Fic: The Ghost and His Keeper [Michael/Adam] Part V
Part IV
PART V
Adam can't remember everything. Just bits and pieces of jagged fragments of memories coming together forming an incomplete puzzle with most of the pieces missing and the ends lost. But he knows, gut instinct telling him, that he remembers the important bits.
This is how it went:
The prophecy was wrong. Revelations was wrong.
They fell, and fell, and fell.
Adam ran, and hid, and ran, and hid, from the Cage itself, because there was something there, not Lucifer, not Michael, not even Sam or him, but the Cage itself, that made one mad. It wound itself into the cracks of one's existence and mutated it, bit by bit, turned it into something it was not. Sometimes he succeeded, and mostly he failed.
He ran until he found Michael, wounded and injured just like him, and without thinking drew Michael to him, and then they ran together. Formed a sort of awkward partnership. Tried to keep each other sane. Tried to keep each other existing. Fought off the other when the insanity took hold of another part of them and changed them yet again. Searched for Lucifer and Sam in the abyss, chasing their screams. And somewhere in there, in that place where seconds stretched into lifetimes, between the running, and the chasing, and the fighting, and the screams and the insanity, and the few rare reprieves in between, it became just the two of them against everything in the Cage.
He knows they talked, they talked for ages, whenever they got the time, in an attempt to keep themselves sane. They talked about everything. Michael told him about his Father, Lucifer, Raphael, Gabriel, the other angels; about the Heavenly War; about Adam and Eve and the Fall; about God leaving, and the lifetimes he'd lived waiting for Him to come back. Adam told Michael about his Mom and how she was the most amazing person he'd ever known, and the lazy afternoons they'd spent together on the couch whenever she was home. About Kristin his best friend who he'd thought as a child, he would one day marry, and got into all sorts of trouble with. About Nanny, Kristin's grandmother and the closest thing he had to one, who'd bake him cookies and chase away his nightmares when Mom wasn't there to do it for him. About wanting to meet his Dad, and the mix of joy and anger at John Winchester. About school, and wanting to be a doctor, and join the Doctors Without Borders. About wanting to travel one day, especially to Venice. And he remembers Michael listening enchanted. Remembers Michael wondering what it would be like to be human.
They spoke about getting out. About human things to do, and see, and experience, when they got out, because they needed the hope to keep them sane. About going places, Venice like Adam had always wanted to, and maybe Mombasa, and maybe even Rome and the Vatican City for the sheer irony. Talked about things to eat, Adam citing Italian and Indian and Ethiopian cuisine, and trashy junk food and just wanting to try everything once.
One day, Adam had said, when you're a real boy, we'll do all of this.
Somewhere in there, they fell in love.
Michael bowed to him in the Cage, turned away everything he was for Adam.
Michael promised him the world, a world, a happily ever after only if Adam would agree to it, his Grace crashing into Adam's soul in a way that should have charred him to stardust, but instead just seared in ways that one could call sinful. And Adam had whispered “yes” fiercely against the Grace burning at his lips, and meant it with everything he was.
Michael summoned Death with battered bruised and tainted Grace, and Adam's blood, and they made the deal.
Adam woke up and he wasn't in Hell any more. He was home, and cursed.
And Adam forgot.
-x-x-x-
“Michael,” Adam calls out in the quiet house. “Michael, I remember.”
He does this daily, trying his hardest to get Michael to acknowledge him.
Michael still doesn't answer him, and Adam feels like tearing his hair out.
~*~
Raphael, as Gabriel informs Adam when he pops over a few days later, is healing slowly, painfully, and in fragments. She's in and out of consciousness. She won't be better for a long, long time. Adam doesn't understand the details, but all he knows is that Raphael was slowly going insane managing to poison her own Grace long before, and whatever Castiel's did to her while influenced by the Leviathans in Purgatory has only made it worse. All Adam knows is that she has aeons worth of damage to heal, and that Gabriel is determined to make sure it happens, and that after that confrontation, maybe being here, isn't the best for her. Adam agrees on the latter bit.
“I could've taken her with me when I left. I should've taken her with me. I'm not leaving her again,” he says one day in Adam's kitchen while Adam cooks lunch. It's become a regular and almost welcome occurrence, having someone to talk too, since Nanny's gotten hospitalised again and Michael still won't even be in the same room as him, let alone speak to him. Though Adam still wonders why Gabriel comes here. He wonders if it's for the company too. If Adam understands well, Heaven is no more, and Raphael doesn't seem to be great company considering she's still not waking up for long enough periods.
“Michael still won't talk to me.” Adam supplies, a little bitterly.
When he looks up from the stir-fry, it's to Gabriel watching him intently, golden gaze heavy. “You know what happened.” It's not a question, but a statement.
“Bit and pieces, yeah. I still don't remember everything, but I remember enough. At least the important bits. He bowed to me, for me.” Adam says, breathing in deeply because he can't say the words, doesn't think he ever will be able to do it, without the enormity of overwhelming him. “I still don't get why we wound up the way we did, though.”
“Don't look at me, kiddo. I didn't even know it was possible to break open the Cage or escape it, without opening the seals.” Adam doesn't even bother sighing as he goes back to concentrating on cooking. Really he should've expected it. “But,” Gabriel continues on, “this looks more like a curse to me.”
“There's something that can actually curse an archangel?”
