entrancelogs | OPEN | there's a place i have gone

Entry tags:

OPEN | there's a place i have gone

Who: Adam Milligan (

halfwinchester) and anyone who cares to cross his path!
Where: Around the mansion.
When: Oct. 17th.
Rating: PG-13?
Summary: Having been unconscious for most of his stay in Wonderland, when Adam has a lucid moment he takes himself on a tour of the mansion.
The Story:

For someone who'd been in Wonderland for over a week, Adam had seen remarkably little of it since Castiel had brought him indoors. The forest, he remembered in flashes and vague splinters of memory, and that was only in those rare moments of consciousness.

Being awake meant remembering everything. Each time he breathed, he smelled burning skin in Hell's fires. Each time he moved, he felt phantom pain from Hell's ministrations. Each time he closed his eyes, Hell. No matter what the angels had done to him, Hell was still everywhere, and he was still a part of it. Unconsciousness was a blessing in disguise when Hell was all you had to wake up to, and if he’d had a choice, he would have picked oblivion every single time.

But on the ninth day, something changed.

Adam woke up to a sense of clarity he hadn't felt between his pelting through the trees on his first day and the angels playing with his soul like Silly Putty. Not since… no, he couldn't remember. Not since before. Not since he’d had a body and a place in the real, physical world without Michael. As he stared at the ceiling, the fact that the room stayed just a room and didn’t bleed into a place he’d been in his memories, or somewhere in the pit, almost confused him more than the alternative.

For once, lying in a bed (in Wonderland of all places, according to an angel, whatever that counted for) seemed like a possibility and not just a fever dream cobbled together by a sick mind.

Real.

What that possible? Really? He hadn’t believed Castiel about being free, not enough to dare let that hope sink in. Now, the longer he laid there, the more doubt crept in.

Free…?

If he was alive, being alive felt an awful like being on the verge of passing out. Sliding out of bed and convincing his legs to hold him up was a touch-and-go affair, made worse by a floor that didn’t seem to want to stay steady underneath him. Getting across the room was a sheer miracle in and of itself; his need to know just what the fuck was happening to him just barely outweighed his body's desire to pitch him over. He held onto the door frame to rest for a second. Good for him that he didn't have any dignity left to lose.

"Warmed-over shit" was a good way to describe the young man who eventually staggered into the sixth floor hallway that morning, unshaven and unwashed. A kind assessment, given that Hell was still written all over the lines of his face; it was in the glassy cast to his eyes and the purpled skin underneath, in the way he had to steady himself on the occasional section of wall. Absorbed in the push and pull of his own muscles, Adam almost forgot his surroundings entirely. Stairs, more hallways, rooms… Places he didn’t recognize, falling forgotten behind him.

The first time he glimpsed himself in a mirror brought him to a halt, however. Startled, he froze in place before turning back to the mirror, bringing his hands to rest on either side of it.

He saw his face. At the same time, he saw the face of a stranger. The person in it didn't look… right.

Maybe he was alive, after all. Only reality could be this gaunt, and cold, and uncomfortable.

_{(OOC: It's prose to start, but I'm down with action tags! Feel free to find him anywhere in the mansion you'd like, too.)}

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"You're sorry," he repeated, a flat echo of the words. Gauging his reaction in that moment was difficult; in Adam's tone, there could have been doubt, or sarcasm, or even mystification.

If he was still in Hell, and he was just making all of this up in his head, a hallucination would tell him what he wanted to hear, wouldn't it? All the better to shatter the illusion later. The angel’s insistence he was free, really and truly free, were hollow reassurances in the wake of that fact.

But Adam would never have imagined an angel bowing his head to him, not after having met one. Zachariah... Michael... even Satan, who'd wanted to end the world... they were nothing but cold, cruel lights squeezed into human bottles. Adam, as a human being, had stopped mattering to them the moment Dean had entered the picture, Zachariah had said so. A giant didn't need to apologize for stepping on a speck of dirt.

An angel wouldn't go to bat for him. So why would one apologize to him, real or not?

Adam had nothing to say to that, and the silence drew on until he finally voiced the question he'd spent years holding onto. "What happened to my mom?"

