"So… what are we thinking? Not—not hallucinations. Right?"
Dean felt he needed this private aside with Castiel, too afraid to voice his doubts in front of his brother. Sorry, Sam, but I think you might be going batshit crazy. Again. It just wasn't the sort of discussion one could have comfortably.
Thankfully, Castiel wasted no time in quashing those doubts. "I believe that what your brother is seeing is real. What exactly that is, remains to be seen."
"So, ghost, specter? Dammit, Cas, give me something to work with!"
"I don't have all the answers, Dean," the former angel said, narrowing his eyes. Oh. So he was getting pissy now. "But I don't think that, if indeed Adam escaped from the Cage as Sam believes, he would be able to do so whole, not and retain any sort of functionality. Whatever Sam is seeing would have to be only a fragment of Adam's psyche."
"So you do think he got out."
"I don't know, Dean." He let out a deeply frustrated sigh. "Maybe. Although I don't know how it's possible—"
"Awesome. Because we really need to worry about this, too. The kid can barely walk in a straight line, now we have to think about things renting out space in his gray matter…" Dean paced up and down the hall, scuffing the already-worn carpet with his slippers.
"If I could get inside of his head, then maybe—"
"We have a stash of African Dream Root downstairs. And you're not going, I am. Broken foot sort of disqualifies you, sorry."
oOo
Sam didn't seem to like the Plan.
"So, you're going to go dreamwalking—and not to wake me up, but to kill Adam, or—whoever's dreamwalking with me already?" He shakes his head. "Dean, do you have any idea how crazy you sound right now? We know next to nothing about what's going on. If Adam's really going to communicate with me every time I take a nap, shouldn't I at least try to coax some information out of him first? Like, I don't know, how he got out?"
"Nuh-uh. Nope. Sam, he's inside your head. That's dangerous enough already; he could kill you in your sleep. Like Jeremy, and from what you've said, he has a hell of a lot of motive to do just that. What do you think you're gonna do? Talk him down?"
"Maybe?" Sam looked down at his hands for a second, before looking back up at his brother. "If, if it is Adam… I don't want to kill him, Dean. He didn't deserve to be down there any more than I did, and, and when I got out… I forgot about him. Even when I got my soul back, when I had all that time, I never even considered trying to bring him back. I guess… I guess I feel responsible."
"I disagree."
Both brothers started a little at Castiel's words, and turned to stare at him in a single, synchronized motion.
"Sorry?" Sam said.
The former angel limped on over, tossing his crutch aside with a certain measure of disgust as he settled himself into one of the armchairs. "Adam Milligan was not, as you say, a 'stand up guy.' He was willing to bring about the Apocalypse, kill millions upon millions so that his mother would be resurrected. You, on the other hand—" he smiled slightly, looking at Sam "—were a hero. You threw yourself into the Cage in order to save humankind. You deserved to be saved, and—I tried. Adam brought his fate upon himself. I personally feel no qualms about killing him if he has escaped and poses a threat."
Sam's mouth had fallen open. He didn't know whether to feel horrified, that Castiel's sense of morality was still so black and white, no one deserves the Cage, no matter what they did, or whether to feel guilty.Because hadn't he just done the same thing? Condemned millions upon millions, in the future, to be possessed, killed, damned to Hell by demons because he couldn't finish the Trials. Some hero I am.
He swallowed, and was surprised to find Dean nodding. "He's right, Sam," he said. "Now, I wanted to save him before, too—I don't think anyone really deserves to be down there—but he's made some lousy decisions, and frankly I'm not gonna try and save the guy who tried to end the world if he's out and threatening you."
Sam's eyes skipped between his brother and Castiel, who were both wearing identical expressions of determination. The you-listen-to-me-Sam-or-I'll-make-you-live-to-regr et-it look, when compounded like that, was truly formidable, and made him remember why he actually didn't like it so much when they teamed up. He blew out a breath.
"It's still my dream, and I think we should talk to him first."
"Sure thing. You do that, Sam." Dean wore a tight grin. "I just hope your dreams have a lot of weapons."
oOo
"I think you'll be comfortable here," Abaddon said sweetly, sweeping a hand over the suite she'd had prepared. "There's a Jackoozie, flat-screen T.V., ex box, and excellent room service. We even disconnected the intern's et and are holding onto your phones to keep outside distractions to a minimum."
Kevin knew what that meant. Try and contact the Winchesters and you're dead, Prophet or no.
"So… just the angel bomb recipe?" he asked, taking it all in. It was fancier than the boat, when it came to cells.
