entrancelogs | and if bridges gotta fall then you'll fall, too

Entry tags:

and if bridges gotta fall then you'll fall, too

Who: Double log ahoy! Adam Milligan (

freewill), followed by Jo Harvelle (

lightgunhustler) on another day.
Where: In the library with Castiel, then the ballroom with Jo.
When: Backdated for angel times on the 5th, big sis times on the 6th.
Rating: G for now!
Summary: Apparently Santa decide to give Adam a social circle for Christmas.
The Story:

Castiel

For Adam Milligan, a new year was a stupid thing to celebrate. He'd survived too many of them; they were just meaningless numbers now, brittle, forgettable. The idea of New Year's celebrations happening around the mansion had annoyed him a little, less than Thanksgiving but more than Christmas. People were too damn happy around here sometimes, celebrating holidays that probably didn't even exist in this world. (Though he had gotten too drunk to stand on New Year's Eve, go figure).

He was happy when things settled down again and he could approach the "new year" on his own terms: slowly, and with a great deal of forethought. He went out for a few hours on New Year's Day and again on the third, and when no bodily harm came to him, he felt a little less like Chicken Little waiting for the sky to fall as he did after breaking every long stretch of solitude.

Here was hoping the third time wasn't the charm.

Adam officially gave no shits as he went looking for the library that day, checking each floor until he finally found where it was hiding. Looking through the stacks was about as calming as it got. A pleasant reminder of his old life.

Jo

It had been a long time since Adam had made plans--real plans, not just bumping into people, or being introduced to others, or getting unexpected visits at this door. Almost every day since arriving in Wonderland had been about living on the defensive. Burying memories as far down as they could go. Reacting. Following other people's lead. Getting away from the Winchesters' version of the Baby-sitters Club had been a good start, but moving out... that had been about hiding his damage from sight, not conquering it. Keeping himself from backsliding was about all he could do.

Or thought he could do.

Calling Jo Harvelle out of the blue and hinting to someone he was afraid his grip might slip one day was different.

Adam didn't know what he was asking when he wanted to talk outside of his little nest of quiet hours and nightmares, only that he knew something had to be done. He was hoping in some weird way that she could give him some direction; he sure as hell didn't trust his "family" enough to sit down with them and try to explain that he worried he was going to fall into a rut he couldn't get out of.

But waiting in front of one of the ballroom's windows felt like a step in some kind of direction.

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Castiel had similar feelings to Adam when it came to the New Year. It wasn't exactly a new year if time wasn't actually passing, and they had been given plenty of proof that it wasn't, which meant...

It was all for show. The mansion decorating itself for Christmas, the weather, all of it. To keep those who were used to routine calm, to see to it that the panic didn't fester too much, just enough.

Still, if there were people here who got enjoyment out of it (some who happened to be his friends), then Castiel wasn't going to get too worked up about it. It made no difference to him whether time "passed" or not, in the end.

Now that things were back to normal (by Wonderland's standards, at least), Castiel was also back to his usual patrol route. The library was a place that he lingered for longer than most areas, if only because it changed itself around so often. It was the one place that Castiel sometimes struggled to find.

He made it there, though, and as he was walking up and down the aisles he spotted a glimpse of the most elusive Winchester.

Adam. They were long overdue for a talk. Castiel stepped up to him, approaching slowly to try and catch his attention. Chances were that Adam was still as skittish as always, so sneaking up on him wasn't advisable.

Adam was in the middle of pulling down books to browse when movement alerted him. He turned to look, and of all possible people, the person approaching him was one of the angels. Cas, or whatever people liked to call him.

They weren't exactly friends, so Adam didn't feel an overwhelming rush of affection at the sight of Castiel, but out of all possible angels he could have ended up with, the trench coat wearing one who liked to perch on the Winchesters' shoulder was better than other possible choices. Like Michael, for instance.

In the middle of reaching above him for a book, he pulled his arm back. Hard to tell whether the angel had just been walking by or if he'd found Adam on purpose, like a hawk realizing the mouse it was hunting had come out into the open.

"Dean's not here," he said.

Whatever Castiel wanted, chances were it had something to do with his brothers.

Tracking Adam down was easier said than done, and Castiel didn't have the time to keep a vigilant watch on his room, so this truly was all thanks to luck, for whatever that was worth.

Castiel had been tasked with examining Adam back at Thanksgiving, and he hadn't gotten around to it until now, so he wasn't prepared to take no for an answer.

