[spn_j2_bigbang fic]: Wings, Rings and Interspecies Flings - NC-17 - 6/6
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Chapter Six: No Such Thing As Happily Ever After
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In another half an hour, everything was prepared.
Michael stood vigil over the porcelain bowl he'd mentioned earlier, now overflowing with all sorts of archaic materials, with Adam at a safe distance behind him. In the ancient warrior's fist, of all things, was a pinch of thyme, the final ingredient. Considering how salt kept demons and spirits at bay, perhaps that wasn't so surprising.
“Be ready,” Michael said, waiting for Adam to nod before he unclasped his fingers, releasing the herb into the mix, the cut on his palm gleaming red in the faint light, already beginning to heal, from the blood he'd lined the scoop of the bowl with. And then they waited.
For nearly an eternity, absolutely nothing happened, and Adam suspiciously scrutinized every hideaway space his basement had, like the area behind the boiler, ready for Ashton Kutcher to skip out and tell him he'd been PUNK'D. A bad actor or some evil beast - he wasn't sure which would be worse.
Then, the concoction abruptly exploded, bright blue smoke exuding from it, along with a thick, burnt odor that made his eyes water.
He coughed and waved his hands to blow the fog back, unable to even see Michael 's profile through it, but when it cleared, there were two men in front of him: his archangel and a short, familiar brunet.
“Hey, bro,” Angelo Verona greeted, sing-song and bold.
Michael stared at him disbelievingly, then breathed a single name, “Gabriel,” before rushing forward to meet him, his weapon materializing in his grip in a blaze of glory.
“Wait, Gabriel, like the archangel?” Adam tried to probe, but he was blown onto his ass by the wind of their flight before he could, and found himself grimacing dizzily up at the stone ceiling.
The angels, meanwhile, fell into a motion reminiscent of a tango, with Gabriel elegantly springing out of Michael's path every time his older brother swung his sword, using his own to block if it came too close, and Adam thought that their moves seemed practiced, even choreographed, when he finally managed to sit up.
Another thing he noticed was the tight expression of rage, of betrayal, that adorned Michael's face, while Gabriel's cheer didn't seem to diminish, at least until a horizontal slash nearly nicked his vessel's belly, at which point he exclaimed, “Hey, who called who, here? You'd think you weren't happy to see me!”
“I'm not,” Michael growled, his eyes flicking once to Adam's worried face, then returning to meet his brother's. “Why did you attack us?” he went on, the inquiry slipping out between gritted teeth. “Did you truly go so far as to blow the horn of truth?”
“I thought it might be funny and...yeah, into your boy-toy's ear. Don't worry, no one else was really affected,” Gabriel answered smoothly, but his hazel eyes were constantly shifting, gauging the basement for possible exits, and he chuckled nervously when Michael responded by halting the tip of his blade on his bobbing Adam's apple. “I'm sorry, Mikey! You were both just so lost in your la-la-land that I wanted to give you a reality check, but I swear to Dad, I didn't think he'd get hurt...or that you'd get so mad.”
“Well, I am mad,” Michael replied, the muscles in his sword-arm not loosening in the slightest. “I'm mad because, after leaving home behind, you still have the audacity to believe an oath on our Father from your tongue means anything. I'm mad that you haven't quit with your silly pagan tricks, even after dying because of them. But mostly, Gabriel, I am enraged that you've returned now to ruin my new life, after abandoning me to the old one, the lonely one, so long ago, and that you went so far as to hurt my mate!”
To his credit, Gabriel turned his head away, remorse softening his smirk briefly, but then it was back, a notch more arrogant.
“What are you gonna do, Michael? Kill me?” he mocked, bravely baring his neck so that more of it was exposed to his brother's weapon, which resulted in a sliver of blood slipping down his collar. “In the end, I guess you and Lucy ain't so different, huh? My big brothers with their big problems, taking it out on everyone else when they fuck up.”
Michael's mouth dropped open, as if he wanted to say something, but he couldn't seem to find the right words and his teeth clicked audibly as he snapped his jaw shut, holding it so tight that a tic twitched on the taut skin.
Adam saw how his shoulders were slumped and knew that, even if he won this standoff, Michael would be unhappy. Upset because of that, he scrabbled off the floor, stomped to his angel's side, and pointed. “You're wrong!”
Gabriel leveled his gaze onto the human and sneered, “Am I?”
“Yes, because you are the low life dick who stalked us here, who even joined my fucking school to spy on me, but Michael doesn't want to kill you, asshole! You are bringing that on yourself, so don't go blaming anyone, especially Michael, and FYI, maybe I don't know much about the supernatural, but any two hunters with a single braincell between them would have known what you were as soon as you introduced yourself! Even I know Angelo means angel, Mr. I'm so damn clever!” The outburst left him winded, but between heavy pants for air, he kept glaring down at the small angel.
The longer he'd ranted, the further Gabriel had shrunk in on himself, and now the archangel's face was barely visible, shadowed by the few locks that managed to slip out of whatever haircare product he used to keep his head resembling a shiny helmet. Appearing so downtrodden, Adam almost felt bad for yelling at the little guy, but then a soft snuffing sound filled the room, soon replaced by full on guffaws.
Eventually, to the human and older angel's appeasement, Gabriel wiped away the last of his mirthful tears, using his free hand to push Michael's sword away and reduce his own weapon to nothingness. “Oh, Mikey, this one's a real hot tamale! You have been doing well for yourself! Never knew you had it in you, stud,” he teased, winking a newly dried eye.
Michael frowned, face flushed and forehead crinkled, but allowed him this, lowering his arm till the point of his blade scratched the ground. “I am confused,” he admitted.
Shooting their shared enemy a black look, Adam muttered, “You and me both,” before exclaiming, “You better start talking now or we're having crispy fried angel wings for dinner!”
“Okay, okay,” Gabriel allayed, his palms raised in a we come in peace gesture. “It's kind of a long story, but here goes: in the beginning, Dad created the heavens and earth...”
“Gabriel!” Michael chastised warningly, his knuckles whitening around the pommel of his sword.
The younger archangel deflated, then continued, this time in a more subdued tone, “All right, here's what really happened...”
-
It all started with God, as per usual.
He had commanded that Lucifer be struck down and Michael had obeyed him, but it was difficult, even for an archangel, to take all the love you had for your older brother, the one whose beauty had always awed you, the one that had taught you your tricks, and tuck it away, as if it had never existed in the first place.
Michael had always been detached, if loving, and with Lucifer gone, he and God both drew further and further into their own worlds. Raphael, meanwhile, only grew angrier in the wake of Lucifer's betrayal, his grace blackening to something static and dangerous, unrecognizable, rather than the panacea it had previously been.
In that situation, Gabriel was lost. He tried to stick around for a while, holding out hope that his older brothers would notice how he needed them and how they needed him in return, but they didn't. Thus, he went along with the first solution that occurred to him: running away from his dysfunctional family. God had set the same precedence, after all.
He faked his death and hid on Earth - in what would become modern day Kalamazoo, where Elvis would someday pull a similar stunt - and the Heavenly Host chorused its cries of mourning for centuries afterward.
That was a wake up call, at least for Michael. Gabriel watched, hidden, as his older brother left the seclusion of the Garden to tear through the world and find him. One time, by which point Gabriel had already assimilated into the frost giant Loki, Michael even came close.
But he didn't reveal himself and even Heaven's Sword had a breaking point, so Michael conceded defeat, his grace singing with such depression that Gabriel almost exposed himself. Almost.
And so time carried on, leaving Gabriel to comfort himself with pranks on deserving humans or supernatural creatures, until two boys came along to first break, then save the world.
They convinced him to, for once, stand up for what he wanted, against one of the only four beings in the universe whom he both adored and was terrified of, and Gabriel died to give them an out - to give humanity the out that he knew it deserved.
He died and there was nothing, leastwise for a time, but then he was revived. He woke up on a dirty hotel floor, no longer powered by his brethren demigods to look spiffy, and he couldn't even begin to fathom why.
Why would God save him, the runaway, the coward? What purpose could there possibly be? What was his mission, now that he was back? And why, oh, why was he so gosh-darned hungry?
It was the latter that bugged him most, until he realized that his grace had been recharged enough for him to zap in a candy bar or a hundred, and then the penultimate suddenly became his priority. If He had brought Gabriel back, surely there was a reason, and he had to find out what that reason was.
After so long, he wasn't foolish enough to assume he could simply pop into Heaven and ask someone there for Intel. Who knew what would be awaiting him? Raphael had quite the chip on his shoulder, Gabriel recalled.
He wasn't without his sources, however, and stretching his feelers out across the globe, while still laying low, was nothing he hadn't done before, so he found out about how his oldest brothers and their meatsuits had taken a swan dive. A year hence, it was one of his trickster friends - Anansi, who was a nosy little arachnid, mostly because he was the collector of stories - who told him a very interesting tale: about a former general of Heaven who had escaped Hell and fallen halo over pinions in love with a little human boy.
Now, don't get him wrong, Gabriel loved happily ever afters as much as the next archangel-turned-trickster, but this one was a bit far out, even for him, which was saying something.
But a certain explosion of grace, one that had briefly rocked the entire world, corroborated Anansi's otherwise tall tale, and that was actually how Gabriel got on Michael's trail. It was hard to stay on the down low, after all, if you were going to go around killing fellow archangels.
It was true, Michael had more juice than he could ever imagine, but being incognito was ultimately Gabriel's signature move, and it wasn't a biggie to find the newlyweds in question. Why he didn't just drop in and introduce himself as Adam's new brother-in-law, he wasn’t quite sure of yet.
A part of it was because of Raphael, who might have been a douche of the first degree, but a well-loved douche, at that, and the idea of Michael choosing a human, one of the fragile creatures he'd always secretly despised, over his own brother was enough to inspire something like wrath from Gabriel.
However, the boy was a Winchester, the forbidden fruit itself in a compact, blue-eyed, blond-haired package, and Gabriel could understand the lure of his sweet soul - could understand why he made Michael smile more often, why Michael had bonded with him in the first place, why Michael stayed. He liked seeing his eldest brother happy.
But was it enough? Was whatever his older brother felt for the snarky little brat a stronger force than whatever had driven him to start the Apocalypse? He blew the horn of truth to find out. After all, what was better than an instrument of honesty to induce it?
He only wanted to see Michael come to Adam's defense. Perhaps the weapon, used to such a feeble degree in order not to draw the archangelic warrior's attention, wouldn't affect him, but as soon as Gabriel saw him swoop to his bonded's rescue, he'd know how genuine Michael's feelings were.
The answer was very. As far as Gabriel figured, Michael wouldn't revert back to his old ways - the roundabout ways that had resulted in Gabriel's own death - any time soon. He was too whipped for that and it was oddly endeaing.
And here they all were, twenty minutes later, sorely wishing they were sipping some chai lattes. Or maybe that was just him.
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“That's my story. Do with it what you will,” Gabriel finished, extending his arms. He blinked his eyes and handcuffs appeared around his exposed wrist.
Adam frowned from the melodramatic angel to his older brother, who was staring down at the shiny helmet of brown hair with an alarmingly blank expression, then made a snap decision. “That won't be necessary. You sticking around?” Michael's neck turned toward him so fast that Adam had to wonder if angels got whiplash, especially since Gabriel was gawking, too. “What?” he mumbled defensively.
“Adam,” Michael began, as if speaking to an obtuse child, “he sounded the horn of truth. If you don't know, it's a weapon that can commence Armageddon.”
Gabriel opened his mouth to counter, but the human answered, “Hm, kinda like how a certain someone nearly kick-started the Apocalypse, huh?” Michael lowered his head, ashamed, and Adam reached out to take his hand, tone softening. “You changed, Mike. Maybe he's a dick, but he's also your brother, so what's to say he won't?”
After a moment, Michael nodded. “It is true that Gabriel was always the most malleable among us and...I have failed him, apparently.” He stopped Gabriel's protests with a halting gesture, every bit the general the younger archangel remembered. “I will give him a chance, to make up for that, but he cannot-” His eyes met Gabriel's, his lips pursing chidingly, “-you cannot harm Adam again. Understood?”
“Yessir,” came the surprisingly heartfelt reply, earning a fond smile from the oldest archangel. Gabriel became meek, under the bright beam of that gaze, and mumbled, “Can I talk now, Mom and Dad?”
“If you have to,” Adam injected dismissively, mostly to annoy him.
