#Just a little differently

[michaelmilligan]

Archangel Week: Michael Home is where your grace is

For the first day of @spnarchangelweek - let's celebrate our favourite celestial guys (gn). 🥳

(Midam, 4.1k post-canon fix-it, also on AO3)

***

When Michael wakes up in Heaven, the first thing he notices is that it's both too bright and less so than he remembers. The second thing he realises is that he's not dead.

It should be a good thing, not being dead, but Michael only too clearly remembers his grace boiling, and his Father's annoyed, but also almost bored expression as he ripped him apart. What he sees now isn't all that comforting either: Castiel is glaring at him, his wings splayed aggressively, while the nephil just looks at him calmly.

It takes Michael a moment to realise that the child is not just a nephil anymore. It takes him even longer to accept it, and as he eventually feels grief wash over him, he realises that it's not for his Father per se, but for who He once was, or at least who Michael thought He was.

When Michael asks why he was brought back, Jack says the most incomprehensible sentence in the history of the world: “You deserved a second chance.”

“I betrayed your fathers,” Michael says, and glances at Castiel. “All of them.”

“For your own father,” Jack says, and it's surreal to see God hesitating, but it happens anyway. “I know how tempting it is to be loyal, to want to be loved... even by a bad father, who made you because he was bored, or who played at loving you to then discard you, and who doesn't deserve your love.”

Again, it takes Michael a moment to understand, but the child's golden wings are too much like Lucifer's for him not to know who he's talking about. It hurts to think that Michael's father is similar to Lucifer, the son who rebelled and who Michael had to cast out.

Back then, it broke Michael's metaphorical heart to carry out his father's order, but he would have torn his own grace out to be the good son, the one most deserving of his father's love.

Looking at Jack, he is starting to see now what Adam meant all the times he implied that being ready to do anything for one person, no matter how harmful, isn't a sign of a healthy relationship. The nephil might not have done anything for his biological father, but he still sacrificed everything for the Winchesters and Castiel.

He's not a child anymore, and God's power ebbs and flows around him like water dragged about by gravitation and wind – a powerful force, the ocean, and able to destroy entire cities within moments, but never by its own volition, always steered by forces outside of its own control.

Michael calms his thoughts. While he can't use Adam's trusty techniques in his True Form – difficult to steady your breathing when you have no lungs or mouth or nose – he can still make himself focus, and make his grace pulse regularly.

It's then, when he concentrates on himself, that he notices it. There's something wrong with his grace – it's subtle, but unsettling now that he realises it, and he directs his eyes to inspect every part of his True Form. It's difficult to see himself, of course, with eyes that are on him, but he finds out quickly enough, anway.

There is indeed something wrong with his grace. It's imperfect – a lot of spots aren't as smooth or continuous as they should be, and his eyes move with great difficulty over those places.

Jack's expression softens at Michael's rising panic, and he holds up a hand of the human form he still seems to favour. “It's okay. You're okay.”

“I'm broken,” Michael says, so loud that Castiel moves in front of Jack, as if a seraph could ever hope to protect God.

“I'm sorry,” Jack just says, coaxing Castiel back to his side. “I think when you died, a few shards of yourself were scattered over Earth.” His brows knit together as he concentrates. “I can still feel their presence in the US. Some were flung further, but not many.”

Michael is silent for a long moment. His father ripped him apart so violently that pieces of him broke off.

“I'm broken,” Michael repeats, much more quietly. He still doesn't understand why he, of all angels, was brought back. He also can't bring himself to ask any questions. While he's almost sure that Jack brought back humanity, that doesn't mean that he returned every single soul who was taken by God.

After all, Adam had no body to return to after Michael got it exploded. Adam had nothing and no one to return to.

If Michael asks, and Adam is dead and gone, then he will have lost everything too. If he asks and Adam is alive, then... well, why would Adam want to see him? Michael is the one who ruined his life, the one who had him pulled from his Heaven with lies and had his underling use him as bait. The one who had him tortured, and who then possessed him, and landed him in Hell for ten – or a thousand – years.