Curious as he was to see what book Adam was looking for, Castiel did what he could to not direct his gaze that way. At this point, he couldn't afford to get distracted.

"I'm not here about Dean," he said with a shake of his head. He couldn't even deny that it was a fair assumption on Adam's part, so instead he moved right past it. "But he did tell me that Michael... did something to you. He asked me to look into it."

Adam was clearly well enough to come out to the library on his own, but that didn't mean that he was completely safe.

If the angel had something to say to him that wasn't related to his brothers, then Adam was already in the dark. He looked back to the shelf, scanning the book spines blindly. He couldn't imagine what one of them would want with him. Not to chat, obviously. Angels who showed up out of the blue with a task in mind had never boded well for him in the past, but he was long past the point of finding it morally offensive.

Dickish, angelic, and standard practice. That was all it was.

But the actual reason made him pause, and for a moment, he thought for sure he was misunderstanding something.

Wait. The Michael thing?

Adam turned back to Castiel with a profoundly unimpressed frown. "Don't ask me about keeping a clear track of the time, but I'm pretty sure that happened about two months ago. Did you fall into a time warp while all this time travelling business was going on?" Because there was a statute of limitations when it came to checking up on someone's health. Though Adam thought this had less to do with whether he was grievously hurt or not, and more to do with angel rivalries.

Still.

Castiel wasn't prepared for his tardiness to be pointed out first thing, and so his shoulders slumped and he let out a sigh. It seemed that he was going to continue making missteps and being late when it came to Adam. It hardly started them on a good note, either.

"You're right," he said after a pause. "I first heard about it around Thanksgiving, but... I was distracted for the first half of December, and then busy gathering information after that."

Adam surely hadn't missed all of that uproar, even with his tendency to stay in his room and not speak to anyone. Castiel had even found a ghost of his deep in the woods, though it didn't seem fair to bring that up now.

Better late than never, in this case, though that adage hadn't applied to the Cage, had it? Castiel forced that thought from his mind, though, and pressed on.

"As you well know, Michael is not to be underestimated. I'd like to examine you and determine what exactly he did."

"Adam?"

It was hard to say whether or not she was surprised by his contacting her. They had talked several times since that initially awkward meeting in the hallway more than two months earlier, using varying methods, but he had never asked her to meet him before. That part was new, but it was also intriguing -- it showed promise. It was more bold than what she had come to expect from him, and that could only be a good thing.

She was smiling when she entered the ballroom, though it faltered for a moment. There were mixed memories here. Most recently, the ghost of something yet to come had played in here on loop, something that should have washed all bad memories of this place clean away, but she couldn't chase away the image of what had happened here during the hellhound attack. All because she'd been stubborn, insistent on laying a trap for them. It had gotten Dean killed, the exact same way she'd died before coming to Wonderland.

He'd come back, but that didn't make watching it any easier. It didn't make her feel any less responsible.

She forced that smile to return as she approached Adam near the window, careful to keep a comfortable distance between them.

"Hey. How's the view?"

"I can still count," he pointed out, moving to a small side table where he had started stacking some books. Some days he could still think, too, and put on his own socks.

He could still read as well, and with some concentration the act became a good way to stay anchored to reality. The little things helped--remembering to make his bed in the morning, doing laundry, reading a few chapters of a book. Little things he'd taught himself, without a heck of a lot of guidance from anyone else. Not very groundbreaking or game-changing, maybe, but he could at least say he didn't pretend to be more than he was, or make promises he had no intention of keeping.

"You and Dean--really following a tight schedule, aren't you?" Sarcasm had a tendency to come on unprovoked in moments like these, when he caught a whiff of something that stank of self-gratification. "Don't push yourself too hard. I'm not a priority, you don't need to tell me that. But it's a little late to be wringing your hands about this now."

Zombies could have nibbled his ribs clean way before an angel got around to checking out whatever Michael had done.

Adam had already made it crystal clear that he felt as if he was seen as a lower priority, so the fact that he was rubbing it in now only served to frustrate Castiel. He did his best to keep that in check, though, taking a moment to look away and roll his eyes before he said anything.

The fact was that Adam had every reason to be upset, seeing how it was a lack of concern for him that had led to him remaining in the Cage for so long.

"Yes, it is late, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be done," he insisted. "It shouldn't be painful for me to take a look, nor should it take very long. I think you could spare a few minutes."

