Fic: The Boy From District Three
Title: The Boy From District Three Part 1
Rating: NC-17
Author: bellacatbee
Artist: inalasahl
Beta: casness
Genre: (Gen, het, slash, femmeslash) Slash
Pairing(s) / Character(s): Adam/Michael, Dean/Castiel, Jeffrey/Jeffrey's Demon, Sam, John, Kate, Meg, Alistair, Lucifer, Crowley, Gabriel, Kali
Warnings: Character Death, Violence, Implied Non-Con, Attempted Rape
Word Count: 25535
Notes: This is a Hunger Games inspired fic, but please don't feel you need to have read the Hunger Games to understand it. I've simply taken inspiration, not the story.
Summary: Every four years, the Capitol demands a Tribute from each District to fight in the Games: a televised pageant of bloodshed that is the Demons' favourite form of entertainment. Every child, male or female, aged fourteen to eighteen has the possibility of their name being drawn and being forced to compete in a fight to the death. The last time it was Adam’s brother, Dean, who was their Tribute, but he came back; he was a winner. Adam only has one reaping left before he’ll be too old. Fate wouldn’t be so cruel to choose from their family again, but the Demons would be.
Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four
When Adam was twelve, his brother Dean was chosen as a tribute for their district. He could still remember the day. Dean had been so brave, standing up straight and strong, promising to make them all proud. Adam had clung to his mother’s skirt and kept his eyes trained on Dean’s back, aware it might be the last time he would ever see his brother. Sam and their father had stood there, John’s hand on Sam’s arm, keeping him by his side, aware that if they did anything, the soldiers from the Capitol wouldn’t hesitate to shoot. They had tried to behave the way the family of a tribute should, they had tried to look as if they wanted this.
It had been Castiel who’d shouted. Castiel who’d run out of line and thrown his arms around Dean and clung to him. It had been Castiel who’d begged him not to go, who’d begged to take his place. It had been the first time Adam had ever realised that his brother was in love.
Dean had held Castiel at arm’s length, told him he’d come back for him and then kissed him.
It had become Dean’s motto. Every interview he’d done, he said he was coming back for Cas.
Castiel had watched everything, fingers pressed up to the screen of their battered TV set as if he could touch Dean if he believed hard enough. He didn’t sleep. He hardly ate. He cheered every time Dean killed someone and he was quiet when it looked as if Dean might be in danger.
When Dean returned to them, Castiel had thrown himself back into his arms and, as far as Adam had seen, he’d never let go. Dean came back with a darkness in him. He wouldn’t talk about what he’d done and he avoided every chance to praise him. He didn’t give interviews or take part in events. He shut himself off in his house at the end of the village with Castiel and tinkered with his machines.
Adam knew that even though Dean had survived neither he nor Castiel had come through the experience whole. It was a dreadful thing to learn as a twelve year old.
Now it was four years later and Adam was sixteen and a new Hunger Games was beginning.
**
“Don’t squirm,” Kate said softly, her fingers shaking as she buttoned the top button on Adam’s shirt.
“It will be fine, Mom,” Adam said softly, reaching a hand out to stroke the stray wisps of hair back from her face. She’d have to redo her bun before they went to the town square. They couldn’t look unkempt. This part would be televised too.
“I know, I know,” Kate said, forcing a smile onto her face. “They wouldn’t be so cruel to pick from our family again. Dean’s already been our tribute. It will be fine.” She stared at him for a moment and then hugged him close and kissed his forehead.
“Mom! My shirt!” Adam complained, knowing how long it took her to clean and wash it. He wrapped his arms around her though and held her tight. He was sixteen. If he survived this selection then he’d be twenty when the next one came around and too old to be chosen. Then he’d be safe. They’d all be safe. It would be someone else’s children who’d be chosen for the slaughter. Adam suppressed a shudder and hugged his mom a little tighter.
He thought he heard her sniffing and then Kate pulled away, smiling at him. “Look at us, we’ll be late,” she said, scooping her hair back and retying her bun as Adam smoothed down the front of his shirt.
“It will be fine, mom,” he repeated, turning away from her and opening the front door. Across the road the door to John Winchester’s house opened and Sam stepped onto the porch. Adam raised his hand, half-waving to his half-brother and he started off to meet him. Sam was eighteen. After this year he’d be too old as well. They met in the middle of the dusty road and Sam slapped him on the arm, an uneasy lightness in his eyes. They both remembered the last time they had stood here, the last time that Sam had worn his best clothes and Adam had had his hair brushed down neatly.
Someone from their district would be chosen. Someone from it would die. That was the most likely outcome.
Almost on cue Dean appeared, holding his hand up to shield his eyes from the glare of the sun. Castiel was at his side, the way he’d been every day since Adam could recall and he nodded to the two of them.
“You ready to go then?” Dean asked them, one hand hovering at Sam’s shoulder as if he was considering gripping him tight and pulling him away. It made Adam’s stomach flip. The soldiers would search houses. They’d make sure that no one got away.
“Yeah,” Sam said, nodding his great shaggy head and Adam wished they had some other reason to come together as a family rather than this.
The last time had been at Dean and Castiel’s hand fasting ceremony and that wasn’t a pleasant family experience. John’s face had been set in stone and Castiel cried the whole way through. The officiate kept making references to Dean’s victory as a tribute until Dean threatened to punch him. Everyone remembered how violent Dean had been, how he had shown no mercy and no one wanted to be on his bad side. The officiate had finished quickly and left them to shelter all together in John’s house. The party that had been planned was abandoned, Dean taking Castiel home and all the food they had scrimped and saved to buy, that his mother had slaved over, had gone to waste.
Adam swallowed down those memories, his eyes prickling with the glare of the sun.
“We should get going,” he said, shifting from foot to foot restlessly.
Dean nodded. “I expect Dad and Kate will join us later,” he said, glancing between the two houses. When Dean’s mother had passed on one cold winter it was Kate who had come to their door with sustenance, nursed John through his grief and born his son nine months late.
