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i.
Adam wakes up, revives, whatever word we’d like for the umpteenth time something like this has happened to him, with a deep gasp, thrashing. Jack’s intention was to make all of this seamless, but Adam’s body has lived far longer as AdamMichael’s body than as a singular body, and the absence sends Adam peeling back into his old life—his short life—his unquestionably human life.
Adam’s body remembers feeling stripped and alone like this, even if his mind could not focally before this moment. His heart pounds and pounds as his forearms shake and the off-white ceiling above him slips into a beige with some stains, the chill, clear November day darkening into a late September night. John Winchester is snoring in the bed across from his in that shallow, fitful way he does every year, that way that makes him feel surveilled, like he can’t even get up to go pee.
Hands fisted in the cheap, scratchy sheets, Adam desperately wants his mom. He’d begged her, just like the past few years, ever since he’d learned what it’s really like to know his father’s face, not to make him go with the six foot wall of bad energy calling itself ‘his old man’—at least to pick him up after the baseball game (Adam doesn’t even like sports!)—, but his mother, thinking, ultimately, that she was doing him a favor, had just said, like always, “Think how many kids don’t get to see their dads ever, honey,” and promised she’d be there when he got back in the morning. Adam clenches his teeth, tries to cry quietly so John won’t wake up. The room has a deep, unfamiliar scent, the people yelling in the hallway sound like they might actually hurt each other, unlike Mandy and Seth, who are just often strapped for cash and scared and tired, which Adam understands, understands so viscerally even though he knows they’d never talk to a kid like him, knows his mom wouldn’t want that, knows that not a single kid at school would understand any of this, and, even if they did, it’s not like anyone ever talked about this sort of thing—
John Winchester’s eyes snap open, and he sits up ramrod straight. Adam’s heart stills and kicks up again 1000 or so years older, and he is just as alone in his body as he was way back then.
Adam moves his hands, still shaking, and presses them hard against the left side of his ribcage, low, right around where his lung ends. Michael? he sends out, but he knows he isn’t there.
ii.
“Hello, Michael,” the nephilim says. Jack, Michael reminds himself.
Adam is still not there to remind, not even in the false bodily form Michael had had before, staring blankly at his own way of wearing Adam’s face, distorted in panes of colorful, reflective glass.
Michael doesn’t know what to say. After a long silence, he settles on, “What has happened?”
Jack brightens. “It’s over.”
Michael sends a flicker of questioningslightexasperation. This being—Jack—has the power of his father, but Michael is one of the most powerful beings in creation behind him, and Jack didn’t create him nor enumerate endless standards and beliefs he must fulfill and subscribe to. Be not afraid, Michael thinks. Adam would have sent a glimmer of amusement his way.
“Chuck has been defeated,” Jack says. Michael sends questioningslightexasperation towards him again; he would assume his father dead, but even death…doesn’t always stick. “I absorbed his power, and he’s human now. Sam and Dean didn’t want to kill him.”
Pretending as if there aren’t worse things than death, Michael thinks bitterly. “And the sentient, organic beings on Earth?”
“I have restored them!” Jack says happily. “Including your…well, your Adam,” Jack says, sending a wave of something Michael at first doesn’t recognize his way. Michael is being teased by a celestial child, he realizes. It’s mortifying.
Thoughts start to form for Michael to say—no angel worth anything would associate in such a way with a human being, the sole purpose of a vessel is to interact more efficiently with the Earthly realm—, but he externalizes none of them. There is no one to judge now, most of it isn’t even true for him anymore, and well…Michael hadn’t exactly said anything regarding Castiel’s feelings for Dean Winchester when they’d been glaring him in the face while he and Adam had been trapped in the Winchesters’ bunker. He doesn’t need to justify himself to Jack. He sees that very clearly now. He doesn’t need to justify himself to anyone.
“You would let me return to him?” Michael asks. He had made…unfortunate decisions after losing Adam.
“Of course,” Jack responds, then, “for the record, I think it’s a wonderful thing. I know I’m biased, but—”
“The point, Jack, if you’d please,” Michael sternly requests. No one has ever said of him that he has a well-turned sense of self-preservation.
Jack pays his terseness no mind; his massive, powerful being tips a bit, like a nod. Very human, Michael thinks. “I would have restored you to him directly, but you need to ask for his consent again after being, y’know, ejected into the Empty. I am not cruel. I will not be cruel. I know you only did what you did to get him back. I know a lot about making poor choices to get back the ones we love. You’re a lot like a Winchester in that sense.” Michael is being teased again.
“Don’t compare me to the Winchesters,” he says with disgust, more out of reflex than anything. This time, he momentarily worries about offending the new god, but Jack just shines with amusement. “But I do…appreciate the forgiveness and understanding.”
“Of course, Michael. Now, I would go to him sooner rather than later if I were you. I didn’t quite get his landing right. He’s…different than all the other humans, harder to pin down.”
“And he is alright?” Michael’s grace swirls angrily, anxiously.
“He will be better with you.”
