Title: Whatever It Takes [4/?]
Author: alakewood
Warnings: Spoilers for Jump the Shark, AHBL, Lazarus Rising, and In My Time of Dying.
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1290
Summary: Sam and Dean are getting ready to leave Bobby's to go find Castiel and Adam ends up going along with them, making the car ride more than a little tense.
Disclaimer: As always, I own nothing.

oxoxo

"I'm gonna make a quick pot of coffee," Dean said, rubbing at his eyes with the backs of his knuckles. "Hurry up and get dressed. See you at the car in five."

Not much more than three minutes had passed before Sam appeared in the kitchen, hair still sleep-mussed, wearing a wrinkled hoodie Dean hadn't seen in a damn long time with the laces of his shoes untied. "Coffee," he said groggily.

Dean wordlessly filled a mug and handed it to him. After a moment he asked, "What about Adam? We can't just...leave him here."

"I doubt we'll be gone that long. Besides, after what he's been through, he probably should take it easy for a while."

Dean looked a little guilty. "It's just going to meet Cas here." He handed a small, folded piece of paper to Sam.

Sam opened it, lips moving as he silently read the address. "That's at least, what? A four hour drive? Not exactly the way to welcome him into the family business."

"Who said anything about him joining the family business?"

"You just said that you didn't want to leave him here, but you realize that we're going to find Castiel. An angel. The angel that pulled you out of Hell? That's like throwing him right into the middle of everything."

Dean shook his head. "It doesn't put him in the middle of anything, Sam."

"What's going on?" Adam asked from the kitchen doorway behind Sam.

Dean looked to Sam as if expecting him to explain their argument, but he and Adam wore matching, slightly impatient expressions. "Um, we've gotta go," Dean finally said. "But I don't want to leave you here, 'cause I'm not exactly sure when we'll be back, but I don't want to make you go, either."

"I'll go," Adam said with a shrug, glancing between his brothers.

Dean nodded. "Okay."

"I just need to..."

"Yeah. We'll be outside whenever you're ready."

Sam's soft snort of disbelief as he headed out of the back door didn't go unheard by Dean.

"You got something to say?" he asked his younger brother.

"Nope." Sam dismissed himself from the conversation, clomping down the porch stairs and across a short span of grass to lean against the Impala.

Adam came out of the house a few minutes later wearing what he'd had on when Sam and Dean had arrived at Bobby's the day before. "Bobby says you're supposed to call him when – when you get 'wherever the hell you're going.' His words." He noticed the less-than-amused look on Sam's face and the tense set of Dean's shoulders as he crossed the porch and started down the stairs. "Look," he began, glancing between Sam and Dean on either side of him, "you guys can just take me home or drop me off at a bus station. I mean, I know we're brothers or whatever, but-"

"You're a Winchester, now," Sam said, pulling open the passenger's side door of the Impala, nodding into the backseat, to let Adam climb in. "This is your home." He ignored the look he got from Dean over the hood of the car and put the backrest of his seat up before he got in.

"The car's exactly how I remember it," Adam said to Dean as they pulled out of Bobby's drive onto the dark, desolated stretch of highway.

"Yeah. Dad've killed me if she'd ever been in anything less than perfect condition. It's all we've really got left of him."

"We still have his journal," Sam added offhandedly.

"Dad's journal? Was there anything about me or my mom in it?" Adam asked, scooting up to the edge of the seat to look Sam in the eye.

"Wasn't exactly that kind of journal. When we found out about you, we checked, but the pages from around the time you would've been...from around the time he met your mother, they were gone."

Adam slid back against his seat. "So he tore them out. Like I was some dirty little secret? Like he was ashamed of me?"

"No," Dean said fervently, glancing into the backseat. "If anybody was kept secret, it was me and Sam. He was just trying to keep you safe from the kind of life we had."

"Safe? From a life with the rest of my family? With my brothers?"

"Dad had a lot of secrets," Sam said in response as if that had ever been a good enough excuse. "And, not telling you about us probably pales in comparison to everything else he never told you."

"Jesus Christ, Sam, give it a rest," Dean said in a voice too loud for the small space inside the car.

"No, Dean," Adam disagreed. "I want to know what Sam means by that."

"I will explain it all later."

"I want to know now." He didn't sound like a petulant child, but like his angry, spurned kid brother.

"Well, for starters," Sam began, "the reason you don't remember how you got to Bobby's or what even happened in Windom? You died. You were killed by ghouls."

Adam scoffed skeptically. "Yeah."

"I'm dead serious."

"Sam, just stop!" Dean yelled.

The urgency in his oldest brother's voice gave Adam pause. His stomach dropped. "You're not kidding."

"No. You were dead. Don't worry, it's a Winchester thing. Me and Dean have both been there. Dean sold his soul to bring me back and then he went to Hell. An angel brought him back. It's what brought you back, too. Oh, and Dad? Well, Dad made a deal with a demon to-"

"That's enough, Sam!" Dean slammed on the breaks, barely pulling onto the shoulder of the highway. "Get out. Right the fuck now." He threw the shift into park and waited for Sam to get out before he did as well. Glancing at Adam, confused but still sitting in the backseat, Dean rounded the car towards Sam so he wouldn't have to raise his voice again. "I don't know what your problem is, Sam, but if it's got anything to do with Adam, you better just get over it. He's our brother and he's been through a lot of shit that he doesn't even know lately and you just laying it all on him is not helping." In the dim glow of the headlights that barely illuminated the place they stood, Dean could see how drawn his brother's face was and the dark circles around his almost manic eyes. His anger disappeared more quickly than it had come on. "What's going on, Sam?"

Sam scrubbed shaky hands over his face, slid his fingers through his still-messy hair. "Nothing." He sighed heavily. "Look, I just. I'm sorry. Let's just go."

Dean watched as Sam went back to his door, waiting for Dean to go back to his before he got in. Inside the car, Dean hesitated a moment before shifting back into drive and pulling onto the highway.

"I didn't mean to unload all that on you," Sam said quietly. "Not like that."

"It's...it's not okay," Adam said, "but...I'll deal with it."

"There's a duffel bag on the floor back there," Dean said to Adam. "Dad's journal's inside. There's a small flashlight in there somewhere, too. Just start reading that – you'll understand why Dad wasn't around much and why he didn't tell you about us. Just know that everything on those pages is true."