The son who was Adam.
“It will be okay,” Sam said suddenly. “This is the last year for both me and Adam. There’s no way they’ll chose us.” He smiled, obviously believing what he was saying but that didn’t take the weight off Adam’s shoulders.
“They’ll still choose someone,” Castiel said, looking past them and Adam knew he was thinking of the graveyard, of the children buried there who had not been as lucky as Dean, as cunning as him.
Sam’s smile faded and he reached out to grab hold of Adam’s arm. “We’ll be safe,” he said, beginning to walk towards the town square, pulling Adam with him. Already there were a number of people there, all the children of their district from the ages of fourteen to eighteen. They were being lined up, youngest to oldest and Adam swallowed hard. Dean had been eighteen when he was chosen but the one before him had been a few days past her fourteenth birthday. He didn’t remember how she died. He’d been too young but he knew she hadn’t come back. At least not alive.
Sam was somewhere behind him, older and taller and Adam glanced back to look at him as he took his place in the line. His brother looked nervous now and Adam knew that feeling. The odds of their names being called were so slim but they’d always said that and then Dean had been called. Adam knew it had to be torture for him to even be there, that he would rather have been anywhere but standing at the side-lines, seeing his replacement chosen. Whoever was picked would carry that weight, the knowledge that the last winner came from their district. It would be a heavy burden to bear when the odds were already stacked against them. Adam glanced across at Dean, standing there, looking up and down the rows. Castiel at his side was shaking already and Adam wondered if people were right, if Castiel really had gone mad sitting up and watching every second of Dean’s fight. He had seen his lover kill people, murder them really, for his survival. That had to do something to someone’s mind. Adam knew but he just shoved the thoughts away when they reared their ugly heads. Dean came back and that was all that mattered. Everything Dean had done was necessary.
There’d been a little stage set up at the end of the square and already people were fussing with cameras and microphones. This part would be filmed. The people needed to see their tributes, they needed to see the fear on everyone’s faces. There was a woman on the stage wear a dark black suit with electric blue buttons and stitching. Adam recognised her from the last time - Meg Masters. She’d even come to their house to do an interview about Dean’s loving family. She’d mocked Castiel and his fears, forced him to admit his love on camera for a message they could broadcast to Dean. Adam hated her.
He watched her tap the bowl from where all the names were chosen, her nails the same electric blue as her coat buttons. She would hold in her hands someone’s death warrant in the next few minutes. She scanned the crowed with her dark soulless eyes, evidently without interest until she caught sight of Dean and Castiel and then she waved at them. Adam didn’t have to be that close to his brother to know Dean would be swearing. Castiel hid his face in Dean’s sleeve and Adam turned away, unable to look at them because it was too painful.
The Capitol liked pain though. They liked fear. Demons, all of them, with their black eyes and broken souls. They were the ones who’d thought up the games. They were the ones who kept them going.
“Adam!” He turned then, hearing his mother’s voice and she was with his father, the two of them hand in hand and Adam couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen them like that. He knew how hard this had to be on both of them. Dean and Sam might not be her children but Kate had become like a favorite aunt to them. They were all family now, blood or not.
“Mom!” he called back and she smiled at him.
Everything is going to be alright, Adam told himself feverishly. It would be some other family who would be suffering the torment tonight. It wouldn’t be them. Not again. It couldn’t be.
**
They had to wait for the soldiers to search the houses. No one was missing this time. Once when they were much younger and it was Dean’s first year entered into the draw he had found a cave in the hillside where they could hide out. They had taken food there, Castiel had camouflaged the entrance with leaves and twigs until it looked just like the undergrowth. The soldiers had still found them. Adam wondered sometimes if Dean’s name hadn’t been drawn to make an example of him for trying to thwart the Capitols plans.
If that was the case then Dean beat them at their own game but with a cost. Adam knew. He had to stand back on the road and shout before he went onto the land in front of Dean’s house because Dean had laid down traps everywhere. He was watchful, almost overly cautious but Adam didn’t begrudge him that.
“I’ll catch them if they come to get me.” He’d told Adam one night when he’d drunk enough to be talkative. “I’m never letting them take me again.” Castiel had nodded and Adam sometimes wondered if they shouldn’t have sent Castiel to be their tribute. He would have won. Castiel was cold, the only person he cared about was Dean. He could have killed every other tribute in the first day and not cared about the blood on his hands as long as he came home to Dean.
No, the Capitol had chosen well. It had broken both of their spirits.
**
“So, isn’t this a nice day?” Meg Masters was saying, fingers running through the little white bits of paper that held the name of every boy and girl aged between fourteen and eighteen in District Three. “As you can see we’re in our lovely Mechanical district, home of our previous Champion, Dean Winchester.”
There was a polite smattering of applause. No one wanted this to go on longer than it had to.
“I asked Dean to say a few words but he’s busy playing house now with Castiel.” Meg rolled her eyes exaggeratedly for the television cameras and Adam balled his hands into fists. He could understand the impulse that would drive someone to kill. Meg raised that impulse in him. She’d never asked Dean, although they all knew Dean would refuse. She just wanted a chance to embarrass him.
“I’m sure you can remember how Dean took out his final opponent by snapping his neck with his bare hands? If not, we’ve got this clip for you!” Meg squealed and the big screens were suddenly flooded with the moment Dean had won the games. Adam kept his eyes on the floor but he heard the sound of the other boy’s neck snapping and the horrible whimpering sound he made. He risked a look towards Dean and was surprised to find his brother staring up at the screen, refusing to look away. Dean had his hand pressed over his heart, a signal Adam didn’t understand but he knew it meant something important because a moment later John was dragging Dean’s hand down before the cameras could pan round to him.
“I wonder if this year’s tribute will be able to live up to the standard Dean set, hmm?” Meg continued and the cameras swivelled back to her and her fingers poised over the bowl. Adam felt rather than heard the silence settle over them. It was a silence that threatened to consume them all, that overwhelmed. Even the birds didn’t make a noise.