If Adam is back, then he is free for the first time in forever. Free to do what he wants, and to go where he wants, and to eat and sleep like a normal human being.

Free to be with other humans, to share his body and his life with them, instead of having a sun burning in his chest. Free to go to college, now that he doesn't have an archangel inside of him.

Yes, Adam is free, and Michael is alone, and if that's the punishment for all that he has done, then he will gladly take it.

Jack is talking again, about other angels he has brought back, and rebuilding Heaven, but Michael is barely listening. How is he meant to face the host when he is broken like this, and when the father whose rules he enforced with an iron fist over millennia has turned out to be a lying, pity creature who destroys his own creation at a whim?

No, it's better for Michael to leave Heaven and search for the pieces of him that are missing. If he's lucky, it will take a long time.

That last part, he doesn't say, but Jack still looks so sympathetic that Michael thinks he may have heard it anyway.

He finds the first shard easily. It's in the Atlantic Ocean, somewhere between South Carolina and Morocco, and Michael spends some time with the local deep sea squids, who not only found the shard and seem to revere it, but who also appear to realise that it rightfully belongs to Michael.

He is almost certain that both males and females are trying to court him, but they always hastily withdraw when they get too close and get the tip of a tentacle burned.

The squids seem sad when Michael leaves, but he's not on Earth to make friends, not even among such friendly creatures.

The shard of grace slots seamlessly back into him, closing one of the cracks in his True Form. That's all he wants from this trip – to feel a little more like himself.

Whatever or whoever 'himself' is. Michael tries not to think about it too much, fearing that he'll find out he's irreparably bad or useless.

The next shard, according to the images Jack passed onto Michael, came down in Carmichael's Village, Bahamas. Michael tries not to be disquieted by the name, or by the fact that it's on land and there are humans all around.

The thought of taking a vessel makes Michael feel sick – sidling up next to a human soul that isn't Adam's seems wrong, almost obscene. So for the moment, hidden in the mid-day sun in a cloudless sky, Michael just shifts above Lake Killamey, reaching out for the shard.

He doesn't feel it. Down in the ocean, once he was in the general vicinity of the shard, he could feel it reaching for him, longing to be part of the whole again.

But here, there is nothing. Michael doesn't believe that any human could hide a piece of himself from his senses, so the most logical explanation is that the shard is gone.

After all, Jack didn't tell him where the shards are now. He just passed on images of where they landed after Michael was exploded. Michael doesn't understand why – shouldn't it be easy for Jack to figure out the current locations of the shards? Is he making this intentionally difficult for Michael, so he'll take longer? But if so, why tell him where they used to be at all?

Deep in contemplation, Michael pulls himself away from the Bahamas and towards the next spot from Jack's memories. It's supposed to be in Tate Hell's State Forest, and again, Michael tries hard not to bristle.

Again, there are humans there, and with some clouds in the sky, it's more difficult for Michael to hide his bright True Form. Not that he even stays for long – again, he can't feel the shard here, even when he's pretty sure he's drifted right over the spot where it's supposed to have fallen.

He moves on, mystified. Are the pieces of him so obvious that humans find them and carry them away? Perhaps they are – the squids found that piece of him, too, and the only reason they didn't move it seems to have been out of respect.

Humans aren't exactly known to be respectful.

The next few places are a bust, too. Winchester, Kentucky. Marysville, Michigan. Michael's Bay, Ontario Canada.

The names are starting to grate at him, and the fact that none of his pieces are where they fell doesn't bode well.

Best case scenario, the humans have brought his shards all to the same place, like a museum. Worst case scenario, they're all in different places, and it will take him ages to figure out where.

Though maybe that wouldn't be so bad. Wasn't he hoping for a long search before?