“Thanks, Mother,” Gabriel went on, playing along, before his sarcasm dimmed to something more somber, capping with an uncharacteristic sigh. “I didn't just come here to watch you guys go at it like rabbits, though that was a plus,” he revealed, a hint of what mischievousness he couldn't tame finding its way back in. “Dad wouldn't have offered me a second chance to be a porn critic.”
It was Adam's turn to gape, but the scandalized squawk on the tip of his tongue was overpowered by Michael squeezing his fingers. “What do you need, Gabriel?”
“Sam Winchester,” Gabriel said, without preamble, his severe mask not slipping in the slightest. “Someone has to raise him and I can't do it alone. Lucy'll only smite me again.” Adam's eyes widened and the younger archangel's moroseness finally evaporated into his trademark smirk. “What's the matter, baby Winchester? Did marital bliss help you forget your blood?”
“Gabriel,” Michael admonished, prompting his younger brother to back down at once with a muttered apology, and when his dominance was once again asserted, the archangel continued, “I will help you, but because Adam wants me to.”
The thing was, Adam wasn't sure he did.
Oh, don't get him wrong. As Michael had explained it, Adam had the lineage of Abel, the brother in Davy Jones' locker, not Cain, who'd pushed him into it.
Maybe he didn't know Sam that well, but he had no pressing urge to kill him - or, in this case, to deny him his millionth chance at revival. But...
“The two of you...you can steal Sam back from Lucifer? For sure?” he asked - demanded, more like.
“Easy,” Gabriel replied, waving his hand airily, but Michael's free hand moved to join the other one, caging Adam's fingers.
“Nothing is certain,” he murmured, “but doing nothing is worse than doing wrong.”
Adam pursed his lips, staring down at the beady little eyes of the bunny slippers Vivian had gifted him, and mumbled, “I think I heard some dinky actor say that once. Or something like it, about not making choices.”
“Actually, it's what the demigod Krishna said in the Bhagavad Gita,” Michael countered, faintly amused.
“Oh yeah, that guy,” Gabriel rejoined. “One of my exes introduced us. He kept bitching 'bout some dude named Arjuna, though, so we never hit it off.”
Adam looked up at him, the corner of his mouth quirking. Had it not been for the situation, he might have laughed, but it would sound too revealingly choked now.
Instead, he inquired, “When will you go?” looking into his archangel's golden eyes. He couldn't even fathom not seeing them for an extended period of time - perhaps even forever.
“The sooner the better,” was the hushed reply, the blow softened by a thumb stroking the tender skin between his own thumb and other digits. “With how long your brother has been in the Cage, as Lucifer's only source of amusement, we cannot risk putting off the task. Right now, even, would be viable.”
“Right now...” Adam repeated, the words practically a sigh.
“I, uh,” Gabriel cut in, pointing to a random spot behind him, “think I'll skedaddle, for now, leave you two kids to talk. Find me when you're ready to vamoose, Mikey.”
Michael nodded without looking away - neither of them did - and a moment later, they felt wind rush around them, leaving them alone.
“Okay,” Adam said, ultimately, both happy and disgusted when his voice didn't catch - the first because it would mitigate his angel's many troubles, but the second because it made him seem like he didn't care, like the ice-prince he sometimes pretended to be, but wasn't. “You go,” he continued, meeting Michael's eyes unshakably, “and you bring Sam back, but not at the cost of yourself! I mean it, Michael, if you die, I'll end you, whatever it takes!”
Heaven's Sword blinked, yet the fact that he didn't start pointing out how irrational that was meant he actually was one of the few people in the universe who got Adam, wholly.
“I wouldn't want that. You terrify me,” he joked, before bending to kiss Adam's forehead, one hand coming up to caress Adam's cheek, both his lips and his fingertips warm and consoling.
Adam screwed his eyes shut, feeling them burn uncomfortably, then whispered, “I love you,” and Michael froze.
He had reason to. In all the months they'd been together, Adam had skirted around the L-word. When Michael said it, often enough, he'd reply with a casual, “me too,” “thanks,” or, if he was mad at the time, “shut up, suck up!” And Michael, being the infinitely, annoyingly placid being that he was, had never pushed for more, probably because he could read Adam's mind and tell, anyway. Still, this was monumental.
When the archangel moved away, it was only to take Adam's mouth, this time, and after a kiss that left them both grasping desperately at each other, he murmured, “I love you, too,” against Adam's already bruised lips, which curled up into a weak smile.
“You should go,” the human said, after a moment, stepping back and running a hand down his already rumpled clothes.
“Yes,” Michael agreed, and just like that, he was gone, like he'd never been there in the first place.
Adam allowed himself to wilt, feeling more depressed than he ever had before, but an unexpected tap on his shoulder made him jump. Behind him, wiggling his fingers with unnatural sunniness, stood Gabriel.
Adam ran a hand over his face and snarled, “What do you want?”
“Cool it, princess,” Gabriel quipped, baring his teeth in a wide, Cheshire cat grin. “Just wanted to thank you for, ya know, keeping Michael from gutting me. Not fun, that, even the second time around.”
“It wasn't for you,” Adam snapped, turning away sharply from the small archangel. “I'm not dumb - I know you think I'm selfish for not trying to help Sam before, but I don't know him - it's an empty obligation. I know Michael, I love him, and I know he misses you pricks, for whatever reason, so you'd better not screw things up!”
Gabriel quirked an eyebrow at him, as if disbelieving that a measly human would actually try and threaten him.
“Dad almighty,” he eventually said, “does Michael have his hands full with you or what? Whatevs, I'm out.”
“Humph, like I care where the jackass who tried to kill me goes!” Adam replied, pressing his lips together in vexation, but Gabriel merely laughed him off.
Instead of spiriting away at once, however, the beaming angel glanced back over his shoulder, murmuring, “I'm gonna be with him the whole time, don't worry. I'll bring your Romeo home.”
Adam didn't answer and he vanished for real. Afterward, Adam sat down on the ground, putting his head between his knees, and only Sammie's incessant barking, coupled with her scratching at the basement door, provoked him to get back up about an hour later.
-
Adam didn't sleep. He had never noticed it before, but on the rare occasions when Michael wasn't there, he never did, likely because the archangel acted as a sentinel for his dreams, keeping them from shifting to nightmares.
The one positive: when Sammie began to bark yet again, impatient for the morning walk that her inhuman caretaker usually took her on, Adam was already awake and ready to be her bitch.
“Are you always this high-maintenance?” he asked the energetic puppy who, despite her size, dragged him this way and that with relative ease, stopping to sniff every mailbox, lamppost or sign in her path - and some out of her way.
She responded with another derogatory yip, as if to say, Where's the other one? You know, the scruffy-looking two-legs I actually like?
“And I'm the one who springs for your gourmet kibble,” Adam griped back, sighing when she found a nice fire-hydrant to do her business at. “You're slumming from now on. One of those no name, spoof brands will have you crawling back to me.”
She ignored him, lowering her lifted leg, before jerking him forward by the leash, to a direction leading away from their house.
“W-where are you going?” Adam exclaimed, stumbling over an errant stone and dodging a fellow jogger. The answer soon became apparent when he saw a familiar house: the Holmes'. “Really? Michael leaves and you're just willing to go back to the pound, rather than sticking around with me? Hurtful!” he told the traitorous puppy, who simply regarded him with her big brown eyes, amused by his rambling.
He nearly had a heart attack - more entertainment for her, no doubt - when Jenny, undetected up until then, inquired, “Do you always talk to her, Adam?”
“Oh, um, Jenny, I'm sorry,” Adam stuttered, running a hand through his unruly head of bed-hair sheepishly. “Didn't mean to wake you and the kids.”
“You didn't,” she replied, smiling and stepping back into her house, leaving the door open as an invitation. “They're in school. Collegians like yourself get out way earlier. I may love them, but thank God for that.”
“Not sure He had anything to do with it,” Adam muttered, only to himself, spritzing back up when she regarded him curiously. “Well, I'm sorry, anyway. With Michael gone, this little diva's being unbearable. Maybe I should send her to obedience school, eh?”
His joke fell flat when she frowned at him, beckoning for man and best friend to take a load off on her couch. “Michael's gone? What happened, dear?”
Adam felt himself blush, for blowing things way out of proportion, then explained, “He'll only be gone for a little while. He had a..family emergency that he had to attend to.”
“So that's why you look so troubled today,” she mused, inciting a noncommittal shrug of his shoulders. Girls and their sixth sense always sort of bugged him, but she genuinely seemed worried, so he couldn't resent her.
“It's just...well, it feels like we've been together, even before we were together-together, for more than a century. I miss him already and he just left yesterday!” He pouted his lips at the realization, which he'd been ignoring for the sake of his pride. He was practically Bella Swan right now and you couldn't go lower than her level of pathetic codependency.
Jenny came over and sat beside him, taking his hand and petting Sammie, who took the opportunity to hop into her lap. “That's fine, you know? My husband - my ex - wasn't the nicest man. Never hurt me or the kids, I'm happy to say, but he...let's just say he had his vices. Even knowing I was better off without him, I missed him for so long after he left. Thought I'd never move on.”
“I don't want to move on, though!” Adam replied, not noticing how she winced when his fingers compressed tighter. “I can't even think about that.”
“That's because you, Mister, are so sweetly in love that my diabetes is acting up,” she laughed, her genuine mirth taking the sting out of her words. “Besides, I'm not saying you should move on. I'm saying, sure, you'll miss him, but he'll come back to you. That sickening, sugary sentiment I mentioned seems nothing but mutual to me.”
“Thanks, Jenny,” Adam said, the corner of his mouth grooving shyly.
“You're welcome - both for the gift of my wisdom and to visit me anytime, whether you need help with this bad girl right here or anything else.” She released him and stood up, setting the 'bad girl' in question on her paws once more, then called back, “Want some pancakes? I made them from scratch, this morning.”
Adam grinned widely, recalling those Belgian waffles Michael had procured, once upon the day they left Hell. “Pancakes sound awesome!”
He left an hour later, feeling way more upbeat than he had up locking his house's door after him, but then he found out a fussing Jenny had called Vivian to update her on new developments.
Small towns. What could you do?
Answer: put up with an even greater extent of smothering, both literally and metaphorically.
-
The smothering Vivian imparted on Adam was mostly the former, because he choked on the cloying scent of her hairspray when she pulled him in for a bone-crushing hug, but just like with Jenny, he didn't actually mind. It was yet another rock in his life, Vivian's affection for him, and after so many upheavals, these rocks were much approved of.
“Aw, honey, I can't believe he's gone!” she practically wailed into his shirt, gnarled hands pounding against his back.
He indulgently petted her hair, then murmured, “Only for a bit, Viv. He's not MIA forever.” He hated the tiny part of him that acknowledged how he'd said that only to reassure himself. “He'll be back in a couple days, tops.”
“Where'd he go, anyhow?” she went on, drawing back a few inches to squint at him, having lost her spectacles in her rush to come and comfort him. “Jenny said somethin' 'bout his family. What the heck kinda family does he have: fashion moguls, the mob, international spies?”
“Religious fanatics,” Adam deadpanned, watching her droop at the too honest revelation. “It's not completely his fault, anyway. He's...doing something thoughtful for me, like always, and I want it to get done - I do - but I can't help worrying. I feel like, when he kissed me goodbye yesterday, it was the very last time.”
“Like how I was when my husband left for the war, I'd think,” Vivian mused, staring dreamily at absolutely nothing for a minute, oblivious to how fitting the comparison was, before laughing him off. “You're just not used to it, is all. When the honeymoonin' phase is over, you'll be wishin' he went away more often.”
“I don't think so,” Adam protested sullenly, though it was partly a lie. He actually could imagine Michael, with all his quirky antics, soon becoming insufferable, but he'd be affectionately so, and Adam would always welcome him back, no matter how much he shooed him out.
For his efforts, he received yet another patronizing pat and a look that read here, have my unrequested sagacity, you naïve child. “If you're that worried, take a page outta your in-laws' book and talk to the Lord. Maybe He'll listen.”
“I doubt it,” Adam muttered, backing out of her reach when she shook a fist at him, offended by his writing God off so easily.
If only she knew the reasons that merited his reaction, then she might not be so quick to judge, but her affront was playful, at best, so he didn't bother to share - also, as already established, she was old and the elderly tended to suffer heart failure if you revealed fantastical truths to them.
Before she left, however, she broached the topic again, the caveat, “Try to be more open-minded, baby boy,” and pressed a sloppy kiss to his cheek.
