part of him was Lucifer’s, Michael was just as important. After all, Gabriel had walked out on them, Castiel killed him, and the rest of heaven didn’t even notice he was missing. Lucifer and Michael were the only ones who’d done the best they could with him. For all Samandriel knew, casting Lucifer out really had been their Father’s orders and in many ways, God had failed him as much as everyone else had.
So he kissed this Michael who loved him, one who could say it freely and make those forever kind of promises that only Lucifer ever actually offered him. He sunk his fingers into that dark hair, pulled him close to try to encourage Michael to move with him whether that be pushing Samandriel onto his back or straddling the angel’s hips to box him in. He didn’t care. He just wanted to be close while Michael would still allow him there. “Your eyes are green,” he whispered, “and your soul is the golden orange-yellow just before the sun sets the sky awash in purples and pinks.” He thought Michael would appreciate knowing that Samandriel worked to see something purely physical even though it was a lot of effort for him. The speaking of the invisible as well was likely just a general hazard of talking to Samandriel.
Michael allowed him to move him a little, though instead of whatever he had in mind Michael maneuvered them into laying on the couch, Samandriel trapped between the back of the couch and Michael’s chest. Perhaps it wasn’t as overtly intimate as whatever the angel had wanted but him in his arms and pressed against him was enough for Michael, he needed that comfort. He needed to feel like he wasn’t making promises he couldn’t keep just because Samandriel made him feel incredibly sentimental. His descriptions were beautiful and he hoped he was right, he wanted to believe that there was something worthwhile about him before the archangel made himself known. “Is that what Michael looks like as well? And his wings?”
“No,” Samandriel said, just glad to be pressed close to Michael no matter how they arranged it. He liked being able to lazily kiss him, to be wrapped up safe in his arms like the future wasn’t ever coming for either of them. Michael hadn’t asked for it, but Samandriel eased his pain anyway. It was never enough to be true healing, but it was what they had to work with. “Michael looks like fire. Like rage. Like something that started out as a hearth you could always come home to but turned into the most powerful destructive force. Michael is red.” It was a deliberate choice, one he thought used something of his lover’s vernacular of color. “His wings are the same, all six of them.”
He couldn’t keep the contented hum quiet as he was healed. At times feeling no pain felt just as good as pleasure and he was eternally thankful to Samandriel for it, even if it was probably the least he could do. And if the angels were all correct he really could have an eternity to thank him for that and everything else he had done. He could only hope that the archangel in him wouldn’t forget that.
“Red.” Red had once been good. His first car had been red, his first real girlfriend had been fond of lacy red lingerie, his school colors had been white and red, there was red on the dress uniform still hanging in his closet. It wasn’t until it started pouring out of innocent civilians, and his men and himself that it became bad. And now that he was seeing colors there were more than a few things that were red. Gunshots were red, screams were red, and Dean Winchester, maybe not inherently bad, but there was far more red in him than should have been. “Dean is reddish. That doesn’t surprise me. From the sound of it they were meant for each other.”
Samandriel pressed their foreheads gently together, glad in his way for the quiet cuddle on the couch. He pressed further back against the cushions so that he could have an excuse to pull Michael tighter against him. “Dean’s red is different from what Michael’s has become. His is...nobler. Dean is righteous. Michael is obedient. Loyal too, but that’s not always a good thing.” Stubborn, pigheaded and unyielding also came to mind when speaking of his eldest brother.
Lingering where he was, he stayed quiet for a moment before he whispered, “can I share something with you that you won’t see in your dreams?” Lucifer had seen it, though on TV. It’d hurt, but it wasn’t quite the same. Castiel would remember in his way eventually, but even that wouldn’t be enough. Nor would it be the same for Dean and Sam. He needed someone who would understand why he was working so hard to keep them together, to keep them peaceful. Everything fell apart otherwise.
“If you think I can take it.” It sounded bad though. He did trust Samandriel, after all he had taken nothing less than excellent care of him since they had happened to cross paths. Of course had been his usual stubborn self and had tried to resist some of it but he had come around now. The angel healed him and helped him feel alive at a time when he was sure death was only a heartbeat away. If he wanted to show him something then Michael was going to let him, especially now as they lay close together and that feeling could convince Michael to agree to just about anything.