Castiel knew full well how little those words mattered now that Adam had been torn apart and ground out into nothing by his two older brothers. He knew an apology was nothing more than sentiment, and while it was genuine, it fixed nothing.

He suspected that the only reason that Adam wasn't railing against him was because he was still so fragmented. He didn't believe this to be real in the first place, and so resorting to shouting most likely didn't seem like a viable option to him.

Castiel wouldn't have minded, not really. He'd been yelled at by Winchesters before.

The question surprised him, even though it shouldn't have. Adam's mother had been his motivation for his actions and had caused him to make the decisions that had led to his unfortunate fate.

He didn't have any real news for him, though. After Adam had fallen into the Cage, Castiel hadn't exactly considered it a priority to check on his mother. Which was another oversight, but all he could do was be honest. "As far as I'm aware, she's in Heaven." Which meant she was safe despite everything, but he doubted Adam would see it that way.

"So she's still dead."

Dead, the vital detail the angel didn’t have the balls to say out loud. Dead, because John Winchester had left them alone and exposed. Dead, because the people who should have been fighting for her had been too busy playing politics to save somebody who deserved to be saved more than any of them did.

Adam nodded, like he'd known all along, even as he took a deep breath and turned away, so Castiel wouldn't see the hot rush of tears to his eyes again, almost too much to reign in. The very last pure emotion he could feel without it being tainted by the rest.

He'd waited a long time to ask, and for an answer guaranteed to disappoint him. But the not knowing... The not knowing had been enough to get by on for a long while. He'd tried. Although Sam and Dean had stopped the angels' plan, he'd tried, and he'd gone to Hell, and wasn't that enough for him to earn what Zachariah had promised? Hadn't he done enough?

No.

He'd sacrificed everything, and she was still dead. He believed it. He'd gotten used to the taste of bitter pills. If he was alive and she was dead, it was Hell all over again, just in a different place and in a different way.

Adam's reaction was about what Castiel would have expected, save for the tears. He was never prepared for crying, and it always caused him to freeze up, never certain of what the right response was when it happened.

But he was at a loss in general right now, because there was nothing he could say to make it better. Apologizing again would be an insult.

And he could make all sorts of promises about how they could see about getting her back for him once they'd left this place, but every word would be empty, because he knew that whenever they did get out of Wonderland, Adam would be going right back into the Cage with Michael and Lucifer. Just like Jo and Ellen would go right back into the arms of death.

Which left him to stand there, arms hanging uselessly at his sides, as he tried to find any words, anything that could if not reassure Adam, then at least move the conversation along.

"Yes," he finally said, because Adam might need the confirmation. "It's been over three years since you fell into the Cage."

Yes. So simple.

Fuck you.

But the rest made Adam freeze up so completely that for a second he was too surprised to feel like his chest was being crushed with hurt.

Three... years? He hadn't been able to hold onto an exact number where he'd been, not with the strange slide of time in the pit. He only knew that he'd been there for more time than he'd been alive. Longer than a man's natural life cycle. Longer than he could remember. Three years seemed like such a small number in comparison to what he'd experienced, but somehow too long at the same time.

He and his mom had been dead for three years up top? Just like that, gone and forgotten?

As he stared blindly ahead, he caught notice of part of a mirror hanging on the wall. In it, he could see the side of his face, and he was reminded of every time he'd ever asked his mom if he looked like his father, and every time she'd ever refused to answer, saying instead she'd rather gloat that he'd gotten his good looks from her. Her handsome little baby.

"I didn't fall," he said coldly, back rigid. Sam.

The phrasing apparently mattered. Adam didn't fall, he'd been dragged in, and maybe that was significant, because he hadn't asked for any of this. He'd agreed to accept Michael purely because he'd been manipulated. At least Sam and Dean had known what they were getting into when they'd gone to that cemetery.

There was nothing Castiel could say, no words that would justify how things happened, or the reasoning for why Adam had been left behind while the rest of them had continued on. It wasn't as if things had been easy for them topside, but nothing could compare to centuries of torture in Hell, compliments of the two more fearsome archangels.

Castiel shook his head. "No, you didn't."