For a whole week, Adam excused her advice as the ranting of a loveable, but vaguely senile old woman. It was only on the seventh night since Michael's parting that he figured there might be something more to it than that. After all, Michael had already been gone for four more days than he'd calculated - hoped - so if he returned after a prayer shot to his Dad, then there wouldn't really be a loser, and if he didn't, it would be no change, anyway.
That was why Adam attired himself in his pajamas, spat the last of his minty toothpaste down the drain, gurgled to finish his cleanup process, and approached his bed cautiously, as one would a sleeping dragon, before stooping to his knees in front of it.
“I...haven't done this in a while. Not since, actually, that Christmas after my sixth birthday. In my defense, I asked you for a mountain bike and got a freaking Tonka set. What was I, five? Total disillusionment in both you and Santa, man,” he began, before bashfully clearing his throat. “That's not the point. You don't like me - that's been proved a million times over - but damn, shouldn't you love your son - your children? Even I do - or well, one of them! The point of this is, enough screwing around. You already took my mom-” If his voice broke a little, no one but him and the big guy were around to hear it, “-you took John, who might not have been the best, but was my dad. You can't deprive me of all that, keep me from my brothers, then expect me to lay down and take it when you steal Michael, too. Sure, you made us all, but that's low, so...please. Just please. Do right by me, just this once, or I'm going pagan. I've heard they, at least, have regular orgies. Thank you.”
There was no dramatic flash of thunder or the clatter of falling objects as a replying sign. There was nothing, not a fucking thing, so he whispered a, “Goodnight,” to someone that had better things to do than listen to him and went to bed.
-
The next morning, a series of frenetic knocks woke Adam up before the sun. Grumbling and rubbing his eyes, he tottered to the front door like a drunken penguin, then stopped cold when he saw the tall, dark figure that stood behind it, leaning heavily against the frame.
“M-Michael?” he gasped, surveying the disheveled hair, the torn clothes and his archangel's pained smile.
“Hello,” came the muffled reply, prior to Michael falling bodily forward, pitching Adam back a few steps, completely dead to the world.
Adam's hands, propping the heavier frame up, came away wet, he noted with horror, as he brought Michael out of the view of prying eyes. On them, shiny gold ichor, the liquid grace that leaked from holy beings, sparkled like a vat of Lady Gaga's makeup glitter. The fingers they sparkled on began to shake, the faint tremors disseminating to everything beyond them.
Yet, if he continued at that rate, Adam knew he would lose his grip on the unconscious angel, so he strove to strengthen both his resolve and his hold, sliding his palms past Michael's chest, under his noodle-like arms, till he could heft him to their bedroom.
He tried to take it painstakingly slow, to avoid causing further harm to his angel, but since the vessel weighed more than him even when comatose, Michael's legs ended up lagging along the carpet, his cumbersome frame bouncing once against the mattress when Adam finally lowered - dropped - him.
After that, however, the human sprung into action, his medical training kicking in. Put pressure on the wound! Keep Michael from spilling out all over the sheets! Keep him alive!
The last time he'd tried doing the same, it was to himself, after the pair of ghouls had left him, half-dead already, to investigate the rest of Windom with their spanking new faces, and didn't we all know how that had ended? They'd eaten his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti - and, damn it all to Hell, now was not the fucking time for Silence of the Lamb quotes!
“Come on, come on, come on!” he cried aloud, pressing down with more force than was strictly necessary, as sweat and something else - something he wouldn't identify, not yet - pooled together to blur his vision. Michael's heartbeat remained dangerously decelerated, his breathing slow, which may or may not have been reassuring for an angel in his condition, for all Adam knew, though it would've been negatively telling for a normal person.
Eventually, the ephemeral smell of liquified gold dispersed into the air and faded, the injury that Adam discovered after unbuttoning Michael's shirt waning with it, right before his eyes, and there was nothing left for him to do anymore. He was useless.
He drank in a shuddering whiff of air, his own body aching like he had contracted his mate's pain via nothing but touch, and he laid himself down next to Michael, his arms wrapping securely around him, wanting futilely to keep him there - keep him safe - what he should have done a week ago. He should have said no.
Michael's quiet huffs of breath whistled in the air, calming as a lullaby, and Adam struggled to keep his eyes open, but he'd been sleeping fitfully, at best, for so long that it had become unfeasible to resist mow.
His lids soon drooped and, restless, he migrated to the position he found most comfortable: with his head pillowed on Michael's chest. That was why he wasn't initially disturbed when he blearily realized fingers were combing through his hair. After all, Michael was touchy-feely, always trying to ascertain the limits of society with his lack of personal space, so that ended up happening every time they slept together, anyway.
But then, in a flash, memories of blood holier than church wine assaulted Adam, forcing him to draw back in shock, which leveled his rounded blue eyes with Michael's curious, perhaps still drained, but alert hazel counterparts.
“You don't generally sleep in the afternoon,” their owner pointed out calmly, as if he hadn't been lying in his deathbed just, a glance at their wall-clock confirmed, three hours ago.
Adam didn't answer. Instead, mouth pursed angrily, he sat up and straddled the irritating archangel, grabbing the haggard lines of Michael's face to smash their lips together, their teeth gnashing together at the rushed, violent motion.
“Don't ever do that again,” Adam ordered, upon pulling away, and Michael nodded mutely, a rosy blush spreading across his face. Satisfied, Adam let himself fall back further into the befuddled angel's lap, his legs spreadeagled on either side of him, and continued, “Now, tell me what happened? Why were you...” His voice began to quiver, causing him to rephrase the inquiry, “What happened to you?”
Michael's bemused facade began to morph into sobriety, his hands coming up to settle on Adam's shoulders and steady him.
“Lucifer is one of the few beings who can contend with me. Our Father molded us, in antiquity, from the same shred of grace,” he explained, in a grave tone that complimented his expression. “Yes, it was why I had to be the one to banish him, and also why I had to salvage your brother, but neither task was easy.”
“He hurt you while you were getting Sam,” Adam surmised, sounding more clinical than was true.
“No,” Michael corrected, “he hurt me when I offered myself as bait, giving Gabriel the opportunity to get Sam.”
Adam balled his fists into the sheets, feeling them pale and tremble - with frustration, with anger, with every pent up emotion that might prove spontaneous combustion to be more than fantasy - before he gritted out, “You're an idiot,” barely remembering to maintain a polite level of noise.
“An idiot, perhaps, but one who succeeded, because of you. Our bond - my contact with your soul - put me on the path to a speedy recovery, and the thought of you gave me strength at my darkest hours.” Michael's voice was cautiously explicating rather than outright defensive, and Adam hugged him again, close enough to perceive not only that magical scent that was purely Michael, but what amounted to a healthier heartbeat, as well. The archangel responded by spreading a hand across his back, tracing tranquil circles over the cotton cloth there, his warmth channeling through it. “Sam's soul is safe now,” he whispered into Adam's ear. “Gabriel will take him home.”
Before Adam could reply - or, in this case, mumble gibberish, since that was all his relief currently left him capable of - the archangel in question interrupted, “He already has.” They startled, each straining their necks to get a glimpse of the Houdini-pulling menace, who was watching them from a safe distance away, a suave smirk on his stupidly smug face. “You two are so cute,” he went on smoothly, no doubt to add to Adam's mental alliteration, “I think I'm actually gonna hurl.” He stuck a finger down his throat and mimicked exaggerated barfing.
Adam glowered at him while Michael asked, “What are you doing here, Gabriel?” in a foreboding rumble.
Gabriel shrugged. “Wanted to say thanks, first of all. I know you didn't have to leave apple pie land to help me out, to go back to something you probably not only want to leave behind, but forget, so thank you. Both of you.”
“You're welcome,” Adam said, softening at the prospect of a genuine acknowledgment from the tiny troublemaker, then waiting for Gabriel to take his leave again.
Instead, the angel fidgeted there, scuffing a foot along the carpet, persuading a wary Michael to carefully take Adam by the hips and move him aside, so they were both face to face with his younger brother.
“What is it?” he inquired, disquieted by the antsy display.
“I...need your help again,” Gabriel muttered, the picture of reluctance, spiraling Adam into a sense of deja-vu.
“No,” he snapped, without bothering to listen any longer. “Last time you needed his help, even after you promised to take care of him, he got his ass handed to him by the fucking Devil! No damn way!”
He ignored Michael's quietly protesting, “I won,” and scowled down at Gabriel's falling face.
“I didn't exactly promise and you don't have to say yes,” the bantam ex-trickster began, “but I can swear that this time's the last. Please? Help me and your muddleheaded brothers one more time and we'll be outta your hair for good, family or not.”
He shuffled from foot to foot, watching the human and angel pair converse, unspoken, then grinned when Adam sighed in a displeased, telltale manner. “Last time,” he grumbled, concurrent with Michael's, “What is it you require?”
They both scrambled back, slightly surprised, when Gabriel made to climb in between them, like a child in his parents' bed, and after he was comfortably situated, reclining against their pillows, the younger archangel said, “It's Sam's soul. Gettin' it from the Pit was good and well, but it's been through the meat-grinder, Mikey, and I'm not sure, even with me and Cas, we can heal it.”
“You believe I might be able to?” A frown formed between Michael's eyebrows and on his mouth.
“Well, it wouldn't hurt to have Heaven's Sword,” Gabriel answered hesitantly, his gaze flicking rapidly to Adam's unimpressed face, before returning to his brother's, “but the thing is, that isn't all. If all we needed was holy juice, our resident Godfather of Heaven - Cas, in case you didn't know - could have hooked us up with some of his connections, so-”
“What you need is something from me,” Adam stated simply, crossing his arms and ignoring, for the time being, the protective glance his angel shot his way.
Rather than being blunt, Gabriel said, “You don't have to,” once more. “If you decide to duck out, no one knows about you yet. Since not even Cas knows, I could leave here now and you'd be off chalk-free...”
“And I think it's already been assumed, if not admitted aloud, that we're gonna say yes, so quit beating around the bush, you chatty twerp,” Adam replied indelicately.
Gabriel trained a meaningful glare at him, equal parts impressed and peeved, but he did as requested. “You could leave and none would be the wiser, but you two are special - you're the only human and angel pair-bond in existence. Not only that, you, princess, are Sam's brother, and Sammy-boy's stubborn soul would rather implode, after all the angel-inflicted damage done to it, than let us get close enough to fix it.”
“But,” Michael broke in, “if Adam is there and Sam's soul is more receptive to him-”
“-Then Michael can make contact, too, by proxy,” Adam concluded, although he had no clue about the finer details probably required.
“And they even finish each other's sentences,” Gabriel answered, clapping his hands in delight. “Aw, how quaint!”
Michael's perpetual frown beamed down on his slicked brown hair, preceding the rifling gesture that he made, and suddenly he was alone with Adam.
“Gabriel will return soon,” he murmured, twisting to catch Adam's attention. “Before that, I have to know, are you sure about this, Adam? It will hurt.”
Adam attempted vainly to wet his parched throat, then asked, “Will it kill me?” When Michael shook his head, albeit guardedly, he had his answer.
It came right in time for Gabriel to authenticate Michael's prediction. “Shall we?” the youngest archangel inquired, snapping his fingers and transporting them all away.
-
They reemerged in a place that was vaguely familiar: a barren wasteland with towers upon towers of scrapped cars forming a mountain around it, the sky beginning to darken overhead. Adam could almost remember seeing the sight through a small, fogged-up window, but it hadn't been quite so sinister then. It was Singer Salvage, Bobby and the Winchesters' home.
Gabriel looked around momentarily, then loped forward and considered Bobby's door, from the iron threshold to the old mutt curled up in front of it. His dark eyes were temporarily inscrutable, till he shook his head, as if spritzing off water and seemed to make a decision.
“They've relocated to the panic room,” he informed them, which Adam figured meant the one that Dean had been locked up in the last time he visited. Gabriel lifted an arm again, his fingers spread wide. “Hold onto your pants, kiddies!”
The scenery around them shivered, the shift of a hastily changed channel, and they were briefly blanketed by darkness. It cleared up into a loud shout of “Hey!” and Dean Winchester's livid face.
Adam stared at his older brother, who had been sitting on the edge of the sort of cot you might see in an asylum, but was now standing, his handsome face drawn, verdant eyes immense with shock and who knows what else, as his lips formed Adam's name. Sam would have known, of course, but he could also see Sam's large, unmoving form behind Dean on the cot, next to a hot pink Barbie lunchbox that emitted a celestial glow, so Sam was in no condition to be creepily attuned to either of them.