“Your new tribute is…” Meg’s vibrant blue nails flashed as she scooped up the envelope, the one placed on the top of the pile. She ripped it open, smile growing wider as she read, “Adam Milligan.”
For a moment there was nothing. The sound of his name faded away and Adam couldn’t feel anything. His whole body was numb, his feet refused to move under him. It was his name that had been called. His name that had been in the envelope at the top of the pile.
His death warrant.
Then his mother’s screaming cut through the silence. The world came rushing back in a sudden, vibrant swoop of sound. His father had his mother held tight around her waist as she screamed, fingers clawing the air as she tried to get to him. Dean had shoved two soldiers aside and was elbowing his way towards Adam.
“No!” he shouted. “No! I volunteer, I’ll go again! No!”
“Dean Winchester,” Meg’s voice was clipped, unwilling to deal with any of this nonsense and Adam saw guns trained on them. “You are too old. You’ve already won your games. Give someone else a chance.”
“I’m fine,” Adam said sharply, his voice sounding too young suddenly, so small and alone in the crowd. “I want to do this. I’m fine.”
Soldiers flanked him, keeping Dean away from him and Adam didn’t look back, he couldn’t look back. He walked up to the platform where Meg Master’s took his hand and he stared out at the bright blue of the sky. He wouldn’t get very many more chances to see it, he reasoned, so he would look at it now but he wouldn’t look at his family. He wanted to remember them when they were happy, he didn’t want this to be his last memory of them.
“Your tribute, ladies and gentleman, Adam Milligan!”
**
The ride to the Capitol wasn’t anything like he’d expected. Adam had a handler. A demon he couldn’t even remember the name of. He looked young, maybe in his early twenties. He was only there to make certain that Adam didn’t run away and spoil the fun. Adam just watched re-runs of old games in his compartment rather than attempt to make conversation with the demon watching over him. He saw so many people die that by the end he was glad to arrive at the Capitol, glad to get away from the constant carnage. It didn’t matter that he’d be thrown into it himself in a number of days. What mattered was he didn’t have to keep watching it for the moment, that he had a little respite, at least.
It was a respite that was spent being pummelled and pulled about. His hair was trimmed, his skin was shaved, he was washed all over as if he was dirty and he hadn’t just bathed at home and put on his best clothes. He was cleaned until he shone and then dressed up in the most ridiculous clothes meant to signify his district. They made machines. It was all they did. Everything the Capitol needed - its televisions, electric gadgets, explosives even, they all came from the skilled hands of the workers of District Three. This seemed to mean coating Adam’s cheeks and shoulders with silver glitter and dressing him as if he was made of metal himself. His eyes were back rimmed then glazed with silver shadow, even his lips painted silver. The glimpses Adam caught looked nothing like himself. He looked like a metal man, not a boy who spent his time outside of the factories. Adam’s mother was a medic. Adam wasn’t going to go down the route that led to a life working in the factories, he wasn’t going to become a mechanic although his father had the skill in it and Dean toiled all day fixing broken things. Adam wanted to help people. The person reflected back at him wasn’t who Adam was inside, he wasn’t who Adam was at home, he was a symbol.
“This will be the moment people really see you,” his bored handler said. “At least try to make an effort.”
The moment people had really seen him had been when he was chosen. He’d been dressed in his own clothes. He’d looked like himself, although smarter and washed up. This wasn’t him, this was just what the demons wanted because they liked their games. They liked choosing a favorite, they liked making bets and giving support. It was all a pantomime but they liked it when their victims played along.
Adam swallowed down his pride, remembered that he wasn’t the first person to look stupid and climbed aboard the chariot that would take him into the arena and give the demons the first up close look at the tribute from District Three. He knew he just had to stand there and look pretty but the moment the horses started up into a trot he grabbed the side of the chariot to steady himself. The light in the arena was blindingly bright and Adam blinked. It took him a moment till he could really see what was in front of him.
“The boy from District Three, Adam Milligan!” a voice shouted, speakers booming it out until all Adam could hear was his own name and the cheering that followed it. He half raised his hand, aware that that seemed to make the cheering louder and he felt his heart flip. Even though he couldn’t see them there were demons here, watching him, evaluating him and his costume. He looked ahead of him, frightened about what he’d see if he looked out onto the demons when his eyes adjusted to the light.
He was following two chariots, he realized, the first containing the tribute from District One - a tall, dark haired boy with broad shoulders. Adam would have laughed at his costume, the imitation of a peacock in sparkling blue with feathers bloomed around his shoulders but he was too busy looking at his hands. They were big, strong hands. Hands that could strangle Adam with ease.
Behind him was the tribute from District Two. She stood up straight in her chariot and Adam caught glimpses of her face on the large screens as they rode past. She was beautiful, dark skinned with long black hair drawn up at the back of her head in a plat. She wore traditional armour and the way her hand lingered on the handle of her sword suggested to Adam that she already knew how to use it. They were both tanned, athletic and Adam would have guessed both of them were already trained for this. They came from districts that cared about the games, districts that saw it as an honor to be chosen for the games and not the horror it really was. Adam knew that next to the two of them, he was simply a scrawny kid.
He hardly even realised when his chariot stopped and he didn’t bother to look over at the other tributes that came behind him. He already knew they would be better prepared than he was. He hardly even heard the speech that was being given, hardly even heard what was being said but he didn’t care. There were demons everywhere and Adam wanted to squirm under their gaze. He looked up, trying to find something else to look at and found the tribute from District One watching him.
“It will be alright,” the boy mouthed and Adam scowled at him.
Nothing would ever be alright again. He fixed his gaze on the podium ahead of him, on the game-makers and not his other fellow tributes. He didn’t need to be distracted this early on.
