Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural.

Chapter edited in August, 2019.

English is not my first language and this was not proofread by Beta. If you can't stand any mistakes, please, go back and don't read this story.

Also, I don't live in the US, I never visited it, and I'm not familiar with the US culture outside of what I learned from TV shows/movies and the Internet.

Prologue

Alastair was creeped out.

Hundreds, thousands, millions of souls passed through his hands from the moment he was reborn. Millions screamed in pain day after day under the Master Torturer's toys, writhed in absolute agony, begged him to stop, filling the confines of his being with that delightful, sweet feeling of ecstasy. Hundreds of thousands had the light of their souls burned away, were twisted and turned into demons, remodeled after Alastair's darkest imagination.

Except for one soul who had not reacted to any of it.

Maybe it was because it was the Righteous Man's soul; bright and pure, special in a way that whispered to his instincts and stirred the fear inside him that he didn't realize still existed till then.

Alastair sneered, refusing to admit that a simple soul caused his hackles to rise. He dived into his work with extra determination and, for a while, nothing felt different.

The soul sang under his masterful guidance like any other poor bastard on his rack; screamed and writhed, more cursed than begged, but the demon wasn't chagrined by it. He grinned like lunatic, riding high on the sheer euphoria, his mind always whirling with new and more thrilling methods to bring forth more pain, more agony, to send the human into infinite despair and inevitably force that tiny, beautiful word of submission.

Alastair always did love the process of training of his pets the most.

After thirty years, he finally heard it.

'Yes.'

A single word uttered by the Righteous Man resounded throughout the Pit, echoes reaching its deepest layers and darkest corners. Demons rejoiced and angels began their siege on Hell.

One simple 'Yes', and the Righteous Man climbed from the rack, took the blade into his trembling hands and made the first slice.

And when everything went wrong.

As soon as the Righteous Man drew the first blood with the knife it was given, it stopped and just stared at its victim. And stared. And stared. Not even Alastair was able to shake it from its trance.

So he put the soul back on the rack. The First Seal had been broken and no one cared what happened to the one who did it.

Alastair was a stubborn demon. He wanted to break the Righteous Man. Wanted to witness the unhallowed murkiness finally breaching that bright core and filling it to the brim, stuffing it with demonic darkness until it came apart at its seams. Until it shattered and reassembled haphazardly, pieces gluing together in a vain attempt to recreate the form it had before, but only managing to put itself in a wrong way—being reborn anew as a full-fledged citizen of Hell.

But the Righteous Man just stared at his tormentors without saying a word, without screaming, pleading, begging. Nothing.

Alastair felt frustrated, annoyed, and after several years, he felt furious. It was maddening. An endless staring, a pitying gaze got under the demon's skin and stayed there. An annoying itch he couldn't scratch and which nourished the spark of fear that festered deep inside his evil essence like an infected wound.

Slowly, it started to drive Alastair insane.

After a decade, the angelic garrison drew uncomfortably close. Alastair knew that it was a matter of days, maybe even hours, till the last line of demonic defense crumbled and those shiny birds would swarm his lovely chambers. He needed to leave, but he couldn't quite force himself to flee.

Alastair felt ashamed. How could he call himself Master Torturer, if he was unable to make the soul scream?

When the scorching glow of the angel's true form illuminated the torture chamber, the Righteous Man smiled. Even with its jaw ripped away, its lips cut off, eyes carved out, Alastair could swear he saw the smug smirk appear on the soul's face.

Master Torturer could only gawk at his victim helplessly.

He fled when the intensity of the impending angel's grace started to burn his essence with great precision. Alastair might have been able to survive the smiting from the young Seraph, but he was not taking any chances. Trying to stop the angel from taking the soul, no matter how infuriating, was definitely not in the master plan, after all.

The celestial being descended upon the torture chamber, his purifying brilliance banishing the darkness and melting the vile of Hell all around him, making it impossible for demonic spawns to enter this place for at least a couple of centuries. The rack incinerated, freeing the damaged and tortured soul.