The next spot is one Michael thinks about putting last on his list, but then he tells himself not to be a coward. St. Michael, Minnesota, is only about 150 miles from Windom, but the chances of Adam being in either place are slim. That is, assuming he is even alive.

At first, Michael thinks he's done it – hovering over the so aptly named town, he can feel the presence of some of his grace. Maybe the townspeople have recognised what they have, like the squids, and revere it in the church. But then he realises that the pull doesn't come from the church, and not even from the town. It's from somewhere further away, and is just stronger than what he felt from the one shard he found so far.

It might be a collection of pieces, then, he thinks as he moves in that direction. It leads him south west of Minneapolis, and for a crazy moment he thinks that he will land in Windom after all, but then he realises that the pull comes from a place near Titlow Lake. Not the town right next to the lake, but a piece of woods.

There aren't any humans there, he thinks, and drifts lower to scout it more closely. Has someone hidden his grace here, thinking no one would find it? But where?

Finally, Michael finds a clearing, and on it, a little cabin with a vegetable garden out the back and patches of herbs in the front. It might belong to a witch, Michael thinks, and descends further. He has no love for witches, and who knows what they want to use his grace for. Better to burn out the human's eyes and melt their brain than to let them continue.

Birds are startled into flight when Michael comes down onto the cabin, which shakes and rattles. Michael isn't above a little property damage or manslaughter to get what he wants, so he just surges right in, pooling in the room where he feels the pull the strongest.

A human is standing there, next to a chair that has fallen over, and a frightened voice intones a spell when-

“Michael?” the human asks, their voice and body shaking.

The spell breaks, and through the dissipating magic, Michael recognises Adam.

He's older, Michael realises, and it suddenly hits him that he never asked how long he was dead. It must have been ten years at least, judging from Adam's changed physique. He's no longer a puny nineteen-year old. There's stubble on his chin, and his features are sharper, more developed. His cheekbones are more visible, and his shoulders seem broader, and-

Adam has grown up. Without Michael, his body has grown older, and it has changed with his diet and exercise.

“Michael?” Adam asks again, his eyes still wide. “What- I don't-”

HELLO, ADAM, Michael finally says, and only remembers how loud his True Voice is to humans when Adam winces slightly. I'M SORRY, I DIDN'T MEAN TO DISTURB YOU.

Michael thinks that for a moment, hurt flashes over Adam's face, but then his expression is guarded.

“What are you talking about?” Adam asks. “I thought- Sam and Dean said you were dead. I- There were pieces of your grace...”

Adam looks away, closing his eyes for a moment. When he looks back at Michael, his expression is almost pleading.

Only then does Michael realise that Adam must have been the one to collect his shards. He must have gone all over the US and beyond to get them, and he brought them here, to this cabin.

YOU WENT TO THE BAHAMAS FOR MY GRACE? Michael asks, stunned.

They never went to the Bahamas, in the time between the Cage and Adam being taken from him. They talked about it, and Adam mentioned how he always wanted to go, but never could.

“Yeah.” Adam shifts on his feet. His Adam's apple bobs up and down. “That was so much freaking work. I even had to ask Sam to get me a fake passport. It really sucks being legally dead. And Canada was almost worse, you know.”

What little Michael knows about international travel, he gleamed from jokes Adam made when they were out of the cage. How an archangel flying him was so much more convenient than taking a plane, and how he didn't even need to go through customs.

Michael doesn't think that Adam ever flew anywhere in his old life, back before the ghouls, so his knowledge would have been second-hand at best. But apparently the horrors of travelling via plane are real.

YOU DIDN'T HAVE TO DO THAT, Michael says, saddened that Adam has apparently wasted his time searching for pieces of him. He's not sure how much he knew about where those were, but judging from how old he is now, it may have taken a long time. Ten years, maybe more, if he started collecting right away.

“Yeah, well,” Adam says, and it sounds defensive, “I didn't know you were alive, so.”

