Fandom Supernatural
Character(s)/Pairing(s) Adam, Dean; no pairings intended, take it as you will
Genre Drama/Family/Fantasy/Supernatural
Rating PG-13
Word Count 2221
Disclaimer Supernatural c. Kripke, CW, WB
Summary After Sam's wall crumbles, Dean, looking for a way to fix things, follows a lead that takes him to an unexpected man.
Warning(s) potential spoilers up through season six episode twenty, language
Notes I've been meaning to write something like this for a while.
Burn Mark
The man Dean sought sat in the shadowed part of the bar. Dean tried not to roll his eyes at the cliché. This man was supposed to help him, so insulting him off the bat would probably be a bad move. The wall in Sam's head came crashing down without warning weeks ago. Although, looking back on it there had been many little warnings. Dean should have known that when Sam started out a little behind Dean on the intelligence scale and progressively worked back to Sam's "passed the LSAT" intelligence level that it was a bad sign. At the time, Dean had just been glad that Sam was back to normal. That was the day before the wall came down.
Dean slid into the seat across from the man in the shadows. Under a thick corduroy jacket, the man wore a University of Minnesota hooded sweatshirt with the extra-large hood pulled down over his facial features.
"You're a hard bastard to track down," Dean grumbled. Half the time since Sam's wall came down; Dean had heard of and subsequently started to track this person down. The only reason Dean managed to find him was that the man heard Dean was looking for him and agreed through mutual acquaintances to meet Dean here.
The man's demeanor seemed placid. However, his shoulders periodically would twitch. His hands, hidden by fingerless gloves trembled almost unnoticeably. He angled his head towards Dean, keeping the hood down for now.
"You know why I'm here. My brother had this wall and it's gone now. I heard you can help us, so," Dean shifted on his seat and swallowed a little, "start talking or making demands. Just know you don't get payment until I have poof Sammy'll be back to normal."
"I don't need a payment and I don't have demands," the hoarse voice replied. "Just…experience."
"All right, what do we do?" Dean tried to keep his voice quiet and even, but this had taken far too long to get to this point for his liking.
The man reached up and pulled his hood down. A burn mark on his face looked like a tiny circle connected to a broken figure eight. The mark was large starting at the man's eyebrow and extending down the left side of his face to the crease of his lips. His blue hazel eyes leveled with Dean's gaze. "We do nothing."
Dean opened his mouth but the words died on his lip. The man's hair was blonde and his facial structure so much like their paternal grandfather Dean knew as a young child before Sam was born. "A…Adam…."
"Yeah." Adam shifted in his seat. "It's me." He cleared his throat but it did not help the hoarse, thin quality to his voice.
"How…?" Dean's eyebrows knitted together. He had so many questions he could ask that started with the word "how." They jumbled together in his mind, all of them trying to be more important than another was.
"I don't know." Adam coughed dryly into a hand. "I woke up somewhere. Something called Eve was looking for me, but I haven't run across any of her creatures in a long time." He hid his hands under the table. They had taken to shaking.
"What happened?" Dean asked. His brain was already trying to work on what to do. The last time he saw Adam as Adam, the kid ended up possessed by Michael all because of Dean and his big mouth.
Adam's jaw tightened. "I just woke up in Kentucky and then there was this," he paused, "vampire werewolf thing. It was after my ribs, but I killed it somehow." He rubbed his face tiredly. "Then there were these," another pause, "things. It was like someone took some nightmare guide book, shredded it and put it back together wrong." Adam's hands became fists, his knuckles white and then his hands loosened and went back to hiding from view.
"Why were they after you?" Dean frowned. He kept watching Adam. The more he watched the more it became evident that Adam was thinner, paler. His body seemed prone to quaking and trembling but the young man fought through it.
"My ribs. Eve needed them, so something managed to get me out so she could get them." He frowned. "I couldn't just sit somewhere and let my memories consume me or she would. I kept moving. They kept finding me."
"You could have called us." Dean tilted his neck to crack it.
"With what number? John's number?" Adam snorted. "What were you going to do? I'm just some guy you met a few years ago and that wasn't even me the first time."
"Yeah, well, I still have his phone on and charged," Dean defended, "and I would have worked to keep them from you. Dammit, Adam, I'd think by now you'd know Zachariah was a fucking, lying ass."
"Yeah, well, he was right about a few things." The trembling had spread up Adam's arms to his shoulders. Adam continued to fight it down as best he could. "You left me to become Michael!" His voice cracked, remaining quiet though intense.
"I did not," Dean said. "I thought you were right behind us. Sam couldn't walk. We were all going to get out of that room together!" Dean tried not to raise his voice.
"But we didn't!" Adam slammed a fist to the table and then retracted it.
"That shouldn't matter!" Dean leaned forward. The people near them spared them brief glances that did not linger. "Well, I mean, you know, I get it, you're sore about that. Anyone would be. But, dammit, Adam, we can help you now. You just have to let us."
Adam leaned back to stretch his spine and then thought better of the gesture and leaned forward, not to back down from Dean's body language. "Do you know what the mark on my face means?"
Dean remained leaning forward. He studied the mark. "No."
"It's the mark of Michael. People put it on runes sometimes." Adam looked down and then back up at Dean. "It marks me as his vessel if he ever comes back."