He wasn't exactly the type to use a gentle touch with anyone, and so his coaxing wasn't very refined either. Castiel didn't want to do it without permission, but his patience was already running thin.

He hadn't stopped to realize he wasn't alone until the sound of his name forcibly dragged him from his reverie; he turned to see just the person he'd been thinking about, which reignited his indecision all over again. "Oh... hi."

Not once could Adam ever remember needing to rely so heavily on the kindness of strangers as he did now, and it made him feel awkward and uncomfortable, just as he'd felt thinking that most of the things the angels had told him about his brothers were wrong in the Beautiful Room. Of course, as it turned out, some of what Zachariah had said had turned out to be true, up to and including that the Winchesters didn't give a crap, and that evened the score for the most part.

But he knew Jo even less well than he knew the Winchesters, and here he was, asking for favors. She wasn't giving off an exactly overjoyed vibe as she approached, but then that just heightened his awareness of the fact that he didn't know her well enough to guess what was on her mind.

"You know, same old winter Wonderland, minus the zombies or the ghosts. Thanks for meeting me somewhere." He shrugged a little. "Talking all the time on those phones... They don't feel like they're as private as you think sometimes."

He could spare a few minutes, but that wasn't what was in question.

"For you guys or for me?" Adam turned to cross his arms, leaning back on the edge of the table. "I mean, what's in this for me? I've already been walking around like this all this time; if Michael wanted to do something to me, like... I don't know, kill me, it probably would've happened already."

Castiel probably didn't have a good grasp of how time passed for normal mortals, either, but did he really need to point out the obvious? Adam paused and gave the angel a long look.

"Unless you're saying you can fix it." His tone contained doubt, built around the fact he already knew Michael was stronger than Castiel.

The last thing Castiel wanted was to get into a back-and-forth argument about this, but could he really be surprised? Adam was a Winchester in one way or another, seeing how he was John's child, and that meant that this should have been expected.

Dean and Sam had both argued with him like this until they'd gotten to know him better, and so Castiel was going to have to accept that and press on despite the frustration it bred in him.

"I think you know just as well as I do that there are things worse than death. Michael knows how to bide his time." That should be enough to make any sane person want to get looked at, but, well -- Adam might not fit into that category.

"And I won't be able to tell you if I can fix it until I determine what's wrong," he pointed out, doing his best to keep his tone neutral rather than letting it drip with sarcasm. He never should have learned about that particular human concept.

Edited 2014-01-14 02:26 (UTC)

"I know," Adam agreed, nodding his head once. "I don't know if you do."

There were things worse than death, but in Adam's mind those things were about humanity, about sacrifice, about love. No matter how much Castiel acted like a humanitarian, did he know about those? Was he capable of understanding them? Did he know what it was like to lose the person who'd been your side your whole life and have to look the people who'd had a passing hand in her death in the face? That was hard. That was worse than the sensation of your body on the brink of death. It was harder than cornering someone in a library and forcing a belated physical on them because Dean Winchester asked you to.

Adam held his lips together, passing air from one cheek to the other in a considering way. He could just as easily get angry as he could stand back and let an angel molest him all over again, but he doubted Castiel would understand that, either.

"Do I even have a choice? You wouldn't risk getting on Michael's bad side without getting the job done."

Castiel is learning about things like humanity and sacrifice and love. The second of the three he's got down to an art by now, though Adam himself wouldn't know that. They're still strangers beyond the few times that the world has decided to throw them together.

However, that doesn't mean that he doesn't know about fates worse than death. Considering Castiel allowed monsters into his vessel, had felt them tear him apart from the inside out and then make use of him to do all kinds of terrible things --

Considering he at one point became so proud, so certain of himself, that he would take on his Father's name, only to have all of that blow up in his face --

He's been through plenty and survived one way or another. It's not the same as eternal torture in Hell, but he's certainly had some bad days.

This isn't a contest, though, and so Castiel speaks of none of that.

His instinct is to tell Adam that he'll be looking at his ribs regardless of what he says, but Castiel holds himself back. That's how angels have always treated Adam, doing what they wanted with him regardless of his own feelings. The only way to break that pattern is to stop himself.

"You do have a choice," he says after a long pause. "If you'd rather go on not knowing what my brother did to you, then so be it."

And what fat lot of good would knowing do? Would it change anything? Michael was still out of the damn Cage, wearing his dad around like a shirt, and so far Sam and Dean hadn't really seemed like they were doing a lot to deal with him.

