SPN: The First Born: Part Five

[justforspite]

Part Five
those delusions of grandeur

He slept through most of the night, only waking once when he felt the pinch of a needle in his arm. He woke with a start only to be comforted by Sam watching over him, a close eye on the nurse administering the intravenous. He knew it would have to happen eventually and he also knew Sam would wait until he was asleep.

Dean could hear his brother praying under his breath, pretending to read a hospital supplied Bible. The familiar lilt of Latin was only recognizable to him. When the nurse left, Sam leaned over and quietly said, “Don’t worry.” And it was all he had to say. Dean closed his eyes and drifted back off to rest.

“But I’m not tired,” he said with a yawn and a frown. “I wanna watch the game with daddy.” He’d been waiting up for his father to finish his shift at the plant for a few hours now. “It’s your bedtime Dean. There’s no way around it.” “It’s not fair,” he mumbled. She sighed with a small smile. “Would I be a good mommy if I let you stay up?” “Yes,” he nodded with authority. She leaned in close to him, “Okay. And when you’re all sleepy in the morning and you have bags under your eyes,” she pulled down her own bottom lid and made a face that made him giggle. She smiled, “Would I be a good mommy to let that happen?” His eyes widened. He knew this was a trick question. If only he could catch it. “Umm, no?” Nuts! Mommy’s were good! She tickled his stomach. Mary Winchester kissed the top of her son’s head, “Goodnight baby.” “Night mommy,” he said, hugging onto her. She lifted him into her arms, “Come on, let’s say goodnight to your brother.”

He woke with a start. The windowless room was dark and he felt momentarily disoriented. “Sam?”

“I’m here,” the younger Winchester said, turning on the side lamp. Dean squinted against the light and looked into his brother’s tired face. He raised his hand to stifle a yawn when he paused, seeing the tube coming from the crook of his arm.

“Guess they didn’t sneak any potassium chloride into me while I was sleeping,” he sighed and shifted his gaze, “Always something to wake up happy about,” he grumbled.

“I watched you all night,” Sam said with a yawn of his own.

Worry passed over Dean’s face. “Yeah, you look it.”

Sam shook his head with a smile, “Gee, thanks.”

Dean set his jaw in determination and sat up as much as he could without his brain oozing out of his ears. “Time to check out,” he said. “We need a place away from—” He searched for the word but was coming up short.

“People?” Sam said with doubt.

“It’s not that impossible,” he defended.

Sam snorted, “Not if you’re the Unabomber.”

Dean shook his head, “You need to get some sleep. You look half dead.”

Sam’s mouth fell open, “This coming from you?”

His brother narrowed his eyes on him, “Funny geek boy. You’re no good to anyone if you start getting loopy.” Sam knew he didn’t have an argument against that. His vision was starting to wobble. He shook his head and tapped the IV bag.

“You have to be here.”

Dean sighed, “No, I have to stay medicated. This shit comes in pill form.”

---

The Great Escape involved a felony ‘visit’ to the nurses locker room, a pilfered ID tag, a raid of the medication cabinet that would get most 5-10 years in prison, and a grumpy big brother in a nearly broken down wheel chair.

“You look ridiculous,” he mumbled as they passed the elevator bank. The only set of scrubs Sam could ‘find’ were three inches too short for him. “Like that Urkle kid.”

“Who?”

Dean sighed, “Christ, you make me feel old.”

“Four years Dean, boo hoo.”

“And a significant pop culture reference,” he pointed out.

“Dude, MySpace. That’s all I have to say to you. MySpace.”

Dean smiled, “I was right though. It is a porn site.” He leaned back and looked up into the face of his green-masked brother. “And I—” He raised one finger, “Am her #1.” He shifted back in the wheelchair smiling. “And the #1 of many, many, many others.” He grinned.

It was Sam’s turn to grumble. He didn’t know how his brother did it but he had some uncanny magic touch with women and children. The only girl who didn’t go heads over heels for Dean had been Meg and she was possessed by a damn demon. He’d explained the concept of MySpace to him in a few minutes, went to get lunch and came back to see his brother swimming in friend’s requests (all accompanied by photos he couldn’t come near to identify as simply racy). All were females.