“I think you can handle more than most people assume,” Samandriel whispered. He shifted so that while he was sharing and when he was done, Michael might know that he was there. Right there. He was fine. No one was touching him in a way he didn’t wish to be touched. He didn’t show Michael anything that had happened in this life, rather he gave him a brief bit of a conversation he’d had with Crowley while he was being held captive. There was no reason to let it go on longer than a minute or so, just long enough that Michael understood what was happening, that Samandriel was in very deep trouble, in immense pain, and Heaven didn’t even notice he was gone. He eased the young man out of what he was sharing before he pulled back and took a shaky, unnecessary breath.
After the first scream Michael’s hand left it’s spot on Samandriel, curled into a fist and slammed hard into the back of the couch. It was almost remarkable that his fist hadn’t gone through it, and part of Michael wished it had. Something deserved to be broken for that, something or someone, possibly even the whole of heaven and hell and inside Michael raged that there was nothing he could do about it. He wondered where Michael was, that he could allow this, or how God could allow this to happen to one of his most beautiful creations. Wrong was the only word he could come up with to accurately describe what Samandriel had just shown him.
Eventually Michael removed his fist, his hand shaking a little as it unclenched and returned to touching Samandriel. He ran it over his cheek and down over his shoulder to remind himself that he was fine now. He took a deep breath and quickly let it out, trying to keep himself calm and that anger to fade. His frown was deep when he finally spoke, “Why?”
“I can’t let that happen again here. Not when we have a chance to do things right. To… to make sure not one of us has to go through that again without someone else noticing.” Except it’d happened hadn’t it? Twice already to Samandriel even. But he’d survived and he’d been taken care of instead of simply ended when it was over. When Michael could see again properly, there was no way he’d not notice the way the younger angel carried some of Lucifer’s power in him little echos and threads that slipped through his own as if it were meant to be there, had always been there. It was far cleaner than any mending Castiel had ever done to Dean, but it was still a mending- perfect or not.
“Why did no one notice?” he nearly snarled, arm tightening around Samandriel. Sure, he was a man who believed that God had some sort of great, overarching plan for the universe, one that may have needed Samandriel to be tortured, but he still could be livid about this. Samandriel was too perfect, too good to be forced to endure that, he deserved better. “How could they not notice? Your family… Our family. How could they let that happen? I swear, if anyone ever puts a hand on you again I will rip them apart with my bare hands.”
Samandriel gasped in more pleasure and surprise than actual pain. He liked that Michael was so protective, that he was so very, very willing to tear someone apart for inflicting that kind of pain. “You’ll see,” Samandriel said, “in time you’ll find out why things...got messed up. Or at least how they started to. After that, I’ll fill you in.” He didn’t like the couch, and honestly just didn’t want to be in Michael’s apartment anymore anyway. It was a fine space. He liked it well enough, liked being with Michael, but he wanted to be where things smelled right instead. So without thinking too much about it at all, he brought them both to the guest room at Lucifer’s. The room itself was as dark as it was outside with an overlarge plush bed and linens that even now Samandriel didn’t want to think about the cost of. This was his space. Michael was welcome in it.
Michael wasn’t entirely sure what had just happened. The room had changed, no they had to be somewhere completely different. The ambient noises were different, the air was different and Michael knew full well that he wasn’t the type to buy anything this nice. Samandriel must have moved them, the same way he had done the last time they were together. Though that had been simply from the kitchen to his bedroom, he was somewhat sure that they weren’t even in the same town anymore.
He sniffed at the air and glanced about the room. The angel seemed to know the place, but Michael couldn’t see why he would bring them there beyond it being nicer than his place. His eyes eventually returned to Samandriel, “Where are we?”
“My home,” the angel replied softly, burrowing a little into the covers. “It’s safest here and Lucifer’s at Lux.” So that Michael wouldn’t have to worry about somehow running into him before he was ready. Lucifer knew what was up, where Samandriel was and who he was with far more than anyone else ever would. “And this is the guest room anyway.” Some place they wouldn’t be disturbed no matter what did or didn’t happen. Nobody was pressuring anyone into anything. Samandriel just needed to be safe. He didn’t think Michael could or would fault him for that. “Sorry I didn’t… Sorry I didn’t warn you beforehand.”