At Dean's exclamation, the door behind them had slammed open, revealing an armed, shotgun toting Bobby Singer, and Adam noticed that the archangels were nearer to the old hunter than him, which was all well and good, save that it left him, alone, in the heart of the panic room.
“Um, hey,” Adam greeted awkwardly, wiggling his fingers in Dean's direction. The minute motion seemed to propel his awestruck half-brother into action, and Adam doubled back when he saw the knife that Dean had managed to grab, glinting under the weak light of the rotating fan above and whatever was in the lunchbox, that Adam had an inkling about, anyway.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Gabriel didn't step in between them, impeding Michael from doing so with an outstretched arm, but his yelling did force Dean to pause and face him. “That's really Adam, dummy. You poke him now, you'll have an angry diva on your hands, and I ain't sticking around if that happens. Learned my lesson, for sure.”
Dean pursed his lips, rounding his scowl on a wary Michael, then gritted out, “You brought him, too?” He didn't have to inquire after the older archangel's identity.
Adam bristled, but Gabriel said, “Go on, ask Cas,” before he could jump to Micahel's defense.
“I will,” Dean replied, raising his pinched face up to the Heavens. He shut his eyes briefly, mouthing two syllables under his breath, and his trench-coat wearing buddy was immediately there, canting his head at Dean's back.
“Hello, Dean,” he murmured, his icy gaze drifting from person to angel to person, “Gabriel, Bobby, Adam, Michael.” Lastly, it halted on the cot, then returned to Dean, reading him with ease. “You seem unhappy.”
“Unhappy?” Dean mimed, moving further into the careworn angel's personal space, which wasn't much at all since Castiel had left but a few inches between them, to begin with. “Oh, that's observant, Cas! Why would I be happy, with one little brother soulless and dying, the other MIA until now, a few unwanted members of your dickbag family lounging around me, and..., Fuck, Cas, yes, I'm unhappy!”
Castiel lowered his unruly head of hair ashamedly, practically touching his forehead to Dean's shoulder, and Adam looked away - back to a confused Michael, a Gabriel who looked like he was watching a particularly juicy soap-opera, and to a continually weary Bobby, the only other sane person in the room, to avoid the unresolved tension. Why did this launch him into deja-vu again?
“I did not know,” the trenchcoat-wearing angel said, not bothering to specify what, precisely, he'd been in the dark about.
Dean squirmed under the attention, blushing unusually red, then whispered, “Ugh, fine, whatever. So long as you keep Thing One and Two under control, capisce? And Cas?” When Castiel glance up, he added, “I didn't mean you, before. You're not a dickbag.”
“That's nice to know,” Gabriel disrupted, “but Sammy doesn't really have time for you to sift through your domestic issues.” Dean and Castiel extricated themselves at once, alarm bleeding into the very way they held themselves, though the angel remained close. “The reason I brought Lucy and Ricky Ricardo, here, along is 'cause...well, the nature of their relationship is, let's just say, unique. In fact, it's exactly the kind of unique we need.”
“What does that mean?” Dean exploded, throwing his arms up angrily.
Adam frowned between his older brother and the oldest archangel, who was staring back at him with such troubled eyes, then blurted out, “We're married!”
“W-what?” Dean's jaw dropped.
Castiel pressed his chapped lips together and scrutinized them, before locking eyes with Gabriel, who nodded once, the gesture curt.
“You're bonded,” he said, frowning disapprovingly at them. “To do that with a human is unsure, at best.”
“But it worked.” Gabriel shook his wrist in a dismissive motion, his smirk aimed namely in Dean's direction, observing how ready the young hunter looked to throw a tantrum. “What that means, Dean, is that sweet baby bro cut himself a little slice of Heaven. His soul's completely drenched in Michael's grace, and before you freak out, know that we-” He thumbed betwixt himself and Castiel, “-can hook up to Michael, who can siphon our grace and his into our beloved Sasquatch through his lover boy. It's a foolproof plan!”
Some of the hot air started to leak out of Dean. Adam smiled wanly, unnoticeable, because he knew why, this time around. Sam's well-being would matter most, always, more than any pissing contest with either archangels in the room - or anyone.
“That's cute, but I'm all for it,” he said, when he noticed Dean's gaze roving to him, some of that residual worry brimming over. Adam was his little brother, too, after all. “Shortstop told me it might hurt, but I can't let Sam wander around soulless to avoid a little pain. That's low.”
“You don't have to,” Dean mumbled, though the relief he wore openly was palpable.
“I know,” Adam replied gently, “but I want to. Really.”
“Glad we got that outta the way!” Gabriel interjected, as inappropriately cheerful as ever. Adam was beginning to reach the conclusion that he took sadistic pleasure out of cutting people off. “Baby Winchester, don't worry 'bout a thing! This will be just like donating a kidney, but your hubby dearest will be handling the surgery and it'll scar you deeper than a knife ever could!” He focused on Dean before Adam could answer that it was against medical protocol, at least, for loved ones to preside over any dangerous procedures. “And you, my pretty old friend, can't be here at all!”
Dean opened his mouth to protest, then vanished, along with his confounded father figure, when Gabriel snapped his fingers. After a moment of utter, uneasy silence, vigorous pounding on the newly locked panic room door began, coupled with hyperbolic threats, unsurprising to everyone left inside the confined space.
After a moment, three among that generalization clustered around Adam, who shifted from foot to foot, abruptly realizing that Gabriel hadn't even waited for him to change out of his pajamas and slippers, then took the only plausible next step: he wandered over to Sam's unconscious body and the lunchbox containing his soul.
“Uh, hey,” he mumbled, to himself more than anything, before startling when his brother's soul responded by shining even brighter.
“He likes you,” Gabriel informed him, with a surprising amount of affection in his generally blasé tone. “Go on, pick him up,” he advised, flicking his wrist again. “Time to get this show on the road, once and for all!”
Adam waited until Michael nodded that it was okay, then dipped his fingers into the opening on top of the box, gasping at the warmth that instantly filtered into them.
It was the memories that assailed him first, of Dean's slowly aging face, that of his father and a woman who resembled Kate so much that it almost hurt. However, they soon faded, leaving emotions - ones that didn't belong to him, that had no place in his head or heart - in their wake.
Fear, apathy, a burst of courage that ebbed into guilt. Pain, pain, more pain, with only one comfort, stolen away to propagate an even deeper agony, lasting an eternity and a day. Finally, a hiatus, likely to lower what crumbling defenses remained, a precursor to more suffering, and the throbbing of another creature's grace. This time, the anguish was emotional, rather than mere torture. The fear had returned.
A hand on Adam's shoulder saved him from drowning in the depth of Sam's feelings. He directed unexpectedly wet eyes at a worried Michael, his hands too busy cupping the radiant essence of his half-brother to be much help.
“He remembers me,” he murmured, recalling that never-ending century when he'd thought himself silly for talking to an unresponsive Sam, unaware that it had been the only thing to keep him going. “I-I abandoned him.”
“That's a good thing,” Gabriel condoned, gliding forward. At Adam's disbelieving glower, he said, “If he'd forgotten about you, he might not be so receptive now that he's willing to let Michael get close. He trusts you and that's what we need.”
Castiel, who had been virtually silent till then, drew up behind his brothers. “If the impact of Sam's soul against his mind can shake him so, Adam may not possess the resilience necessary for this task. We may accidentally tear him apart.”
“You don't want to risk that for an 'empty obligation',” Gabriel augmented pragmatically, going so far as to add air quotes.
He was emphasizing what Adam had said before, but the sole human in the room just sighed and nodded again. “I agreed already. I'm doing it, but...” His eyes flashed up to meet Michael's, “I am sorry if this hurts you in any way. I-I love you, Mike.”
“I know,” the archangel answered, his beautiful eyes sad in a way they never should be. “I know, also, that you're too stubborn to give up now, but my grace is yours, despite that. I love you, too, more than anything.”
“We'll be careful,” Gabriel added helpfully. “We won't make a widower out of Michael, will we, Cas?” Castiel frowned like he wanted to offer a reality check, but he agreed with a hum at the erstwhile trickster's pointed clearing of the throat.
“Thanks guys,” Adam replied, chuckling falsely. He sucked in a heady breath of air and turned till he was level with Sam's body, still in possession of the giant's soul. “Let's do this.”
-
The first time Adam could remember hurting was after falling out of a tree when he was four.
Twelve years later, he'd been absolutely certain that no pain could surpass that of the broken leg he got when his car wrapped around a pole.
Then, of course, he'd met his friendly neighborhood ghouls, and his torture threshold had risen dramatically.
Zachariah's torment had been quite a bitch, but nothing compared to that moment when he first said yes, which was like a watermelon trying to squeeze into a hole fit for a needle, though Michael took measures to ensure that it was minimized.
This - taking the grace of two archangels and their decidedly impressive younger brother - made all that seem like the scratch of a wet kitten, put it all to shame.
Adam was very happy he blacked out five seconds into it. Maybe God was merciful, after all.
-
He woke up to someone humming the musical styling of Led Zeppelin, mullet rock band extraordinaire. After fighting and narrowly winning the battle to lift his eyelids, he discerned that someone was Dean - or, at least, Dean's back, attired in a beat up, brown leather jacket that was mistily familiar and sitting in a wooden chair.
Adam grunted and made to sit up, struggling with the blankets that had been draped over him, which inspired his older brother to whip around, exposing the sight of a giant Sleeping Beauty who had yet to do more than breathe since Adam's return.
“Oh, you're awake!” Dean declared, smiling almost shyly at his bedraggled younger brother.
“No shit, Sherlock,” Adam muttered, when he finally got his mouth to work.
Dean was goggle-eyed for a minute, then continued dryly, “Well, ain't you a ray of sunshine in the morning?”
Adam ran a hand down his face, hoping to soften the stiffened muscles. “Sorry, but you try singing show-tunes after being gang-banged by every freaking kid God spewed out, including your boyfriend!”
“Not my boyfriend,” Dean replied childishly.
Adam ignored him to throw his legs over the side of the bed, grasping its stand to stop from swaying on his feet.
His big brother took the hint and rushed over, but he shook out of Dean's grip, inquiring, “How's he doing?” instead, jutting his chin in Sam's direction.
Dean bit his bottom lip, chewing on it ponderously, before disclosing, “As good as you can expect, I guess. I mean, you've been out this last day, too, and you're up, right? Gabriel says he needs time to heal and Cas says he's right, for once. No one knows for certain, though.”
“I'm sure he'll wake up,” Adam reassured him, letting go of the bed-stand to squeeze his brother's hand just the once. He didn't know how much more Dean would go for, but he did seem grateful.
For all that, they parted soon enough, and Dean cleared his throat to explain, “Your, uh, that is - Michael's waiting in the house. Everyone and their grandmother has vouched for him, I know, but I didn't want him in here with you guys. Didn't have the heart to kick him out, either, since he hasn't left you once. He's real taken with you.”
“He is,” Adam agreed, his smile etching wider. “I only hope he's remembered to ask someone to feed our dog.”
“You've got a dog?” Dean stopped himself mid-question, shaking his head. “Of course you do. You've stuck every available branch into your little holy chicken nest, haven't you? Can't wait to tell Sam.”
“You're just jealous,” Adam replied, but he was eager for that moment, as well.
-
Two days later, Sam Winchester graced the world with his conscious presence, only to find the weirdest sight awaiting him: both of his brothers, three friendly angels, and a fondly exasperated Bobby.
He gathered all the energy he could muster and asked, “What did I miss?”
Adam caught a glimpse of Michael standing at his rear out of his peripheral vision and clutched his mate's hand., figuring he'd let Dean take the first shot. His motivation wasn't completely beneficent. To explain everything that had happened - his falling for Michael, Dean's apple pie life crumbling into pieces, Castiel in Heaven and even, maybe, an angel who wanted to be a permanent fixture in Sam's life - seemed slightly complicated.
“It's...a long story,” Dean eventually replied, love for his brother dripping in spades from him, as Castiel offered moral support, within the hunter's reach.
Adam grinned from the pair to a bemusedly blinking Sam. That was one way to put it.
Elsewhere, a certain prophet smiled. All that was missing now was a rainbow.
-
PREVIOUS (CHAP 5) ♥ ♥ ♥ MASTERPOST
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A/N: This is not only my first time doing big bang, but the first time I've finished a multi-chapter story! I hope it wasn't too weird - though I know it's vastly different from the norm of spn_j2_bigbang - and that you had fun reading it. If the last few chapters are a little wonky, know that I've been going kind of crazy, rushing to post them. Please give me a little leeway, but feel free to critique on what I can do to make your experience more enjoyable, next time around. Just don't be too harsh, thanks!
