I feel so bad, I feel so numb.
word. 1.795
It would be easier to act like nothing happened if everyone would just back off. Just for a little while, at least.
Dean's doing this… thing. This thing where he escorts Adam everywhere, whenever he's around, like he's five again. Sam says it's normal and Bobby just tells him to give it time—that Dean will come around on his own. No matter how many times they check him over—Adam's still severely pissed off that they let Cas check for his soul, because that fucking hurt—and how many times Cas assures Dean that… that no one else got out of the cage.
The cage is still intact. Death kept his promise. Dean's bargaining with Crowley for Sam's soul—they'll hunt. They'll find all the Alphas for Sam's soul and not hunt Crowley afterwards. And, Adam is… more or less in one piece.
He spends most of his day doing anything he can to distract himself. Dean and Sam have been hunting their whole lives; Adam has some knowledge from first-hand experience. Bobby tries to make a point not to let Adam get his hands on anything with ghouls or angels.
Ghouls are easy to avoid. But, angels… not so much. Not with Heaven's weapons on the loose. Not with Castiel dropping in for help so frequently. Not with Bobby recruiting Adam's help in making the house safe against angelic invasion. The panic room is completely angel-proof; Adam hadn't been allowed to see the book, just photocopies of the symbols that he needed to paint on the walls and door. (At the very least, he takes a tiny pleasure in watching Cas flinch away from the Enochian sigils that apparently repel angels. He wants to see it for himself, but he's been sworn to only use against Raphael. Cas is apparently off-limits.)
It's hard to sleep through the night.
Even without Sam physically in the cage with them, Lucifer had spent… Adam can't even remember. Michael told him; all he does remember is that Lucifer's Grace had still been prominent in the cage. From the millennia he had spent there prior; from the rage and brash violence (even the short time Sam had been with them, he hadn't cared much what happened to his vessel; the second Sam was pulled out, he was all the more violent). Michael's had been weaker from having to split his focus. Split between keeping Adam's soul intact—safe, away from the taint of Hell—keeping their physical form remotely in one piece, and keeping his own Grace from being tainted. Lucifer's Grace had been... twisted. Adam can't remember it perfectly. But, he remembers wondering what could do that to an angel; remembers thinking that that was the perfect reason an angel shouldn't be exposed to Hell.
He'd tried to explain it to Sam and Dean. Sam had been… moderately condescending. He'd at least tried to understand. Tried to show a genuine interest; but, without his soul, Adam could tell he was only trying to recall what he'd seen in Lucifer's Grace.
Dean tried to tell him that 'maybe Michael was just weaker'. That it was 'good they're both in the cage' and that 'Lucifer would have won' if they hadn't been shoved in the Cage.
Adam still hasn't apologised for punching him.
Michael wasn't weak. Adam still remembers the warmth of his Grace on Earth. He remembers Michael asking him what he wanted to do while they waited for the inevitable—for Detroit. Michael wouldn't let him go anywhere near Detroit and, now that he knows why, he's glad. Maybe. He wonders if it would have been easier if Michael had broken the rules; if he'd ignored their 'destiny' and begun the fight with his brother's spare vessel.
At any rate, he remembers how strong Michael was.
How Michael was the one keeping Heaven in order. Whenever Castiel mentions this… angelic civil war, Adam has to bite down hard on his tongue and fight back a smirk. He's perfected a carefully neutral expression; because Michael was the one keeping Raphael in line. The one letting Castiel run around on Earth with Dean and Sam without being hunted consistently. He may have missed Raphael and Zachariah's plot to revive him—to push the Apocalypse into happening—but he'd kept order. He'd kept his brothers off their Father's throne.
Michael was, as much as Adam doesn't want to admit it, meant to have been with Dean. Dean was the true vessel. It hadn't taken very long for Adam to notice the similarities—the defeated slump in Dean's shoulders when he thinks no one is looking; the exhausted air that lingers around him at the mere mention of biblical happenings. Michael had been the same; tired and ready for everything to be over. The only difference is that Dean's only looking after one brother; Michael had looked over an entire kingdom.
He wants to say as much to Dean's face—frequently—but he knows he'll be ignored. Because the second he mentions that Sam is Dean's only brother, he'll get the three-way family speech. Dean will go into his cold-shoulder treatment; but, Castiel and Sam and Bobby all have their methods of guilt-tripping him into begrudgingly apologizing. Because Dean is the one that bargained for his soul.