“It’s alright.” Michael told him as he joined him in his burrowing, finding it far too easy to be comfortable in a bed like this than he would have admitted. Marines slept on the floor, or on wooden boards, or on cots that made wooden boards look like a Tempur-Pedic mattress, or so it was said. Michael’s bed was hard and the sheets not exactly soft, but it had all come with the apartment and he placed a pretty high value on not having to go through the pain of decorating his place. This bed though, it matched the company, supportive, soft to the touch, alluring and likely just as hard to keep out of.
“Gabriel appeared at me from out of nowhere and spent most of the time we talked summoning things from the aether to either eat or give to me. In the middle of a cafe no less, I think I can handle a little teleporting.” Or whatever they called it. It was all a little less traumatic with Samandriel, but that was just one of the very many, very clear differences between the two angels.
Samandriel shifted a little more now that he actually had room to move, nestling his head somewhere near Michael’s on one of the pillows and resting one hand on the man’s waist lightly. “He’s only newly gotten power back. He’ll...well he won’t calm down completely, but he will somewhat. He’s still Gabriel and he’s going to have as much fun as he can while he can. It’ll get a little less immediately awesome eventually.” At least Samandriel hoped as much. He ran his fingers over Michael’s face, drawing his attention away from their excitable brother. “Tell me you love me again?”
That earned him a smile, the caress and his request. How could anyone not adore the little angel? How could anyone ever think to harm him? It was like Michael told Dean, hurting Samandriel was like kicking a puppy, no good there to be found at all. “I love you, Samandriel. Promise me that you won’t ever let me forget it.”
It might have sounded like an order but in truth it was a request from a man who wasn’t at all certain that he would feel the same, or even be the same the next day as he had been in this one. No matter whatever else happened he wanted to hang on to this feeling, and to his little angel. “Michael sounds like he could be a real bastard,” in fact he had taken off his medal after talking to Dean and hadn’t put it back on again just because he hard a hard time seeing the archangel in a good enough light for him to pray to. “Like he’ll need to be reminded that he can be more.”
“Maybe not so much that he can be more, but that he doesn’t have to carry everything by himself. He’s allowed to love. Just like you are.” Samandriel stole a brief kiss so he could whisper. “I’ll remind you of it every chance I get. Whether I think you need it or not.” The kiss that came after that was far deeper, a promise more than anything else. He wanted Michael to remember how this felt, their mouths and bodies together and absolutely everything that entailed the varied ways in which they loved each other.
Perhaps such a thing happening so quickly for Michael was unusual, but for Samandriel it was completely normal. He didn’t make decisions lightly about people, but that didn’t mean he took forever to make those calls either. If one of the people who had judged him so harshly for sharing of himself and loving so freely asked him if he finally thought he had enough now, he might actually be able to honestly answer that yes, he very much did. He was satisfied and wanted for nothing more than the men he surrounded himself with.
Samandriel might have been comfortable lying next to Michael, but after that kiss Michael couldn’t resist pulling him closer, practically forcing him to lay half on him. He needed to keep him close, he wasn’t sure when that had started, probably after the first time the angel had healed him. After that, even when he swore he wasn’t going to be seeing him again he kept thinking about him, missing that touch and closeness. Perhaps the angel had done something to him but he didn’t care. He had him in his arms and for a while there wasn’t a word outside the door or any pain in Michael’s head.
“Thank you,” he said, resting his forehead against the angel’s as he held him tight to him. “I mean it, for this and for everything else you’ve done. I don’t know if I could face this if I didn’t have you.” Michael didn’t like showing any hints of vulnerability but it seemed that Samandriel had found the hole in his armor and ripped it away from him for just while they were together.
Michael was honestly the most tactile, handsy person Samandriel shared himself with. It felt like he was constantly either on the verge of or being actively manhandled wherever the other man wanted him to be, which really just seemed to be close and here and now please. It was something Samandriel found very definitely attractive. It suited them both nicely.
“You’re welcome,” he murmured. “I’m here. You don’t have to face it without me in the slightest.” Unless he chose to, of course, but even that wasn’t completely absolute. Samandriel would figure out other ways of helping if he had to. He nipped Michael’s lower lip, teasing, smiling as he did so. “Besides, you’ve quite literally got me right now.”
“I have to take advantage of you being so close while I can.” Michael pointed out. At some point someone had said that Samandriel was still going to school and Michael was still working regularly. There was also the rest of his life to consider as well as Michael’s frequent need for solitude. They couldn’t exactly spend all day together, not that Michael would have wished for that as he would inevitably say or do something that would upset the angel, but the time they had together was nice and Michael believed in savoring it while he could. That might have been why he so often found himself treating Samandriel like a full-size teddy bear.