This conversation was even more clipped than usual, Castiel feeling like each word was sticking in his throat. "If there was anything else you wanted to know, any questions I can answer, I'll do so to the best of my ability."

It wasn't much of a consolation prize, but it was all he could offer.

Sniffing, Adam used the back of his hand to wipe at his face. His skin felt hot, and not just from exertion and stress. Suffice it to say, though, Lucifer's Cage wasn't a place for soft emotions; like tears, they burned up quickly under the force of the heat.

His memories of Sam were crisper and clear than when he tried to think of his mother's face, or what they'd talked about the last time they'd spoken over the phone. The band constricting his chest loosened. Remembering resentment came easier than remembering happiness.

No, he hadn't fallen into the vortex in the earth, Michael had, because Sam had pulled him in. And then Sam's soul had... disappeared.

He turned partway, just enough to see Castiel from the corner of his eye and put the mirror and thoughts of dead mothers out of his mind. He did have questions, and unlike his mother's fate, he hadn't been able to guess the answers himself. He'd spent a long time wonder before even wondering had grown too excruciating to maintain, and maybe knowing wouldn't mean anything now, whether he choked down truth or lies, but he deserved this much. He'd won the right to know what had happened to the sinking ship the moment his soul had become the thing they plugged the leak with.

"I didn't fall," he said again, and his voice didn't waver. "I remember pieces. Sam pulled us, and he was in there. And me... and them." He paused to tighten his grip on the memories before they grew too many barbs and sliced into him. "Sam left. I remember that."

There was the question, wrapped up in all the many shades of Hell.

Yes, Sam had left. Or rather, part of him had. Castiel didn't know how cognizant Adam had been of what was going on by that point, but it was true that he owed him an explanation.

Instead of looking away or shifting to the side, Castiel faced Adam head-on, as this wasn't something he could shy away from. The worst that Adam could do was yell at him, try to punch him, or maybe warn the rest of the mansion about what he was capable of and how he'd misused that power. But... somehow, he didn't think it would come to that. If it did, he would handle it.

"Sam left because I broke into the Cage. I wanted to take you both, but I could barely pull Sam out. His soul remained. Were you aware of that?"

A soul would be hard to miss, considering it would have been bright even in the darkness of the Cage. And Castiel can only imagine that Lucifer and Michael had torn into that soul even with the rest of Sam gone. It was, after all, the most important part of a person.

What he'd admitted to without actually saying it was that he'd picked Sam over Adam. Though that was probably not much of a surprise. Even now, Castiel barely knew the third Winchester.

He replayed the words in his head, but they stayed the same each time he did. The angel was saying he'd broken into... that place.

For Adam, who’d never known its name, the Cage had just been a nameless part of his existence. He’d been there, in a confined space with Sam, and Michael, and the other, and that had been that. He’d figured out it was Hell on his own, and there were no words for the mark that knowledge had left on his soul, just as there was no word to appropriately describe Lucifer’s Cage.

But a cage made sense. There was no escaping a cage unless someone let you out.

He was silent for a long while while he turned the word over in his mind, over and over and over, using it as protection against the rest of what the angel was telling him. If he could just keep centered on something, maybe he wouldn't go down on his knees and break straight down the middle like he felt he was going to do. Because if he thought too hard about the possibility that maybe Sam hadn't just vanished, that maybe someone had pulled him out, that someone had let him out of that horrific place and closed the door again behind them, he didn't know what would happen.

A person could die from this much grief, he thought. Just up and die. A body couldn't have been built to hold this much of it. Knowing that, maybe the ability to stand there, breathing through his nose, while not falling to pieces meant something was very wrong with him.

There had to be something wrong with him for this to be his life.

Or maybe... maybe the distance he felt was his own mind's way of protecting him. A paper-thin protection against something too great and too sickening to comprehend.

"When?"

He ignored the question in favour of his own. An angel probably found it too difficult to wrap his head around, but if there were any mercy in the world, any at all, then Adam wouldn't have been aware of a single damn thing had happened.

There wasn't, and he had been aware of more than enough in the Cage, and that was why he couldn't answer.

