Home Again
Adam Milligan hadn’t eaten in…he didn’t remember how long. To be completely honest, neither the pizza nor the cheeseburger was that good-and the less said about the French fries the better. It was all on the bland side in that cheap, roadside diner kind of way. But it was food, and he was starving, and he hadn’t eaten in…he didn’t remember how long.
But, it was hard to enjoy a meal when someone was staring at you from across the table.
“Tell me what you want.”
He self-consciously wiped his hands and mouth with his napkin, keeping his eyes firmly on the pizza-pan he was using as a plate, and firmly not on the voice or the familiar pair of eyes watching him. The pizza wasn’t that good, to be honest. Neither was the cheeseburger. They were both kind of bland in that roadside diner kind of way. And the less said about the French fries the bett-
“You’re getting lost again, Adam. Focus.”
Adam looked up, back stiffening as he faced Michael directly. As he was trained. He was a good little soldier. “I’m sorry.”
The other Adam-the Archangel wearing his face-huffed in bemusement. Or was it disdain? Michael had never liked him. He wasn’t the True Vessel. He wasn’t Dean. Dean. Dean Winchester. Who’d left him to be captured in the first place. Who’d selfishly offered him up as a sacrifice to avoid being Michael’s vessel. Who’d rescued Sam from an eternity of torment but left him to rot-
“Focus.”
Adam straightened again. “I’m sorry.” Sir.
Michael.
Master.
Yes, he was a good soldier. An obedient little ape.
Michael sighed, shaking his-Adam’s-head slightly. “Don’t be. Human minds are fragile things. I forget that, sometimes.”
Sometimes. Adam seethed. How many lifetimes had Michael played his cruel games, creating whole realities just to make Adam run around like a lab rat in a maze? How many times had he taken out his rage against Sam Winchester on Adam, just because he was the closest human-the closest not-quite-Winchester-available?
Fragile. Weak. Inadequate. The substitute Vessel. The backup plan. The failure. The one left behind, tossed out with the garbage. Not Dean. Never Dean. The words streamed like a dictionary definition in Adam’s stuttering brain.
“That’s good,” Michael said, smiling faintly. “Use that. Steady your mind. Focus on that. Tell me: what do you want?”
Adam heard the question, but the shredded edges of his mind snagged on the first part. He narrowed his eyes, confused. “Focus on Dean?”
“The one who left us here. Twice, in fact.”
Dean. The one who’s pet angel had pulled Sam’s body from the Cage, leaving Adam behind. The one who’d somehow convinced Death itself to come back and retrieve the tortured soul that had been left behind by the careless angel. The one who’d left Adam to rot in Sam’s place.
Things had quieted, for a while, after that. Michael and Lucifer had waged war after war on each other, high up in the rafters of the Cage, shaking Hell itself with their fury. Loosing titanic energies on one another, not caring that the damage was never permanent, that neither of them could ever die in their prison; the wars had raged for endless decades. Adam had been cast aside. He watched, for a while. His body-at least halfway adequate, it seemed-survived the cascades of destruction that bounced off the walls of the impenetrable gulag, and his eyes could see them without burning up.
In a way, he was special. Lucky him. He might have survived the fight in the cemetery, if Dean and his friends hadn’t intervened. Sam would have perished with Lucifer, and some part of Adam, long buried under all the pain and misery, felt a pang of regret at the notion…not that it had happened. But Adam might have lived and been the hero that Dean Winchester refused to be. That wouldn’t have been so bad. Would it?
But that wasn’t Adam’s lot in life. Loyal and independent son of a nomadic hunter, and an overworked and lonely nurse, a promising pre-med student, unsuspecting food for a family of ghouls, cannon-fodder for Heaven’s strongest angel…a unique resume-epitaph-to be sure.
No, Adam was destined for a darker fate. Cast aside. A pawn. A dead end. Half-brother to the chosen duo. Unwanted and unneeded. The third wheel. The replacement. The second stringer. The forgotten-
“Adam.”