**
Adam stared out of the window. He knew where he was. These had been Dean’s rooms when he was preparing for the games. Adam had sat down with Castiel and watched every moment of the pre-games show. He’d wanted to see everything Dean did and Castiel had clutched his hand till Adam couldn’t feel the blood in his fingers any more. Dean had talked about his family, about how much he loved his brothers and his father, how he wanted to go home to them and more than anyone he talked about Castiel. Sometimes Adam felt like he was intruding on a private moment. Even though Dean was talking to everyone in the nation when he stared into that camera, his words were meant only for Castiel.
This was the room where Dean had done his interviews and, any moment now, Adam was going to be invited to sit down and talk a little about himself too.
This would be his chance to make the public like him, to make them send him gifts - food, medicine, maybe even weapons. Dean and his tragic doomed love had gripped the imagination almost immediately. He’d been popular even if he didn’t want to be. People had helped him.
Adam didn’t have anything like that. He wanted to go home for his mom. He was all she had. If he died then she’d be alone.
The door to his room opened and Adam spun round into the face of a camera and a man with a charming smile. Everyone knew Anthony Crowley. He hosted the games, he was the on- the- ground man while Meg worked out in the districts. It had been rumored that Crowley had even invented the games as a way to amuse the populace of the Capitol. Adam believed that rumor. His stomach twisted. He didn’t want to be caught off guard by this man. He needed to put across a good image of himself even if his insides felt like they were writhing, standing so close to a demon.
“Adam Milligan! District Three!” Crowley boomed and Adam nodded, dumbstruck. “I’m sure our viewers at home will want to know that you are our previous winner, Dean Winchester’s half-brother! Tell us a little about your brother, Adam.”
Your games destroyed him, Adam thought viciously but he knew that thought had to stay locked up.
“Dean is a very courageous big brother,” he answered robotically. “I am very proud of him. He would have liked to come to the games again but now it’s my turn.” He tried to smile, tried to make it sound like this was some sort of family tradition he was competing in and as if he wanted to be there, testing his strength against the memory of his brother. He clenched his hands, knowing the camera was framed at his face only.
“Now, I‘m sure everyone remembers Dean had that special someone he wanted to go home to. Is it the same for you, Adam? Is there some special boy or girl waiting at home for you?” Crowley asked eagerly.
“No,” Adam said, flexing his fingers because his hand was starting to cramp since he’d had his fingers balled into a fist for so long. Demons set him on edge. They didn’t smell right, they didn’t talk right and they delighted in every second of Adam’s discomfort. “There’s just my mom and me. I want to go home for her.”
Crowley looked disappointed. “Well, you heard it here folks. Adam Milligan, Dean Winchester’s half-brother. Will he be as good as his big brother? Only time will tell!”
Adam bit his lip. It had been the wrong answer. They were shutting down the interview. He’d hoped desperately that he’d be able to get across something of himself, of who he was but they’d already decided how he was going to be presented. He was coming into the fight as Dean’s successor. Adam didn’t know why they didn’t just paint a target on his back or would that have been too obvious?
The camera was shut off and Crowley sighed.
“Honestly, kid,” he tutted, looking Adam over. “You’re a pretty little slip, aren’t you? Sixteen they said. How would you like to earn some sponsorship right now?” He eyed the couch behind them hungrily and Adam recoiled.
“What?” he asked, dumbfounded.
Crowley sighed. “I assume they do still have sex in whatever provincial backwater district you’re from. You blow me, we do the interview again and you do it better,” he said, eyes raking over Adam as if he wanted to rip the clothes from Adam’s body and the flesh from his skin. “I’m offering you help here, Adam. Don’t be stupid.”
“No,” Adam said, fixing his eyes forward blankly.
“Don’t be stupid,” Crowley hissed again. “Do you think your brother never did anyone any favors? Dean knew how to play the game and you should know too.” He grabbed Adam by the arm, dragging him closer. “If you win this thing, Adam, a lot of people are going to want you. Let me help you, I’ll teach you to enjoy it. If you’re very good at it I might make you mine, as long as you don’t lose your head. My taste doesn’t run to corpses.”
Adam didn’t want to hear it. He didn’t want to believe that Dean would do anything like that. He knew deep down in him that Dean would never have done anything like that if he had a choice but he also knew how badly Dean had wanted to come home. He’d been focused, single-minded and Dean could do terrible things if he thought he was doing them for the greater good. If he could kill then why couldn’t he use his body too?
“Is the camera still on?” he asked Crowley softly and the demons features settled into a smile.
“No,” he purred.
“Good,” Adam said and brought his fist up quickly, slamming it into the demon’s nose. “Now I said no, so leave me alone!”
Crowley stumbled back, blood streaming down his face. “That was a very stupid mistake,” he hissed. “No one is going to care about you, Milligan, they’ll be happy when you die and if by some fluke chance you do survive, I’ll make sure your place is in my bed and that you never go home again.” He spat the blood from his mouth at Adam’s feet, stalking out of the room, his camera man following.
Adam waited till they were gone before he collapsed onto the sofa and buried his head in his hands.
He already knew he was as good as dead so he might as well go out with style. Dean had always known he was coming home so those sacrifice he’d made were small things, things he could live with because in the end he’d have his reward. Adam knew he was never leaving the arena alive. The best he could do was go in there with his conscience clean. He’d die knowing his mother would be proud of him.
**
Adam met the other tributes in training the next day. There were eleven others. Four girls and eight boys not counting himself. Adam tried to weigh the odds for each of them in his head but gave up after a little while when he was unable to calculate anyone who would have a worse chance then himself.
“So, you’re Adam?” one of them asked. Adam thought he came from District Nine but he didn’t really concentrate on learning their names or places. He was too busy trying to climb over the obstacle course to really focus on anyone.
“Yes,” he grunted out, swinging his legs over the top of the wall and jumping down gracefully to the other side. He was running when the other tribute caught up with him.
“I heard you’re Dean Winchester’s brother,” he said and Adam shot him a glance.
“Half-brother,” he clarified and the other tribute looked pleased.
“You should be easier to kill then,” he said and Adam felt his heart sink like a stone in his stomach.
