DEDICATED: to shadowglove ( u/827845/ ).

DISCLAIMER: I don't own Supernatural, nor Smallville; not even the house I live in, so what would you wanna sue me for?

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I can't believe how long this took to see the light of day, guys. It's absurd. So sorry about that.

Epilogue

They waited for him at football practice. Most of them were his teammates, anyway. Us girls came to stop them – he was innocent, after all – but then something strange happened. They cornered him in the goal, had him straight against the net, with Henry's fist going for his handsome face – and it came back strangely curved and misshapen, even though he did nothing to defend himself.

Then the dogs came. So many. All at once. All black. I've never been scared of dogs, but now I will be. They were all looking straight at us with such anger, their growls and barks combined into a deafening sound, I actually shrieked in terror. We tried to scatter, but they seemed to be everywhere. It took us a minute of running to realize they were herding us like sheep. We were forced to run around the field, then down the road between the gardens – and every single one of those bloody English things was fenced, so we had to go on and on...

All the way to our small church – and the graveyard surrounding it. The dogs made us huddle up against a church wall, forming a semi-circle around us. And then they just stood there, as if they knew to wait, as if they shared that kind of intelligence.

Antichrist! Antichrist! I remembered Lizzy's screams as they took her away. Nobody believed her because she'd always been a bit too...catholic for her age.

But now, as I was looking into these unnaturally intent animal eyes, she had me wonder.

We heard steps. Calm as ever, Damian was strolling towards us. The corner of the church obscured him from our sight for a second, and then, he was suddenly on the roof. Some of us thoughtlessly stepped away from the wall to get a better look – to make sure they were seeing what they were seeing. Hateful growling reminded them of the dogs; but before they could attack, Damien shushed them.

And it worked like – like magic.

Like something supernatural.

You don't understand! This means that the devil is coming! Lizzy had screamed.

Silly bitch, my best friend Nasirah huffed back then and I shook my head, too.

Damian? Seriously? Of all the boys, she picked the new guy? The blue-eyed seventeen-year-old with an old soul who refused to look or act macho and therefore became the number one girl magnet? Lizzy probably just hated him because he was such great friends with our gay schoolmates. Or because she couldn't admit to herself that he turned her on, so she fixated herself on the idea of him being a seducer from hell...

The truth was that almost every girl and some boys were kind of infatuated with him. I even dreamt about him once or twice.

Fortunately, he had no problem satisfying our curiosity. He was so honest! And quite a philosopher, too. He constantly questioned people's behavior, including mine and his own, inspecting the feelings and insecurities behind our actions and changing his mind when he found a better solution – saving face be damned, he simply didn't do boyish egoes. A single afternoon with him would open my eyes to parts of me I didn't even know about; and I helped him figure out something about himself, too. His eyes could see right into my brain, my heart and my soul and yet, when it came to his own body, he was so naïve – he thought he could control his teenage hormones when the opposite was the truth.

I seduced him, I admit – he didn't expect to be unable to resist me, he said, because he thought that all the pleasure from last month would've been enough. And so, from the very first moment, I knew we weren't exclusive, and to my own surprise, I didn't care if we wouldn't be in the future. He was fantastic in bed. I know – I didn't get it either. Where did he get all the know-how if he was so inexperienced? I couldn't wait till Nasirah would get to spend a night with him, too...

"This is gonna be very awkward, but I have to ask: What was it that betrayed me?" Damian asked from atop the church rooftop.

Terrified as I was, I still found his Irish accent cute. What was wrong with me?

"Oh, I see. But if you didn't come after me because of that, then why?"

Nobody was answering, but apparently, seeing our faces was all Damian needed. He'd always been like that, I realized, except then it was hot and now it was unsettling.

"Seriously? Me sleeping with a few of your ex-girfriends is all it took for you to create a lynch mob?"

"Tyra is not my ex, you fucking fag," Henry spat.

"Yes I am," Tyra said automatically for perhaps the hundredth time.

"What's that?" I heard myself ask. "Why did you think they were after you?"

He looked straight at me.

"Just a little biblical thing. Nevermind that."

He's the Antichrist! Lizzy's finger was pointing straight at Damian Sullivan and nobody believed her.

"Oh man, I was supposed to write an essay tonight," Damian groaned. "Now I'm gonna have to spend hours changing your memory. Do you know how hard that is when you can't actually say anything untrue?" His (long, graceful) fingers raked through his (adorable) hair in frustration.

This is ridiculous. Snap out of it, Irena!

In a moment of complete silence, his contemplation brought his eyes up to the moon. We all did the same, hoping to see what he saw and read what was going to happen next.

"So..."

