#human michael

“As an archangel, it was impossible not to think about at least three things at any given time,” he said, looking up from the earth to the sunset again. “As a... whatever I am now, it's much easier to just look, and feel, and not think anything in particular.”

A hesitant hand came to rest over Michael's on the deck, and he looked up at Adam's bright blue eyes. They had changed too, with Michael's absence. They were calmer, somehow, maybe deeper, and – if it was possible – kinder.

Adam had always been the more level-headed one out of the two of them, but he had still carried grief and anger with him in an intensity that may have torn a weaker man apart. But now, his gaze was unguarded, and seemed to look straight into Michael's (maybe not purely metaphorical) soul.

“Do you miss it?” Adam's eyes flitted down to their hands, and he curled his fingers to hold Michael's darker ones.

His vessel had not been of his own choosing. If it had been, it may have resembled Adam more closely. Instead, he had curly black hair that he was trying to grow out, and skin several shades darker than Adam's. They contrasted nicely like this though, Michael thought as he watched their hands together.

All in all, it was a good vessel. The grief he felt didn't come from its shape, but from the fact that Adam's soul wasn't in it.

“Being an archangel? Yes, I miss it,” Michael said, and felt Adam's hand twitching around his. “If only because it was the only way of being I ever knew and understood. Being what I am now – a human, I suppose... I don't know how to be that.”

Adam shifted closer to him on the deck and pressed their shoulders together.

“It took me a long time, too. To learn to be human again.” A corner of his mouth ticked upwards. “And I had already been one.”

“You learned to live without me,” Michael said, and then wished he hadn't spoken when the only answering sound was a slight rustling of the breeze in the grass. But Adam was still leaning against his shoulder, even if silently, so Michael mustered up courage to continue. “Could you maybe... learn to live with me again?”

He knew that it was too much to ask. Michael had already landed Adam in hell, and had then failed to protect him from his Father. It was unfair to ask for more – to ask for Adam to say yes to him again, in this changed state of being that even Michael didn't understand.

But Adam smiled, and moved his hand to fully intertwine their fingers. “Did you really think I'd let you go, now that I just got you back?”

“I can't help you,” Michael whispered. “Can't fly you anywhere, can't make people give you food, can't- I can't do anything.” His voice broke on the last part as the lump in his throat made tears well in his eyes.

“You don't have to do any of that.” Adam squeezed his hand again. “You don't have to do anything except be here. Do you think you can manage that?”

Adam's eyes were almost challenging, but there was also so much joy in them that Michael almost let his tears fall.

Almost.

“Yes,” he whispered. “Yes, I think I can do that.”