“There's a list.” Gabriel says. And well, fuck.
“He did become human once. For a night. He was back to-” Adam breaks off to make a hand gesture that he hopes signifies what Michael is right now, “-the next morning. That's when the whole silent treatment started.”
Gabriel's gaze narrows, his expression screwed up in an oddly familiar way. Adam realises for the very first time (his mind always chooses the worst moments to connect the dots on certain trains of thought - like for instance now) exactly whom Gabriel reminds him off that makes him feel so comfortable to be around despite his being an archangel. When he makes that face, it's easy to mistake him for Mom, and wow. Fucking wow. He's so taken in by the realisation that he nearly misses Gabriel's “Definitely a curse.”
“Well, fuck.” And Adam doesn't know exactly what he's cursing about.
~*~
Adam rolls over onto his back trying to get comfortable on his bed, to Michael's ethereal form straddling him. In the moonlight filtering through the windows, he looks white, almost silver, instead of grey. Adam blinks a few moments, taking it in, and wondering if he's dreaming. He has had this dream a few times, the one where Michael comes to him, and they work things out, so it won't be surprising if this is yet another one of those. He blinks, rubs his eyes, blinks again, pinches himself. Nope, not dreaming. Michael is here. Michael is here.
“I remember.” It's the first thing he says, and he sees Michael's form shudder in the moonlight.
“I remember.” he says again firmer this time looking straight into Michael's eyes. Michael leans over, ghostly form still shaking (Adam forgets sometimes how human has become, was already in the Cage, is) until all Adam can feel is heat, a memory of what Michael's Grace felt like against his soul before they joined in a way humans and angels weren't ever meant too. Adam reaches out blindly, even though he knows his hands will go through Michael's form, and holds his arms in something that would resemble a hug.
“I remember.” he chants softly, and Adam realises he's crying.
“I didn't want you too. You would've been happier. You were until I, until we, that night. I realised it only then.” Michael confesses finally, sounding tired and raw. It makes Adam ache, because despite what Michael took from him, despite how much he made Adam suffer, in his quest and then influenced by the insanity that permeated through one's essence in the Cage. Despite all of that. Michael has given more back to Adam. He's repaid his debts thousand times over. He bowed for Adam, is still bowing for him, and Adam is taking and taking without even realising it.
“No, I wouldn't have.” Adam says, and part of him hates himself for this, because he's about to ask Michael for more, even though he has no right too. But Michael deserves to be happy. He's suffered for longer than Adam's existed. “Gabriel said it was a curse. We'll figure this out. We'll fix this. You owe me a happily ever after any way, and mine has you in it.”
“One day, when I'm a real boy, right Adam?” Michael breathes out and it sounds wrecked, and Adam wishes Michael was tangible so that he could actually hold him. Curses himself for making that joke.
“You are real. And we'll be okay Michael. We'll be okay.”
~*~
It gets easier after that. Michael stops being broody, stops avoiding Adam, starts talking to Adam again.
They're a little awkward, and that's bound to happen after months of not talking, but they manage. Michael doesn't hover over him while he cooks, like he used too, but he's still close by. He won't invade Adam's personal space like he did earlier, unless he's in Adam's bed - which now is a thing and Adam is thankful for it, but he does stay close enough inside Adam's periphery for Adam to feel the heat radiating of his ghostly form. He goes right back to helping plan out the monthly budget though, and reminding Adam about upcoming due dates for paying the bills, and for that Adam is grateful because while he's getting better at telling time, he's still not completely there yet.
Adam has missed it, missed it all so much, that he can't keep the smile off his face whenever Michael appears in the same room as him, and his face is starting to hurt from it. But it doesn't matter, because he finally has company in the house again, specifically Michael's company, after months of radio silence that was driving him insane. And more importantly Michael seems to be smiling too.
Gabriel stops by more often. Mostly with news that Raphael's healing, or info on their curse. There's normally nothing new on the latter, but each visit hearing about Raphael's - albeit extremely slow recuperation - is good. It's like music to his ears. Adam knows that Raphael has a lot of scars to heal, that she will never forgive Michael or Gabriel completely, never trust them completely. He knows why, both Michael and Gabriel have told him, but those are their versions, not Raphael's. But hearing she's doing better always lifts Adam's spirits, because it makes Michael happy, and Gabriel is happy that Raphael is doing better which makes Michael happier. And that makes Adam happy, and it's a happy circle all around.
He might actually accidentally say that aloud one day, and Gabriel sputters laughing, while Michael gives him this ridiculously fond look, that makes Adam want to say more stupid things just to keep it in place. Oh he has it, he has it bad.
And to just add the cherry on top of an amazing cake, Nanny gets released from her second hospital stint with a clean bill of health.
She also comes over with an actual home-made cake, with actual cherries on top, and Adam spends an afternoon fending off the resulting heart-attack over the fact that her first job after Adam deposited her in her bed, was to get up and go make him cake the moment he left to go home to cook her lunch. When Kristin finds out when she comes over - if shedoes because they haven't made up over their old fight, she will kill him.
(Gabriel however is a cake thief, and really enjoys said cake when he visits later, judging by the way Adam has only about two small pieces of it left.)
The thing is, that even if most things stay the same, there are things, even the small things that get better, and that is something to celebrate over.
-x-x-x-
Part VI