Castiel could practically see Adam splintering before his eyes, but there wasn't a single thing that he could do about it. His hands couldn't enact any mercy that would wipe that grief and suffering off of Adam's face. All he could do was be open, and answer the questions, and wait for the healing to start on its own. If that was even possible.

It wasn't enough, but they hadn't done enough for Adam from the beginning. Was it really any surprise that the pattern was continuing here?

The question wasn't what Castiel would have expected Adam to come out with next, but then again, his mind probably wasn't working in any rational way right now.

"I went as soon as I could, after you both fell in. His soul remained for a year after that... so more like a hundred and twenty years, in your case. Then Death went to collect it."

Castiel didn't have all the details of how that transaction had been made and why Death had pulled out Sam's soul without offering the same kindness to Adam, but he and Death were hardly on good terms anyway. There had never been an opportunity to ask, and admittedly, the question hadn't occurred to him before now.

Trying to think through even the barest portion of this conversation hurt. If he believed that the angel was really standing there telling him these things, than he had to accept by consequence that this might not just be a trick of the mind. If he didn't believe that he had flesh on his bones or that the hallway they were in was real, then he had to accept that this was a trick of the mind.

And if he believed the angel was telling him the truth...

Everything hurt in the worst way possible. More difficult than thinking, however, was letting himself feel any part of their exchange.

We didn't fall!

Adam made the decision for himself and frowned, a pinched look as if a sudden migraine had settled behind his eyes. If he had to choose, thinking it was, if his stumbling, half-formed train of thought counted for as much.

"Death?" he repeated, rounding on Castiel. "So Sam's dead?"

Incredulity colored his tone. Again, he could only pluck at one part of Castiel's answer and hold onto it. He could search for some amount of surprise at the rest, but inwardly he felt as though he'd be searching in vain for another century or more. He couldn't remember everything, the length of his memory wouldn't allow it, but the cold numbers didn't sound wrong.

A hundred and twenty years in Hell. Three years on Earth. The angel could have said he'd been in the Cage for a thousand and he didn't think he could muster another single drop of astonishment. Measurements of time were nothing in comparison to having lived the real thing.

Edited 2013-11-02 06:39 (UTC)

The misunderstanding made sense. Adam wouldn't have any concept of the strange alliance that Dean and Death had formed, and if Death came for someone, it was usually only for one reason.

It wasn't something that he understood much himself, but Castiel still knew the facts. Adam wasn't going to be happy with it. It was only going to make the resentment and bitterness grow and fester inside of him like an untreated wound, and that could become dangerous before long.

In a way, the fact that he wasn't a demon after all that time was a shock. Winchesters were definitely made of stronger stuff, there was no denying that.

"No," Castiel said after a pause, shifting to lean against the wall. "Dean made a deal with him, and Death's part of the bargain included going to retrieve Sam's soul so that it could be placed back in his body. But the damage on his soul was already immense by then, and he eventually broke down because of it."

And because of Castiel. It wasn't that he didn't want to admit to it, but rather that it would take a very long explanation to even give Adam the context. But at least this would let him know that he wasn't the only one who'd suffered from Hell damage. Sam had hardly escaped the Cage unscathed.

Edited 2013-11-04 15:28 (UTC)

Adam didn't have any concept of a lot of things anymore, and nothing, nothing about this made sense. He shook his head, but clarity still remained well out of his reach. In its stead was the hot, loud pounding of his pulse and pain in every corner of his body, and that was all.

So Sam was alive. He could grasp the sentiment, if nothing else about Castiel's explanation. And if but barely.

Sam had been freed, no less. Not missing, not dead, freed. Pulled out. Body and soul.

How?

Did it matter?

He shook his head again, and again after that, but his thoughts wouldn't settle. There was no comfort no matter from what end of the equation he tried to look, and before long he was merely shaking his head in silence, fingers squeezing the bridge of his nose.

And Adam fell back into silence again. Maybe because it was comforting, maybe because it was simpler than forming words and asking questions and being presented with answers he didn't like.

Castiel could hardly blame him. While in that mental institute, he'd been catatonic for a good portion of it, and avoidant for the rest of it. He'd healed eventually, but he was an angel, made of stronger stuff than a human. Would Adam be able to recover?