“I might have been,” he paused to consider which word to use. “Aggressive, when I promised to hurt anyone that harmed you. But I want you to know, I would notice.” He took a quick, gentle kiss from those lips.
Samandriel returned that stolen kiss, “I like you aggressive,” he murmured. “I mean I also like you tender, but the prevailing practice when it comes to dealing with me is to be that kind of tender. I don’t need it all the time and I certainly don’t want it all the time. I like it from time to time and it’s gotten to the point where there are some people that I mostly require it from but… but it really is nice to be bitten and scratched and held down. I like… I like fucking that would leave all deep dark bruises on normal people just as much as I like being teased and forced to wait and having to deal with the particular trial of endurance that is really, really slow sex.”
The younger angel shrugged and looked down, glad to be wherever Michael manhandled him this time and probably wherever he would push him in the future. “But...I’m glad you’d notice. I think this time around other people would too.” If given enough time and certainly a kind of differently arranged pattern of the OC messing with people again. Lucifer would definitely notice. Lucifer would have him out of whatever situation he’d been in seconds after it happened and likely unmake everyone involved in causing it along the way. “I need you to know though that I don’t… I’m tired of being treated like I need to be protected. I’m perfectly capable of defending myself, especially here. Michael trained me. I’m not… I’m not just a pretty boy with a violin. I choose not to fight. It doesn’t mean I can’t.” He stole another lingering kiss, nose brushing against Michael’s. The other man might not have gotten far with his obvious need to protect Samandriel the same way that Dean and Damon and Castiel did, but he did need them both on the same page.
“It’s that face,” Michael said after the kiss. Samandriel knew it too, he had to given that so many wanted to protect him. “That delicate-looking bone structure, that brightness that radiates from you even you’re unhappy. It must attract a certain sort of person, though not sadists from the sound of it.” Which Michael was thankful for but he knew he didn’t have the right to have any feelings about who the angel took to bed. “You are mighty and strong, I know that, and even without that face you are precious to so many, but that protective urge is hard to overcome when you have someone you care about in your arms.”
He could have perhaps shared that most of his whole life had been a struggle to learn how to be gentle. With his baby sisters, their things, his nice things, anything that belonged to mother and father, the girls at school, the two words he heard the most were ‘be gentle’. At least until it came time for sports, and then later the military, then the word had been ‘kill’. Violence was oddly cathartic and Michael supposed that in most cases he was being like his namesake, it was all supposedly ‘righteous’ violence that the so-called prince of heaven would have approved of. He could understand the desire to hurt even when it wasn’t so righteous, and sometimes he could understand the desire to be hurt, but thinking of it in connection to a face like Samandriel’s felt wrong. Wrong, but something he could possibly learn to think better of if that was what the little angel needed.
“I don’t want to harm you, Samandriel,” he finally said. “But I can do nearly everything up to that, if that’s what you have an appetite for.” Like it or not, there may have been something inside Michael, be it the man or the archangel, that might have ended up enjoying giving him a little pain.
The young angel stroked his fingers through Michael’s hair. Eventually, he’d be able to explain that Crowley hadn’t broken him. He’d been broken into, yes. He’d been carved up and put back together, but even in the moments before Castiel killed him, there was still fight in him. “It’s happened here too,” he whispered, looking down somewhere at the space between them. Anywhere but Michael’s eyes turned out to be somewhere just above the center of his chest. “That kind of pain, I mean. The torture.” He hadn’t meant to ever talk to Michael about this, but it seemed like they were very much laying kink cards on the table and Samandriel needed to keep communicating.
“I don’t know what I want completely, don’t know what I can and can’t handle outside of that context, but I know I need something rougher than I look like I can take. Like before when you were fucking me into the mattress and I couldn’t...even begin to think about anything other than how good you felt and how badly I wanted to please you, to be good for you.” He licked his lips and kept talking softer. “If I need to bleed, I have an arrangement with a vampire friend. He’s completely incapable of doing any actual physical harm to me, but there’s still something nice about being able to choose to share my blood with someone instead of just having it ripped out of me.” If it came to an actual fight against Damon’s more savage nature, there was no way the vampire would win. It was a safe space for Samandriel to exercise those particular muscles, and once Damon fully turned, it’d be one that might be saving other people.