"I could say the same about you." He lifted his eyebrows. "The other one told me big brother isn't too happy with you playing with his dolls. The one you brought me to. If you wanted to go on breathing, getting on Michael's bad side isn't the smart play. You're going to risk Michael nuking you just because Dean asked you to?"

Adam didn't say "because you want to help me?" because it didn't seem to be about that in the slightest. In making his slightly sardonic inquiry, he stuck to the facts: Dean didn't know when to take a hint, and he'd set his pet angel to sniff around.

If this was about undermining Michael somehow, then Adam really didn't want to get in the middle of their shit-flinging again. Hadn't gone so well the last time.

Castiel was regretting ever having mentioned that Dean was a part of this. He should have said that he'd heard about this from Michael, if only to avoid having to go back and forth about intention. At this point, he was growing tired of hearing Dean's name.

Adam was right on one count, though. Poking around and looking into Michael's work -- more than that, trying to undo it? That was an easy way to plunge himself headfirst into trouble.

Not that he had ever been one to let something as simple as death keep him from doing what needed to be done, of course. In reality, Castiel wanted to be more careful with his life ever since he'd met Dean's future self, but he still had five to spare.

"The other one's name is Gabriel, for the record," he said first. "And I'm aware of what Michael could do to me if he found out. But that doesn't mean I'm going to just let him do as he pleases. I have a few lives saved up here. I'll manage."

He was determined. Castiel's hands twitched, eager to actually do something rather than just stand around talking about it.

In contrast, Adam had plenty of time to speak his mind and be as much of a thorn in the collective Winchester paw as he wanted. Obstinacy was his luxury now. It'd been bought and paid for with his own blood.

He tilted his head at Castiel consideringly. He knew that if Castiel took the kid gloves off, though, Adam's ability to choose would disappear as quick as a flash. Castiel could do whatever he wanted, too. Adam had to wonder when the angel was going to start punishing him for not being an obedient little sheep. The other one... Gabriel, he'd let Adam get away with speaking up as well and hadn't ripped his lungs out for calling bullshit on him.

How much time would he have to spend pushing until their patience ran out? How much time did an angel's sympathy and guilty conscience by him?

He thought he could probably spend the rest of his days playing the blame game and never run out of fuel, unlike them.

After a long moment of deliberation, Adam said, "If I let you do this, will you look at something else for me? That's my price. You poke around in me again, you do something for me."

This was as close to relenting as Adam was going to get, it seemed. That was fine. Castiel didn't mind making a deal with him, and more than that, he'd keep to it -- unlike his deal with a certain demon.

Though that all depended on whether he was actually capable of seeing to Adam's request. He'd rather know what he was in for before he agreed to anything.

"What do you want looked at? I'd rather determine I'm capable of it before we make it official." Whatever that meant. With demons, it was a kiss. With humans, a handshake seemed to suffice. For all he knew, Adam would have him put it in writing.

Either way, he was curious to hear what Adam was invested in, as he hadn't shown much interest in much of anything since he'd arrived in this place.

Not a surprise, maybe, that Adam didn't have the same faith in Castiel's ability or willingness to hold true on an agreement. If what he'd learned about Zachariah and Michael--and even Satan--was anything to go by, angels didn't care to negotiate with beings they considered beneath them.

But in this case, he knew what he was asking would be nothing to Castiel. If he said "no" or failed to do what he promised, Adam wouldn't be any worse off than he already was, and likewise if the angel couldn't do anything about his ribs, then he was still up shit creek. The terms weren't even at all, but they were as close to even as an agreement between a monster and a human was ever going to get.

He straightened up from the table, tone steady despite the subject matter. "My soul. I want you to look at my soul."

Castiel should have expected it. Adam's soul was a fragile thing, flayed to the nerve, sectioned into pieces and then put back together in the wrong sequence. Castiel doubted there was anything he could do to help with the healing progress. Gabriel had already done his best, and beyond a so-called dressing change, there wasn't much to be done.

Still, all Adam was asking was for him to look, rather than to fix, and Castiel could manage that much.

"To determine what state it's in since you arrived?" he asked for clarification. "I can do that." He didn't know how easily he would be able to translate what he saw into something that Adam could understand, but he would does his best with it.