He frowned, watching Adam quietly before he realized that this conversation couldn't go to any better places.

"I realize you have no reason to trust me," he said at length, "but if you ever have any need for my help, you can feel free to call." That could apply to the phones or to praying, depending on what Adam was more comfortable with.

Castiel was prepared to fly off right then and there, but he lingered, waiting to see if Adam would have anything more to say, or if they were done here.

"Help?" Like a switch being flipped, Adam abruptly turned on Castiel. Gone was the loss that had marked the mention of his family--his real family, his mother, not the Winchesters. Gone was the raw hurt entirely. In its place was a hollowness, a soul that was no longer quite right and would maybe never be again. "You're offering me help? Is that funny to you?"

Because there was an unbelievable amount of gracelessness in someone like Castiel offering help after everything that had been and everything that had been said. Now that the words were coming out, there was nothing stopping them.

"Or... what, is this how you cut your losses? Sam stopped the Apocalypse so everything's all right now?" The accusation was there: how could this ever be considered fair or just? "If I'm supposed to believe what I'm hearing, my mom's still dead and the guy who packed around Satan and did all of this to begin with got a free ride out of the hole he opened. Why don't you tell me what you want? What else do I have to do? You're sure not here to help me."

Getting out of the pit two years after Sam wasn't a consolation prize. It wasn't even a prize at all. Adam felt the onesidedness of the fucking angels and their fucking help so acutely he burned with the pain of it, soul throbbing like an angry wound.

His voice dropped to almost nothing, but he didn't look away, he didn't so much as blink.

"If you really wanted to help me, you'd just kill me. Take whatever you need from me, whatever I got brought back for, but I don't want this. This is sick, even for you."

It's the outburst that Castiel's been expecting. He's waited for this, has even tried to pry it out because he'd known it was coming. It doesn't make sense for someone to go through what Adam had and not be full of rage. And yes, Castiel's definitely among those who are to blame for it, there's no denying that. He never would.

Sam and Dean both have turned on him like this in the past. It's a human reaction, lashing out and saying things that might hurt if he and Adam had been closer. But as things stand, Castiel knows that he deserves every word, and that his offers are too little too late.

"I don't mean it as a joke," he says after a lengthy pause that he allows so that Adam's words can sink into the walls around him, into his skin.

"I won't kill you, but... I want nothing from you. The same can't be said for Wonderland, as it chose to bring each one of us here." It's not as if Adam would be better off elsewhere, but Castiel can also see how he might find the finality and escape of death to be a kindness at this point.

But as he said, he won't kill him. More bloodshed isn't going to solve any of this. "As far as I'm concerned, you can do as you please here." So long as it doesn't involve hurting others, but despite all the odds Adam doesn't seem to be that far gone. Michael and Lucifer may have tortured him, but they didn't turn him into a demon. Castiel's guess is that Michael wouldn't have stood for such a thing, not with his own vessel.

"Then you can't even smell your own bullshit," he growled back. "As far as you're concerned, you just want to see someone suffer. Why else would you be feeding me the same crap Zachariah did? You don't believe this is help. You can't. At least he was honest about what he was doing in the end."

How fucking ironic, that an angel of all things didn't care to be merciful. They were the coldest bastards Adam had ever met, and giving this one lip and riling it up probably wouldn't result in what Adam wanted, no matter how much he bothered to unload onto Castiel.

They were that spiteful. They'd had their own plans from the beginning, but they'd always been that spiteful.

"You want to hold my leash and watch me run? Then you'd better eat that apology. Keeping me alive is just as bad as the Cage," he said, feeling none of the slim hope for recovery that Castiel did.

Being compared to Zachariah hits him harder than it should. Castiel does what he can to keep his composure even when he's dealing with a snarling human, but Adam's just pushed a button. It must have to do with the fact that Zachariah had been the first sign of Heaven's betrayal. Zachariah was the one who'd revealed their real plan, and that had been when Castiel's faith had truly faded.

Castiel stands stiff and straight, hands balling into fists at his sides as he tries to find some kind of response.

But there's nothing he can say to fix this, nothing that would ever calm Adam down. And so all he can do is fall back on the reliable method of being honest.