Michael’s voice startled him. The archangel had returned to him eventually. Something had cracked open the Cage. Someone had summoned Lucifer up to its outer fringes…and freed him! Dean. His pet angel. That oily crossroads demon and his witch mother. Adam had seen it happen. Sam had returned, and Lucifer had attacked him. From what he’d overheard, somehow Sam had been duped into returning. Adam had breathed on a long-faded ember of hope. Maybe it was more than it appeared. Maybe his brother was there to save him?
But, no, not him. Never him. Dean had arrived shortly after, saving Sam, and for some reason that was beyond Adam’s understanding, they had all left together, Lucifer riding the traitor-angel out of the Cage.
Michael had come back to him then, knowing that he would need a vessel, even an inadequate one, if he was to escape. And it seemed escape was possible after all. Michael didn’t intend to be caught napping when another such chance came, so he returned to his broken little soldier, healed his decrepit shell, and waited. Adam had been chained the comet once more, burned by icy resolve that waited to blast free.
They waited. And waited. Michael impatient and frustrated, Adam like a dog dragged by a speeding car.
Because Dean couldn’t be bothered to remember his other brother. His stand-in. His patsy.
“All right.” Michael sighed wearily. “I can see I am expecting too much.”
The diner faded. The art on the walls dulled and vanished. The bland food disappeared. It was just Adam and Michael. Alone. Forever chained to each other.
“I thought I could prepare you…ease you into this, but I see I chose poorly.”
Adam tilted his head, lost. Was he playing Michael’s game wrong? Was he going to be punished again? “I don’t….”
“The door is open,” Michael said, stopping his thoughts, his-Adam’s-piercing blue eyes glancing past. Adam turned to follow his gaze.
The great gilded door to the Cage stood wide open, the blinding white light beyond beckoning them to freedom. The fetid flesh and decay of the Cage wall was parted, showing Hell’s fires burning outside.
It depended on whose eyes looked at it.
“We can leave.” Michael stated, not unkindly, for once. “I need you.”
Adam turned back, staring at himself. I need you. Michael, his other half, his tormentor, his master….
Part of him, the vengeful part, John Winchester’s abandoned son, screamed for him to stay put. Trap Michael here! Hurt him the way he’s hurt you! Take control of the game!
Part of him, his mother’s lonely son, the victim of circumstance, wailed for him to stand up and walk out the open door. It doesn’t matter what’s really out there. Anything is better than this!
Another part of him, the obedient soldier, the battered and tormented soul that was beyond hope, vengeance, or desperation-the dominant part as it turned out-waited for permission from his master.
“We should go, now.” Michael said softly, almost sounding gentle, to someone who didn’t know better. “I’ll find real food for you to eat. You haven’t eaten in a long time.”
Adam nodded slightly. He was starving. He hadn’t eaten in…he didn’t know how long.
“But…”
There it was. The carrot and the stick. This he understood. Adam never got the carrot, not once in his life, but he was all too acquainted with the stick. Michael carried a heavy stick, and every part of Adam, regardless of hate, or pity, or long burned away hope, feared it. He’d survived all this by being a good, obedient little soldier. It didn’t matter that he knew he’d never get the carrot. He chased it anyway. It was the only thing that stopped the pain.
“You have to tell me want you want after that.” Michael said.
Adam struggled, trying to pull the scattered remnants of his tattered mind together for the first time in…he didn’t know how long. Focus.
So, he did. He focused. He remembered Sam, his one-time cellmate. He remembered Dean, his negligent jailer. His long-lost brothers…not that they gave a damn about him. No one had in a long time.
“Tell me.” Michael whispered in his ear. Adam opened his eyes. He was alone, in the dark, like always. The light from the open door glared in the distance. The Cage around him was cold, empty, abandoned. Just like me….
“I w-want….” Adam trailed off. How long had it been since anyone had asked what he wanted? How long since anyone had cared to listen to his answer? Did he even know what he wanted?
“Focus.”
“I w-want…” Adam steeled himself. His body solidified beneath him. He pressed his hands against the freezing cold nothing and pushed himself to his knees. “I want to peel the flesh from my brothers’ bones…and crush them into dust. I want you to fix them, so I can do it again. And then I want to bring them back here, with me!”
Michael smiled, and for the first time in he couldn’t remember how long, Adam felt warmth. It pushed the freezing cold away.
“Ask, and it shall be given, my loyal little soldier.”
Adam stood up.
END