Seeing how both tasks -- examining Adam's ribs and then his soul -- were in a similar vein, this could all be done in one shot. Castiel didn't know that it was a good idea to do in the middle of the library, though.

"To tell me what's making me different from a demon."

Since meeting Crowley and Meg and questioning them separately, demons had been on his mind a lot, so much so that his own curiosity about their creation struck him as academic now, rather than odd or unsettling. The more he thought about Hell and the things that lived there, the more he wanted to know. Needed to know. Especially about how Hell's ability to turn humans into monsters reflected on him.

Fear wasn't at the heart of his inquiry, more like tentative hope. If someone could give him a straight answer for once, then the pain he expected this little fishing expedition to cause might be worth it. At least then he would know.

Adam looked around. "So how do we do this? Do I need a change of pants?"

All Michael had had to do was touch him to make him feel like he was dying the first time, and not to mention what had happened on his first day in Wonderland... If he was going to end up hurting so bad he was going to spend the rest of the week curled up in the bathroom, he'd like to know ahead of time.

Edited 2014-01-19 19:17 (UTC)

Castiel's fairly certain he could answer that question without even looking at Adam's soul. There are rules for how a demon is made, and the fact is that Michael and Lucifer most likely hadn't been attempting to change Adam into one. Torture alone isn't enough. It's only when someone takes up the blade and starts torturing others that the corruption truly begins.

Even then, it takes some time, which is the only reason that Dean was able to make it out of Hell with his soul more or less intact.

Still, if Adam wants him to look, then he'll look. Castiel's willing to honor the terms of the deal. "I don't see why you'd need a different pair of pants for this," he mutters uncertainly, not quite understanding Adam's meaning.

"But we should move somewhere more private. Touching a soul is a very delicate process, and it's most likely going to be painful."

The library isn't exactly packed full with people, but there are a few mirrors here and there, and people could also wander in.

"My pleasure. I prefer to talk to people in-person, too."

The phone certainly had their uses, and they were convenient for getting in touch with someone to arrange a meeting or leaving quick messages, but when it came to real conversations, she would much rather talk to someone face-to-face. Tom had said it best awhile back: you could never really tell what someone was thinking or what they meant if you couldn't see the look on their face.

She leaned against the wall beside the window with one hand on her hip, giving him a quick once-over. He looked good. Better than she remembered him looking closer to his arrival, anyway. Whether he believed it or not, she felt Wonderland was good for him. It was undeniably a huge step up from Hell.

"I've never trusted them, anyway. Not for personal things. They're probably monitored, knowing this place." Really, any room with a mirror wasn't safe, but they worked with what they had. "So. Is today the day I start showing you how to throw a good punch?"

Castiel's remark earned a look that had the strange effect of being noncommittal and exasperated all at the same time. Talk about an inability to read between the lines.

"Thanks," he said, turning to scoop his books off the table. "I kind of got that from just about every time I've talked to one of you. So where? Pick a time and a place and I'll meet you there."

To say he felt a little nervousness at the prospect of letting an angel poke around inside him again was an understatement. He kept his suggestion curt in order to keep that nervousness from growing turning itself into crippling doubt.

Jo had picked the wrong person if she wanted a clear read on what was going on with him. Adam was anxious, and weary, and angry, and determined, and desperate all at the same time, with other things caught in the tumult, and he really didn't know how to tease apart his own motivation for doing this any more than a stranger could.

But he was conscious and not seeing dead mothers. That was something.

He glanced down at his feet, then up again. "Probably." Agreeing that Big Brother--whoever that was supposed to be--was likely keeping an eye on things was a safe way to start. He shrugged again, a little more stilted. "I... guess. Have you done this before? Teach, I mean, not... you know."

Punch things. Shoot things. Be Buffy the Vampire the Slayer.

They weren't doing this right now? It sounded as if Adam wanted to put it off until another time, though Castiel didn't see the point of that. There wasn't much reason for him to question it, though. If he started to argue, then that might cause Adam to pull the whole deal off the table.

He would have to be patient.

"Tonight, after dark... around eight o' clock. Meet me at the edge of the woods. I'll show you where to go from there." The resistance hideout would be their final destination. Castiel had no idea if Adam was even aware of it, if Dean and Sam had seen fit to fill him in.

Still, he was their family when all was said and done, so Castiel doubted that it would be a problem to show him the most guarded place in Wonderland. (Save for maybe Adam's own room.)

"My brother won't be able to follow us," he assured him.

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