He’d be lucky if he made it past the first day.
Rating: NC-17
Author: bellacatbee
Artist: inalasahl
Beta: casness
Genre: (Gen, het, slash, femmeslash) Slash
Pairing(s) / Character(s): Adam/Michael, Dean/Castiel, Jeffrey/Jeffrey's Demon, Sam, John, Kate, Meg, Alistair, Lucifer, Crowley, Gabriel, Kali
Warnings: Character Death, Violence, Implied Non-Con, Attempted Rape
Word Count: 25535
Notes: This is a Hunger Games inspired fic, but please don't feel you need to have read the Hunger Games to understand it. I've simply taken inspiration, not the story.
Summary: Every four years, the Capitol demands a Tribute from each District to fight in the Games: a televised pageant of bloodshed that is the Demons' favourite form of entertainment. Every child, male or female, aged fourteen to eighteen has the possibility of their name being drawn and being forced to compete in a fight to the death. The last time it was Adam’s brother, Dean, who was their Tribute, but he came back; he was a winner. Adam only has one reaping left before he’ll be too old. Fate wouldn’t be so cruel to choose from their family again, but the Demons would be.
Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four
When Adam was twelve, his brother Dean was chosen as a tribute for their district. He could still remember the day. Dean had been so brave, standing up straight and strong, promising to make them all proud. Adam had clung to his mother’s skirt and kept his eyes trained on Dean’s back, aware it might be the last time he would ever see his brother. Sam and their father had stood there, John’s hand on Sam’s arm, keeping him by his side, aware that if they did anything, the soldiers from the Capitol wouldn’t hesitate to shoot. They had tried to behave the way the family of a tribute should, they had tried to look as if they wanted this.
It had been Castiel who’d shouted. Castiel who’d run out of line and thrown his arms around Dean and clung to him. It had been Castiel who’d begged him not to go, who’d begged to take his place. It had been the first time Adam had ever realised that his brother was in love.
Dean had held Castiel at arm’s length, told him he’d come back for him and then kissed him.
It had become Dean’s motto. Every interview he’d done, he said he was coming back for Cas.
Castiel had watched everything, fingers pressed up to the screen of their battered TV set as if he could touch Dean if he believed hard enough. He didn’t sleep. He hardly ate. He cheered every time Dean killed someone and he was quiet when it looked as if Dean might be in danger.
When Dean returned to them, Castiel had thrown himself back into his arms and, as far as Adam had seen, he’d never let go. Dean came back with a darkness in him. He wouldn’t talk about what he’d done and he avoided every chance to praise him. He didn’t give interviews or take part in events. He shut himself off in his house at the end of the village with Castiel and tinkered with his machines.
Adam knew that even though Dean had survived neither he nor Castiel had come through the experience whole. It was a dreadful thing to learn as a twelve year old.
Now it was four years later and Adam was sixteen and a new Hunger Games was beginning.
**
“Don’t squirm,” Kate said softly, her fingers shaking as she buttoned the top button on Adam’s shirt.
“It will be fine, Mom,” Adam said softly, reaching a hand out to stroke the stray wisps of hair back from her face. She’d have to redo her bun before they went to the town square. They couldn’t look unkempt. This part would be televised too.
“I know, I know,” Kate said, forcing a smile onto her face. “They wouldn’t be so cruel to pick from our family again. Dean’s already been our tribute. It will be fine.” She stared at him for a moment and then hugged him close and kissed his forehead.
“Mom! My shirt!” Adam complained, knowing how long it took her to clean and wash it. He wrapped his arms around her though and held her tight. He was sixteen. If he survived this selection then he’d be twenty when the next one came around and too old to be chosen. Then he’d be safe. They’d all be safe. It would be someone else’s children who’d be chosen for the slaughter. Adam suppressed a shudder and hugged his mom a little tighter.
He thought he heard her sniffing and then Kate pulled away, smiling at him. “Look at us, we’ll be late,” she said, scooping her hair back and retying her bun as Adam smoothed down the front of his shirt.
“It will be fine, mom,” he repeated, turning away from her and opening the front door. Across the road the door to John Winchester’s house opened and Sam stepped onto the porch. Adam raised his hand, half-waving to his half-brother and he started off to meet him. Sam was eighteen. After this year he’d be too old as well. They met in the middle of the dusty road and Sam slapped him on the arm, an uneasy lightness in his eyes. They both remembered the last time they had stood here, the last time that Sam had worn his best clothes and Adam had had his hair brushed down neatly.
Someone from their district would be chosen. Someone from it would die. That was the most likely outcome.
Almost on cue Dean appeared, holding his hand up to shield his eyes from the glare of the sun. Castiel was at his side, the way he’d been every day since Adam could recall and he nodded to the two of them.
“You ready to go then?” Dean asked them, one hand hovering at Sam’s shoulder as if he was considering gripping him tight and pulling him away. It made Adam’s stomach flip. The soldiers would search houses. They’d make sure that no one got away.
“Yeah,” Sam said, nodding his great shaggy head and Adam wished they had some other reason to come together as a family rather than this.
The last time had been at Dean and Castiel’s hand fasting ceremony and that wasn’t a pleasant family experience. John’s face had been set in stone and Castiel cried the whole way through. The officiate kept making references to Dean’s victory as a tribute until Dean threatened to punch him. Everyone remembered how violent Dean had been, how he had shown no mercy and no one wanted to be on his bad side. The officiate had finished quickly and left them to shelter all together in John’s house. The party that had been planned was abandoned, Dean taking Castiel home and all the food they had scrimped and saved to buy, that his mother had slaved over, had gone to waste.
Adam swallowed down those memories, his eyes prickling with the glare of the sun.
“We should get going,” he said, shifting from foot to foot restlessly.
Dean nodded. “I expect Dad and Kate will join us later,” he said, glancing between the two houses. When Dean’s mother had passed on one cold winter it was Kate who had come to their door with sustenance, nursed John through his grief and born his son nine months late.