“I don’t want you to harm me either,” he whispered. “But precious or not, I like to surrender and I’m really good at obeying and doing so with people I trust helps me come at things from a point of strength and work on reclaiming whatever spine and confidence I’ve lost.” He was happy with Lucifer. Completely, totally and utterly happy. He just wasn’t complete. No matter that his Grace had been healed, the rest of him had taken too much damage to recover with a wave of his archangel lover’s hand. “Does that make sense?”
Michael understood the idea of submission better than most ever would have guessed, at that was just as a man. His parents had been big on it, submission and unquestioned obedience or be punished. Catholic school had been the same, though their punishments had been far less severe and far less frequent. The marines had demanded the same and then had taught him to demand it from others. Even in the hospital as he was relearning how to live they demanded it of him as well, it had been a painful shock to return to his childhood home and find that nothing was required of him. That freedom had been more than a little terrifying, at times it felt like either his family didn’t care or that he was simply too broken to be treated as something that wasn’t useful. He didn’t know it yet but his life as the archangel would be similar, right down to his feelings of being abandoned.
It was comforting. There was certainty to be found, even if it was fleeting, as well as the knowledge that someone thought it was worth the time and effort to make you submit. Michael may have had himself now, submitted himself to no one save God, who according to Gabe was probably uninterested, but he understood the appeal. Some of him might have even missed it, just not in any sort of sexual context.
“I think I do.” He said softly, watching how those beautiful blue eyes seemed reluctant to meet his. Next came an order, Michael hadn’t meant it to, hadn’t meant to slip even as little as he did into what he called his ‘major’ voice. It wasn’t a bark like he did at Dean, but it was stern, commanding, almost like the archangel he would be. “Samandriel, look at me.”
There was no part of Samandriel that couldn’t respond to that immediately. He could have argued that he was looking at Michael, but that wasn’t what he was being told to do and they both knew it. His gaze snapped up, and he worked to bring the man’s physical form into proper focus. Look at Michael. His eyes. Not his soul. Not anything else. Samandriel had to meet those green eyes in the realm that the other man could see without effort and not look into him as he was so accustomed to doing. “Sir,” he said, the word falling easily off his tongue. How Dean ever managed to resist this, Samandriel couldn’t begin to understand.
When he was sure the angel was looking at him and not what he had described before as his soul or colors or grace or whatever it was, he moved a hand to cup his jaw and lightly caress his cheek with his thumb. “I love you, and I promise you that for as long as I am able to, I will be and do anything you need. You mean the world to me and I will not rest nor be satisfied until you are happy and whole again.”
He may not have known exactly what Samandriel had gone through but he understood what it was like to put oneself back together after a trauma. Confidence and self-assurance was the hardest, it took years in Michael’s case, and he had known a few that never regained them. Those men had suffered alone, had closed themselves off and as a result lost themselves to their pain and the demons that lived in their own minds. Michael could think of no greater tragedy than Samandriel losing any part of himself.
The angel couldn’t look away from Michael not after that. He had to hold eye contact and just absorb it for a while like somehow he might really be living a life where he wasn’t shoved to the side or ignored in general or forgotten. He knew Michael was being genuine. He couldn’t imagine that he would go through all of that only to claim he didn’t mean it at all. That he was just saying something.
It was a vow almost, closer to a solider’s oath than anything, but still Important. Samandriel would treat it as nothing less than that. Capital I and everything. “I love you,” he replied amazed that someone so kind and steadfast would somehow eventually become the brother who frightened the whole of heaven. “Will you kiss me please, sir?” he asked. The order had thrown Samandriel into a completely different headspace. He didn’t know what Michael was going to want or expect from him right now, but that was the way he needed to respond.
At that request Michael’s thumb slowed to a stop and his hand tightened around that jaw, holding his head still. It was almost automatic now, Michael’s shift into ‘major’ and there was a very large part of him that was happy for it. Dean might have hated it, that voice and that mindset, even his posture, it reminded him of the war and everything he was trying to get away from. For Michael himself it wasn’t all that different only he didn’t hate it, he wanted to embrace it. It was the last time he had been whole, that he had been ‘useful’ according to his own words. Putting himself there, where he had to rely on his own strength of will and self confidence and trust in his men, and remembering how damn spectacular he had been at his job, it was like he was himself again for a few brief moments.