Taking a taxi back to Wal-Mart, they got into the Impala. The morning sky was dark with one massive low-lying cloud covering the world with impassable grey. Dean looked worn out from their little adventure. Sam wasn’t in the best condition to drive but he caught his focus and turned on the engine. The sound of the tumble and roar brought a smile to Dean’s face and it was just enough for Sam to push the sleep from his mind and head out onto the highway. He turned on the radio and heard that the storm from the north would be passing down through the area the next morning.

“We’ll just keep going south.”

“You should probably stay local,” Dean pondered.

“Local?”

“You’re tired and we won’t need a demon attack if you jump a guardrail.”

He shrugged, “I’ll get a shot of espresso, or a Red Bull—”

Dean smirked, “And jump a guardrail—with wings.”

Sam snorted, “Okay, compromise. We’ll get a room, I’ll get a few hours, then we head out in front of the storm?”

“Deal.” Dean turned out to the window and watched the dry, leaf-less trees fly by. “We can’t hide forever,” he said quietly.

Sam heard him but didn’t respond.

---

Another night, another room. After stopping off in Casper, WY for a power nap, they left Natrona County and headed south towards Colorado. They would have stayed longer in Casper if Dean hadn’t joked about hiding from demons in a town named after a friendly ghost. Sam wigged out (he took irony very seriously) and, with only three hours of sleep, they left. Finally stopping for the night in Logan County Colorado, they kept as low a profile as possible with Dean staying in the car as Sam checked into the Salida Motel. They were about 160 miles south of the Wal-Mart of Doom and the rote of their lives was becoming painfully obvious with the addition of anticipation. Sam ringed the room in rock salt as Dean curled up under the covers of his bed. The afternoon quickly became evening and when his eyes opened again, the room was dark and quiet.

He looked over to his brother’s form on the opposite bed. Sam was asleep with his shotgun on the floor within arms reach. Dean stared up at the ceiling and tried, once again since leaving the hospital, to make some sense out of what he’d learned from his reaper the night before-

A) He wasn’t a demon
B) He scared the yellow-eyed demon shitless
C) The Demon had lost some of his mystique with the awareness of his real name: Azrael.
(Dean snickered and wondered about Gargamel—probably another reference that would be lost on Sam)
D) Who, or what he was, his name began with Mi—

Now, of course, Dean wasn’t prepared to think the obvious because that was just some serious fucked up shit right there. There was no way in heaven or hell, nor anywhere in between, that he was who she’d thought he was. No way. No chance. Whatever they smoke to tweak out on the other side, she was on it. The most he would allow himself to imagine was perhaps he was an assistant of an assistant for . . . or a message boy who once delivered a letter for . . . his head hurt. Maybe he was the angelic shoe shiner for . . .

There was no chance he was Michael.

The Archangel.

The only named archangel in the canonical Bible.

The first being God ever created.

That meant, really, that one day, a couple of gazillion years ago; it was just God, Michael and a foosball table to entertain themselves. God, Michael and a long-ass game of freeze tag. God and Michael. Period.

Talk about delusions of grandeur.

He was the patron saint of Demon-butt whopping and Dean’s idol. He kicked Satan out of Heaven with a dirty look and was the general of the Armies of Heaven. Sammy liked Han Solo. Han Solo could kiss Michael’s ass.

Dean felt like shit just comparing himself to him. The best miracle he’d ever managed to conjure was downing three purple motherfuckers, two shots of José, and a .46 magnum without vomiting out his lungs the next day. It wasn’t exactly a feat worthy of canonization. He’s been described [by Sam] as a womanizer, he hustles pool, he cheats ridiculously well at poker and he’s been known to kick ass on occasion. Above all else, he didn’t hold the kind of spiritual fortitude that would justify this alleged rebirth. Michael would be a priest by now, or the Dalai Lama, or . . . Oprah, not Dean Winchester, Community College dropout, captain of the disillusioned faithless.

