Fic: The Ghost and His Keeper [Michael/Adam] Part IV
Part III
PART IV
Michael goes quiet after that. Doesn't talk to Adam. Avoids him completely, which yeah makes total sense. Adam fucked up, and he fucked up badly.
Adam doesn't even know what to do.
It's a whole new level of fucked up, something which Adam didn't even think was possible, from there onwards.
-x-x-x-
It's been a long time since that the angel incident, so much that it's sort of slipped his mind completely. Almost nearly a year? Maybe more or less, Adam doesn't know. He's better at keeping time these days, but not by much. And off late he's been more bothered by Michael's sudden one night of having a body, making out like horny teenagers on his couch, before going back to being a ghost, and the subsequent radio silence to notice the other things.
So, he's a little surprised when there's a crash in the living room early in the morning. He grabs the baseball bat by his bed, and heads down expecting burglars.
Instead, he finds a short man with brown hair holding an injured dark skinned woman up. Finds Michael looking worried, and freaking out. Finds that sudden unsettling feeling in the pit of his stomach which he had been ignoring up until now amplifying, before he realises it's Michael's Grace that's behind that.
“Uh what?” He tries, hands still gripping the baseball bat tightly, waiting for any sign to brain one or both of the intruders.
Michael ignores him. “Gabriel, what happened to Raphael?”
Gabriel? Raphael? As in the archangels? Michael's siblings? What the fuck is going on?
“Castiel's opened Purgatory and gone on a bender,” Gabriel replies. “I didn't know where else to bring her.”
There are so many questions that need to be asked, but Adam realises that this is not the time for it. These two don't seem like threats. And with the way Michael's Grace is thrumming angrily inside him, trying to reach out to the injured woman, he knows he'll not be able to rest until she's better. Even if a bigger part of him doesn't trust them, doesn't want them here or anywhere near his life again. Wants them to stop existing altogether.
Also, Gabriel has this look on his face, one that says he's not above doing a Zachariah on Adam to get his way, so Adam agrees. “My bedroom,” he offers. “She can lie down there.”
Both Michael and Gabriel send him a thankful look, and Adam realises that yes he made the right decision. At least he hopes he has, and that this won't come back to bite him in the ass later. He sighs, deciding that he's going to need a whole lot of coffee.
~*~
Apparently Gabriel is supposed to be dead - was supposed to be dead. Lucifer killed him. Except as Michael informs Adam when he materialises in the kitchen, Gabriel seems to have been faking his death, and watching from the sidelines.
Raphael and Castiel started a civil war in Heaven once Michael and Lucifer were locked up in the Cage. Castiel wanted Free-Will, and Raphael wanted to restart Revelations. They were both fighting for more power, and more souls. Heaven's been divided ever since. Things were in Raphael's favour until Castiel opened the door to Purgatory and brought back enough souls to give him power. And then nearly killed Raphael.
Michael goes back to being broodingly silent after that, and doesn't utter a word.
Later Gabriel tells him bitterly over coffee, (it's odd because he talks to Adam like Adam is a friend, even though he's known Adam only since this morning) when Michael forces him downstairs for a break and takes vigil over Raphael, that Castiel's wiped out most of Heaven too.
Adam wants to ask how Gabriel knew to bring Raphael here, or why they came here, but he doesn't. He's learned from dealing with Michael that he won't get a straight answer. Instead, he leaves the archangels to it, and goes to have a panic attack in his car, and then visit Nanny at the hospital. It helps.
~*~
It's nearing a week since Gabriel and Raphael appeared in his living room. Adam comes back from his daily hospital visit to Nanny, to find Gabriel and Michael engaged in a verbal sparring match.
“You should know better than to keep secrets from loved ones. You know how it turns out.”
“Gabriel.”
“Don't 'Gabriel' me. You know what it's done. Look at Lucifer. Look at yourself. Look at me. You didn't even know when I left. Look at Raphael. Look at what she did. For you. Raphael, Michael. The only one out of us who hated bloodshed, but developed an acquired taste for it, because you needed a warrior not a healer. She's been going insane for millennia, Lucifer-insane, and you didn't even pay attention.”
Michael slumps looking defeated. His grey see through form getting more lighter. “What do you want, Gabriel?” It's quiet, almost in the same tone that Michael says 'you don't remember' to Adam.
“World peace, and happiness. What do you think, Michael? I want us to at least be family, like family should be. I want us to be happy again. Raphael, me, Lucifer the day he gets out, you and your human, because we might be the only ones left. Mostly, for once, I want you to tell the truth. You can't keep hiding things forever. Not when this is your fuck up.”