I jumped. He jumped. We all jumped. Even the dogs.

"...iPhones and baseball bats are the new torches and pitchforks?"

"Chloe!" Damian said the name with such emotion that for the first time, I felt jealous.

«´¨'•.¸¸.•'¨`»

Adam was still five when he officially became a Winchester. Chloe found some of his hair from before his last birthday, when his DNA was still normal, and used it to prove that he's Sam and Dean's half-brother. Her words and his unnatural grace convinced Mr. Durant to give him up peacefully. He liked his new family. Dean reluctantly agreed to buy a coffin to put on the roof of his beloved Impala, now that they were going to have even more stuff. They chose a rocking black one with flames on the sides. It didn't make the car look any less badass.

Adam was six when the War for the Apocalypse ended. Well, ended might not be the right word – the fight was moved and locked away in heaven. En equivalent of a hell gate was created and that became the only way to travel to and from heaven. As long as it was guarded by pagan gods and their allies, the bad angels were kept out while Castiel's side of the civil war was supported.

Adam was seven when he first went to school. It was difficult. The fact that he couldn't handle a dozen little kids was humiliating for him. He was an ancient being, or at least half of one, it should've been easy. It shouldn't have made him sob in a bathroom stall, it shouldn't have made him throw up all over Sam's shoes from anxiety one morning. It shouldn't have made him lose his control and kick the teacher who called him a liar in front of his bullies.

"Perhaps you haven't heard what I just said, Principal Greene. I agree that Adam should not have used violence. But I repeat, Adam cannot lie. He never got around to learning it. Some time ago, there was a nasty incident when everyone falsely accused him of lying and, understandably, he's become quite touchy about it. So what I find even more unacceptable is that your teacher made him stand in front of a class full of bullies he just reported and dared to call him a liar."

"Miss Sullivan, you're not being rational, I know you're his mother, but what you're saying..."

"Who said I was his mother?"

Adam shared Chloe's frown. He hated when people presumed that their extraordinary friendship was a typical mother-son relationship. It was so much more. She didn't take care of him because she gave birth to him. She didn't defend him because he was the product of her upbringing. She stood by him because they were friends, she trusted him because he trusted her and she knew him because he told her everything.

"I'm his aunt."

"My cool aunt."

"I'm the only aunt you have."

"Still cool, though," Adam quipped back.

Chloe answered with a thoughtful smile.

"I'm proud of you," she said then.

"Why?" Adam asked before the principal could.

"You could've done much worse today, but you only kicked him in the shin. You showed control."

"Not enough control," he mumbled.

"Dude, you're a first grader! Don't be so hard on yourself."

Adam noticed that the principal was getting upset.

"But I should feel really sorry about kicking someone, right?"

"Oh yes, absolutely. We're both very repentant," Chloe put on her most serious face.

Adam was eleven when Sam, Chloe and Dean went through a major relationship crisis. Until then, Adam would call his coexistence with them full of mutual respect and learning, but suddenly, just as he hit puberty, his guardians seemed to stop listening to him. Had they done so, the crisis would be over in three minutes: Dean would realize that his need for conventional love is rooted in irrational fears and prejudice and that this lifestyle, though a ménage à trois with his very brother, brings all three of them the most happiness this world can offer.

But instead, Dean had to make a scene, catching Chloe off guard, who didn't have a perfect reaction prepared, making both Sam and Dean finally realize that despite being the smartest and most intuitive and honest and humble person they knew, she wasn't perfect. Almost seven years into the relationship, the brothers at last took her off a pedestal. Her knees shook as she touched the ground, the ugly side of her modesty showed up and she became self-conscious about dating two men again.

She proposed a more open arrangement and asked Dean whether he'd like to have another woman on the side. This upset him even more, because what he wanted to see was possessiveness and jealousy from Chloe, not more freedom. Once Sam started using words like "break" and "distance", Dean became straight out aggressive. Adam knew why – he was terrified of leaving Chloe and Sam alone to realize that they can be perfectly happy without him in the mix. He honestly thought that they would leave him behind. But nobody asked Adam what he thought.

If it wasn't for Clark's Eclipso emergency, they would've broken up. After a few months of radio silence, Sam and Chloe would swallow their pride and make the first step towards reconciliation; but knowing Dean's self-destructive nature, Adam would guess that by that time he'd have done something to punish himself for walking away, so it might've been too late. Thankfully, the fight against Eclipso forced them to stick around long enough to talk it out and to prove how much they loved each other.

Adam was fourteen when he asked to be sent to a boarding school. He needed to surround himself with teenagers if he wanted to imitate them perfectly; he needed to experience school while he could; he needed to test his independence. All of these things were true, otherwise they'd never escape his mouth. But the main reason he needed to get away was the way his eyes began to look at Chloe.