"And anything else you find useful. You may use your discretion, and meanwhile we will be looking into alternative means of warfare. Take your time; nothing must be overlooked."
"And you're sure about this ritual that they're going to be doing?"
A glimmer of fear flickered on Abaddon's face, soon replaced by her usual seductive confidence. "It's in everyone's best interests to have them eliminated," she confirmed.
oOo
"Dude, you have weird dreams."
Sam glared. "I do not."
"You do. Don't most people dream about settings they've actually been in? I mean, I do. But like—what the fuck is this?"
They were standing on a flat white platform, suspended on seemingly nothing, over a wide expanse of empty air and crisscrossing, unevenly spaced black wires. On another, smaller white block, a long ways away and a little lower, was a stick. With a head on it.
"Very Lord of the Flies," Dean commented, pointing. "Isn't that your head?"
It was. But it was a younger version of Sam impaled on the stick, a Sam from three, or possibly more, years ago. Sam knew without looking, because he'd had this dream before. "Where's Adam?" he wondered aloud. "And if you don't like the dream, change it."
Dean held up his hands. "Hey, I've never tried something like that before. How about you change it?"
Sam shut his eyes, and the dream shifted. "What the hell, Sam?! This is weirder!"
Sam opened his eyes. They were standing a ways away from two volcanoes, sitting side by side. Each was emitting different-colored glowing bubbles into the tropical night air; the first green, and the other red. Sam felt the weight of a remote in his hand.
"I touch this button, and a hole will blow into the sides of those volcanoes," he explained. "Then the bubbles will be mixed together."
"I'm not gonna pretend that made any sense," Dean said.
Sam pocketed the remote. He only made it past this dream one way; he might as well stick with it. "Doesn't matter," he said. "If Adam's gonna make us look for him, I say we go look."
oOo
Castiel scowled at the two men, sleeping seemingly peacefully sprawled over the living room furniture. It was his job to watch them, so that if anything weird starts happening with Sam, you can wake him up. As far as Castiel could tell, if something strange did start happening with Sam, he wouldn't be able to wake him up. Which meant he was being completely useless, sitting here.
He rapped unhappy fingers on his cast, willing it to disappear, for his foot to heal. If he had sufficient control in the dream, maybe it wouldn't matter that it was broken. But he had a job to do here, pointless as it was. He counted freckles, counted breaths, counted seconds and pretended he couldn't feel the walls closing around him.
oOo
"You can't even dream up normal vegetation?"
Dean flicked away a branch from yet another breathing tree. "I'm gonna break a twig, and they're gonna start talking, am I right? This the Inferno, or something?"
"I didn't know you read that."
"What can I say? At one point in my life I was very—" he squeaked as a leaf began glowing "—interested in Hell."
"I read somewhere that creative dreams are a sign of intelligence. Maybe this just all goes to show how smart I am." Sam grinned as this earned him the desired snort.
"Please. If anything, this is a sign of poorly-contained insanity. Bet even Cas doesn't dream up things as crazy as you."
"What does he dream about? Cas, I mean." Sam dodged a moving root and scrutinized his brother. "Have you ever asked him?"
"No. You see me sharing my dreams with people?" He shook his head. "If he wanted to talk about it, he would. I'm not gonna push."
"Maybe you should. Dean, it's not normal, the way—"
"Nothing about this is normal," Dean snapped. "There's not much I can do about it." He walked forward a few more paces, then stopped as he noticed his brother wasn't following. "Sam?"
"I think I see him. Over there." Sam pointed at a shadowy area some yards ahead.
"Shit." Dean ran his hands over his jacket, patted his jeans. He sent Sam a betrayed look. "You couldn't dream me up a gun?"
oOo
"Knew you'd find me," Adam said smugly, watching Sam step into the clearing. "You can't stay away, you want this. Figures. You never tried hiding in the Cage, either. Oh. You brought your brother, too. Hey, Dean." He seemed unconcerned with the murderous glare being directed at him.
"Your brother too, Adam. Remember?" Sam studied him, looking for signs of the broken psyche Castiel and Dean told him would be there.
"I told you before, I'm not buying into your family crap. I mean, being related to you, look where it got me." He smiled, and there it was. Madness. Sam could see it. "Brothers in the trenches, what did that amount to?"
"How are you here, Adam?" Dean growled. Adam let out an exaggerated yawn.
"Same old questions, same old answer. I'm not telling. I'm afraid he isn't going into the Cage today, but I got a great idea when Sam-boy picked this dream. Watch."
He reached his hand up into the air, and the brothers watched as one of the glowing red bubbles floated down from above. It was actually very large up close, about half the size of Adam.
"Oh, no. You've got be kidding."