-
Chapter Six: No Such Thing As Happily Ever After
-
In another half an hour, everything was prepared.
Michael stood vigil over the porcelain bowl he'd mentioned earlier, now overflowing with all sorts of archaic materials, with Adam at a safe distance behind him. In the ancient warrior's fist, of all things, was a pinch of thyme, the final ingredient. Considering how salt kept demons and spirits at bay, perhaps that wasn't so surprising.
“Be ready,” Michael said, waiting for Adam to nod before he unclasped his fingers, releasing the herb into the mix, the cut on his palm gleaming red in the faint light, already beginning to heal, from the blood he'd lined the scoop of the bowl with. And then they waited.
For nearly an eternity, absolutely nothing happened, and Adam suspiciously scrutinized every hideaway space his basement had, like the area behind the boiler, ready for Ashton Kutcher to skip out and tell him he'd been PUNK'D. A bad actor or some evil beast - he wasn't sure which would be worse.
Then, the concoction abruptly exploded, bright blue smoke exuding from it, along with a thick, burnt odor that made his eyes water.
He coughed and waved his hands to blow the fog back, unable to even see Michael 's profile through it, but when it cleared, there were two men in front of him: his archangel and a short, familiar brunet.
“Hey, bro,” Angelo Verona greeted, sing-song and bold.
Michael stared at him disbelievingly, then breathed a single name, “Gabriel,” before rushing forward to meet him, his weapon materializing in his grip in a blaze of glory.
“Wait, Gabriel, like the archangel?” Adam tried to probe, but he was blown onto his ass by the wind of their flight before he could, and found himself grimacing dizzily up at the stone ceiling.
The angels, meanwhile, fell into a motion reminiscent of a tango, with Gabriel elegantly springing out of Michael's path every time his older brother swung his sword, using his own to block if it came too close, and Adam thought that their moves seemed practiced, even choreographed, when he finally managed to sit up.
Another thing he noticed was the tight expression of rage, of betrayal, that adorned Michael's face, while Gabriel's cheer didn't seem to diminish, at least until a horizontal slash nearly nicked his vessel's belly, at which point he exclaimed, “Hey, who called who, here? You'd think you weren't happy to see me!”
“I'm not,” Michael growled, his eyes flicking once to Adam's worried face, then returning to meet his brother's. “Why did you attack us?” he went on, the inquiry slipping out between gritted teeth. “Did you truly go so far as to blow the horn of truth?”
“I thought it might be funny and...yeah, into your boy-toy's ear. Don't worry, no one else was really affected,” Gabriel answered smoothly, but his hazel eyes were constantly shifting, gauging the basement for possible exits, and he chuckled nervously when Michael responded by halting the tip of his blade on his bobbing Adam's apple. “I'm sorry, Mikey! You were both just so lost in your la-la-land that I wanted to give you a reality check, but I swear to Dad, I didn't think he'd get hurt...or that you'd get so mad.”
“Well, I am mad,” Michael replied, the muscles in his sword-arm not loosening in the slightest. “I'm mad because, after leaving home behind, you still have the audacity to believe an oath on our Father from your tongue means anything. I'm mad that you haven't quit with your silly pagan tricks, even after dying because of them. But mostly, Gabriel, I am enraged that you've returned now to ruin my new life, after abandoning me to the old one, the lonely one, so long ago, and that you went so far as to hurt my mate!”
To his credit, Gabriel turned his head away, remorse softening his smirk briefly, but then it was back, a notch more arrogant.
“What are you gonna do, Michael? Kill me?” he mocked, bravely baring his neck so that more of it was exposed to his brother's weapon, which resulted in a sliver of blood slipping down his collar. “In the end, I guess you and Lucy ain't so different, huh? My big brothers with their big problems, taking it out on everyone else when they fuck up.”
Michael's mouth dropped open, as if he wanted to say something, but he couldn't seem to find the right words and his teeth clicked audibly as he snapped his jaw shut, holding it so tight that a tic twitched on the taut skin.
Adam saw how his shoulders were slumped and knew that, even if he won this standoff, Michael would be unhappy. Upset because of that, he scrabbled off the floor, stomped to his angel's side, and pointed. “You're wrong!”
Gabriel leveled his gaze onto the human and sneered, “Am I?”
“Yes, because you are the low life dick who stalked us here, who even joined my fucking school to spy on me, but Michael doesn't want to kill you, asshole! You are bringing that on yourself, so don't go blaming anyone, especially Michael, and FYI, maybe I don't know much about the supernatural, but any two hunters with a single braincell between them would have known what you were as soon as you introduced yourself! Even I know Angelo means angel, Mr. I'm so damn clever!” The outburst left him winded, but between heavy pants for air, he kept glaring down at the small angel.
The longer he'd ranted, the further Gabriel had shrunk in on himself, and now the archangel's face was barely visible, shadowed by the few locks that managed to slip out of whatever haircare product he used to keep his head resembling a shiny helmet. Appearing so downtrodden, Adam almost felt bad for yelling at the little guy, but then a soft snuffing sound filled the room, soon replaced by full on guffaws.
Eventually, to the human and older angel's appeasement, Gabriel wiped away the last of his mirthful tears, using his free hand to push Michael's sword away and reduce his own weapon to nothingness. “Oh, Mikey, this one's a real hot tamale! You have been doing well for yourself! Never knew you had it in you, stud,” he teased, winking a newly dried eye.
Michael frowned, face flushed and forehead crinkled, but allowed him this, lowering his arm till the point of his blade scratched the ground. “I am confused,” he admitted.
Shooting their shared enemy a black look, Adam muttered, “You and me both,” before exclaiming, “You better start talking now or we're having crispy fried angel wings for dinner!”
“Okay, okay,” Gabriel allayed, his palms raised in a we come in peace gesture. “It's kind of a long story, but here goes: in the beginning, Dad created the heavens and earth...”
“Gabriel!” Michael chastised warningly, his knuckles whitening around the pommel of his sword.
The younger archangel deflated, then continued, this time in a more subdued tone, “All right, here's what really happened...”
-
It all started with God, as per usual.
He had commanded that Lucifer be struck down and Michael had obeyed him, but it was difficult, even for an archangel, to take all the love you had for your older brother, the one whose beauty had always awed you, the one that had taught you your tricks, and tuck it away, as if it had never existed in the first place.
Michael had always been detached, if loving, and with Lucifer gone, he and God both drew further and further into their own worlds. Raphael, meanwhile, only grew angrier in the wake of Lucifer's betrayal, his grace blackening to something static and dangerous, unrecognizable, rather than the panacea it had previously been.
In that situation, Gabriel was lost. He tried to stick around for a while, holding out hope that his older brothers would notice how he needed them and how they needed him in return, but they didn't. Thus, he went along with the first solution that occurred to him: running away from his dysfunctional family. God had set the same precedence, after all.
He faked his death and hid on Earth - in what would become modern day Kalamazoo, where Elvis would someday pull a similar stunt - and the Heavenly Host chorused its cries of mourning for centuries afterward.
That was a wake up call, at least for Michael. Gabriel watched, hidden, as his older brother left the seclusion of the Garden to tear through the world and find him. One time, by which point Gabriel had already assimilated into the frost giant Loki, Michael even came close.
But he didn't reveal himself and even Heaven's Sword had a breaking point, so Michael conceded defeat, his grace singing with such depression that Gabriel almost exposed himself. Almost.
And so time carried on, leaving Gabriel to comfort himself with pranks on deserving humans or supernatural creatures, until two boys came along to first break, then save the world.
They convinced him to, for once, stand up for what he wanted, against one of the only four beings in the universe whom he both adored and was terrified of, and Gabriel died to give them an out - to give humanity the out that he knew it deserved.
He died and there was nothing, leastwise for a time, but then he was revived. He woke up on a dirty hotel floor, no longer powered by his brethren demigods to look spiffy, and he couldn't even begin to fathom why.
Why would God save him, the runaway, the coward? What purpose could there possibly be? What was his mission, now that he was back? And why, oh, why was he so gosh-darned hungry?
It was the latter that bugged him most, until he realized that his grace had been recharged enough for him to zap in a candy bar or a hundred, and then the penultimate suddenly became his priority. If He had brought Gabriel back, surely there was a reason, and he had to find out what that reason was.
After so long, he wasn't foolish enough to assume he could simply pop into Heaven and ask someone there for Intel. Who knew what would be awaiting him? Raphael had quite the chip on his shoulder, Gabriel recalled.
He wasn't without his sources, however, and stretching his feelers out across the globe, while still laying low, was nothing he hadn't done before, so he found out about how his oldest brothers and their meatsuits had taken a swan dive. A year hence, it was one of his trickster friends - Anansi, who was a nosy little arachnid, mostly because he was the collector of stories - who told him a very interesting tale: about a former general of Heaven who had escaped Hell and fallen halo over pinions in love with a little human boy.
Now, don't get him wrong, Gabriel loved happily ever afters as much as the next archangel-turned-trickster, but this one was a bit far out, even for him, which was saying something.
But a certain explosion of grace, one that had briefly rocked the entire world, corroborated Anansi's otherwise tall tale, and that was actually how Gabriel got on Michael's trail. It was hard to stay on the down low, after all, if you were going to go around killing fellow archangels.
It was true, Michael had more juice than he could ever imagine, but being incognito was ultimately Gabriel's signature move, and it wasn't a biggie to find the newlyweds in question. Why he didn't just drop in and introduce himself as Adam's new brother-in-law, he wasn’t quite sure of yet.
A part of it was because of Raphael, who might have been a douche of the first degree, but a well-loved douche, at that, and the idea of Michael choosing a human, one of the fragile creatures he'd always secretly despised, over his own brother was enough to inspire something like wrath from Gabriel.
However, the boy was a Winchester, the forbidden fruit itself in a compact, blue-eyed, blond-haired package, and Gabriel could understand the lure of his sweet soul - could understand why he made Michael smile more often, why Michael had bonded with him in the first place, why Michael stayed. He liked seeing his eldest brother happy.
But was it enough? Was whatever his older brother felt for the snarky little brat a stronger force than whatever had driven him to start the Apocalypse? He blew the horn of truth to find out. After all, what was better than an instrument of honesty to induce it?
He only wanted to see Michael come to Adam's defense. Perhaps the weapon, used to such a feeble degree in order not to draw the archangelic warrior's attention, wouldn't affect him, but as soon as Gabriel saw him swoop to his bonded's rescue, he'd know how genuine Michael's feelings were.
The answer was very. As far as Gabriel figured, Michael wouldn't revert back to his old ways - the roundabout ways that had resulted in Gabriel's own death - any time soon. He was too whipped for that and it was oddly endeaing.
And here they all were, twenty minutes later, sorely wishing they were sipping some chai lattes. Or maybe that was just him.
-
“That's my story. Do with it what you will,” Gabriel finished, extending his arms. He blinked his eyes and handcuffs appeared around his exposed wrist.
Adam frowned from the melodramatic angel to his older brother, who was staring down at the shiny helmet of brown hair with an alarmingly blank expression, then made a snap decision. “That won't be necessary. You sticking around?” Michael's neck turned toward him so fast that Adam had to wonder if angels got whiplash, especially since Gabriel was gawking, too. “What?” he mumbled defensively.
“Adam,” Michael began, as if speaking to an obtuse child, “he sounded the horn of truth. If you don't know, it's a weapon that can commence Armageddon.”
Gabriel opened his mouth to counter, but the human answered, “Hm, kinda like how a certain someone nearly kick-started the Apocalypse, huh?” Michael lowered his head, ashamed, and Adam reached out to take his hand, tone softening. “You changed, Mike. Maybe he's a dick, but he's also your brother, so what's to say he won't?”
After a moment, Michael nodded. “It is true that Gabriel was always the most malleable among us and...I have failed him, apparently.” He stopped Gabriel's protests with a halting gesture, every bit the general the younger archangel remembered. “I will give him a chance, to make up for that, but he cannot-” His eyes met Gabriel's, his lips pursing chidingly, “-you cannot harm Adam again. Understood?”
“Yessir,” came the surprisingly heartfelt reply, earning a fond smile from the oldest archangel. Gabriel became meek, under the bright beam of that gaze, and mumbled, “Can I talk now, Mom and Dad?”
“If you have to,” Adam injected dismissively, mostly to annoy him.
