It has been almost a month since Supernatural finale, and I'm still recovering from how utterly awful it was è_é


Chapter 33

The winter night was crispy cold, biting their skin on any single centimetre it managed to grab. Frozen ground crunched under their feet, either dirt or asphalt. The three humans made their way to the backdoor of the sheriff's office, while an angel waited for them in the car a couple of streets away.

"I've decided" Adam whispered when Dean took out his lock pick and started forcing the entrance, "that for my next illegal action I want a scarf. Double layer."

"Shut up, Donatella," his oldest brother grumbled. "This is not a catwalk, and I told you to stay put like a good boy."

"Whoa, that's such a witty remark," Adam scoffed unimpressed. "Have you ever thought of using gloves to avoid getting your fingerprints all over the place, Coco?"

"Please, you two," Sam chided them, looking around for any unexpected witness. "This isn't the time to start a pun war."

Dean finally got the door open, letting Adam and Sam inside first to lead the way. The light coming from the emergency signs and street lamps was barely enough to get around, but at least the office wasn't that big to get lost.

"There it is," Sam pointed at the manhorse statuette when they entered the main desk zone, while unfolding a small piece of fabric.

"So is this the moment when I pull an Indiana Jones' move?" Adam asked, reaching for the bronze piece.

"Wait, don't tou-!"

Sam's warning came too late, for Adam had already taken it in his hands. For a few seconds all three of them held their breath, waiting for the Principality key to do its thing and merge with its host like the previous two times... but nothing happened.

"Chuckdammit, brat! Don't ever do that again!" Dean whisper-shouted at him. "Who knows what could have hap-"

Suddenly the Milligan boy screamed, a painful sound tearing out his throat, hunching and grabbing his waist. Letting go of the bronze centaur, it fell to the floor, its surface now dirtied and rusty.

"Be quiet, fuck!" Dean told him, rushing to him along Sam. "What's wrong?"

"I don't know, but... it hurts. Damn, it hurts!" the blond clenched his teeth, feeling another scream wanting to escape as he fell to his knees, waves of pain surging through his spine.

"Let's get out of here," Sam said, using the fabric to wrap the centaur while Dean crouched to take a hold of his youngest brother.

They hurried to the backdoor exit, Sam in tow and Dean practically carrying Adam's weight with an arm over his shoulders, for the boy's legs seemed barely able of holding him. The moment they were back on the street, another agonizing scream pierced the night, with the distinct sound of flesh and denim ripping apart. Dean found himself tripping to the ground, for a new and unexpected heavy weight threw him off balance.

"Oh, hell..." he heard Sam mumbling in shock behind them.

Adam was panting in pain and crying silently, doing his damn best to keep his sobs under control. Dean patted him in an attempted comforting gesture, but his hand froze still at the lower back when he saw what was beyond that point: human legs nowhere to be found. Instead, painted in red blood and covered with strips of ruined trousers was the blond coat of horse fur and a long tail.

"Dean?" the worried voice of an angel took the hunter out of his stupor. "What happened? I saw you fell from the car."

"Take a look yourself," Dean replied, getting up. "But hell if I know what's happening."

"What's wrong?" Adam asked pitifully, trembling. "Why it hurts so much?"

"Don't worry, it... it's going to be okay," Sam tried to reassure him. "We'll get you to the bunker and figure out this. Hey, lend me a hand here, Cas. He's not as light as he used to be, you know."

Thanks to Castiel's angelic strength, they were able to drag Adam the few remaining metres to the Impala, since it was obvious that the boy had no idea how to coordinate his four limbs together. Once he was settled in the backseat and covered with a blanket, the seraph made him sleep the rest of the way back to at least free him of the pain of his transformation, and squeezed himself between the Winchesters in the frontseat.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The trip back home was uneventful, save for the fact that Team Free Will had to be extremely cautious not to let any random person take a peek at the Sleeping-Beauty-turned-equine.

"Adam," Castiel called him, tapping his forehead and waking him up. "We have arrived. You need to stand up and let us take you inside. Does it still hurt?"