If he was lucky the archangel that came could do something similar with some of the aspects of the way he was now, and hopefully the way he felt for the angel in his arms that deserved to have his question answered. His hand held Samandriel’s face where he wanted as he leaned in and claimed those lips, the kiss was hard but one could almost tell by the way he did it that he was essentially saying ‘mine’.
Sometimes the angel was almost sure that there was a large part of his psyche that needed that claim, that absolutely ached to belong to whoever would take him. He opened for that kiss, accepting the possession implied by it as he yielded to Michael’s authority. There was nothing but that man in his thoughts, no other partner no other room in the house. Just Michael and what he was being permitted to have by the eventual archangel. His fingers curled against the other man’s shirt. He hadn’t been told to hold still, and while he hadn’t been given permission to touch, he also hadn’t been expressly forbidden it either. Just because he wanted very much to submit and obey didn’t mean he wasn’t going to make Michael work for it. He’d keep his head exactly where it was being held, but little more than that.
Rather abruptly that kiss had turned to biting, mostly on that plump lower lip that Michael absolutely imagined doing incredibly naughty things to him when he was alone and found himself thinking of the angel. He also turned them over, showing little to no concern for the angel crushed under him when they found the new position, Samandriel on his back with Michael laying atop him. He did reluctantly let go of that lower lip, though a growl rumbled out of him as he did so, meanwhile he pushed himself to sit up and straddle those tiny hips. Before Samandriel could get any ideas Michael grabbed his hands, interlacing their fingers as he forced them down against the bed on either side of the angel’s head.
It was a beautiful view, even with his mind as messed up as it was, he had to admit that there was something very appealing about having that particular angel trapped under him. Michael understood that the angel could probably toss him about like a ragdoll if he so desired, but having him pinned like that did things to him, made that part of him that wanted to growl and bite and claim Samandriel ache. He took his time in looking too, enjoying that the angelic being was being made to wait upon his desires.
Samandriel couldn’t help but whine as those hands pinned him down, a far cry from the groan of pleasure he’d let out unbidden when he was being rolled over. He saw no reason to hide how hard all of this was making him, not when he was working to keep his hips still instead of rolling them demandingly up at Michael. “Do I please you, sir?” He’d be more pleasing with his clothes off, he was sure, but it was a start.
Michael completely agreed. “You are adequate, but I see room for improvement. You are not to move from this position until I grant you permission, is that clear?” As much as Michael loved to touch and be touched, finding it better than words when it came to showing Samandriel how he felt for him, it would have been counterintuitive for what he was planning. He did his best to keep his expression stern and stoney, he perhaps didn’t have the control he used to, but it was easy enough maintaining it for now. Samandriel had to earn proof from Michael that he pleased him.
He did eventually remove his hands from Samandriel’s, taking a brief moment to decide the best way of removing his clothing before moving to see to it. His shirt was first, and while Michael didn’t do anything to damage the cloth he was not gentle as he removed it. Yanking it up first before pulling it over his head and then tugging it down his arms. When it was gone he allowed the angel’s arms to return to position as he turned his attention to his pants, undoing then yanking them down in one swift, almost harsh movement before they too joined the little pile on the floor with his shirt.
“There.” he ran two fingers down the center of his chest and stopped just below his belly button, teasing him by very purposefully ignoring his beautiful cock and everywhere else he liked to be touched. “Now you are satisfactory. While you still have permission to speak freely, tell me what you want.”
Samandriel moved exactly how Michael directed him, putting his arms back once his shirt was taken care of and only lifting his hips so that the other man could get his jeans off. It almost pained him to not arch up into that touch when it came. Breathing heavily, he tried to figure out how to articulate what he wanted. Imagination was more powerful than most people could comprehend. Watching Michael above him, he could almost picture the wings he hadn’t seen in person in so very long stretching out behind him. It was a strange portrayal of the medallion the other man used to wear, but Michael had definitely conquered him already.
He hadn’t ever truly been offered this, didn’t know where to begin. “You, sir,” he said, but knew already he was going to be asked to be clearer than that. Michael wasn’t the only one who’d given him orders and then had to pull clarification from him. He would need to be exact or as exact as he could. “To earn the right to be pleasing to you, to make you happy and to see you smile. I want...I want you to fuck me, but I understand if you don’t think I deserve that.” He licked his lips, knowing he was breaking some kind of protocol but needing to say so anyway. “Safe word’s Winchester.” It would be the easiest way to keep communication open between them, something that was of utter importance here. The last thing either of them needed was Samandriel deciding he had to fight in order to communicate a need to pause or stop. Or worse, to have that fight mistaken as the angel being willful which admittedly might happen.
