Title: As Is
Prompt: Written for ahavaelwilhouse on livejournal: "Supernatural, Dean and Sam with Adam, they rescue Adam from the cage and he's not the same."
Adam won't leave the house. On bad days, he won't even crawl out from under the bed. Thankfully, bad days are few and far between.
And Dean can't believe he's even thought that sentence.
Because on good days, Adam curls in the corner of the living room between the couch and the wall to watch Bobby work. On good days, Adam is still too afraid to look outside or be in the same room as Castiel.
The six feet of sheer snark can curl in tight enough to hide under desks in cupboards or even the nearest human lap when Adam perceives any kind of threat to himself.
Dean feels embarrassed for the kid's sake, but he never shoves Adam away. He sees Ben and remembers the shove that saved the kid's life, but destroyed Dean's new family. And he'll muss his youngest brother's hair, but he won't kick Adam off his lap.
These are good days, he reminds himself.
On good days, they can't keep socks on Adam's feet. The fabric is too constricting, too much for oversensitive skin, too tight, too soft, too abrasive . . . just too much. Which is all very well for a beach dweller, but it isn't going to fly in South Dakota's winters where it gets below zero, and Bobby's floors are not carpeted.
Except the Winchester's room. The boys return one day from a quick hunt in town and find the beds had been dismantled and the dresser hauled out into the upstairs hallway.
They find Adam standing in the middle of the floor digging his toes into the plush carpet experimentally, while Bobby tacked in the last strip of molding. The work was complimented, and Bobby took Adam downstairs to start dinner while Sam and Dean got the privilege of putting all the furniture back.
However, one room does not a sauna make. After reading that 90% of the body's heat escapes through the head and feet, Dean took on the job of experimenting with different materials or thicknesses. No variation appeased Adam, and Dean bought thirty pairs of the thickest socks he could find and made a point of forcing Adam to wear them.
"It's like raising a toddler," Dean scoffed, finding a pair of socks crammed into the silverware drawer. "This is so unsanitary, Adam," he scolded, turning back to his brother.
Adam only stared at him sullenly, so Dean crouched and began working the socks over cold bare feet. Dean knows that he'll find them wadded up behind a throw pillow in twenty minutes or less.
On good days, Adam barely eats.
Adam was getting emaciated. His tall frame looked like it had been stretched out. Nothing tempted his uneasy stomach, and if the kid managed to choke something down like as not it came right back up.
Sometimes though. Sometimes, Adam could be tricked if the food wasn't the focus, if Adam was distracted.
A couple handfuls of popcorn while watching a movie.
A sandwich while distracted by research.
A glass of milk under his nose while the others cook.
It wasn't enough, and Dean knew that soon they're going to have to drag Adam outside and to a doctor. It won't be pretty, and in the end, they're probably going to have to knock their little brother unconscious or drug him. As if they don't already have enough trust issues between the three of them.
Dean didn't know why Death had changed his mind. He didn't know why the Horseman had returned with both of his little brothers after making the deal for one. Dean doesn't care.
Bobby suspected that it was to provide Sam with a perpetual reminder not to scratch the wall. A "Here, look at your brother and what the cage made of him." And Bobby is probably right. Sam can't remember the cage or a year of his life, and Dean knows his brother well enough to know that Sam hates it.
But then there's Adam.
And Sam leaves the wall alone. Sam trusts Dean.
It isn't perfect. Sam is being held together through sheer force of will. Adam has PTSD multiplied by an infinite factor. Bobby had a whole history prior to the Winchesters that Dean's only starting to understand, and Castiel is keeping secrets. And sometimes, Dean misses Lisa and Ben.
But . . .
Dean has Adam curled against one shoulder, and Sam on the floor at his feet. Bobby and Castiel are in the next room discussing the implications of Death's request regarding human souls, and all five of them are breathing and within easy reach.
He'll take them as is.
This is the best his life has ever gotten, and Dean's determined not to let it slide out of control again.