"Not as much as first, but it still feels like my butt is attached to a truck."

Carefully maneuvering him between the three of them, they got Adam to stand straight and try his step. One by one, the boy moved his hooves to the bunker door and through, pausing a moment when confronted with the challenge of the stairs.

"One at a time," Sam reminded him, holding one of his arms over the shoulders. "Better go slow than having us tumbling down."

There were only a couple steps left when someone came from the kitchen, a steaming mug in her hands. Alex froze in the spot upon catching them, eyes wide open and mouth hanging, speechless. She recovered fast, though. Barely a blink and she seemed to have made up her mind.

"Won't be worse than dissecting that ugly thing," she spoke to herself before greeting them. "Welcome back, guys. I see that everything went according to the plan?"

"Oh yeah, this is only a minor setback," Sam joked without humour.

"Why is he covered in blood?" Alex worried, coming to them and inspecting the half-horse body.

"His superbutt spurted right out of his spine, what do you think?" Dean grunted, finally reaching ground level.

"When there's blood you're supposed to clean it, you know? To avoid germs festering on it," she chastised them, raising a hand to Adam's forehead. "Have you even checked if there's a fever?"

"Hey, what do you take us for? We've served more hospital time than you'd ever-"

A new scream tore through the air, courtesy of Adam, but this one sounded quite different. In a second, before anyone could react, the Milligan boy had Alex pinned to the floor, hands on her wrists and her midriff trapped under him. Knocked out of her breath for the sudden weight on her chest, it took her a minute to regain her bearings and understand that she was being straddled.

"Adam, what the hell are you doing? Let her go!" Sam yelled, grabbing one of his brother's arms.

The boy however didn't seem to be listening, his gaze focused on the female before him. He effortlessly shoved Sam away.

"Adam, you're hurting me," Alex told him, squirming and trying to get free.

"What the fuck is wrong with you, brat!" Dean said, pushing Adam's shoulders in an attempt to get him to release her.

He had no better luck that Sam, being shoved back to the stairs. Next thing he saw, the young blond had started nibbling the girl's neck.

"I apologize for this, Adam," Castiel stated, rounding him and putting two fingers on his temple. "But I believe that you might even thank me for it later."

Immediately, Adam fell unconscious to the side, freeing Alex.

"Are you alright?" he asked, helping the nurse to get back on her feet.

"I... yes, I'm good. A bit squashed but good. But him? What's going on?"

"Now that's a good question," Sam opined, unwrapping the centaur statuette and putting it on the map table. "I have a feeling that there's more to this figurine than we initially believed. There must be a reason why it turned Adam into a centaur and then lost its luster."

"Was that his key?" Alex inquired, watching the bronze suspiciously. "I noticed the dot disappearing some hours ago."

"Yeah, that's what we thought," Dean answered. "But there was also a possibility of it being a cursed item, and considering what has happened I think we were clearly right. So let's take Adam to his bed, clean him, and dig up Crestfallen Pines' dirty laundry. Where's the rest of the crew?"

"Well, hum..." the girl stuttered, uncomfortable. "Julia and Emma went to the bookstore, since today is the Reading Ride for small children. Kevin and Patty went to some chemistry event a couple of cities away. I think Jesse and Jack are still building their snowmen army in the backyard? And Claire... is on a hunt."

"She what?!" all three men repeated at the same time.

"She was bored and getting antsy," Alex defended her surrogate sister. "And it's not even such a big thing! We had almost the whole thing figured out before she even left, it's a gremlin. And it's not even out of the state! She'll be back in a few hours."

Both Winchesters sighed deeply, but it wasn't like they could do anything about it. At least the spirited huntress hadn't disappeared just like that.

"Even if it were only around the corner, Claire should have waited for us to come back," Castiel spoke. "It is not safe for her out there, specially with the shedim loose."

"Well, tell that to her," the nurse retorted. "You're the ones that didn't want to turn this into a jail for us, remember? Besides, how I see it, it's never safe out there for anyone."