I WASN'T. NOT UNTIL THREE DAYS AGO, Michael tells him. He explains a bit about his quest to be complete again, and Adam just listens, tension seeping from his shoulders when he understand how little time has passed for Michael.

“It's been fourteen years, Michael,” he then says, quietly, an explanation and an accusation rolled into one. “I- I thought you weren't coming back.”

A REASONABLE ASSUMPTION, Michael says, because he doesn't know how to deal with the tears in Adam's eyes, or with the ache in his own grace.

It's not the cracks that are aching, except maybe they are, in a way that the rest of his grace longs to be reunited with – with what? The shards of grace that Adam has somewhere in this cabin? Adam's soul?

He knows that he won't get the latter. Like Adam said, it has been fourteen years, and Adam has a life without him now.

WOULD YOU GIVE THEM TO ME? Michael asks. He knows he doesn't have to right to demand anything from Adam. Even though the shards are from his grace, he knows that he won't pressure Adam if he doesn't want to give them back.

He painstakingly collected them, which is far more than Michael could have ever hoped for, and even if he only wants to use the grace for spells, that's alright.

Michael would like to be complete, but hurting Adam is not an option. The last time he betrayed him – betrayed his memory – it literally broke him.

“I'm sorry,” Adam says, and he really does sound sorry, but the implication is clear.

THAT'S ALRIGHT. For a moment, Michael made himself believe that Adam collected those shards for him, and not for some spell. Delusion is a powerful thing, he thinks.

“I thought you weren't coming back,” Adam says again, and his expression is pleading, as if willing him to understand something. Michael just isn't sure what, yet. “I mean, I collected all those pieces of you, and- and for years, I put them in this enchanted box. It can't break, you know, I'm still storing stuff in there... But five, six years in... I don't know, it's stupid, but it felt almost like your grace was calling out, like... like it was asking not to be alone anymore. Fuck, that's so stupid.”

NO. Michael thinks of how his grace seemed to yearn for him, pulling him close. Maybe there were still traces of him in Adam, he thinks, and a part of him wants to smile at the thought, even though he doesn't have a mouth to do that with. WHAT DID YOU DO WITH IT?

“I, um... You know, there's lore about people absorbing grace, or some other power, and I think you came in that way when you possessed me and...” Adam trails off, and his eyes are wide when he says: “I drank it.”

Michael blinks at him. YOU DRANK MY GRACE?

“Yeah. I- I'm sorry, I think it might be in my soul, or, uh, near it, and I don't know if we can get it back out.” Adam puts a hand on his chest as he speaks, and Michael looks at him more closely.

His soul is still bright and beautiful, maybe even more so with the inhuman blue glow that emanates from parts of it. It looks like cracks were filled with a somewhat off-colour – Adam's soul is already blue, but a little lighter than Michael's grace, and not as shiny.

Adam filled his cracked soul with Michael's grace to be complete again.

Or maybe Michael's grace invaded his soul, Michael thinks with horror, burning into it.

DID IT HURT? he asks, shaken.

Adam seems surprised. “No, not it was like...” He gulps. “Almost like you came home.”

Home. Michael's grace settling in Adam's soul felt like him coming home.

“I'm so sorry, if I had known you'd come back for those pieces...”

NO. I'M SORRY THAT I DIDN'T COME BACK SOONER.

Adam's lower lip wobbles. “Michael, you were dead,” he says, his voice choked up and eyes wet.

YES, AND IT'S MY OWN FAULT. IF I HADN'T HELPED MY FATHER- Michael stops, a burning shame in his grace because he regrets saying it. Not because it's incorrect – it's not – but because he doesn't want Adam to know.

But Adam just nods. “Yeah, I know what you did. And I also know that it's exactly what Sam and Dean wanted. Those assholes were using you the whole time.”

OH, Michael makes. He never thought that the Winchesters could have been manipulating him. Historically, he has been the one to do the manipulating.

“Yeah,” Adam says, his expression grave.