Of course it was. It took every ounce of Michael’s strength to not smile at that. It seemed like he would be forever incapable of escaping the man in one form or another. He had hoped that Gabriel had been joking when he said that Dean was pretty much at the center of everything, but apparently the archangel had been completely serious. And Michael hadn’t even started dreaming yet.
But it wasn’t enough to knock him from his stride, there may have been a slight hint of his amusement with a very tiny twitch at the corner of his mouth but it was over quickly and Michael pressed on. As amusing as it all was it was rather easy to put behind him in favor of the bare angel below him, especially as he had just asked Michael to fuck him. Hearing that want was almost as good as hearing his dear Samandriel play. The blue radiated out of him, turning to tendrils that reached out for Michael as they pulsed with the rhythm of the angel’s voice when he spoke. It was beautiful and Michael would have been happy to give him what he wanted, but they both knew giving in wasn’t what he wanted in that moment.
“I will decide what you deserve.” His movements were deliberate and at his own pace, showing Samandriel that he was the one in control and he would be the one dictating how this went. He took hold of the angel’s chin, holding it hard enough that Michael’s short fingernails dug into that soft skin. “When I want your opinion on the matter I will give it to you.” He hadn’t been that domineering as an officer, it would have been a grave misstep on his part, but here, with Samandriel he could allow himself to be as he had wanted. He let go of his chin, hand moving up to his hair where Michael’s fingernails dug into his scalp and forced him to lean his head back, bringing his chin and lips up. They were dangerously close to Michael’s lips now, a little test to see just how much he was going to have to do to keep the angel in line. “Is that clear?”
There was something in the way Michael was manhandling him that brought out all the defiant parts of Samandriel that no one else dared to prod at. His gaze sharpened, but he let his head be pulled back and resisted that temptation to kiss anyway. He pushed forward, not enough to claim those lips in return, but enough to make it clear he wasn’t going to just lie back and take it. “All respect, sir,” he said lowly, “but you required my opinion.” Michael had asked, and there was a sense of consistency that needed to be made clear. If he asked for something, he was going to get it and Samandriel really didn’t think he had a leg to stand on if he got pissed about it later. Already, this was turning out to be far more intense than he was accustomed to, and the young angel was reveling in it. He had to hope that Michael liked a challenge in return.
Michael could almost feel his blood boiling in the absolute best of ways. Defiance, true defiance and not the nose-thumbing yet ultimately compliant sort of defiance favored by someone like Dean, was not to be tolerated. In the marines he would have drummed the soldier right out of the service or broken him and it would have given him no pleasure to do so, in bed with Samandriel he was going to have to control and quash that defiant spark and he was close to being giddy. Loving submission was fine, but Michael prefered to earn it rather than just have him submit by default, it was the difference between simply being submissive and being submissive to Michael.
His hand tightened in the angel’s hair knowing it pulled but then let him go, moving back a little to grab his wrist. With his strength it was nothing to turn Samandriel onto his stomach and twist his arm into a wristlock behind his back. A basic move that Michael was very familiar with, he knew exactly how much pressure it took to turn the discomfort into real pain, and just where to hold to disable or even break that wrist if he wanted. He didn’t have any desire to break bone or leave any injuries that would have lasted if the angel hadn’t been able to heal, but he was going to show him that he wasn’t going to tolerate any of his lip. He kept the angel’s wrist at the angle and pressure that was right at the threshold of real pain, if Samandriel tried to move or pull away it would hurt and it would be his own fault for disobeying.
Along with the wristlock Michael brought his knee up, pushing it into the small of Samandriel’s back to keep him trapped under him if he thought to try to wiggle free. Then there was Michael’s other hand that wrapped around the back of the angel’s neck, holding tight enough to be an uncomfortable reminder of Michael’s control as he leaned low and half growled into his ear. “I asked you a question, and when I ask you a question you are to answer it as directly as possible. Additional information or commentary, if I require it, I will ask after. It is not your place to decide what I require, it is not your place to think unless told to. You will obey or you will be punished.” He gave him a little taste of what he meant, applying more pressure to his wrist for three seconds then letting off. “Do you understand?”