“Thanks, Mother,” Gabriel went on, playing along, before his sarcasm dimmed to something more somber, capping with an uncharacteristic sigh. “I didn't just come here to watch you guys go at it like rabbits, though that was a plus,” he revealed, a hint of what mischievousness he couldn't tame finding its way back in. “Dad wouldn't have offered me a second chance to be a porn critic.”
It was Adam's turn to gape, but the scandalized squawk on the tip of his tongue was overpowered by Michael squeezing his fingers. “What do you need, Gabriel?”
“Sam Winchester,” Gabriel said, without preamble, his severe mask not slipping in the slightest. “Someone has to raise him and I can't do it alone. Lucy'll only smite me again.” Adam's eyes widened and the younger archangel's moroseness finally evaporated into his trademark smirk. “What's the matter, baby Winchester? Did marital bliss help you forget your blood?”
“Gabriel,” Michael admonished, prompting his younger brother to back down at once with a muttered apology, and when his dominance was once again asserted, the archangel continued, “I will help you, but because Adam wants me to.”
The thing was, Adam wasn't sure he did.
Oh, don't get him wrong. As Michael had explained it, Adam had the lineage of Abel, the brother in Davy Jones' locker, not Cain, who'd pushed him into it.
Maybe he didn't know Sam that well, but he had no pressing urge to kill him - or, in this case, to deny him his millionth chance at revival. But...
“The two of you...you can steal Sam back from Lucifer? For sure?” he asked - demanded, more like.
“Easy,” Gabriel replied, waving his hand airily, but Michael's free hand moved to join the other one, caging Adam's fingers.
“Nothing is certain,” he murmured, “but doing nothing is worse than doing wrong.”
Adam pursed his lips, staring down at the beady little eyes of the bunny slippers Vivian had gifted him, and mumbled, “I think I heard some dinky actor say that once. Or something like it, about not making choices.”
“Actually, it's what the demigod Krishna said in the Bhagavad Gita,” Michael countered, faintly amused.
“Oh yeah, that guy,” Gabriel rejoined. “One of my exes introduced us. He kept bitching 'bout some dude named Arjuna, though, so we never hit it off.”
Adam looked up at him, the corner of his mouth quirking. Had it not been for the situation, he might have laughed, but it would sound too revealingly choked now.
Instead, he inquired, “When will you go?” looking into his archangel's golden eyes. He couldn't even fathom not seeing them for an extended period of time - perhaps even forever.
“The sooner the better,” was the hushed reply, the blow softened by a thumb stroking the tender skin between his own thumb and other digits. “With how long your brother has been in the Cage, as Lucifer's only source of amusement, we cannot risk putting off the task. Right now, even, would be viable.”
“Right now...” Adam repeated, the words practically a sigh.
“I, uh,” Gabriel cut in, pointing to a random spot behind him, “think I'll skedaddle, for now, leave you two kids to talk. Find me when you're ready to vamoose, Mikey.”
Michael nodded without looking away - neither of them did - and a moment later, they felt wind rush around them, leaving them alone.
“Okay,” Adam said, ultimately, both happy and disgusted when his voice didn't catch - the first because it would mitigate his angel's many troubles, but the second because it made him seem like he didn't care, like the ice-prince he sometimes pretended to be, but wasn't. “You go,” he continued, meeting Michael's eyes unshakably, “and you bring Sam back, but not at the cost of yourself! I mean it, Michael, if you die, I'll end you, whatever it takes!”
Heaven's Sword blinked, yet the fact that he didn't start pointing out how irrational that was meant he actually was one of the few people in the universe who got Adam, wholly.
“I wouldn't want that. You terrify me,” he joked, before bending to kiss Adam's forehead, one hand coming up to caress Adam's cheek, both his lips and his fingertips warm and consoling.
Adam screwed his eyes shut, feeling them burn uncomfortably, then whispered, “I love you,” and Michael froze.
He had reason to. In all the months they'd been together, Adam had skirted around the L-word. When Michael said it, often enough, he'd reply with a casual, “me too,” “thanks,” or, if he was mad at the time, “shut up, suck up!” And Michael, being the infinitely, annoyingly placid being that he was, had never pushed for more, probably because he could read Adam's mind and tell, anyway. Still, this was monumental.
When the archangel moved away, it was only to take Adam's mouth, this time, and after a kiss that left them both grasping desperately at each other, he murmured, “I love you, too,” against Adam's already bruised lips, which curled up into a weak smile.
“You should go,” the human said, after a moment, stepping back and running a hand down his already rumpled clothes.
“Yes,” Michael agreed, and just like that, he was gone, like he'd never been there in the first place.
Adam allowed himself to wilt, feeling more depressed than he ever had before, but an unexpected tap on his shoulder made him jump. Behind him, wiggling his fingers with unnatural sunniness, stood Gabriel.
Adam ran a hand over his face and snarled, “What do you want?”
“Cool it, princess,” Gabriel quipped, baring his teeth in a wide, Cheshire cat grin. “Just wanted to thank you for, ya know, keeping Michael from gutting me. Not fun, that, even the second time around.”
“It wasn't for you,” Adam snapped, turning away sharply from the small archangel. “I'm not dumb - I know you think I'm selfish for not trying to help Sam before, but I don't know him - it's an empty obligation. I know Michael, I love him, and I know he misses you pricks, for whatever reason, so you'd better not screw things up!”
Gabriel quirked an eyebrow at him, as if disbelieving that a measly human would actually try and threaten him.
“Dad almighty,” he eventually said, “does Michael have his hands full with you or what? Whatevs, I'm out.”
“Humph, like I care where the jackass who tried to kill me goes!” Adam replied, pressing his lips together in vexation, but Gabriel merely laughed him off.
Instead of spiriting away at once, however, the beaming angel glanced back over his shoulder, murmuring, “I'm gonna be with him the whole time, don't worry. I'll bring your Romeo home.”
Adam didn't answer and he vanished for real. Afterward, Adam sat down on the ground, putting his head between his knees, and only Sammie's incessant barking, coupled with her scratching at the basement door, provoked him to get back up about an hour later.
-
Adam didn't sleep. He had never noticed it before, but on the rare occasions when Michael wasn't there, he never did, likely because the archangel acted as a sentinel for his dreams, keeping them from shifting to nightmares.
The one positive: when Sammie began to bark yet again, impatient for the morning walk that her inhuman caretaker usually took her on, Adam was already awake and ready to be her bitch.
“Are you always this high-maintenance?” he asked the energetic puppy who, despite her size, dragged him this way and that with relative ease, stopping to sniff every mailbox, lamppost or sign in her path - and some out of her way.
She responded with another derogatory yip, as if to say, Where's the other one? You know, the scruffy-looking two-legs I actually like?
“And I'm the one who springs for your gourmet kibble,” Adam griped back, sighing when she found a nice fire-hydrant to do her business at. “You're slumming from now on. One of those no name, spoof brands will have you crawling back to me.”
She ignored him, lowering her lifted leg, before jerking him forward by the leash, to a direction leading away from their house.
“W-where are you going?” Adam exclaimed, stumbling over an errant stone and dodging a fellow jogger. The answer soon became apparent when he saw a familiar house: the Holmes'. “Really? Michael leaves and you're just willing to go back to the pound, rather than sticking around with me? Hurtful!” he told the traitorous puppy, who simply regarded him with her big brown eyes, amused by his rambling.
He nearly had a heart attack - more entertainment for her, no doubt - when Jenny, undetected up until then, inquired, “Do you always talk to her, Adam?”
“Oh, um, Jenny, I'm sorry,” Adam stuttered, running a hand through his unruly head of bed-hair sheepishly. “Didn't mean to wake you and the kids.”
“You didn't,” she replied, smiling and stepping back into her house, leaving the door open as an invitation. “They're in school. Collegians like yourself get out way earlier. I may love them, but thank God for that.”
“Not sure He had anything to do with it,” Adam muttered, only to himself, spritzing back up when she regarded him curiously. “Well, I'm sorry, anyway. With Michael gone, this little diva's being unbearable. Maybe I should send her to obedience school, eh?”
His joke fell flat when she frowned at him, beckoning for man and best friend to take a load off on her couch. “Michael's gone? What happened, dear?”
Adam felt himself blush, for blowing things way out of proportion, then explained, “He'll only be gone for a little while. He had a..family emergency that he had to attend to.”
“So that's why you look so troubled today,” she mused, inciting a noncommittal shrug of his shoulders. Girls and their sixth sense always sort of bugged him, but she genuinely seemed worried, so he couldn't resent her.
“It's just...well, it feels like we've been together, even before we were together-together, for more than a century. I miss him already and he just left yesterday!” He pouted his lips at the realization, which he'd been ignoring for the sake of his pride. He was practically Bella Swan right now and you couldn't go lower than her level of pathetic codependency.
Jenny came over and sat beside him, taking his hand and petting Sammie, who took the opportunity to hop into her lap. “That's fine, you know? My husband - my ex - wasn't the nicest man. Never hurt me or the kids, I'm happy to say, but he...let's just say he had his vices. Even knowing I was better off without him, I missed him for so long after he left. Thought I'd never move on.”
“I don't want to move on, though!” Adam replied, not noticing how she winced when his fingers compressed tighter. “I can't even think about that.”
“That's because you, Mister, are so sweetly in love that my diabetes is acting up,” she laughed, her genuine mirth taking the sting out of her words. “Besides, I'm not saying you should move on. I'm saying, sure, you'll miss him, but he'll come back to you. That sickening, sugary sentiment I mentioned seems nothing but mutual to me.”
“Thanks, Jenny,” Adam said, the corner of his mouth grooving shyly.
“You're welcome - both for the gift of my wisdom and to visit me anytime, whether you need help with this bad girl right here or anything else.” She released him and stood up, setting the 'bad girl' in question on her paws once more, then called back, “Want some pancakes? I made them from scratch, this morning.”
Adam grinned widely, recalling those Belgian waffles Michael had procured, once upon the day they left Hell. “Pancakes sound awesome!”
He left an hour later, feeling way more upbeat than he had up locking his house's door after him, but then he found out a fussing Jenny had called Vivian to update her on new developments.
Small towns. What could you do?
Answer: put up with an even greater extent of smothering, both literally and metaphorically.
-
The smothering Vivian imparted on Adam was mostly the former, because he choked on the cloying scent of her hairspray when she pulled him in for a bone-crushing hug, but just like with Jenny, he didn't actually mind. It was yet another rock in his life, Vivian's affection for him, and after so many upheavals, these rocks were much approved of.
“Aw, honey, I can't believe he's gone!” she practically wailed into his shirt, gnarled hands pounding against his back.
He indulgently petted her hair, then murmured, “Only for a bit, Viv. He's not MIA forever.” He hated the tiny part of him that acknowledged how he'd said that only to reassure himself. “He'll be back in a couple days, tops.”
“Where'd he go, anyhow?” she went on, drawing back a few inches to squint at him, having lost her spectacles in her rush to come and comfort him. “Jenny said somethin' 'bout his family. What the heck kinda family does he have: fashion moguls, the mob, international spies?”
“Religious fanatics,” Adam deadpanned, watching her droop at the too honest revelation. “It's not completely his fault, anyway. He's...doing something thoughtful for me, like always, and I want it to get done - I do - but I can't help worrying. I feel like, when he kissed me goodbye yesterday, it was the very last time.”
“Like how I was when my husband left for the war, I'd think,” Vivian mused, staring dreamily at absolutely nothing for a minute, oblivious to how fitting the comparison was, before laughing him off. “You're just not used to it, is all. When the honeymoonin' phase is over, you'll be wishin' he went away more often.”
“I don't think so,” Adam protested sullenly, though it was partly a lie. He actually could imagine Michael, with all his quirky antics, soon becoming insufferable, but he'd be affectionately so, and Adam would always welcome him back, no matter how much he shooed him out.
For his efforts, he received yet another patronizing pat and a look that read here, have my unrequested sagacity, you naïve child. “If you're that worried, take a page outta your in-laws' book and talk to the Lord. Maybe He'll listen.”
“I doubt it,” Adam muttered, backing out of her reach when she shook a fist at him, offended by his writing God off so easily.
If only she knew the reasons that merited his reaction, then she might not be so quick to judge, but her affront was playful, at best, so he didn't bother to share - also, as already established, she was old and the elderly tended to suffer heart failure if you revealed fantastical truths to them.
Before she left, however, she broached the topic again, the caveat, “Try to be more open-minded, baby boy,” and pressed a sloppy kiss to his cheek.