"We stopped the Apocalypse, Adam," he says, voice low and firm, an angel's tone. "You were a casualty of that. Many others died for that cause, some needlessly. Others willingly sacrificed themselves."

He levels his gaze on Adam, unblinking, determined to get his message across. "I have regrets, of course. Nothing about it was perfect. It was bloody and messy, and you suffered more than any other. But too much blood was spilled in the process. I refuse to spill any more."

If that's selfish? Then so be it.

"Is that what you're going to tell my mom the next time you see her upstairs?"

Adam didn't back down. He hadn't put up a fight with Zachariah for fear of being hurt, but not now. He wasn't afraid of the repercussions. He leaned in, as if drawn in by Castiel's shift in emotion, spitefully gravitating toward the anger he thought was brewing.

This angel could crush him in a second. He was waiting for it. Breaking his bones or puncturing his organs was proof--proof that his resentment hadn't been misplaced all this time.

The Apocalypse? Please.

"You gonna tell her you fought the good fight? Died for the cause? That that's what happened to me?" he questioned. "Yeah, you stopped it. Sorry if I can't bring myself to care that much."

There isn't much reason for Adam to care, not when he isn't able to reap any of the rewards of a world that hasn't been razed to the ground. Castiel can say that it was bigger than Adam, that there were things more important than him. In fact, that may even be true, but Sam and Dean wouldn't be able to swallow an explanation like that.

They're not supposed to leave anyone behind. And yet it seems like a trail of bodies stretches out behind them.

Castiel doesn't have any plans to find Adam's mother in Heaven, as she's beyond grasping anything that's going on down below. Adam would likely be happier there with her, blissful and carefree, but there's no way to get him there.

"... Even if I killed you, you wouldn't go to her. Not here."

No, all that would happen would be Adam's revival. There's no such thing as escape here, and the sooner he figures that out, the better.

"You think I'd want her to see me now?" The response was automatic. "After everything you all did?"

Adam had played his role as obediently as any good soldier, but the angels? They were at fault for his family breaking at the seams, Castiel included. They hadn't wanted John to have children, if Castiel hadn't help protect Dean... things might have turned out differently.

Castiel hadn't killed her by his own hand, but his kind might as well have.

"Better for her if she never finds out what you really are."

It seemed like any attempt that Castiel made was simply thrown back in his face. Which might be deserved, but it didn't make it any less frustrating. He wasn't that patient to begin with, but getting too firm with Adam would only prove his point.

"She wouldn't know the difference now. She's in Heaven, which means she's at peace." And oblivious, but he wasn't going to be too clear on that. Then again, Adam probably already knew how it worked, seeing how he'd been trapped with two archangels for hundreds of years.

He didn't know if Adam had picked up on his entire meaning, though, and so he added, "Anyone who dies here revives." There was no escape. It wasn't that easy here.

Angels seemed to love their technicalities. Try as Castiel might have to distance himself from Zachariah, he had the same flair for purposely ignoring the point. Or, as the case might have been, unconsciously ignoring the point, which was in many ways even worse.

Adam shook his head. No. No technicalities, no excuses. "It means she's dead."

The accusation left his voice. He hadn't forgotten. That had been the only important thing from the beginning, her survival, and now he couldn't imagine a time or a place where the angels wouldn't have struck down those hopes. She was the one who deserved the apologies, not him. She was the one still untouched by all of this... destruction.

Although he heard the warning that resurrection was a promise and not a possibility, he couldn't be bothered to say anything to it.

"Yes," Castiel agreed, because there was no point in not doing so, "she's dead."

He thought that went without saying, but if Adam wanted him to admit to it out loud, then so be it. That particular death wasn't on his hands, though. Castiel saw his own failure as not being strong enough to rescue Adam when he'd rescued Sam.

They seemed to have hit a dead end, and Castiel doubted he could make any more progress with Adam at the moment. Still, he wanted to get in one parting comment.

"You may never make use of it, but that offer is still there." If Adam ever did need his help, Castiel would be there. It might never come up. They might never even interact after this conversation. But he wanted to make that crystal clear.

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OPEN | there's a place i have gone

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