The son who was Adam.
“It will be okay,” Sam said suddenly. “This is the last year for both me and Adam. There’s no way they’ll chose us.” He smiled, obviously believing what he was saying but that didn’t take the weight off Adam’s shoulders.
“They’ll still choose someone,” Castiel said, looking past them and Adam knew he was thinking of the graveyard, of the children buried there who had not been as lucky as Dean, as cunning as him.
Sam’s smile faded and he reached out to grab hold of Adam’s arm. “We’ll be safe,” he said, beginning to walk towards the town square, pulling Adam with him. Already there were a number of people there, all the children of their district from the ages of fourteen to eighteen. They were being lined up, youngest to oldest and Adam swallowed hard. Dean had been eighteen when he was chosen but the one before him had been a few days past her fourteenth birthday. He didn’t remember how she died. He’d been too young but he knew she hadn’t come back. At least not alive.
Sam was somewhere behind him, older and taller and Adam glanced back to look at him as he took his place in the line. His brother looked nervous now and Adam knew that feeling. The odds of their names being called were so slim but they’d always said that and then Dean had been called. Adam knew it had to be torture for him to even be there, that he would rather have been anywhere but standing at the side-lines, seeing his replacement chosen. Whoever was picked would carry that weight, the knowledge that the last winner came from their district. It would be a heavy burden to bear when the odds were already stacked against them. Adam glanced across at Dean, standing there, looking up and down the rows. Castiel at his side was shaking already and Adam wondered if people were right, if Castiel really had gone mad sitting up and watching every second of Dean’s fight. He had seen his lover kill people, murder them really, for his survival. That had to do something to someone’s mind. Adam knew but he just shoved the thoughts away when they reared their ugly heads. Dean came back and that was all that mattered. Everything Dean had done was necessary.
There’d been a little stage set up at the end of the square and already people were fussing with cameras and microphones. This part would be filmed. The people needed to see their tributes, they needed to see the fear on everyone’s faces. There was a woman on the stage wear a dark black suit with electric blue buttons and stitching. Adam recognised her from the last time - Meg Masters. She’d even come to their house to do an interview about Dean’s loving family. She’d mocked Castiel and his fears, forced him to admit his love on camera for a message they could broadcast to Dean. Adam hated her.
He watched her tap the bowl from where all the names were chosen, her nails the same electric blue as her coat buttons. She would hold in her hands someone’s death warrant in the next few minutes. She scanned the crowed with her dark soulless eyes, evidently without interest until she caught sight of Dean and Castiel and then she waved at them. Adam didn’t have to be that close to his brother to know Dean would be swearing. Castiel hid his face in Dean’s sleeve and Adam turned away, unable to look at them because it was too painful.
The Capitol liked pain though. They liked fear. Demons, all of them, with their black eyes and broken souls. They were the ones who’d thought up the games. They were the ones who kept them going.
“Adam!” He turned then, hearing his mother’s voice and she was with his father, the two of them hand in hand and Adam couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen them like that. He knew how hard this had to be on both of them. Dean and Sam might not be her children but Kate had become like a favorite aunt to them. They were all family now, blood or not.
“Mom!” he called back and she smiled at him.
Everything is going to be alright, Adam told himself feverishly. It would be some other family who would be suffering the torment tonight. It wouldn’t be them. Not again. It couldn’t be.
**
They had to wait for the soldiers to search the houses. No one was missing this time. Once when they were much younger and it was Dean’s first year entered into the draw he had found a cave in the hillside where they could hide out. They had taken food there, Castiel had camouflaged the entrance with leaves and twigs until it looked just like the undergrowth. The soldiers had still found them. Adam wondered sometimes if Dean’s name hadn’t been drawn to make an example of him for trying to thwart the Capitols plans.
If that was the case then Dean beat them at their own game but with a cost. Adam knew. He had to stand back on the road and shout before he went onto the land in front of Dean’s house because Dean had laid down traps everywhere. He was watchful, almost overly cautious but Adam didn’t begrudge him that.
“I’ll catch them if they come to get me.” He’d told Adam one night when he’d drunk enough to be talkative. “I’m never letting them take me again.” Castiel had nodded and Adam sometimes wondered if they shouldn’t have sent Castiel to be their tribute. He would have won. Castiel was cold, the only person he cared about was Dean. He could have killed every other tribute in the first day and not cared about the blood on his hands as long as he came home to Dean.
No, the Capitol had chosen well. It had broken both of their spirits.
**
“So, isn’t this a nice day?” Meg Masters was saying, fingers running through the little white bits of paper that held the name of every boy and girl aged between fourteen and eighteen in District Three. “As you can see we’re in our lovely Mechanical district, home of our previous Champion, Dean Winchester.”
There was a polite smattering of applause. No one wanted this to go on longer than it had to.
“I asked Dean to say a few words but he’s busy playing house now with Castiel.” Meg rolled her eyes exaggeratedly for the television cameras and Adam balled his hands into fists. He could understand the impulse that would drive someone to kill. Meg raised that impulse in him. She’d never asked Dean, although they all knew Dean would refuse. She just wanted a chance to embarrass him.
“I’m sure you can remember how Dean took out his final opponent by snapping his neck with his bare hands? If not, we’ve got this clip for you!” Meg squealed and the big screens were suddenly flooded with the moment Dean had won the games. Adam kept his eyes on the floor but he heard the sound of the other boy’s neck snapping and the horrible whimpering sound he made. He risked a look towards Dean and was surprised to find his brother staring up at the screen, refusing to look away. Dean had his hand pressed over his heart, a signal Adam didn’t understand but he knew it meant something important because a moment later John was dragging Dean’s hand down before the cameras could pan round to him.
“I wonder if this year’s tribute will be able to live up to the standard Dean set, hmm?” Meg continued and the cameras swivelled back to her and her fingers poised over the bowl. Adam felt rather than heard the silence settle over them. It was a silence that threatened to consume them all, that overwhelmed. Even the birds didn’t make a noise.