For a whole week, Adam excused her advice as the ranting of a loveable, but vaguely senile old woman. It was only on the seventh night since Michael's parting that he figured there might be something more to it than that. After all, Michael had already been gone for four more days than he'd calculated - hoped - so if he returned after a prayer shot to his Dad, then there wouldn't really be a loser, and if he didn't, it would be no change, anyway.
That was why Adam attired himself in his pajamas, spat the last of his minty toothpaste down the drain, gurgled to finish his cleanup process, and approached his bed cautiously, as one would a sleeping dragon, before stooping to his knees in front of it.
“I...haven't done this in a while. Not since, actually, that Christmas after my sixth birthday. In my defense, I asked you for a mountain bike and got a freaking Tonka set. What was I, five? Total disillusionment in both you and Santa, man,” he began, before bashfully clearing his throat. “That's not the point. You don't like me - that's been proved a million times over - but damn, shouldn't you love your son - your children? Even I do - or well, one of them! The point of this is, enough screwing around. You already took my mom-” If his voice broke a little, no one but him and the big guy were around to hear it, “-you took John, who might not have been the best, but was my dad. You can't deprive me of all that, keep me from my brothers, then expect me to lay down and take it when you steal Michael, too. Sure, you made us all, but that's low, so...please. Just please. Do right by me, just this once, or I'm going pagan. I've heard they, at least, have regular orgies. Thank you.”
There was no dramatic flash of thunder or the clatter of falling objects as a replying sign. There was nothing, not a fucking thing, so he whispered a, “Goodnight,” to someone that had better things to do than listen to him and went to bed.
-
The next morning, a series of frenetic knocks woke Adam up before the sun. Grumbling and rubbing his eyes, he tottered to the front door like a drunken penguin, then stopped cold when he saw the tall, dark figure that stood behind it, leaning heavily against the frame.
“M-Michael?” he gasped, surveying the disheveled hair, the torn clothes and his archangel's pained smile.
“Hello,” came the muffled reply, prior to Michael falling bodily forward, pitching Adam back a few steps, completely dead to the world.
Adam's hands, propping the heavier frame up, came away wet, he noted with horror, as he brought Michael out of the view of prying eyes. On them, shiny gold ichor, the liquid grace that leaked from holy beings, sparkled like a vat of Lady Gaga's makeup glitter. The fingers they sparkled on began to shake, the faint tremors disseminating to everything beyond them.
Yet, if he continued at that rate, Adam knew he would lose his grip on the unconscious angel, so he strove to strengthen both his resolve and his hold, sliding his palms past Michael's chest, under his noodle-like arms, till he could heft him to their bedroom.
He tried to take it painstakingly slow, to avoid causing further harm to his angel, but since the vessel weighed more than him even when comatose, Michael's legs ended up lagging along the carpet, his cumbersome frame bouncing once against the mattress when Adam finally lowered - dropped - him.
After that, however, the human sprung into action, his medical training kicking in. Put pressure on the wound! Keep Michael from spilling out all over the sheets! Keep him alive!
The last time he'd tried doing the same, it was to himself, after the pair of ghouls had left him, half-dead already, to investigate the rest of Windom with their spanking new faces, and didn't we all know how that had ended? They'd eaten his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti - and, damn it all to Hell, now was not the fucking time for Silence of the Lamb quotes!
“Come on, come on, come on!” he cried aloud, pressing down with more force than was strictly necessary, as sweat and something else - something he wouldn't identify, not yet - pooled together to blur his vision. Michael's heartbeat remained dangerously decelerated, his breathing slow, which may or may not have been reassuring for an angel in his condition, for all Adam knew, though it would've been negatively telling for a normal person.
Eventually, the ephemeral smell of liquified gold dispersed into the air and faded, the injury that Adam discovered after unbuttoning Michael's shirt waning with it, right before his eyes, and there was nothing left for him to do anymore. He was useless.
He drank in a shuddering whiff of air, his own body aching like he had contracted his mate's pain via nothing but touch, and he laid himself down next to Michael, his arms wrapping securely around him, wanting futilely to keep him there - keep him safe - what he should have done a week ago. He should have said no.
Michael's quiet huffs of breath whistled in the air, calming as a lullaby, and Adam struggled to keep his eyes open, but he'd been sleeping fitfully, at best, for so long that it had become unfeasible to resist mow.
His lids soon drooped and, restless, he migrated to the position he found most comfortable: with his head pillowed on Michael's chest. That was why he wasn't initially disturbed when he blearily realized fingers were combing through his hair. After all, Michael was touchy-feely, always trying to ascertain the limits of society with his lack of personal space, so that ended up happening every time they slept together, anyway.
But then, in a flash, memories of blood holier than church wine assaulted Adam, forcing him to draw back in shock, which leveled his rounded blue eyes with Michael's curious, perhaps still drained, but alert hazel counterparts.
“You don't generally sleep in the afternoon,” their owner pointed out calmly, as if he hadn't been lying in his deathbed just, a glance at their wall-clock confirmed, three hours ago.
Adam didn't answer. Instead, mouth pursed angrily, he sat up and straddled the irritating archangel, grabbing the haggard lines of Michael's face to smash their lips together, their teeth gnashing together at the rushed, violent motion.
“Don't ever do that again,” Adam ordered, upon pulling away, and Michael nodded mutely, a rosy blush spreading across his face. Satisfied, Adam let himself fall back further into the befuddled angel's lap, his legs spreadeagled on either side of him, and continued, “Now, tell me what happened? Why were you...” His voice began to quiver, causing him to rephrase the inquiry, “What happened to you?”
Michael's bemused facade began to morph into sobriety, his hands coming up to settle on Adam's shoulders and steady him.
“Lucifer is one of the few beings who can contend with me. Our Father molded us, in antiquity, from the same shred of grace,” he explained, in a grave tone that complimented his expression. “Yes, it was why I had to be the one to banish him, and also why I had to salvage your brother, but neither task was easy.”
“He hurt you while you were getting Sam,” Adam surmised, sounding more clinical than was true.
“No,” Michael corrected, “he hurt me when I offered myself as bait, giving Gabriel the opportunity to get Sam.”
Adam balled his fists into the sheets, feeling them pale and tremble - with frustration, with anger, with every pent up emotion that might prove spontaneous combustion to be more than fantasy - before he gritted out, “You're an idiot,” barely remembering to maintain a polite level of noise.
“An idiot, perhaps, but one who succeeded, because of you. Our bond - my contact with your soul - put me on the path to a speedy recovery, and the thought of you gave me strength at my darkest hours.” Michael's voice was cautiously explicating rather than outright defensive, and Adam hugged him again, close enough to perceive not only that magical scent that was purely Michael, but what amounted to a healthier heartbeat, as well. The archangel responded by spreading a hand across his back, tracing tranquil circles over the cotton cloth there, his warmth channeling through it. “Sam's soul is safe now,” he whispered into Adam's ear. “Gabriel will take him home.”
Before Adam could reply - or, in this case, mumble gibberish, since that was all his relief currently left him capable of - the archangel in question interrupted, “He already has.” They startled, each straining their necks to get a glimpse of the Houdini-pulling menace, who was watching them from a safe distance away, a suave smirk on his stupidly smug face. “You two are so cute,” he went on smoothly, no doubt to add to Adam's mental alliteration, “I think I'm actually gonna hurl.” He stuck a finger down his throat and mimicked exaggerated barfing.
Adam glowered at him while Michael asked, “What are you doing here, Gabriel?” in a foreboding rumble.
Gabriel shrugged. “Wanted to say thanks, first of all. I know you didn't have to leave apple pie land to help me out, to go back to something you probably not only want to leave behind, but forget, so thank you. Both of you.”
“You're welcome,” Adam said, softening at the prospect of a genuine acknowledgment from the tiny troublemaker, then waiting for Gabriel to take his leave again.
Instead, the angel fidgeted there, scuffing a foot along the carpet, persuading a wary Michael to carefully take Adam by the hips and move him aside, so they were both face to face with his younger brother.
“What is it?” he inquired, disquieted by the antsy display.
“I...need your help again,” Gabriel muttered, the picture of reluctance, spiraling Adam into a sense of deja-vu.
“No,” he snapped, without bothering to listen any longer. “Last time you needed his help, even after you promised to take care of him, he got his ass handed to him by the fucking Devil! No damn way!”
He ignored Michael's quietly protesting, “I won,” and scowled down at Gabriel's falling face.
“I didn't exactly promise and you don't have to say yes,” the bantam ex-trickster began, “but I can swear that this time's the last. Please? Help me and your muddleheaded brothers one more time and we'll be outta your hair for good, family or not.”
He shuffled from foot to foot, watching the human and angel pair converse, unspoken, then grinned when Adam sighed in a displeased, telltale manner. “Last time,” he grumbled, concurrent with Michael's, “What is it you require?”
They both scrambled back, slightly surprised, when Gabriel made to climb in between them, like a child in his parents' bed, and after he was comfortably situated, reclining against their pillows, the younger archangel said, “It's Sam's soul. Gettin' it from the Pit was good and well, but it's been through the meat-grinder, Mikey, and I'm not sure, even with me and Cas, we can heal it.”
“You believe I might be able to?” A frown formed between Michael's eyebrows and on his mouth.
“Well, it wouldn't hurt to have Heaven's Sword,” Gabriel answered hesitantly, his gaze flicking rapidly to Adam's unimpressed face, before returning to his brother's, “but the thing is, that isn't all. If all we needed was holy juice, our resident Godfather of Heaven - Cas, in case you didn't know - could have hooked us up with some of his connections, so-”
“What you need is something from me,” Adam stated simply, crossing his arms and ignoring, for the time being, the protective glance his angel shot his way.
Rather than being blunt, Gabriel said, “You don't have to,” once more. “If you decide to duck out, no one knows about you yet. Since not even Cas knows, I could leave here now and you'd be off chalk-free...”
“And I think it's already been assumed, if not admitted aloud, that we're gonna say yes, so quit beating around the bush, you chatty twerp,” Adam replied indelicately.
Gabriel trained a meaningful glare at him, equal parts impressed and peeved, but he did as requested. “You could leave and none would be the wiser, but you two are special - you're the only human and angel pair-bond in existence. Not only that, you, princess, are Sam's brother, and Sammy-boy's stubborn soul would rather implode, after all the angel-inflicted damage done to it, than let us get close enough to fix it.”
“But,” Michael broke in, “if Adam is there and Sam's soul is more receptive to him-”
“-Then Michael can make contact, too, by proxy,” Adam concluded, although he had no clue about the finer details probably required.
“And they even finish each other's sentences,” Gabriel answered, clapping his hands in delight. “Aw, how quaint!”
Michael's perpetual frown beamed down on his slicked brown hair, preceding the rifling gesture that he made, and suddenly he was alone with Adam.
“Gabriel will return soon,” he murmured, twisting to catch Adam's attention. “Before that, I have to know, are you sure about this, Adam? It will hurt.”
Adam attempted vainly to wet his parched throat, then asked, “Will it kill me?” When Michael shook his head, albeit guardedly, he had his answer.
It came right in time for Gabriel to authenticate Michael's prediction. “Shall we?” the youngest archangel inquired, snapping his fingers and transporting them all away.
-
They reemerged in a place that was vaguely familiar: a barren wasteland with towers upon towers of scrapped cars forming a mountain around it, the sky beginning to darken overhead. Adam could almost remember seeing the sight through a small, fogged-up window, but it hadn't been quite so sinister then. It was Singer Salvage, Bobby and the Winchesters' home.
Gabriel looked around momentarily, then loped forward and considered Bobby's door, from the iron threshold to the old mutt curled up in front of it. His dark eyes were temporarily inscrutable, till he shook his head, as if spritzing off water and seemed to make a decision.
“They've relocated to the panic room,” he informed them, which Adam figured meant the one that Dean had been locked up in the last time he visited. Gabriel lifted an arm again, his fingers spread wide. “Hold onto your pants, kiddies!”
The scenery around them shivered, the shift of a hastily changed channel, and they were briefly blanketed by darkness. It cleared up into a loud shout of “Hey!” and Dean Winchester's livid face.
Adam stared at his older brother, who had been sitting on the edge of the sort of cot you might see in an asylum, but was now standing, his handsome face drawn, verdant eyes immense with shock and who knows what else, as his lips formed Adam's name. Sam would have known, of course, but he could also see Sam's large, unmoving form behind Dean on the cot, next to a hot pink Barbie lunchbox that emitted a celestial glow, so Sam was in no condition to be creepily attuned to either of them.