To that, the angel had no possible retort back.

"Whatever, let's get to work," Dean looked at the girl. "Tell the others to come to the library and make themselves useful."

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Centaurs were mythical half-horse men primarily known for being aggressive and raping women. Basically, that's what Jess remembered about them from her history studies and Castiel confirmed it, though adding a more detailed backstory.

"It began with this human, Ixion, wanting to seduce Zeus' wife, Hera. To trick him, Zeus created an exact copy of his wife with a cloud, Nephele. From the love affairs between Ixion and the cloud was born a twisted son who had intercourse with some mares, and thus the centaur were born."

"Dude, that's some kinky shit."

"Since Ixion was a man of low passions, his lustful and disrespectful behaviour was passed on to his progeny. Well, most of them; only a couple exceptions among the centaurs were known to be wise and kind. Almost the totality of them considered any sighted woman theirs to take as they pleased."

"Now that's fucking disgusting in a complete another sense."

Everyone in the library nodded, agreeing with the older hunter.

"Do you think that's what happened when Adam... when I touched his forehead?" Alex surmised.

"I guess? Because you're female. Nothing happened when I, Cas or Dean touched him."

"Guys, I've got nothing from 1901 to 1950," Jessica complained, leaning back on her chair and looking frustrated at her own brand new laptop. "Crestfallen Pines must be the most boring town in this century."

"Nothing noteworthy in the 21th yet either," Jacob added ruefully.

"It still rubs me the wrong way that in a horse town there was nothing about horses to show off. I mean, except actual horses," Sam commented.

"Now you might be onto something," Kaia spoke, standing in front of a shelf with an archive tome in her hands. "There's a register about the town here, and if there's a register..."

"... It's because something must have happened. Which tome is that?"

Kaia showed them the spine of the book, where a big W was etched, being careful of slipping a finger between the pages she was checking.

"W, witches section."

"Cursed item, of course it had to be a witch. Yuck," Dean snorted. "What it says?"

The dreamwalker joined them on the table and read out loud:

"Arizona, 1802. New town of Crestfallen Pines was founded, sponsored by rich rancher Hank Davies. Husband to Angie Davis, father to Meredith Sterling (née Davis). Disappeared in 1806 without trace. Reports stated that his wife considered this just another neglect of her work-driven husband and therefore she didn't report it to the local authorities, believing that his husband would come back home when the horses tired him enough. But he never did. Further investigation made Angie Davies a suspect of witchcraft."

"Damn," Dean whistled. "Hell hath no fury like a scorned woman, eh? Only this time the guy left her for a horse instead of a tavern skank, and she took it out on the animals. No wonder that nobody there paid them any worship."

"So she was a witch?" Jessica tried to tie the knots together. "And she made her husband disappear... how?"

"Maybe it wasn't a cursed item per se," Jacob suggested. "Maybe the husband was the item."

All at once, everyone's gaze focused on the centaur statuette. Castiel stood up and hovered a hand over it, inspecting.

"I do not detect any lifeforce on it. If it ever had a soul trapped in there, it departed long ago. But I still perceive the remaining threads of a powerful curse mixed with the Principality key. It is safe to assume that the key nested in the strongest source of power that was nearby, and Adam absorbed part of the curse along it."

"Wait, does this mean that Adam is going to turn into a piece of bronze too?" Alex inquired, concerned for her friend.

"Let's hope not. He is not the original objective of the curse, so it should not be that difficult to revert it for him. Even a standard curse-breaker may prove to be enough in these circumstances."

"Fortunately we have several of those," Sam got up. "I'll start gathering some ingredients, you look for the one that sounds better to try."

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

"Why do you call me only when you're in trouble? Would it be too much to ask that for once you called me just to go for drinks or something? A leisure visit to a nudist beach, or a strip club? Gosh, even a grannies' meeting at the church would be appreciated at this point."

"You birthed an eight-hooved horse for a son while posing as Loki. You're here only as support in case something goes wrong, Gabriel. You don't have to actually do anything."