He didn't know what came first – the thoughts that grew more and more loving or the feelings that grew more and more lustful. His body and soul wanted her and with that came jealousy of the Winchesters and awkward boners and embarrassing jolts of happiness whenever she touched him or smiled at him. It's just hormones, he told himself, just stupid hormones, confusing him again. He had to put some distance between them until it went away.

«´¨'•.¸¸.•'¨`»

"So, iPhones and baseball bats are the new torches and pitchforks?"

"Chloe!"

As he called her name, it struck him – the truth.

"I couldn't sense you," he mumbled, his American accent back without him realizing.

...It would never go away. He didn't stop loving her during the three school years he was gone, and he never would.

"I've got new warding trinkets," she lifted her forearm and jingled her magical bracelets. "No supernaturals should be able to sense me coming, not even you," she finished with a cheekily lifted eyebrow.

...She was it.

"Yeah, well, I'll find a way around it," he grumbled.

...He was in love with her.

"I'm sure you will," she stated with absolute confidence and a smile.

...He was in love with his surrogate aunt.

"How did you know I'd be here?"

"I was driving up to your dorm, but then I noticed a couple black dogs running in the same direction, so I followed them. You and your churches," she chuckled and shook her head. "If I didn't know you, I'd think you were doing it for irony. Irony is all the rage among teenagers, I've heard."

"I just like spiritual architecture. I wish there were other kinds of it around so that you could stop making that joke," he quirked an eyebrow.

"Oh no, my jokes annoy you?" She gasped. "Either I'm getting old or this teenage immersion of yours is working and you're getting sassy!"

"You'll never even begin to get old," the truth slipped out before he remembered he hadn't told her until now.

She tried to voice surprise, but nothing came out. He could see that she knew; that she noticed the lack of aging in her body quite some time ago, around her twenty-fifth birthday. Artemis's heritage was most likely to be blamed for this one.

"Sorry, I didn't mean for it to slip out like that."

She shook her head with a forgiving smile, but he was already semi-jumping, semi-floating down from the church roof, over his schoolmates and the pack of dogs, right into her arms. Except this time, it was him scooping her up instead of her catching him.

...Yes, he was in love with Chloe Sullivan. But he really couldn't have made a better choice, could he? She was the woman who met him as an unnatural, creepy child and offered him the benefit of the doubt. The woman who stood by him when all heaven broke loose. The woman who accepted an antichrist into her heart. The only person who knew the true magnitude of his powers and their even bigger potential – he remembered the flashes of fear in her eyes as she slowly realized; he remembered the words of warning she received from other Hunters as well as supernaturals; he remembered entering her dreams and watching her drive a dagger through his heart while crying "you've become my baby after all." He also remembered that throughout all that inner battle, she never gave up on him.

"Have you gotten even taller? This is so unfair!" she complained as her hand found the top of his head, now resting a good few inches above hers.

...Of course it would be her. Everybody with a heart should love Chloe. And everybody with a brain, and everybody with a soul, and perhaps even the soulless.

"Maybe I didn't – maybe it's you getting shorter," he joked and she playfully slapped his upper arm. He didn't stop hugging her, though.

He hadn't touched Chloe in months and he hadn't tried for an earnest hug for almost three years. To think that he used to press his face against her neck and shoulder all the time as a child. It felt so different now. Still good, very good in fact, just different.

"So. You visit before the semester ends without calling ahead...You need a favor."

"Correct, Sherlock."

"Is it a big one?"

"Before I ask you, let me remind you that you owe absolutely nothing to this planet."

"Oh, shit. It's another end of the world, isn't it?"

"A little bit," she grimaced. "But you need to get out of here anyway, right?" She pointed her head towards the speechless high school mob.

"You won't even ask why they're after me?"

"Your eyes are too blue?" She took a guess.

He wanted to kiss her right then, but of course he didn't try to. Out of the thousands of scenarios he often ran in his head, confessing his feelings now would be definitely at the bottom of the success scale. It was too early, he was too young, and she wasn't ready. He had to wait. It was barely even time for phase one.

"I became close with all the underappreciated girls, I made them feel special and beautiful, I took them to bed and I ruined them for any boys who aren't men," Adam said with pride.

"Wow. Did you break any hearts?"

"I tried not to. We always discussed what kind of relationship we'd have before we started. Have I hurt any of you?" He looked to the crowd.

All the girls were silent.

"You broke my arm," Henry dared to say after a while.

"Were you in love with me before I did it?"

"No."

"Then shut up."

Chloe's eyebrow went up in a wordless question.