"What? What?" Dean said, eyeing the bubble.
"He's going to pop it."
"That's right." And he popped it.
oOo
"What the hell's going on, Sam? Why is the ceiling so low? Why are we dressed like prostitutes?"
"It's part of the memory." Sam said, nudging the shut door halfheartedly. He knew it was locked. The room was small, dark and stifling, made out of rotting wood and had a ceiling so low Sam could hardly sit up without his head thunking into it.
"Memory?"
"I don't know… if it's an organizational thing, or what," Sam said, digging his fingers into his arms. "Ever since I was little, I'd sometimes have the dream with the volcanoes. I'd try blowing up the one with the red bubbles, but then they'd infect the volcano with the green bubbles, changing their color, and I'd have to pop all the red ones before they completely took over the green. Then I'd rebuild the red volcano."
"And that means what, exactly?"
"The red bubbles, were bad memories, and the green ones were good. I always thought it was a sort of lesson. That I can't get rid of the bad memories. Just separate them."
"Um, okay. And you never had this dream and just, popped the green bubbles the whole time? That's what I would do."
Sam stared at him uncomprehendingly. "No."
"So that means this is a bad memory." Sam nodded. "Okay, but Sam, I don't remember a time when either of us was—"
"You weren't here."
Dean blinked.
"This is one of my memories from the Cage."
Oh. Shit.
oOo
It went on. Memory after memory, and Adam seemed to be having a hell of a time at it. He'd show up in the last few moments, another bubble in hand, giggle a bit, and send them into the next one.
Some of them were memories Dean knew. Sam's first hunt, a couple of the fights with their father. Jess, who he'd heard enough about to feel like he'd been there himself.
Most of them he didn't. Most of them wanted to make him claw his eyes out and scream and scream because how the hell did Sam deal with all of this? He said something vague about lucid dreaming and a book be bought and controlling things, but all Dean saw was misery, enough misery and pain to send someone hurtling off of the nearest bridge, and the fact that this wasn't everything, that this wasn't the worst of it and Sam had been cured of that, sent shivers of cool terror down his spine.
But they caught up to Adam eventually. They caught him smack dab at the edge of the red volcano, and Sam pulled out the remote, like they'd planned. Looked in the bastard's eyes. Didn't press it.
So Dean yanked the device from him and pressed it himself. They hardly got to see the flames billow before they were both yanked out of the dream and awoke.
oOo
"Is he dead?" Castiel asked, glancing up from a book. A book. The little fucker was reading a book.
Dean scrubbed a hand over his face, shaky. "I—guess so. Die in the dream, die in real life, right? Adam got caught in an explosion."
Sam groaned from his couch. "I want to vomit."
"Bucket's next to you."
"Regardless," Castiel said, tapping the cover of his book. "I believe I have found something which will prevent this sort of thing from happening in the future. I suggest we all try it. It's a sort of—self-defense of the mind, intended to ward off mind control and safeguard sleep. Your Men of Letters are very knowledgeable."
Dean's body sagged into the couch. "Couldn't you have found that sooner?" he asked, voice strangled.
"I thought the purpose of the exercise was to kill Adam, or get information from him."
"Well—yes, but—"
oOo
Adam gasped as he awoke, chest heaving, sweat making his body clammy and cold. He watched the slowly revolving fan above him, willing his heart to slow down.
Almost died. I almost died.
Again.
Another second, and…
I'm gonna find him. He'll suffer.
No. Both of them.
oOo
"What do you dream about, Cas?" Dean asked it softly, hesitantly, loosening his arms slightly from where they'd pinioned Castiel's. He had a habit of thwacking Dean in the face while he slept, when his arms were free to move. And this was the third time Castiel had woken up that night, muttering to Dean about trying to change it. He still cried at night, and Dean was tired of tear-tracks being the first thing the light hit in the morning. He wanted to fix it. He needed to.
"Nothing important," he lied, shifting. "I hope the herbs will prove effective." This referencing the recipe detailed in the Men of Letters book, which required a ground bamboo and chamomile mixture to be smudged behind the ear of the user to defend the mind from intrusion.
Dean sighed and let it be.
oOo
When Sam went back to sleep he was on the platform, staring, as usual, at the head.
I'm sick of this dream, he thought. But it was undisturbed, so, almost afraid of the spell breaking, he remained in the dream, and continued to stare at the head.
It felt like years before it was morning.
A/N: More rewards! Today's prize for reviewing is a limited copy edition of Sam's Dream Interpretation book! He's kept it secret from Dean for several years, so it smells like dirty socks, but it's extremely useful! Get yours now!