Trying to sleep when one’s brain was going 90 miles an hour wasn’t the best plan he’d ever had. He got up and rolled quietly out of bed. He wasn’t sure if he should be upset or proud that his feverish steps were still too quiet for Sam to hear. His little brother was either really tired, seriously off his game or Dean was still just really good at what he did. He voted for really tired. Either way he went to the couch and sat down in the dark, just peering out between the space in the Venetian blinds.

He didn’t think about what he was, too much skepticism and denial existed for him to accept that. Instead he thought about what he wasn’t. Why The De- why Azrael was hell-bent on sending him to Tra La La. He wasn’t, his soul wasn’t, a human’s. It . . . it made him feel sick and cold. All his life he’d hunted the Supernatural and now he felt like a liar. Like a hypocrite. If there was one thing in Dean Winchester’s life that he hated most, it was hypocrisy. He’d lived his whole life in a lie.

He leaned back and smelled the Febreze in the old upholstery. “What the hell am I?” He wondered aloud. Sam jolted up, shotgun in hand. “Whoa tiger,” Dean said with a smile.

“Dean? What are you doing up?” Sam asked, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.

There was no chance in hell that he’d tell Sam how he’d been ‘contemplating his origins’ in the dark for over an hour. Instead, he pointed to Sam’s laptop which sat on the small table in front of him.

“Gonna check something out,” he said.

“O-okay,” Sam frowned. “You okay?”

Dean smiled, “No.”

Sam hummed a little, “Okay.”

“Go back to sleep.”

Sam groaned, knowing there was nothing he could do to make Dean open up. He fell back onto his bed and was asleep in a second.

His lie became the truth when he opened up the computer and started poking around the internet. He needed something to do. Occupy his mind. The first thing on his list was to look up ‘Azrael’. He knew more about demons than he did about fallen angels, but the name did ring a bell (and outside of The Smurfs).

Angel of Death, four faces, eyes, tongues everywhere, “Gro-ooss,” Dean sing-songed. Nothing about his fall but one thing he noted as important: During the great plagues of Egypt, when God took the lives of all the firstborn, it was Azrael he sent to collect their souls. “Remind me to never piss-off God,” he muttered. Sam stirred. He’d need more information and with Pastor Jim gone, he’d need a different source for canonical and apocryphal texts.

The second thing on his list was an afterthought really. He’d almost stopped himself twice, both times typing and erasing ‘M-I’. Eventually he put in the full name and scanned over the results. There wasn’t anything he didn’t already know. He had to admit it, as he trailed site after site—it would be awesome if it were true. He’d probably geek out. Could you geek out over yourself?

“Hmm . . .” A particular website caught his attention.
www.amazingben.com/arf0101.html

Badass of the Week: The Archangel Michael

Imagine the biggest, meanest, most badass evil diabolical puppy-kicking spine-crushing insane-o demon you can possibly think of. Then multiply that by infinity and you get SATAN, the Lord of All Evil and Infernal Ruler of Hell. And presumably nothing could possibly be more badass than Lucifer, the Morning Star, the King of All Evil Unholy Spikey-Headed Pissed-Off Devils and his host of demon spawn. So he should be the Badass of the Week for crying out loud because he's the fucking Prince of Eternal Darkness right?

Wrong.

In recent years, the term "Angel" has become more or less synonymous with "pussy". It conjures up images of disproportionately huge-breasted ninety-pound lingerie-clad Victoria's Secret models having sweaty pillow fights in the clouds while innocent-looking fat kids play the harp and blow kisses at butterflies and rainbows or fly around on their white wings and shoot love arrows at teenage couples having picnics in the park on sunny summer afternoons or some other such fruity shit. Well people tend to forget that the most hardcore of all Harley-riding, heavy metal-listening, battle-axe wielding, cocaine-snorting bastards got his shit fucking annihilated by the biggest badass of all the Archangels.