Dean frowned. "Sam doesn't have a mark on his face."
"He wouldn't." Adam paused and shifted in his seat. "I hear things. Sam's no longer Lucifer's main vessel. You probably noticed he's not drinking demon blood."
Dean leaned back then. He eyed Adam. This could go on forever if he did not toss Adam a bone to ponder. They could always continue that conversation at Bobby's place. Dean did not want to think of who could be the next Lucifer right now. "Let's leave. Go to where Sam and Bobby are. Figure out what the hell is going on."
"I can't." Adam leaned back, his lower spine cracking from the release of pressure. "I have to keep moving. I heard you were looking for me, so I stayed longer, but…" He flexed his fingers on the tabletop. "The quiet bothers me."
"It's quiet because we took care of Eve. Got her with some phoenix ash. What's left of her new monsters is almost gone." Dean intertwined his fingers and rested his hands on the table. "If she comes back, we can help you. We still have some of that shit incase all we did was send her back where she came from."
Adam eyed Dean. He shifted his seat and crossed his legs before uncrossing them and then crossing them in the opposite manner. "You just want me to help Sam."
Dean's face faltered. "Don't you?"
"You're both strangers, Dean. I mean yeah, I admit I wished I had siblings when I was growing up. It would have been nice to come home from school and have someone else fixing supper or had someone to fold laundry with, but I don't know. How do I know that when Sam's talking, walking, dealing with all of this shit that you won't just shove me off on that friend of yours or ditch me somewhere?"
"You have my word." Dean's jaw tightened. "We're not going to kick you out. Trust me, this isn't a temporary offer. You can stay with us until you don't want to anymore and if you change your mind, you can come right back." He reached into his pocket for a permanent marker and grabbed a napkin off the table. He wrote out a phone number on it and passed it to Adam. "That's my cell. That number always goes to whatever phone I have."
Adam looked at the paper and then Dean. "Let me sleep on it." He carefully took the napkin and folded it twice over before placing it in the pocket of his jacket. "Well…think about it. I don't really sleep."
Dean grew quiet. He tried not to look at Adam and influence the decision or tick the younger man off enough Adam decided to run away. He slid a foot along the floor, careful to keep it on his side of the table. He put his hands in his pockets and took them out again. He did not know how long it would take Adam to decide. He needed Adam to help Sam. He also needed to make things right. Dean knew he could not completely undo getting Michael trapped in Adam, but he wanted to try somehow.
"Look." Adam took a deep breath. He glanced at the people around them but no one was watching. He pulled his hood up but did not obscure his face from Dean. "It's all up to Sam. You can drag me back to wherever you have him. You could make me talk at his comatose body, but it's his brain, his soul." His eyes found Dean's gaze. "If Sam doesn't want to wake up, no one can make him."
Dean opened his mouth and then shut it. He clenched his fist and then relaxed his hand. "There's always a way."
"All the ways have to do with Sam and his own psyche. This isn't Star Trek. You're not James Kirk and I'm not Jean-Luc Picard." Adam rubbed his hands together almost as though he was washing them slowly under an invisible sink.
"Good because then it'd be Generations and that would just end badly." Dean shifted in his chair.
The pair grew quiet then. Dean went back to trying not to seem like he was pushing Adam into a decision and Adam picked at a loose thread on his right glove. After minutes of silence, Adam shuddered violently without warning, causing the table to rattle and some patrons to glance back at them to see if something exciting might come of the noise. He gasped for air and pulled the hood down over his face. Dean hesitated at first and then hurriedly got up from his place to Adam's side.
"Let's get you some fresh air." Dean grabbed Adam by the arm and dragged him out the door and into the parking lot. Dean could feel everyone's eyes watching them. He tried to position them so people could not see them from the windows very well. Adam was still gasping for air. He did not wrench his arm from Dean's grasp and after several more wheezing breaths, seemed to bring his body back down to a controlled tremble. He weakly pulled away from Dean.
"This," Adam murmured and shifted his weight, "is what Sam has to deal with. You can't make him be okay because you want it." His right arm began to twitch and he tried his best to keep it from becoming too noticeable. "I was down there." He closed his eyes and his body shook with the will to stop the shaking. "I saw what happened to Sam. If you think that I can do this, Sam can…" Adam's voice trailed and he opened his eyes to look at Dean and find his gaze. "You're underestimating what happened to him. At least my soul got pulled out of the cage with my body."
"Sam's strong." Dean started towards the Impala but Adam did not follow. Dean stopped walking and looked at him, trying to figure out if Adam was making his decision or simply could not make his legs move properly.
"When I sleep," Adam said, "I scream. It brings the police around."
Dean put his hands in his pockets and let his fingers wrap around his keys just for the sake of touching and holding them. "It's a two hour drive to Bobby's. But once we get there, you can scream and the police won't ask." Dean paused. "Well, she won't ask too many questions. She's on our side I guess."
Adam took a small step forward. He started to shuffle slowly towards the Impala. "I'll go with you for now. I have to get out of the state anyway." He fumbled with the passenger door but finally got it open and climbed onto the bench seat. After several misses, he buckled the seat belt.
Dean got into the driver's seat and started the engine. He was unconvinced they could do nothing but wait on Sam to piece himself back together. There had to be an answer somewhere. He just needed to figure out where to look for it.
The End