“Um,” Adam finds himself interrupting, because well he can't keep standing in the doorway forever, and secondly, because it feels like if he doesn't step in then there's going to be some spectacular furniture damage. They both look at him, before Michael fades out, leaving with him with Gabriel.
Gabriel sighs, sitting on his couch, motioning him over. There's something oddly familiar about it, and Adam can't place where he's seen it before.
“Raphael?” Adam asks because that's the thing to do. And because he's not even sure how to begin asking about what the hell was happening when he got in.
Gabriel deflates. “She's- She'll heal. She won't be happy about what she's about to find out, me being alive. And Michael being out of the Cage, and shacking up with you to play house, considering she started a war to get him out. About the Leviathans, but she'll heal. Hopefully better than the last time.”
“Michael and me, aren't shacking up. It's kind of a forced thing.” He says it, because it's the truth. Adam tries not to think about his fucked up feelings for Michael. Tries not to think about how Michael seems to reciprocate them thanks to his own fucked up reasons. About that one night, when Michael was tangible, and how they fell asleep making out on the couch, before he went back to being Casper again. Because it's not healthy. There will never be a realm in which it will ever be healthy.
Gabriel scoffs in disbelief and then magics a cup of what smells like hot chocolate into his hand. “Yeah, he'd shack up with you even without the condition.”
“How did you even know to come here?” Adam's trying to digress, because he doesn't really want to talk about the thing he and Michael have going on right now. Not when Michael's still silent and brooding with him. Not when Adam knows he fucked up royally. Doesn't want to ask about what he ended up interrupting.
“I've been watching you since you got out.”
“Wait, WHAT?”
“Relax kid. I didn't blab, and I wasn't even going too. I like the world the way it is, even though it could do with some fixing up. I just wanted to know why big bro's Grace was suddenly back topside after he was supposed to have fallen into the Cage and then I saw this little thing.” Gabriel replies, seemingly reading Adam's mind. “It's just when it happened, I didn't know where else to lay low with her, without attracting attention. I can manage well alone, but not when I'm hiding someone else. And you two have managed to turn this thing into an undetectable fortress.”
Adam does relax, only marginally. “So...” he starts searching for something to say, any way to put word to his train of thoughts. There's so much he wants to know, wants to ask. And he wants to comfort as well, because Gabriel has an expression on his face that Adam has seen in his own reflection. He knows what it's like to lose family.
It's Gabriel who breaks the silence. “He hasn't told you how he got you two out yet, has he?”
“Yes - no, wait he got us out?”
“Gabriel.” And that'd be Michael, back in the living room, glaring daggers at Gabriel.
“Mickey,” Gabriel replies back easily, “I was just telling Adam about how he got out since he's so nicely lending us his house, and he deserves to know, and you won't tell him.”
“Gabriel,” and this time it's pleading. Adam watches Gabriel give in, get up and go upstairs, leaving just Michael and him alone in the living room.
“You know,” Adam says ignoring the fact that Michael has already started fading out to avoid him again, “you're going to have to tell me eventually.”
~*~
Raphael wakes up on a Wednesday, and that's how everything unravels.
It's nearing a few months since they appeared in his living room. Gabriel and Raphael seem to have become such a common fixture in his life, that Nanny doesn't even ask about Raphael when she comes over. Just seems to accept the fact that Adam has two house-guests, one who's for all intents and purposes a vegetable, and needs constant care, and Adam kind of loves her for that. Either that or Gabriel's behind her not caring with using his angelic powers.
Gabriel and Michael were having yet another argument in the living room when he got in, and so he'd decided to just go upstairs and leave them to it, because dealing with them is tedious. Michael still won't tell him anything, and won't let Gabriel talk either. Adam's given up on them. He walks into his room only to have the air knocked out of his lungs as he's slammed into the door by Raphael, her hand trying to crush his neck. Her eyes are completely, a light purplish blue, like there's a film of the colour covering them.
“Um, Raphael, hi,” is all he manages, before she snarls in his face.
“You're not him. Who are you? What did you do to him?”
He's trying to choke out an answer, when Gabriel is behind her, pulling her off him, murmuring something into her ear in what's definitely not English, but Adam finds the language familiar. He just can't place it. Adam makes the mistake of looking at the floor because the scene is so intimate and he feels like he's intruding but then he sees Raphael's shadow crackle. Her shadow actually crackles.
Whatever it is Gabriel says, it calms her down because her shadow seems to still, and when Adam looks back up at them she's slumped against Gabriel, who's still holding onto her tightly.