Just to refresh your memory, the story goes like this: Once upon a time Lucifer was this high-ranking Angel who didn't think he was getting the props he deserved so he decided he was going to start kicking some ass and try to see if he could run the show himself. He recruited one-third of all the Angels in Heaven to join up with him David Koresh-style and try to overthrow the big man upstairs. So one day God and everybody are chilling out and this fucking insane-o motherfucking demon busts through the pearly gates ready to kick fucking asses and making the lesser angels (the fat kids and VS models) piss themselves:

Satan: Hey d00dz I'm in charge now

Holy shit everybody thinks they're totally fucked because look at this motherfucker. He's a fucking huge red monster with gleaming talons and spikes covering one-third of his body and glowing eyes and he looks PISSED. But instead of handing over St. Peter's keys like some kind of two-dollar pussy carjacking victim, God takes one look at this thing and is just like, "Mike, show this fucking douchebag the door". The Archangel Michael calmly nods his head, slowly takes the cigarette out of his mouth and flicks it onto the floor, cracks his knuckles and confidently strides towards Lucifer.

OMG PWNED

Michael doesn't just whip Lucifer's ass, he completely fucking humiliates him by slamming him face-first to the turf and then stepping on his head for no reason other than to be a jackass. I mean, Michael has huge-ass wings so he doesn't even need to set foot on the ground for any reason, but he's badass enough to know that when you're jacking the Prince of Darkness' shit up royally for fucking with your boss, you might as well get your digs in there and add to the humiliation of his defeat. In case you didn't notice, Michael's not even breaking a sweat here either. He's just that hardcore.

But maybe it's not enough for you that Mike is the only living entity to ever defeat the living embodiment of Pure Evil in single combat. Well according to Hebrew, Christian and Muslim myth, he's not only credited with kicking Lucifer's ass but also whipping several other lesser Devils' balls off as well.

For instance when the Demon Belial, the Angel of Darkness and the Patron of Idolatry, flipped out Antichrist-style and proclaimed himself to be the Messiah who do you think had to step in and Layeth the Almighty Smacketh Down? Jesus? Whatever. Belial and his army, the Sons of Darkness, met up with Michael and his Sons of Light and they had an old-school throwdown.

Michael executes his Limit Break Special Attack and trashes some bozos.

Michael, the patron saint of getting shit done, went off and started kicking asses all over the place, tearing the Demon Belial a new asshole and wrecking the shit of his stupid "Army of Pussies" (Michael's term for them, not mine). He was so insane in the battle that he even beat fifteen fiery demons to death with their own arms.

But that's not even the end of it. According to the Kabbalah the fallen Seraphim Samael, the Angel of Death and the Demon of Lust and Wrath, tried to start shit with Moses and the Israelites while they were trolling around in the desert with the Ark of the Covenant. Once again Michael is the dude who has to step in and stomp some faces. He shows up and tells Samael that he better pack up and get the fuck out of Dodge while he still has the use of his appendages but Samael keeps talking shit so Michael finally agrees to face him mano-e-mano in a one-on-one duel.

Yeah, that demon doesn't look too happy. But that's what you get for fucking with the Big M. You get your goddamned neck stepped on so hard that your eyes bug out of your head. Michael goes out and battles all these crazy demons, fallen angels and dudes who have names that sound like they should be shitty Scandinavian death metal album titles, and he manages to ruin their collective asses like a ten foot-tall soccer hooligan in an albino nerd-filled mosh pit at E3. Oh, and then he steps on their heads to prove how hard he is.

In addition to being the big man's personal enforcer, Michael is the patron of Chivalry and Knightly Orders, which is badass. He's also the Defender of Justice, the Healer of the Sick, the Shepherd of the Righteous and an all-around kickass motherfucker in all three major Abrahamic traditions. Now I'm exactly not a religious man, but I'd be remiss in making Satan the Badass of the Week while not giving credit to the guy who Pedigreed him Triple H-style onto a bed of tacks and then stepped on his stupid horned head. I mean if you can honestly look at that ridiculous picture of Michael desecrating Lucifer's unconscious body like a passed out jock at a frat party and tell me that Satan's the most badass mythological creature ever, then there's something wrong.

By the time he finished reading that, he was laughing so hard that Sam actually ran over to see if he were okay.

“Dean?!”

He toppled over onto the couch unable to stop laughing.

“What’s up with you?”

With a hard knock at the door, Dean’s humor died.

Part SIX