If they were still together, Michael thinks, he would be able to hear Adam's thoughts, and feel what he feels. It would be a lot easier to navigate both their feelings, then, with them pressing grace to soul, and helping the other unravel his tangle of emotions.

But they're not together like that anymore, and Adam already filled his cracks, has become whole again.

ADAM, Michael says, and then doesn't know how to continue. That one word would usually be enough to convey everything, but Adam's soul is so far away, and it has been fourteen years. Finally, Michael adds: CAN I COME BACK?

“What?” Adam blinks at him.

HERE. OR SOMEWHERE ELSE. I KNOW YOU MUST HAVE OTHER THINGS TO DO THAN SEE ME, BUT MAYBE...

Adam stares at him with an expression that Michael can't read. Finally, he shakes his head. If Michael had a stomach, it would plummet now.

“Michael, are you anxious?” Adam asks. Maybe he means it to be playful, but it comes across as accusing.

Or at least Michael feels defensive. IT'S NOT AS IF YOU COULD STOP ME IF I CAME BACK. I JUST THOUGHT SOME BASIC COURTESY WOULD BE NICE.

“You don't do basic courtesy,” Adam says.

I would for you, Michael thinks.

“You know I can't read your thoughts right now,” Adam says, and sighs. “I mean, we haven't talked to each other without being in each other's head for what, a thousand years?”

MORE, Michael says, and thinks back to their first meeting, back in the Green Room. Adam said yes surprisingly quickly, still a wide-eyed teenage Christian boy at the time, despite having already been manipulated by angels.

If Adam knew back then what would happen, would he have said no?

Would Michael have asked him if he knew what Adam would mean to him some day?

“Point is, I can't tell what you really mean this way,” Adam continues. “Do you really want to stop by every now and then, or do you just feel guilty about everything and think you have to repent? If I tell you what I really want, are you going to laugh at me, or are you going to go along with it out of shame and pity?”

Michael brings more eyes to rest on Adam, even though it's still difficult to manoeuvre them over the cracks in his grace. WHAT IS IT THAT YOU REALLY WANT?

The sentence makes Michael think of a song that Adam sang in the cage sometimes. It said 'I'll tell you what I want, what I really, really want.' and then... well.

Michael doesn't think what Adam wants is like in the song.

“Okay, so, promise me you won't make any rash decisions, but... I'd like you back. In here, with me.” Adam puts a hand on his chest.

YES, Michael says.

“Dude, I just said no rash decisions! It's just... you know, I think maybe that's the only way to get that grace back to you, or maybe at least get you close enough to it to feel complete again? I don't know, we were pretty close before, my soul and your grace-”

YES, Michael says again.

Adam bites his lip. “Can you just... take a moment to think about it?”

WHY? Michael asks. This is everything he wants in this world – to be back with Adam, curled around his soul, knowing exactly what his best friend thinks and wants. He wants to talk to him, and have petty squabbles with him about whether Britney Spears or Avril Lavigne is better, and hear him bitch about how there are too many Pokémon nowadays.

He wants to fly Adam to three shitty diners in a row, complaining the whole time how that greasy, salty stuff he eats isn't good for him, but keeping his body in prime condition as they speak. There's nothing in the world he wants more than to sit and watch a sunset with him, only to then fly to another time zone and watch the next sunset there.

I WANT TO BE WITH YOU, Michael just says. THAT HASN'T CHANGED. I JUST THOUGHT YOU WOULDN'T WANT THAT ANYMORE.

“Are you kidding me? I literally drank your grace to have at least a piece of you back with me,” Adam says, and when he puts it like that...

SO WILL YOU LET ME IN? Michael asks.

“Yes.” It's almost a sigh, but it's clear enough, and Michael is careful as he filters into Adam's body, filling him with so much more grace than those few shards he found.

It's exciting when he finds his place next to Adam's soul again, and before he knows it, Adam presses against him – and then slides into the cracks in Michael's grace like he belongs there.