“She just woke up,” Adam supplies lamely, not knowing what else to say. It draws Raphael's gaze back to him, and he tries shrinking against the wall because that look is terrifying. Thankfully Michael materialises in time to draw her gaze away from him. At least that's what Adam thinks because she takes one look at Michael, before her eyes narrow. She turns her ire back on Adam and lunges for him again, breaking free of Gabriel's grip.
“You made him bow. You made him bow,” her scream sounds like thunderclaps, making the whole house rattle. There's an oppressive pressure - her Grace, Adam realises - crushing him. Adam's vaguely aware, while trying to breathe and push her off, that Gabriel is trying to get her off him. “What did you do to him?” It's too much, Adam can't feel anything besides it, and everything is starting to go white in front of his eyes. He can't breathe. The Grace inside him, Michael's Grace, is singing in retaliation. Pain erupts all over his body, familiar from days he tries to forget. Adam feels like he's being stretched taut and pushed into a pinpoint at the same time, being disintegrated into too much light and air and fire.
There are flashes and snapshots of memories playing across his eyes, even as spots dance in his vision. Of Michael taking his consent, promising him his mother back. Screaming as the holy oil burned him too his bones, and screaming louder as Michael pieced him back. Of falling, falling, falling, waiting for the rock bottom that never seemed to be coming. Of Hell and running and hiding. Of Sam screaming, and him screaming. Of Grace ripping him apart, and then trying to piece him back together haphazardly whispering apologies. Of Michael, pressing his Grace against Adam's abused raw soul in a new different way, but not unwelcome. Of wings, bright beautiful even with the sulphur staining them, keeping Adam safe. Of pleas, and promises whispered into his mouth.
He remembers Death, tall, and pale, looking at him curiously. He remembers the deal.
He remembers.
“He didn't do anything Raphael. It was my choice.” Adam can make out Michael kneeling next to them, his voice trying for something comforting. Raphael's hands leave his neck, the pressure eases up as she turns to him, allowing Adam to breathe again. There are still spots dancing across his vision and he's still a little light headed. Gabriel's already pulled her off him again, and he's just there on the floor breathing heavily.
Adam doesn't even have to look at them to know that Gabriel's about to tell him to leave, along with Michael. He shakily gets up, and leaves the room, needing to just digest everything.
When he goes up later to check in on Raphael and Gabriel, his room is empty.
-x-x-x-
Part V
PART IV
Michael goes quiet after that. Doesn't talk to Adam. Avoids him completely, which yeah makes total sense. Adam fucked up, and he fucked up badly.
Adam doesn't even know what to do.
It's a whole new level of fucked up, something which Adam didn't even think was possible, from there onwards.
-x-x-x-
It's been a long time since that the angel incident, so much that it's sort of slipped his mind completely. Almost nearly a year? Maybe more or less, Adam doesn't know. He's better at keeping time these days, but not by much. And off late he's been more bothered by Michael's sudden one night of having a body, making out like horny teenagers on his couch, before going back to being a ghost, and the subsequent radio silence to notice the other things.
So, he's a little surprised when there's a crash in the living room early in the morning. He grabs the baseball bat by his bed, and heads down expecting burglars.
Instead, he finds a short man with brown hair holding an injured dark skinned woman up. Finds Michael looking worried, and freaking out. Finds that sudden unsettling feeling in the pit of his stomach which he had been ignoring up until now amplifying, before he realises it's Michael's Grace that's behind that.
“Uh what?” He tries, hands still gripping the baseball bat tightly, waiting for any sign to brain one or both of the intruders.
Michael ignores him. “Gabriel, what happened to Raphael?”
Gabriel? Raphael? As in the archangels? Michael's siblings? What the fuck is going on?
“Castiel's opened Purgatory and gone on a bender,” Gabriel replies. “I didn't know where else to bring her.”
There are so many questions that need to be asked, but Adam realises that this is not the time for it. These two don't seem like threats. And with the way Michael's Grace is thrumming angrily inside him, trying to reach out to the injured woman, he knows he'll not be able to rest until she's better. Even if a bigger part of him doesn't trust them, doesn't want them here or anywhere near his life again. Wants them to stop existing altogether.
Also, Gabriel has this look on his face, one that says he's not above doing a Zachariah on Adam to get his way, so Adam agrees. “My bedroom,” he offers. “She can lie down there.”
Both Michael and Gabriel send him a thankful look, and Adam realises that yes he made the right decision. At least he hopes he has, and that this won't come back to bite him in the ass later. He sighs, deciding that he's going to need a whole lot of coffee.