The Righteous Man instantly reached for the intimately familiar safety of the angel's grace, no hesitation in its shaky motion. The comforting warmth embraced it, cradling it close. One after another, healing waves washed over it, mending wounds and soothing the scars.

And suddenly, the soul began to remember.

First, Sam, its younger brother and his tears as he was forced to watch his brother being shredded into pieces by hellhounds, the last fragment of the innocence crumbling into dust.

Then, John, its dad, and the emptiness and anger and the sense of failure he left behind after selling his soul to the demon.

Bobby. Ellen. Jo. And all the others. Even its beloved Baby.

Finally, its mother's smile, when its pudgy fingers tugged on her blonde strands, her sweet smell when she leaned closer to plant a loving kiss on its forehead before tucking it into bed and whispering the words, "Angels are watching over you," like they were a secret.

The soul remembered. He was Dean Winchester. A human, a hunter, a friend, a son, a brother.

The Seraph ascended the lower layers of Hell with his precious cargo carried and protected within him. His grace slid over the soul, caressing it carefully and attentively, cleansing its essence from any corruption which managed to wiggle in between the cracks from the endless torture.

And the soul started to remember the lives beyond just Dean Winchester's.

His first life as a mortal, born to two humans who couldn't conceive a child. They always called him their little miracle until they stopped when he started to hear things others couldn't, see things that weren't there, and do things no other humans could.

After his first death, he got reborn. And then again. And again. Going on the continuous reincarnation cycle through more than a hundred of mortal lives. Each chipped off leftover bits of his original essence, reshaping and smoothing out his existence into something different. Something peculiar.

Something very special.

Into his own soul.

In the end, he remembered his initial creation, emerging out of nothingness and opening his eyes for the first time to see his Father smiling down at him, to feel Him gently caressing his wings, emotions trickling through His fingertips straight into his grace—excitement and pride and absolute, unconditional love.

He remembered sharing the same emotions as he witnessed the creation of the other being like him, how eager he was to teach and guide, to love his first brother as deep as their Father loved them.

He remembered two other brothers coming into existence, and the war against the Darkness that soon followed.

He remembered the nothingness molded into the Universe by his Father's hands, the creation of the Heaven, the Great Beasts and their inevitable banishment, the creation of all the rest of his younger siblings, one after another, the Garden, the Earth, and humans.

He remembered his beloved younger brother pleading with him for help and being refused, then the Rebellion shaking Heaven to its core. He remembered casting him from Heaven at the order of his Father.

He remembered the First Sin, the rise of the First Demon and all the demons after it. He remembered Father's order to lock his rebellious son away in the deepest abyss of newly created Hell.

He remembered the emptiness and void growing inside him after following that order—experiencing pain and guilt for the first time in his existence.

He remembered the disappearance of his other little brother, the growing resentment of another, and his self-imposed exile into his personal corner of Heaven.

He remembered Father's disappointment, His departure, and His last words for him.

He remembered ripping his own grace out. He had a plan then. Apparently, something went wrong. Very, very wrong.

The archangel Michael hadn't planned to stay human for so long and he definitely—definitely!—hadn't expected to reincarnate as Dean Winchester, the human who broke the first seal of Lucifer's cage and who by his Father's Will was supposed to become his true vessel.

As his purified soul was carefully nestled into his restored body and he breathed a ragged breath for the first time in a very long time, Michael couldn't help a small chuckle that slipped through his cracked lips. The irony of this unexpected predicament wasn't lost on him.

But maybe it was for the better. With the attitude Dean Winchester had, he would have never said 'Yes' anyway.

A/N on August, 2019

I want to apologize for those who were following and waiting for new updates of this story, but as you can see I decided to rewrite the first few chapters. I wasn't satisfied with them. The writing was seriously lacking and I felt frustrated reading them myself. Not to mention that the story itself felt rushed and not thoroughly planned out. Inevitable, of course, because when I started writing this story I just dived right into the trope of Michael!Dean, without really sparing much thought on world-building and the background of his character as a whole.

Either way, I do hope you all will enjoy this new, hopefully, better version.