Fandom Supernatural
Character(s)/Pairing(s) Adam, Dean, Sam; no pairings intended take it as you will
Genre Drama/Dream/Family/Gen/Mild Angst/Near-Future
Rating PG
Word Count 760
Disclaimer Supernatural c. Kripke, CW, WB
Summary Sam's psyche must make sense of his experiences while his conscience must cope with consequences and Adam.
Warning(s) spoilers up through season six episode eleven
Notes I've been trying to write this fic since the episode but I finally found the words recently.
Survivor's Fog
His memories of the cage were fuzzy and he had to force himself to pull back before his brain went there. Yet, Sam knew in some sense what he had lived through and he knew in a much greater sense what he had left behind. In that long exhaustive time in the cage with Michael and Lucifer, Sam and Adam bonded. It was not the same bond Sam shared with Dean. He doubted he would ever see Adam just walk into his section of Heaven or vice-versa when they all did finally die, but there was a connection to the young Milligan nonetheless.
It invaded Sam's dreams. His brain had a psychological imperative to process what felt like over one hundred years time stuck in that cage in Purgatory. Yet, Death's wall to his true memories of that time persisted and so his brain constructed dreams from that which remained.
Sam stood at the doorway of a cabin up in the Ozarks in his latest dream. Fog swarmed all over, obscuring everything from view. The fog tried to enter the cabin, but Sam closed the door. When he turned around only Adam was in the room. Adam sat at a round table made from local wood. He had one arm folded and the other rested on his folded arm so his hand could prop his chin. His eyes watched the fog from the window, his nose twitching every so often.
"What is it?" Sam knew that nose twitch meant something was bothering Adam. Part of Sam's mind found this notion ludicrous, insisting that Sam barely knew Adam since they really had only met once. Sam ignored that part of his mind for now. It just made his brain itch and ache. He knew instinctively it was wrong. He knew Adam well enough to know his tics.
"They're out there." Adam's eyes shifted to look at Sam. "They went off to fight each other and now…" His eyes looked back out at the fog and his eyebrows furrowed.
Sam opened his mouth and closed it. He knew there were games in a cupboard that Dean would raid whenever they had to stay there. He also knew where to look on a post that ran from the floor to the ceiling nearby for small marks dug into the wood that showed if he or Dean were winning. He saw a flash of light through the fog briefly and all thoughts of passing the time leisurely vanished with a shudder from deep within his body.
Adam stood up and went over to the window, double-checking and then he retreated the cabin, trying to put as much distance between him and the approaching flashes of light as possible. "Lucifer's going to get here first."
Sam looked at the window yet all he saw was fog, which seemed to be growing thicker as the ground began shaking. He grabbed Adam by the back of his over shirt and dragged him under the table as pieces from the roof fell in on them. The light in the room grew hot and white. It reached for Sam's back and the pain just as searing at the light itself was even with his eyes shut tight.
Then he was awake. It was not completely dark in the motel room any longer. There was just enough sunlight that Sam could see Dean in the bed on the other side of the room feeling up an extra pillow in his sleep. Sam looked away. It was almost seven in the morning. He got out of bed and stopped. The table in the room was circular like the one in the cabin but smaller and made of some kind of plastic. For the briefest of moments, Sam thought he saw Adam still huddled under the table with a large burn developing on his cheek. The image was gone before Sam could fully comprehend it. He took a breath and tried to grasp at the dream. He could still feel the burn on his back but realization made the sensation dissipate along with many of the details of the dream.
Sam went to the sink in the small motel bathroom and let the water run. His mind kept grasping at something to do with the hunting cabin out in the Ozarks and Adam. He had to save Adam, but from what? From where? He doubted Adam had ever been to that cabin ever. Sam ran his toothbrush under the water. He wanted to do something beyond articulation, but he had no means.
The End