~*~
Apparently Gabriel is supposed to be dead - was supposed to be dead. Lucifer killed him. Except as Michael informs Adam when he materialises in the kitchen, Gabriel seems to have been faking his death, and watching from the sidelines.
Raphael and Castiel started a civil war in Heaven once Michael and Lucifer were locked up in the Cage. Castiel wanted Free-Will, and Raphael wanted to restart Revelations. They were both fighting for more power, and more souls. Heaven's been divided ever since. Things were in Raphael's favour until Castiel opened the door to Purgatory and brought back enough souls to give him power. And then nearly killed Raphael.
Michael goes back to being broodingly silent after that, and doesn't utter a word.
Later Gabriel tells him bitterly over coffee, (it's odd because he talks to Adam like Adam is a friend, even though he's known Adam only since this morning) when Michael forces him downstairs for a break and takes vigil over Raphael, that Castiel's wiped out most of Heaven too.
Adam wants to ask how Gabriel knew to bring Raphael here, or why they came here, but he doesn't. He's learned from dealing with Michael that he won't get a straight answer. Instead, he leaves the archangels to it, and goes to have a panic attack in his car, and then visit Nanny at the hospital. It helps.
~*~
It's nearing a week since Gabriel and Raphael appeared in his living room. Adam comes back from his daily hospital visit to Nanny, to find Gabriel and Michael engaged in a verbal sparring match.
“You should know better than to keep secrets from loved ones. You know how it turns out.”
“Gabriel.”
“Don't 'Gabriel' me. You know what it's done. Look at Lucifer. Look at yourself. Look at me. You didn't even know when I left. Look at Raphael. Look at what she did. For you. Raphael, Michael. The only one out of us who hated bloodshed, but developed an acquired taste for it, because you needed a warrior not a healer. She's been going insane for millennia, Lucifer-insane, and you didn't even pay attention.”
Michael slumps looking defeated. His grey see through form getting more lighter. “What do you want, Gabriel?” It's quiet, almost in the same tone that Michael says 'you don't remember' to Adam.
“World peace, and happiness. What do you think, Michael? I want us to at least be family, like family should be. I want us to be happy again. Raphael, me, Lucifer the day he gets out, you and your human, because we might be the only ones left. Mostly, for once, I want you to tell the truth. You can't keep hiding things forever. Not when this is your fuck up.”
“Um,” Adam finds himself interrupting, because well he can't keep standing in the doorway forever, and secondly, because it feels like if he doesn't step in then there's going to be some spectacular furniture damage. They both look at him, before Michael fades out, leaving with him with Gabriel.
Gabriel sighs, sitting on his couch, motioning him over. There's something oddly familiar about it, and Adam can't place where he's seen it before.
“Raphael?” Adam asks because that's the thing to do. And because he's not even sure how to begin asking about what the hell was happening when he got in.
Gabriel deflates. “She's- She'll heal. She won't be happy about what she's about to find out, me being alive. And Michael being out of the Cage, and shacking up with you to play house, considering she started a war to get him out. About the Leviathans, but she'll heal. Hopefully better than the last time.”
“Michael and me, aren't shacking up. It's kind of a forced thing.” He says it, because it's the truth. Adam tries not to think about his fucked up feelings for Michael. Tries not to think about how Michael seems to reciprocate them thanks to his own fucked up reasons. About that one night, when Michael was tangible, and how they fell asleep making out on the couch, before he went back to being Casper again. Because it's not healthy. There will never be a realm in which it will ever be healthy.
Gabriel scoffs in disbelief and then magics a cup of what smells like hot chocolate into his hand. “Yeah, he'd shack up with you even without the condition.”
“How did you even know to come here?” Adam's trying to digress, because he doesn't really want to talk about the thing he and Michael have going on right now. Not when Michael's still silent and brooding with him. Not when Adam knows he fucked up royally. Doesn't want to ask about what he ended up interrupting.
“I've been watching you since you got out.”
“Wait, WHAT?”
“Relax kid. I didn't blab, and I wasn't even going too. I like the world the way it is, even though it could do with some fixing up. I just wanted to know why big bro's Grace was suddenly back topside after he was supposed to have fallen into the Cage and then I saw this little thing.” Gabriel replies, seemingly reading Adam's mind. “It's just when it happened, I didn't know where else to lay low with her, without attracting attention. I can manage well alone, but not when I'm hiding someone else. And you two have managed to turn this thing into an undetectable fortress.”
Adam does relax, only marginally. “So...” he starts searching for something to say, any way to put word to his train of thoughts. There's so much he wants to know, wants to ask. And he wants to comfort as well, because Gabriel has an expression on his face that Adam has seen in his own reflection. He knows what it's like to lose family.
