1. South for the Winter

Sam told him, of course. After Carthage, after Death, after all it isn't as if secrets served them. He told Dean about Lucifer in his dreams, told him about saying "no", and Dean approvingly slugged him in the arm, acting as if he understands completely. He doesn't.

Michael is not quite so hands-on as Lucifer, not as seductive nor as tricky. Michael doesn't have to be, because Dean knows himself well enough to know that he's not stupid but he's no where near as smart as Sam.

Or as strong.

He's known that for a while, although he won't tell Sam that. He's known it since the first time Sam took their father on in a knock-down drag-out fight about bed times, when Sam was all of nine. Sam yelled, and argued, and sassed their father, mocking him for leaving them alone to do whatever they wanted for days on end then trying to force them to stop watching TV at eight p.m. when he bothered to show up. Dean remembered standing in the motel room, stunned speechless, as Sam brazenly fought the biggest, baddest, most powerful creature in Dean's world. Sam lost, and lost hard, and their father was a bastard for nearly a week, but Sam had done the one thing Dean never would: fight back. Before that day, Dean did not even know it was possible, it was so far outside of how he viewed his world then. Saying "no" was an outlier, an impossibility and a corruption of the natural order. Sam didn't care about that fact then, and doesn't care now.

Sam is saying "no", arguing "NO" and fighting with "no" and of course Lucifer would have to show up for that. It is fight to win or lose by default. Even an angel can see that.

Dean is thinking "no", hoping that it works, even as he feels himself being pulled apart, or pushed down, he can not quite describe it either way. "Yes" is like waking up and brushing his teeth, it is simply something he needs to do. Necessary. Not doing it is wrong. It is there at the tip of his consciousness every minute of every day, and he pushes and avoids and denies "yes" while drifting closer by shifting and slippery degrees.

Michael does not need to show up for an argument that Dean is trying not to have. He is waiting outside of Dean's senses, at the edge of reality like a ghost haunting a house. Michael is patient in this, and Dean knows why: Dean is weak in battling his purpose, and always had been. He is his father's son, Sam's older brother, the good hunter – his strength is in living up to expectations, not in refusing them.

"Yes" is what is expected of him; "yes" is doing his job; "yes" is bowing to the inevitable. It is abnormal, Dean thinks, that "no" feels incomplete, as if following his free will in order to avert Armageddon is worse than doing nothing. His whole life, "yes" was Purpose, right and true, while "no" was failure and shame.

Sam is battling it like a professional boxer, Dean can see it in every twitch of his younger brother's shoulders, and Dean wants that strength. He wants to turn around and walk away, he wants "no" to feel right, but every morning he wakes up itching and burning with "yes".

One day in between Bobby's and the apocalypse, he watches a flock of birds while he and Sam sit in the Impala eating fast food and slurping sodas. Dean cannot stop staring as they steadily cross the sky, Michael flying them through their genes and bones and blood, pointing them South because they have nowhere else to go.

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