"Whatever you say, Sammich."

Despite the complaints, the archangel watched over the asleep third Winchester brother while the other two got everything ready for the curse-breaker. The bronze piece was put with Adam inside a magic ring of juniper and rosemary, surrounded by twelve yellow candles.

"Is there anything we can do to help?" Julia asked, already back from the bookstore with Emma.

"No worries, madam. You and the lil' lady better stay back, lest something else happens. Oh," he suddenly smirked, "but you might want to bring a blanket for the foal. Ehen he's back to normal it won't be a sight for toddler's eyes, if you catch my drift."

Julia certainly did, and hurried to get a blanket to cover Adam.

"Cas, do you mind, please?" Sam asked him, offering him an open magic book. "Ancient Greek is so not my language."

"Of course."

When the seraph finished reciting the old spell, Adam groaned in pain once again. Even asleep, his body shivered and contorted, trying to purge itself of the unnatural shape it had taken. A smoke of sorts started coming out from under the blanket, being automatically sipped inside the centaur statuette. This lasted for a few more minutes, until finally Adam's voice quieted and his form under the blanket looked a lot smaller. And then, suddenly the bronze centaur broke and turned into dust.

"I think that's it," Dean breathed deeply, relieved. "I'll get the broom. You take Adam back to his room."

"Will Adam be all right now?" Alex asked, somehow anguished.

"The curse was broken, so yeah, he should be fine," Sam answered, picking up Adam from the floor.

While everyone else began cleaning the room and putting all back in place, Gabriel made a signal to Emma to follow him outside. Outdoors the sun was about to set, and a cold but gentle breeze messed the amazon's hair.

"Did you wish to speak to me, master Gabriel?"

"Yes." He turned towards her, arms crossed and an unusual serious look on his face. "After what I've seen today, I wanted to talk for a bit. It has been some time since I brought you here, so tell me a little about you. How are you doing?"

"I am doing fine, I'd say."

"Is everyone treating you nicely?"

"I... would say so?" Emma said, frowning a little at the confusing question. "Miss Jessica bakes tasty cookies every week, they're a lot better than the cake we had as dessert today. I train in combat almost every day with the other anunnaki. And I'm learning to read and write too."

"You're learning to...?" Gabriel sputtered, flabbergasted, before reigning himself. "Good, that's... that's very good, lil' lady. Everyone should know how to do that."

The young amazon studied him, debating with herself, trying to understand something.

"Would it please you, master Gabriel? If I mastered those particular skills?"

The ex-Messenger of God turned his back to her for a second, frustrated.

"It's not about me, Emma, it's about you. Yes, certainly I'd deem knowing how to read and write necessary for your future, but what I'm asking is if you're happy."

"Happy?" she repeated the word, bewildered. "Sorry, but I'm not sure what exactly are you referring to."

Now the archangel looked at her with immense sadness, unsure of how to get his point across to the amazon.

"Emma, this might be a cruel question, but... what do you remember from your three-days-life?"

"Everything," she answered immediately. "From around three or four hours after my birth until the moment Sam killed me. I met Father not much later after the memories started to stick."

"And in that short time, there was nothing that made you happy?" he asked again, but was met with the girl's confusion. "I mean this feeling inside, in your heart, like... bubbly? Glad, cheerful? Anything that made you smile or wanting to laugh, something that made you wish it never ended?"

Emma averted her eyes, deep in thought, not wanting to give the archangel a hasty answer. She went through every single one of her memories, her mind analyzing any detail to the max and pondering how it made her feel. After a few minutes, she was ready to give a response.

"I think that I felt happy when Mum gifted me her pretty treasure," Emma said, playing with the little heart that hung of her neck. "It was also a sad moment because we had to say goodbye, but she looked at me and... she seemed troubled to let me go, but asked me to make her proud when she gave me this. And I said yes, I would make Mum proud, so the next time we reunited she wouldn't be troubled anymore. But... there wasn't a next time."