“Your new tribute is…” Meg’s vibrant blue nails flashed as she scooped up the envelope, the one placed on the top of the pile. She ripped it open, smile growing wider as she read, “Adam Milligan.”
For a moment there was nothing. The sound of his name faded away and Adam couldn’t feel anything. His whole body was numb, his feet refused to move under him. It was his name that had been called. His name that had been in the envelope at the top of the pile.
His death warrant.
Then his mother’s screaming cut through the silence. The world came rushing back in a sudden, vibrant swoop of sound. His father had his mother held tight around her waist as she screamed, fingers clawing the air as she tried to get to him. Dean had shoved two soldiers aside and was elbowing his way towards Adam.
“No!” he shouted. “No! I volunteer, I’ll go again! No!”
“Dean Winchester,” Meg’s voice was clipped, unwilling to deal with any of this nonsense and Adam saw guns trained on them. “You are too old. You’ve already won your games. Give someone else a chance.”
“I’m fine,” Adam said sharply, his voice sounding too young suddenly, so small and alone in the crowd. “I want to do this. I’m fine.”
Soldiers flanked him, keeping Dean away from him and Adam didn’t look back, he couldn’t look back. He walked up to the platform where Meg Master’s took his hand and he stared out at the bright blue of the sky. He wouldn’t get very many more chances to see it, he reasoned, so he would look at it now but he wouldn’t look at his family. He wanted to remember them when they were happy, he didn’t want this to be his last memory of them.
“Your tribute, ladies and gentleman, Adam Milligan!”
**
The ride to the Capitol wasn’t anything like he’d expected. Adam had a handler. A demon he couldn’t even remember the name of. He looked young, maybe in his early twenties. He was only there to make certain that Adam didn’t run away and spoil the fun. Adam just watched re-runs of old games in his compartment rather than attempt to make conversation with the demon watching over him. He saw so many people die that by the end he was glad to arrive at the Capitol, glad to get away from the constant carnage. It didn’t matter that he’d be thrown into it himself in a number of days. What mattered was he didn’t have to keep watching it for the moment, that he had a little respite, at least.
It was a respite that was spent being pummelled and pulled about. His hair was trimmed, his skin was shaved, he was washed all over as if he was dirty and he hadn’t just bathed at home and put on his best clothes. He was cleaned until he shone and then dressed up in the most ridiculous clothes meant to signify his district. They made machines. It was all they did. Everything the Capitol needed - its televisions, electric gadgets, explosives even, they all came from the skilled hands of the workers of District Three. This seemed to mean coating Adam’s cheeks and shoulders with silver glitter and dressing him as if he was made of metal himself. His eyes were back rimmed then glazed with silver shadow, even his lips painted silver. The glimpses Adam caught looked nothing like himself. He looked like a metal man, not a boy who spent his time outside of the factories. Adam’s mother was a medic. Adam wasn’t going to go down the route that led to a life working in the factories, he wasn’t going to become a mechanic although his father had the skill in it and Dean toiled all day fixing broken things. Adam wanted to help people. The person reflected back at him wasn’t who Adam was inside, he wasn’t who Adam was at home, he was a symbol.
“This will be the moment people really see you,” his bored handler said. “At least try to make an effort.”
The moment people had really seen him had been when he was chosen. He’d been dressed in his own clothes. He’d looked like himself, although smarter and washed up. This wasn’t him, this was just what the demons wanted because they liked their games. They liked choosing a favorite, they liked making bets and giving support. It was all a pantomime but they liked it when their victims played along.
Adam swallowed down his pride, remembered that he wasn’t the first person to look stupid and climbed aboard the chariot that would take him into the arena and give the demons the first up close look at the tribute from District Three. He knew he just had to stand there and look pretty but the moment the horses started up into a trot he grabbed the side of the chariot to steady himself. The light in the arena was blindingly bright and Adam blinked. It took him a moment till he could really see what was in front of him.
“The boy from District Three, Adam Milligan!” a voice shouted, speakers booming it out until all Adam could hear was his own name and the cheering that followed it. He half raised his hand, aware that that seemed to make the cheering louder and he felt his heart flip. Even though he couldn’t see them there were demons here, watching him, evaluating him and his costume. He looked ahead of him, frightened about what he’d see if he looked out onto the demons when his eyes adjusted to the light.
He was following two chariots, he realized, the first containing the tribute from District One - a tall, dark haired boy with broad shoulders. Adam would have laughed at his costume, the imitation of a peacock in sparkling blue with feathers bloomed around his shoulders but he was too busy looking at his hands. They were big, strong hands. Hands that could strangle Adam with ease.
Behind him was the tribute from District Two. She stood up straight in her chariot and Adam caught glimpses of her face on the large screens as they rode past. She was beautiful, dark skinned with long black hair drawn up at the back of her head in a plat. She wore traditional armour and the way her hand lingered on the handle of her sword suggested to Adam that she already knew how to use it. They were both tanned, athletic and Adam would have guessed both of them were already trained for this. They came from districts that cared about the games, districts that saw it as an honor to be chosen for the games and not the horror it really was. Adam knew that next to the two of them, he was simply a scrawny kid.
He hardly even realised when his chariot stopped and he didn’t bother to look over at the other tributes that came behind him. He already knew they would be better prepared than he was. He hardly even heard the speech that was being given, hardly even heard what was being said but he didn’t care. There were demons everywhere and Adam wanted to squirm under their gaze. He looked up, trying to find something else to look at and found the tribute from District One watching him.
“It will be alright,” the boy mouthed and Adam scowled at him.
Nothing would ever be alright again. He fixed his gaze on the podium ahead of him, on the game-makers and not his other fellow tributes. He didn’t need to be distracted this early on.