“What part of ‘tell me what you want’ wasn’t a command I was expected to obey immediately and with as much detail as possible?” Samandriel growled back. Michael was edging closer to not okay territory at least when it came to his communication skills. He hissed with the pressure. At least it wasn’t his bow hand. He might’ve actually lashed out at the man if he’d thought for a second that messing with his bow hand was a good idea. Still, Michael was there and the man’s intensity wasn’t going to be ignored. Inwardly, Samandriel worried that what started out as fight left in him might end up turning into silent resignation. His arm pulled again, and the young angel yelped. “Understood, sir.”
“I did not require your permission nor your understanding to decide what you do or do not deserve.” he clarified, not surprised that the clever little angel could be a bit of a pedant, at least in his eyes. But he was relieved that the little yelp hadn’t sounded much like those screams from that memory or vision Samandriel had shown him. As strong as he was real, terrified and pain filled screams coming from him was too much for him to take.
He adjusted his hold on his wrist, merely holding it now though there was never any real reason for Samandriel to worry about either of his hands. Michael taught holds and combat tactics for a living, he could do it in his sleep and still leave the subject intact. And really, he didn’t want to hurt Samandriel, even if it was getting harder to remember not to go too far. That had to do with Michael’s untapped reserves of aggression more than it did with this little bump in the road and he wasn’t going to visit that on him.
Eventually he let go of his neck and wrist all together and took his knee from Samandriel’s back, telling him again in low, growling tones against his ear, “Don’t move.” Michael moved down him, forcing his legs apart with his knees when he came to kneel between them, left hand splayed over the small of his back to hold him there. He knew his order would be obeyed but when Michael did what he was planning he might try to lift his hips and he wasn’t about to allow that yet. He knew that there was more than likely lube close by and it would have been nothing for him to get it, but in this mindset, his military mindset, he had chosen to make do in the way he had there the few times he had been in this position. He took the whole of his own thumb in his mouth and when it was good and wet he first rubbed it over his entrance twice before pushing it in. This wasn’t like before when he was trying to ready him for his cock, instead his thumb only searched for his prostate and when he found it he rubbed back and forth over it, nearly on the edge of too rough.
That was more like it as far as the both of them being on the same page was concerned. He stayed exactly where Michael put him even though it was a strain to keep his arm where it’d been. He didn’t know how he was going to manage holding that position. Most of the other angels were seemingly so much better at staying still and focused than he was. He was made for running or at the very least fidgeting. Even when Lucifer played with him like this, stillness was something Samandriel had problems with.
It wasn’t much of a surprise then that when Michael’s thumb forced its way inside, his arm shifted just a hair downward to where it might be more comfortable. Samandriel cried out loudly, losing all ability to follow that one simple command while the other man seemed to be doing his best to drive him way too close to the edge already. His arm fell somewhere around the small of his back instead of up closer to the center, but his hips were where he lost it. Instead of pressing up against that hand, he found himself going forward into the mattress away from that sudden intense stimulation. Fingers curled tighter into the sheets as thoughts of what Michael might punish him with filled his head and somehow managed to make his cock even harder against the expensive fabric.
“Tch.” Michael clicked his tongue in disapproval though deep down he hadn’t been surprised, in fact he was happy to get a reaction. But he had commanded him not to move and he had, that demanded a response and an appearance of disapproval. He brought the hand that had once been on his back down to help in this punishment, his knuckles rubbing hard against his perineum as the thumb inside him sped up to a pace that had him almost grinding it into that spot. It wasn’t pleasant, probably closer to painful than Michael had first intended, but he was merciful making sure to stop after a very quick moment. “I told you not to move.” Michael reminded him, his thumb slowing to light circular movements in an effort to calm him a little after that rough touch. “Don’t do it again.”
That hurt just as much as it felt strangely good, a brief blast of far too intense feeling. He swore for a moment that his body was going to make him come out of pure spite for the both of them. It wasn’t pleasant and he was getting off on it. For a breath, Samandriel was sure there was something wrong with him. “Yes, Michael,” he replied, breath ragged and needy. He tried not to give into the desire to close his eyes, to just enjoy the way he was being touched from the inside even if his own knuckles were resolutely staying where Michael put them and at the pressure he left them there. Where he succeeded in keeping still, he failed at not moaning, toes curling and flexing completely outside of Samandriel’s own desires for his body.
[[part two]]