He wishes they'd left him in Hell. No matter how many times Castiel or Sam or Dean tells him he should never have been pulled out of Heaven, no matter how many times they apologise, he'll never regret it.
He regrets holding Michael back, more than anything else; but, he still wants him back. He wants that sense of completion. Even if he isn't the true vessel; he wants to fill the emptiness in his mind—in his chest. The twisting ache when he tries to cling to the fleeting memories of what it had felt like to have a second voice; a comforting voice.
Even with the regret, he wants nothing more to be back in the cage, just for those few minutes—when Michael and Lucifer have exhausted each other for the time—where he could pull Michael into his mind and tangle his fingers in his hair and wings. Those few minutes he could forget they were in Hell and pretend they were back on Earth; pretend they were in a run-down motel and forget that his body was taking a worse beating than it had when he'd died. At least when the ghoul had killed him it had finished. Once it happened it was done; it may have lasted longer than he liked—a slow death, drawn out while his insides were cut out in a delicate manner that mocked a careful procedure—but, once he'd stopped breathing, that was it. In the cage, it was repetitive; over and over and over, no matter how many times Michael managed to heal him physically and sooth the aches screaming in his body; no matter how hard Michael worked to keep him away from the outside torture—as if Lucifer wasn't enough; Adam still wonders about the spectators around the cage that had worried Michael—and taint; never mind all the minor details (Dean would throttle him if he ever said that out loud), he wants to be back in the cage.
Or, at the very least, he wants them to pull Michael out. Even if Michael just goes back to Heaven and stays there to maintain the order. Adam thinks he'd adjust quicker, easier, knowing that Michael—knowing that his angel isn't being twisted into the irreparable monster that Lucifer's turned into.
[*]
"I'm sorry."
Michael changes his appearance whenever he visits Adam. A young man with soft, dusty brown hair. The tired expression that Adam had seen on Castiel's face (he wonders if he had looked that tired on Earth), but always with an apologetic, pathetic attempt a smile. On Earth, it had been a void expression. And then a fond smile that had brought immeasurable comfort. But, in the cage, it's always tired, apologetic, and defeated.
Adam just pulls him down to the grass, knots his fingers in the short hair, and mumbles that it isn't Michael's fault. Over and over again—like a mantra that he hopes could delay the next fight—until Michael silences him. Kisses—brief, chaste, peppered down his neck—and hands pushing under his shirt; blind, desperate touches and grinding, until they're torn apart too soon.
Adam always receives the foremost hits. The shock that rips through his body when Lucifer first attacks defaults and shocks Adam into control for the briefest of moments—long enough for him to see the manic light in Lucifer's eyes (the first few times, at any rate; when Sam leaves, it's enough just feeling the rage radiating from his Grace)—before Michael takes over again and locks Adam away.
He always apologises.
When Death drags Adam out of the cage, when he wakes up in the middle of nowhere surrounded by the bastards that abandoned him, he prays it's another nightmare he's having in his subconscious. Sam and Bobby are startled when he starts screaming for Michael out loud; he'd tried in his mind—even at the risk of distracting him—and… when that hadn't worked, the screams came out on their own. He imagines the expression on Castiel is as close to startled—perhaps sympathetic—as he can get. Maybe furious. Dean, however… Dean looks absolutely murderous once he recovers from the shock.
He thinks Death mentions that this is going to be normal for a long while; but, Adam doesn't listen. It's all just a horrible nightmare induced by pain. He's going to wake up in his memories any minute now, waiting for Michael. And, then, Michael will join him when he and Lucifer have exhausted themselves again. Michael will apologise again, while his Grace heals Adam's body to the best of his ability. They'll have those few moments to themselves and it will all start over.
Three weeks later he's still telling himself those same words, even when he falls asleep on Bobby's couch or in the Panic Room. Dean tells him he's being stubborn; he snaps back that it's clearly a Winchester gene, because Dean's just as bad about the 'stubborn' thing.
Sam asks why he keeps provoking the arguments. Adam just glares at him.
Bobby asks and he acts like he doesn't hear him, or he'll change the subject.
Castiel is the only one that doesn't ask. He just keeps giving Adam curious glances that make him think that the angel knows.
The more he gets the looks, the more he's pretty sure that Castiel knows; knows that every night, Adam falls asleep to a steady, warm pulse and a nearly inaudible apology.
[*]End[*]
A/N: Er... only my second attempt at Michael / Adam fic and my... third-ish attempt at Supernatural fic. Please be gentle ;^;
[crossposted on my tumblr]