**
Adam stared out of the window. He knew where he was. These had been Dean’s rooms when he was preparing for the games. Adam had sat down with Castiel and watched every moment of the pre-games show. He’d wanted to see everything Dean did and Castiel had clutched his hand till Adam couldn’t feel the blood in his fingers any more. Dean had talked about his family, about how much he loved his brothers and his father, how he wanted to go home to them and more than anyone he talked about Castiel. Sometimes Adam felt like he was intruding on a private moment. Even though Dean was talking to everyone in the nation when he stared into that camera, his words were meant only for Castiel.
This was the room where Dean had done his interviews and, any moment now, Adam was going to be invited to sit down and talk a little about himself too.
This would be his chance to make the public like him, to make them send him gifts - food, medicine, maybe even weapons. Dean and his tragic doomed love had gripped the imagination almost immediately. He’d been popular even if he didn’t want to be. People had helped him.
Adam didn’t have anything like that. He wanted to go home for his mom. He was all she had. If he died then she’d be alone.
The door to his room opened and Adam spun round into the face of a camera and a man with a charming smile. Everyone knew Anthony Crowley. He hosted the games, he was the on- the- ground man while Meg worked out in the districts. It had been rumored that Crowley had even invented the games as a way to amuse the populace of the Capitol. Adam believed that rumor. His stomach twisted. He didn’t want to be caught off guard by this man. He needed to put across a good image of himself even if his insides felt like they were writhing, standing so close to a demon.
“Adam Milligan! District Three!” Crowley boomed and Adam nodded, dumbstruck. “I’m sure our viewers at home will want to know that you are our previous winner, Dean Winchester’s half-brother! Tell us a little about your brother, Adam.”
Your games destroyed him, Adam thought viciously but he knew that thought had to stay locked up.
“Dean is a very courageous big brother,” he answered robotically. “I am very proud of him. He would have liked to come to the games again but now it’s my turn.” He tried to smile, tried to make it sound like this was some sort of family tradition he was competing in and as if he wanted to be there, testing his strength against the memory of his brother. He clenched his hands, knowing the camera was framed at his face only.
“Now, I‘m sure everyone remembers Dean had that special someone he wanted to go home to. Is it the same for you, Adam? Is there some special boy or girl waiting at home for you?” Crowley asked eagerly.
“No,” Adam said, flexing his fingers because his hand was starting to cramp since he’d had his fingers balled into a fist for so long. Demons set him on edge. They didn’t smell right, they didn’t talk right and they delighted in every second of Adam’s discomfort. “There’s just my mom and me. I want to go home for her.”
Crowley looked disappointed. “Well, you heard it here folks. Adam Milligan, Dean Winchester’s half-brother. Will he be as good as his big brother? Only time will tell!”
Adam bit his lip. It had been the wrong answer. They were shutting down the interview. He’d hoped desperately that he’d be able to get across something of himself, of who he was but they’d already decided how he was going to be presented. He was coming into the fight as Dean’s successor. Adam didn’t know why they didn’t just paint a target on his back or would that have been too obvious?
The camera was shut off and Crowley sighed.
“Honestly, kid,” he tutted, looking Adam over. “You’re a pretty little slip, aren’t you? Sixteen they said. How would you like to earn some sponsorship right now?” He eyed the couch behind them hungrily and Adam recoiled.
“What?” he asked, dumbfounded.
Crowley sighed. “I assume they do still have sex in whatever provincial backwater district you’re from. You blow me, we do the interview again and you do it better,” he said, eyes raking over Adam as if he wanted to rip the clothes from Adam’s body and the flesh from his skin. “I’m offering you help here, Adam. Don’t be stupid.”
“No,” Adam said, fixing his eyes forward blankly.
“Don’t be stupid,” Crowley hissed again. “Do you think your brother never did anyone any favors? Dean knew how to play the game and you should know too.” He grabbed Adam by the arm, dragging him closer. “If you win this thing, Adam, a lot of people are going to want you. Let me help you, I’ll teach you to enjoy it. If you’re very good at it I might make you mine, as long as you don’t lose your head. My taste doesn’t run to corpses.”
Adam didn’t want to hear it. He didn’t want to believe that Dean would do anything like that. He knew deep down in him that Dean would never have done anything like that if he had a choice but he also knew how badly Dean had wanted to come home. He’d been focused, single-minded and Dean could do terrible things if he thought he was doing them for the greater good. If he could kill then why couldn’t he use his body too?
“Is the camera still on?” he asked Crowley softly and the demons features settled into a smile.
“No,” he purred.
“Good,” Adam said and brought his fist up quickly, slamming it into the demon’s nose. “Now I said no, so leave me alone!”
Crowley stumbled back, blood streaming down his face. “That was a very stupid mistake,” he hissed. “No one is going to care about you, Milligan, they’ll be happy when you die and if by some fluke chance you do survive, I’ll make sure your place is in my bed and that you never go home again.” He spat the blood from his mouth at Adam’s feet, stalking out of the room, his camera man following.
Adam waited till they were gone before he collapsed onto the sofa and buried his head in his hands.
He already knew he was as good as dead so he might as well go out with style. Dean had always known he was coming home so those sacrifice he’d made were small things, things he could live with because in the end he’d have his reward. Adam knew he was never leaving the arena alive. The best he could do was go in there with his conscience clean. He’d die knowing his mother would be proud of him.
**
Adam met the other tributes in training the next day. There were eleven others. Four girls and eight boys not counting himself. Adam tried to weigh the odds for each of them in his head but gave up after a little while when he was unable to calculate anyone who would have a worse chance then himself.
“So, you’re Adam?” one of them asked. Adam thought he came from District Nine but he didn’t really concentrate on learning their names or places. He was too busy trying to climb over the obstacle course to really focus on anyone.
“Yes,” he grunted out, swinging his legs over the top of the wall and jumping down gracefully to the other side. He was running when the other tribute caught up with him.
“I heard you’re Dean Winchester’s brother,” he said and Adam shot him a glance.
“Half-brother,” he clarified and the other tribute looked pleased.
“You should be easier to kill then,” he said and Adam felt his heart sink like a stone in his stomach.
He’d be lucky if he made it past the first day.