ARE YOU ALRIGHT? Michael asks, alarmed even in his exaltation. Is Adam spreading himself thin like this? Will he loose himself in Michael's grace?

But Adam only radiates happiness and content.

I'm great, he says in their shared mind-space. You're home.

I'M HOME, Michael repeats, and holds Adam tightly, feeling him sink a little more into his grace. WE'RE HOME.

He feels Adam do the equivalent of a smile. Yeah, we're both home.

In their body. Inside each other.

This is where they belong.

[butchfalin]

the funniest meltdown ive ever had was in college when i got so overstimulated that i could Not speak, including over text. one of my friends was trying to talk me through it but i was solely using emojis because they were easier than trying to come up with words so he started using primarily emojis as well just to make things feel balanced. this was not the Most effective strategy... until. he tried to ask me "you okay?" but the way he chose to do that was by sending "👉🏼👌🏼❓" and i was so shocked by suddenly being asked if i was dtf that i was like WHAT???? WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY TO ME?????????? and thus was verbal again

[bereft-of-frogs]

There’s that post that’s like ‘everyone should get into a tiny niche fandom at least once’ fully agree, that was really fun -- but I would like to add that everyone should get into a fandom where their opinions run counter to major fanon because it really teaches you about sticking to your guns and trusting your interpretation of the text without having to rely on peer validation

because WHAT are people talking about sometimes

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

the fact that shakespeare was a playwright is sometimes so funny to me. just the concept of the "greatest writer of the English language" being a random 450-year-old entertainer, a 16th cent pop cultural sensation (thanks in large part to puns & dirty jokes & verbiage & a long-running appeal to commoners). and his work was made to be watched not read, but in the classroom teachers just hand us his scripts and say "that's literature"

just...imagine it's 2450 A.D. and English Lit students are regularly going into 100k debt writing postdoc theses on The Simpsons screenplays. the original animation hasn't even been preserved, it's literally just scripts and the occasional SDH subtitles.txt. they've been republished more times than the Bible

[hollis-art]

i keep seeing redesigns of them as humans so i decided to throw my hat into the ring

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

The squad of all time has arrived on scene.

[illuminatedferret]

post-canon fics where hua cheng gets amnesia'd back into wuming, who inevitably finds out His Beloved Is Married always read like the meme "I'll be his second husband." (what happened to the first?) "Nothing you can prove."

jump to xie lian, who knows exactly what mental contortions the love of his life would go to rather than recognize that xie lian loves him, deciding to humor wuming's murder fantasy for shits and giggles. 'you want to murder my husband, wuming? hm, i dont know... he is nice. except for the time he proposed to me and then immediately walked it back as a joke- oh, you'd treat me better than that? you'd never do something so cruel? well... im listening.'

cue hua cheng getting his memories back like "gege i thought we were over this. gege. gege stop laughing. gege please. i said sorry!"

[beebeedibapbeediboop]

Chained

[dokupine]

peach

[grey-viridian]

Leonardo

I finished this comic about a month ago but couldn't bring myself to post it. It started as a simple illustration and then I just kept adding more and more and at some point I had to stop myself and cut the story short. I'm still not entirely satisfied with the result but... well. I like it. That's enough.

[akanemnon]

How to be an annoying little jerk 101

FIRST - PREVIOUS - NEXT

MASTERPOST (for the full series / FAQ / reference

[lithium-poet]

i'd see you in the hall like "hello, hello" up against the wall like "let's go, let's go" ⋅˚₊‧ ୨୧ ‧₊˚ ⋅꩜

𝓁ℴ𝓋ℯ, 𝒶𝓇𝒶𝒷ℯ𝓁𝓁𝒶

[jojosaur]

Day - 7

[askfordoodles]

"Young man, you cut that tsundere bullshit, I know what you're doing, I wasn't born yesterday." - Secret Brat Tamer Volkarin

[hinamie]

7/3: pov u r nanami kento pleased that i managed to pull smth together in time for your bday

[machinerot]