"What makes that a happy memory for you, then?"

"When I left home to the amazons' lair, it was different. Mum had dressed me, fed me, talked to me. In that place there were other amazons doing the same things, feeding us, dressing us, talking about how they were going to train us and make us strong... but there was something missing. I don't know what it was, but definitely something had been different at home with Mum. Or at least I think it was, but I may be wrong."

Gabriel swallowed the lump in his throat. As much as he wanted to assure the girl that her mother surely had loved her, he didn't dare. Amazons had a very rigid code, and he doubted that feelings had any place in it.

"A couple of times I wished that I could be back with Mum. The possibility of meeting her again made me smile, and imagining that she might smile back at me made me feel 'bubbly' inside. Is that alright, master Gabriel?"

"Yes, lil' lady, of course it's alright," he agreed, patting her head. "You might not understand it very well yet, but don't let go of that memory, that tiny feeling of happiness. Life on Earth, specially growing up in a hunter's den, won't give you a lot of that, I'm afraid. That boy right now, Adam, he was happy in Heaven, you know? Because upstairs everyone is supposed to be happy, and yet he was spitted out back to a life of misery."

"But... he tends to smile a lot, I've seen it many times. He doesn't look very miserable to me."

"That's because he also has things that make him happy. Happiness to make up for the misery. That's what I was asking you about, lil' lady. That's what I want you to promise me."

Emma nodded immediately, but the look on her face made it obvious that she wasn't sure what exactly had been asked of her.

"Your happiness, Emma," Gabriel cleared up. "Find something, anything, that makes you bubbly and don't let go of it. It might be tomorrow, or next week... maybe not in another ten years? But it will happen eventually. And when it happens, don't think about anything else. Choose yourself first, because sometimes it's okay to be a bit selfish. If you promise me that, and stick to your word when the moment comes... you can consider your debt to me repaid."

The amazon pondered his words, not fully understanding them, but the archangel's intent was direct and clear: he expected to be obeyed. She will remember this.

"I promise you, master Gabriel."

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Hours later, with everyone back in the bunker from their respective trips, Adam woke up to see his best friend on the other bed, reading a science book. Groggily, he rubbed the sleep from his eyes, alerting the other boy of his wakefulness.

"Adam!" Kevin exclaimed, instantly putting the book away. "How do you feel?"

"Like I've been run over," he mumbled. "What happened? Did I jump from a skyscraper or something cool like that?"

"Nah, you wish. You took a curse along with your key and became a centaur for a while, but your brothers managed to revert it. The statuette was overpowered by a broom."

"... You're kidding."

"No, I'm not," the young prophet insisted, fumbling around for his phone. "Don't you remember? You were in a lot of pain, what with your spine suddenly growing another half body and that. Here, Gabriel took a pic of you as a reminder of your horsey misadventures."

Effectively, on the phone there was a picture of Adam passed out, wearing only a shirt.

"It's that why I'm naked from the waist down? Man, the least I expected was a cute nurse to take care of poor me."

"You attacked the cute nurse, dolt," Kevin told him. "No wonder Alex wanted nothing to do with you for the time being."

Adam paled at that.

"I did what?"

"You tried to jump her bones the moment she touched you, they said, because centaurs are rapists," the Asian boy explained sternly. "I don't think Alex will hold it against you, but just in case... so you know."

"God, I need to apologize right now," Adam decided while trying to move his aching body.

"Hey no, pal, you're not going anywhere without some underwear on," Kevin stopped him. "Besides, it's already late in the night, everyone has gone to bed. You can tell her tomorrow morning when she's rested and on a better mood."

"Ugh... Was she very upset?"

"Yeah, but not with you. Claire had a gremlin bite on her finger that she didn't bother disinfect, and apparently those shorty jerks give you cooties or whatever. Alex was all over her case! So for now go to sleep."

"But I've just waken up, I'm not sleepy," Adam whined childishly.

A pillow to his face and a laugh were the answer he received.

"Now don't be a crybaby, My Little Pony!"


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