It's Gabriel who breaks the silence. “He hasn't told you how he got you two out yet, has he?”
“Yes - no, wait he got us out?”
“Gabriel.” And that'd be Michael, back in the living room, glaring daggers at Gabriel.
“Mickey,” Gabriel replies back easily, “I was just telling Adam about how he got out since he's so nicely lending us his house, and he deserves to know, and you won't tell him.”
“Gabriel,” and this time it's pleading. Adam watches Gabriel give in, get up and go upstairs, leaving just Michael and him alone in the living room.
“You know,” Adam says ignoring the fact that Michael has already started fading out to avoid him again, “you're going to have to tell me eventually.”
~*~
Raphael wakes up on a Wednesday, and that's how everything unravels.
It's nearing a few months since they appeared in his living room. Gabriel and Raphael seem to have become such a common fixture in his life, that Nanny doesn't even ask about Raphael when she comes over. Just seems to accept the fact that Adam has two house-guests, one who's for all intents and purposes a vegetable, and needs constant care, and Adam kind of loves her for that. Either that or Gabriel's behind her not caring with using his angelic powers.
Gabriel and Michael were having yet another argument in the living room when he got in, and so he'd decided to just go upstairs and leave them to it, because dealing with them is tedious. Michael still won't tell him anything, and won't let Gabriel talk either. Adam's given up on them. He walks into his room only to have the air knocked out of his lungs as he's slammed into the door by Raphael, her hand trying to crush his neck. Her eyes are completely, a light purplish blue, like there's a film of the colour covering them.
“Um, Raphael, hi,” is all he manages, before she snarls in his face.
“You're not him. Who are you? What did you do to him?”
He's trying to choke out an answer, when Gabriel is behind her, pulling her off him, murmuring something into her ear in what's definitely not English, but Adam finds the language familiar. He just can't place it. Adam makes the mistake of looking at the floor because the scene is so intimate and he feels like he's intruding but then he sees Raphael's shadow crackle. Her shadow actually crackles.
Whatever it is Gabriel says, it calms her down because her shadow seems to still, and when Adam looks back up at them she's slumped against Gabriel, who's still holding onto her tightly.
“She just woke up,” Adam supplies lamely, not knowing what else to say. It draws Raphael's gaze back to him, and he tries shrinking against the wall because that look is terrifying. Thankfully Michael materialises in time to draw her gaze away from him. At least that's what Adam thinks because she takes one look at Michael, before her eyes narrow. She turns her ire back on Adam and lunges for him again, breaking free of Gabriel's grip.
“You made him bow. You made him bow,” her scream sounds like thunderclaps, making the whole house rattle. There's an oppressive pressure - her Grace, Adam realises - crushing him. Adam's vaguely aware, while trying to breathe and push her off, that Gabriel is trying to get her off him. “What did you do to him?” It's too much, Adam can't feel anything besides it, and everything is starting to go white in front of his eyes. He can't breathe. The Grace inside him, Michael's Grace, is singing in retaliation. Pain erupts all over his body, familiar from days he tries to forget. Adam feels like he's being stretched taut and pushed into a pinpoint at the same time, being disintegrated into too much light and air and fire.
There are flashes and snapshots of memories playing across his eyes, even as spots dance in his vision. Of Michael taking his consent, promising him his mother back. Screaming as the holy oil burned him too his bones, and screaming louder as Michael pieced him back. Of falling, falling, falling, waiting for the rock bottom that never seemed to be coming. Of Hell and running and hiding. Of Sam screaming, and him screaming. Of Grace ripping him apart, and then trying to piece him back together haphazardly whispering apologies. Of Michael, pressing his Grace against Adam's abused raw soul in a new different way, but not unwelcome. Of wings, bright beautiful even with the sulphur staining them, keeping Adam safe. Of pleas, and promises whispered into his mouth.
He remembers Death, tall, and pale, looking at him curiously. He remembers the deal.
He remembers.
“He didn't do anything Raphael. It was my choice.” Adam can make out Michael kneeling next to them, his voice trying for something comforting. Raphael's hands leave his neck, the pressure eases up as she turns to him, allowing Adam to breathe again. There are still spots dancing across his vision and he's still a little light headed. Gabriel's already pulled her off him again, and he's just there on the floor breathing heavily.
Adam doesn't even have to look at them to know that Gabriel's about to tell him to leave, along with Michael. He shakily gets up, and leaves the room, needing to just digest everything.
When he goes up later to check in on Raphael and Gabriel, his room is empty.
-x-x-x-
Part V