At Dean's exclamation, the door behind them had slammed open, revealing an armed, shotgun toting Bobby Singer, and Adam noticed that the archangels were nearer to the old hunter than him, which was all well and good, save that it left him, alone, in the heart of the panic room.
“Um, hey,” Adam greeted awkwardly, wiggling his fingers in Dean's direction. The minute motion seemed to propel his awestruck half-brother into action, and Adam doubled back when he saw the knife that Dean had managed to grab, glinting under the weak light of the rotating fan above and whatever was in the lunchbox, that Adam had an inkling about, anyway.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Gabriel didn't step in between them, impeding Michael from doing so with an outstretched arm, but his yelling did force Dean to pause and face him. “That's really Adam, dummy. You poke him now, you'll have an angry diva on your hands, and I ain't sticking around if that happens. Learned my lesson, for sure.”
Dean pursed his lips, rounding his scowl on a wary Michael, then gritted out, “You brought him, too?” He didn't have to inquire after the older archangel's identity.
Adam bristled, but Gabriel said, “Go on, ask Cas,” before he could jump to Micahel's defense.
“I will,” Dean replied, raising his pinched face up to the Heavens. He shut his eyes briefly, mouthing two syllables under his breath, and his trench-coat wearing buddy was immediately there, canting his head at Dean's back.
“Hello, Dean,” he murmured, his icy gaze drifting from person to angel to person, “Gabriel, Bobby, Adam, Michael.” Lastly, it halted on the cot, then returned to Dean, reading him with ease. “You seem unhappy.”
“Unhappy?” Dean mimed, moving further into the careworn angel's personal space, which wasn't much at all since Castiel had left but a few inches between them, to begin with. “Oh, that's observant, Cas! Why would I be happy, with one little brother soulless and dying, the other MIA until now, a few unwanted members of your dickbag family lounging around me, and..., Fuck, Cas, yes, I'm unhappy!”
Castiel lowered his unruly head of hair ashamedly, practically touching his forehead to Dean's shoulder, and Adam looked away - back to a confused Michael, a Gabriel who looked like he was watching a particularly juicy soap-opera, and to a continually weary Bobby, the only other sane person in the room, to avoid the unresolved tension. Why did this launch him into deja-vu again?
“I did not know,” the trenchcoat-wearing angel said, not bothering to specify what, precisely, he'd been in the dark about.
Dean squirmed under the attention, blushing unusually red, then whispered, “Ugh, fine, whatever. So long as you keep Thing One and Two under control, capisce? And Cas?” When Castiel glance up, he added, “I didn't mean you, before. You're not a dickbag.”
“That's nice to know,” Gabriel disrupted, “but Sammy doesn't really have time for you to sift through your domestic issues.” Dean and Castiel extricated themselves at once, alarm bleeding into the very way they held themselves, though the angel remained close. “The reason I brought Lucy and Ricky Ricardo, here, along is 'cause...well, the nature of their relationship is, let's just say, unique. In fact, it's exactly the kind of unique we need.”
“What does that mean?” Dean exploded, throwing his arms up angrily.
Adam frowned between his older brother and the oldest archangel, who was staring back at him with such troubled eyes, then blurted out, “We're married!”
“W-what?” Dean's jaw dropped.
Castiel pressed his chapped lips together and scrutinized them, before locking eyes with Gabriel, who nodded once, the gesture curt.
“You're bonded,” he said, frowning disapprovingly at them. “To do that with a human is unsure, at best.”
“But it worked.” Gabriel shook his wrist in a dismissive motion, his smirk aimed namely in Dean's direction, observing how ready the young hunter looked to throw a tantrum. “What that means, Dean, is that sweet baby bro cut himself a little slice of Heaven. His soul's completely drenched in Michael's grace, and before you freak out, know that we-” He thumbed betwixt himself and Castiel, “-can hook up to Michael, who can siphon our grace and his into our beloved Sasquatch through his lover boy. It's a foolproof plan!”
Some of the hot air started to leak out of Dean. Adam smiled wanly, unnoticeable, because he knew why, this time around. Sam's well-being would matter most, always, more than any pissing contest with either archangels in the room - or anyone.
“That's cute, but I'm all for it,” he said, when he noticed Dean's gaze roving to him, some of that residual worry brimming over. Adam was his little brother, too, after all. “Shortstop told me it might hurt, but I can't let Sam wander around soulless to avoid a little pain. That's low.”
“You don't have to,” Dean mumbled, though the relief he wore openly was palpable.
“I know,” Adam replied gently, “but I want to. Really.”
“Glad we got that outta the way!” Gabriel interjected, as inappropriately cheerful as ever. Adam was beginning to reach the conclusion that he took sadistic pleasure out of cutting people off. “Baby Winchester, don't worry 'bout a thing! This will be just like donating a kidney, but your hubby dearest will be handling the surgery and it'll scar you deeper than a knife ever could!” He focused on Dean before Adam could answer that it was against medical protocol, at least, for loved ones to preside over any dangerous procedures. “And you, my pretty old friend, can't be here at all!”
Dean opened his mouth to protest, then vanished, along with his confounded father figure, when Gabriel snapped his fingers. After a moment of utter, uneasy silence, vigorous pounding on the newly locked panic room door began, coupled with hyperbolic threats, unsurprising to everyone left inside the confined space.
After a moment, three among that generalization clustered around Adam, who shifted from foot to foot, abruptly realizing that Gabriel hadn't even waited for him to change out of his pajamas and slippers, then took the only plausible next step: he wandered over to Sam's unconscious body and the lunchbox containing his soul.
“Uh, hey,” he mumbled, to himself more than anything, before startling when his brother's soul responded by shining even brighter.
“He likes you,” Gabriel informed him, with a surprising amount of affection in his generally blasé tone. “Go on, pick him up,” he advised, flicking his wrist again. “Time to get this show on the road, once and for all!”
Adam waited until Michael nodded that it was okay, then dipped his fingers into the opening on top of the box, gasping at the warmth that instantly filtered into them.
It was the memories that assailed him first, of Dean's slowly aging face, that of his father and a woman who resembled Kate so much that it almost hurt. However, they soon faded, leaving emotions - ones that didn't belong to him, that had no place in his head or heart - in their wake.
Fear, apathy, a burst of courage that ebbed into guilt. Pain, pain, more pain, with only one comfort, stolen away to propagate an even deeper agony, lasting an eternity and a day. Finally, a hiatus, likely to lower what crumbling defenses remained, a precursor to more suffering, and the throbbing of another creature's grace. This time, the anguish was emotional, rather than mere torture. The fear had returned.
A hand on Adam's shoulder saved him from drowning in the depth of Sam's feelings. He directed unexpectedly wet eyes at a worried Michael, his hands too busy cupping the radiant essence of his half-brother to be much help.
“He remembers me,” he murmured, recalling that never-ending century when he'd thought himself silly for talking to an unresponsive Sam, unaware that it had been the only thing to keep him going. “I-I abandoned him.”
“That's a good thing,” Gabriel condoned, gliding forward. At Adam's disbelieving glower, he said, “If he'd forgotten about you, he might not be so receptive now that he's willing to let Michael get close. He trusts you and that's what we need.”
Castiel, who had been virtually silent till then, drew up behind his brothers. “If the impact of Sam's soul against his mind can shake him so, Adam may not possess the resilience necessary for this task. We may accidentally tear him apart.”
“You don't want to risk that for an 'empty obligation',” Gabriel augmented pragmatically, going so far as to add air quotes.
He was emphasizing what Adam had said before, but the sole human in the room just sighed and nodded again. “I agreed already. I'm doing it, but...” His eyes flashed up to meet Michael's, “I am sorry if this hurts you in any way. I-I love you, Mike.”
“I know,” the archangel answered, his beautiful eyes sad in a way they never should be. “I know, also, that you're too stubborn to give up now, but my grace is yours, despite that. I love you, too, more than anything.”
“We'll be careful,” Gabriel added helpfully. “We won't make a widower out of Michael, will we, Cas?” Castiel frowned like he wanted to offer a reality check, but he agreed with a hum at the erstwhile trickster's pointed clearing of the throat.
“Thanks guys,” Adam replied, chuckling falsely. He sucked in a heady breath of air and turned till he was level with Sam's body, still in possession of the giant's soul. “Let's do this.”
-
The first time Adam could remember hurting was after falling out of a tree when he was four.
Twelve years later, he'd been absolutely certain that no pain could surpass that of the broken leg he got when his car wrapped around a pole.
Then, of course, he'd met his friendly neighborhood ghouls, and his torture threshold had risen dramatically.
Zachariah's torment had been quite a bitch, but nothing compared to that moment when he first said yes, which was like a watermelon trying to squeeze into a hole fit for a needle, though Michael took measures to ensure that it was minimized.
This - taking the grace of two archangels and their decidedly impressive younger brother - made all that seem like the scratch of a wet kitten, put it all to shame.
Adam was very happy he blacked out five seconds into it. Maybe God was merciful, after all.
-
He woke up to someone humming the musical styling of Led Zeppelin, mullet rock band extraordinaire. After fighting and narrowly winning the battle to lift his eyelids, he discerned that someone was Dean - or, at least, Dean's back, attired in a beat up, brown leather jacket that was mistily familiar and sitting in a wooden chair.
Adam grunted and made to sit up, struggling with the blankets that had been draped over him, which inspired his older brother to whip around, exposing the sight of a giant Sleeping Beauty who had yet to do more than breathe since Adam's return.
“Oh, you're awake!” Dean declared, smiling almost shyly at his bedraggled younger brother.
“No shit, Sherlock,” Adam muttered, when he finally got his mouth to work.
Dean was goggle-eyed for a minute, then continued dryly, “Well, ain't you a ray of sunshine in the morning?”
Adam ran a hand down his face, hoping to soften the stiffened muscles. “Sorry, but you try singing show-tunes after being gang-banged by every freaking kid God spewed out, including your boyfriend!”
“Not my boyfriend,” Dean replied childishly.
Adam ignored him to throw his legs over the side of the bed, grasping its stand to stop from swaying on his feet.
His big brother took the hint and rushed over, but he shook out of Dean's grip, inquiring, “How's he doing?” instead, jutting his chin in Sam's direction.
Dean bit his bottom lip, chewing on it ponderously, before disclosing, “As good as you can expect, I guess. I mean, you've been out this last day, too, and you're up, right? Gabriel says he needs time to heal and Cas says he's right, for once. No one knows for certain, though.”
“I'm sure he'll wake up,” Adam reassured him, letting go of the bed-stand to squeeze his brother's hand just the once. He didn't know how much more Dean would go for, but he did seem grateful.
For all that, they parted soon enough, and Dean cleared his throat to explain, “Your, uh, that is - Michael's waiting in the house. Everyone and their grandmother has vouched for him, I know, but I didn't want him in here with you guys. Didn't have the heart to kick him out, either, since he hasn't left you once. He's real taken with you.”
“He is,” Adam agreed, his smile etching wider. “I only hope he's remembered to ask someone to feed our dog.”
“You've got a dog?” Dean stopped himself mid-question, shaking his head. “Of course you do. You've stuck every available branch into your little holy chicken nest, haven't you? Can't wait to tell Sam.”
“You're just jealous,” Adam replied, but he was eager for that moment, as well.
-
Two days later, Sam Winchester graced the world with his conscious presence, only to find the weirdest sight awaiting him: both of his brothers, three friendly angels, and a fondly exasperated Bobby.
He gathered all the energy he could muster and asked, “What did I miss?”
Adam caught a glimpse of Michael standing at his rear out of his peripheral vision and clutched his mate's hand., figuring he'd let Dean take the first shot. His motivation wasn't completely beneficent. To explain everything that had happened - his falling for Michael, Dean's apple pie life crumbling into pieces, Castiel in Heaven and even, maybe, an angel who wanted to be a permanent fixture in Sam's life - seemed slightly complicated.
“It's...a long story,” Dean eventually replied, love for his brother dripping in spades from him, as Castiel offered moral support, within the hunter's reach.
Adam grinned from the pair to a bemusedly blinking Sam. That was one way to put it.
Elsewhere, a certain prophet smiled. All that was missing now was a rainbow.
-
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A/N: This is not only my first time doing big bang, but the first time I've finished a multi-chapter story! I hope it wasn't too weird - though I know it's vastly different from the norm of spn_j2_bigbang - and that you had fun reading it. If the last few chapters are a little wonky, know that I've been going kind of crazy, rushing to post them. Please give me a little leeway, but feel free to critique on what I can do to make your experience more enjoyable, next time around. Just don't be too harsh, thanks!