"Self-defense mechanism. He was going for my face."

"Gasp, not the beatiful face! Oh, this reminds me – what would you say if your next school was a real change of scenery?"

"I'd like to come back to the US, if that's what you mean."

"That'd be great! But what I meant was changing from stuck-up boarding schools to a juvie. Call me a hypocrite but I always liked the way your powers worked on bullies."

"That sounds cool. And challenging. I like it."

"Good. Better start thinking of a new alias, 'cause I'm out of ideas, Damian."

"Can we make my first name Adam?"

"Sure...! Did you miss it? I should've considered that," the touch on his shoulder was gentle and apologetic.

"Well, the name, and the country, and the Impala... But mostly, I missed you."

Chloe gave him a big, megawatt smile.

"I missed you too."

Can't kiss her, not yet. But soon. Well, not even soon.

Patience. Recite the plan in your head if you have to, and always have patience.

Phase one: Wait until she acknowledges that you're no longer a boy, but a man.

Phase two: Make her realize that you're a sexually attractive man and that she is not exempt from your allure.

Phase three: Defamiliarize your relationship. Point out how different it is from those shared by normal families. Inform her that your love exceeds the dimensions and possibilities of normal human love, and transcends the categories of lover or family.

Phase four: Wait until she's made peace with the previous two discoveries. Respectfully hold back any courting attempts unless she intiates them herself. If a breakup with a Winchester occurs, offer nothing but comfort and support until she makes the first step. Replacing one of the brothers in the threesome relationship is an acceptable option.

Phase five: If the threesome relationship is still going on strong, wait for time to take its toll. With a few drops of demon blood in his veins, Sam will age slowly, though still faster than Chloe; Dean, however, will age and die like a normal man. He's in his fourties now and thanks to his lifestyle, he feels it, masking his insecurity about it by constantly comparing himself to fine wine and/or Sean Connery. Soon, he will begin to feel frustrated by the aging disparity and turn his anxiety against his companions.

Phase six: As soon as her love life slows down and unless she's offered you an intimate relationship already, bring out the big guns. Commence seduction.

Phase seven: Secure your place on Chloe's side. Sam's companionship is acceptable, but no one else shall be allowed to court her. Watch out for Clark Kent – that sneaky immortal bastard still has a piece of her heart.

Phase eight: Never forget to make her feel loved and desired. Not once. Not for a second. You may now provide her with her very own happily ever after.

«´¨'•. The End .•'¨`»

AUTHOR'S FINAL NOTE:

I feel like my English skills and my writing matured A LOT thanks to this story. When I read the first chapters now, they seem rather naïve, a bit clichéd, and I even used words like OMG for the sole reason of showing I'd just learnt how to use it. This has been great training: I began by imitating my favorite fanfic authors and now I'm developing my own style.

About the taboos:

The threesome: the intention was to set up the lines that the brothers wouldn't cross when it comes to threesomes and then slightly, but only slightly cross them.

The abortion: Yes, this story is very pro-choice.

(Is there anything else you'd like to discuss? Tell me in the comments!)

A list of major "upgrades" to canon I attempted (I may have forgotten some – feel free to remind me in the comments):

– Chloe is loved by almost every male character around her.

– Instead of completely scrapping Chloe's and Davis's character arcs like they did on the show, I tried to make their tragic end more authentic.

– John's life in hell left a much deeper impression than on Dean in the show (or to be specific, it was about as intense as the writers originally suggested and then conveniently forgot about).

– I pushed Supernatural's "angels are fanatic assholes" twist a bit further by making them the sole perpetrators of the Apocalypse with demons being the scapegoats.

– There's a reason for Azazel's yellow eyes and Lilith's white eyes.

– Instead of being just another demonic antagonist with fancy eyes, Lilith is the first feminist in the history of creation, an activist and a metaphorical trans* character.

– Hell has its own history and an actual reason for its eeevil soul business.

– Both the early Supernatural version of Lucifer (the one demons pray to, the king of hell) and the later version of Lucifer (the one who has spent all his time in hell locked up in a box) are applied in this story; but at the same time, Lucifer is a character that decides to ignore fake histories or prophecies or his followers' expectations and defines himself in the new life he begins.

– I designed a hierarchy of earthly supernaturals where pagan gods are much more than angels or demons, but still not the strongest thing on Earth, because the strongest creatures are not humanoid. As neighboring dimensions, heaven and hell can send only its weaker supernaturals to Earth, because nothing stronger would be able to cross the barrier. These angels and demons have to displace their bodies to get to Earth, thereby becoming even weaker. The system is my direct commentary on the anthropocentric and christianized limitations of Supernatural canon – Hammer of the Gods, anyone?