That is the truth, Michael thinks, but the one truest thing he has learned in his long, long existence is not to speak for Adam. His grace slows, he reflects. He transmits surprise. “You don’t wish for me to stay and help manage heaven?”
“I want you to do whatever it is you want to do, Michael,” Jack says.
And are you doing what you want to do? Michael thinks to ask, but he has never once in his existence been that kind. Not to anyone besides Adam. “He’ll be happy to see you,” Jack assures him and vanishes.
iii.
Adam’s been lying flat on his back in bed for what has, in Earthly reality, been the better part of a week but what has been, in Adam reality, a nebulous, eerily short and eerily long amount of time trying to process the emptiness he feels in his core and what exactly he’s meant to do now about being alive without Michael there. His body doesn’t ache, his stomach never growls, his skin never dampens with sweat, but he isn’t so collaterally angelic that he can manifest any societal go-aheads like money out of thin air. He is immortality as nothingness, loneliness, a glass sponge stuck forever, inanimate, in place. He’s still stuck on loneliness, emptiness, singularity, when it happens.
Michael, spinning rings and giant non-human animal heads and wings and spikes and unblinking eyes and blinding light, descends upon him, starting from the ceiling and phasing as much as possible into the room, most of his true form stuck outside and the entire building shaking. Windows shatter, ovens and microwaves begin to drip molten metal, powerlines short circuit: all things Michael will remember to fix later. Adam feels himself smiling so wide it hurts his lips, tears welling in his eyes.
Adam sits up and reaches his hands out to Michael, tears starting to flow as Michael wraps tendrils of grace around each palm, each finger, each knuckle, each groove of skin. “You’re frightening our neighbors,” Adam says, then, “yes.”
“Only our neighbors is generous,” Michael responds, his true voice prompting a chorus of screams from the apartments around theirs and the people passing by outside. He draws himself in from where he’s been stretching across several states and pours into his spot in Adam’s ribcage, stretching out again to check Adam over for any bumps and bruises he might have acquired while he was gone.
The tears spill freely down Adam’s cheeks now as he breathes deeply, adjusting to Michael’s presence. His soul clings to Michael’s grace, and when Michael’s grace envelops Adam’s soul in return, they both feel at peace.
Michael.
Hmm?
Our neighbors. The screams aren’t exactly adding to the atmosphere of the moment.
Ah, yes.
Michael takes over their body and locates each soul his grace touched; in a blink, none of them remember a thing nor seep and shriek within their bodies in metaphysical atrophy. Thank you, Adam tells him and quite nearly lets ‘love’ slip out after it. His soul wiggles in Michael’s embrace as a sort of—less overt—replacement. Michael’s grace wiggles back, gently worries at some tender spots like a tongue over loose teeth.
I missed you so much, you know, Adam tells him.
And I you.
Me? I was gone?
Yes. From what I understand—
Wait, come out here. I want to see you.
Michael stalls for just a moment, pondering how exactly he wants to position his apparition in relation to their body. He settles for an inch or so to the side of Adam, also staring up at the ceiling. He would hold him—he should hold him, but still….
Michael tells him the story of Chuck vanishing the sentient, organic life off of Earth, his attempts to get him back, his death, and Jack reviving him in heaven. Adam listens intently, inching over as Michael talks so that eventually they’re pressed together. Michael feels giddy, exuberant for the first time in his existence.
He gently prods at one of the tender spots on Adam’s soul. Jack said he had some trouble restoring you.
Adam nods, closes his eyes, and focuses. He transfers the memory over to Michael, of coming back to life shuddering, unhinged, alone, caught in the remembrance of being much the same in a hotel room with John Winchester.
I should have killed him, that time I had him as my vessel. Adam snorts then dissolves into a fit of giggles. Michael smiles at him all the while.
His laughs coming to a gradual, giggly end, Adam asks, So, how was your first death? and Michael soothes the tiny pangs of hurt Adam’s soul radiates with the question.
Unpleasant, Michael answers, but I took comfort in knowing you didn’t have to experience it with me.
I’m so glad you’re here again, Adam tells him, and his soul coils around Michael’s grace with contentedness, all of those sore spots fading to nothing.
You forgive me? Michael asks.
Adam snorts. Of course I forgive you. You’re the only one in my entire life who’s ever come back—to me or for me.
Michael sends waves of comfort at him. That’s very kind, but I was referring more to my betrayal of the Winchesters and aiding of my father in trying to destroy the world.
Anyone who betrays the Winchesters is good in my book! Adam says automatically, and he grins wide when he gets a rare full laugh out of Michael. Michael, feeling very much unfettered, twines their fingers together. This is his person, he knows. The one that he found and chose. As for the other parts, Adam starts (and Michael feels jittery with all of the joy Adam’s begun to radiate holding his hand), what has the world ever done for me?
Far less than you deserve, Michael says, twisting a bit so that he can look into Adam’s eyes, you have shown me how to exist for myself and shown me the value of choosing my own path, my own relations. There is no one better or kinder or wiser in this reality or any other than you.
Adam blushes, raises their clasped hands up to his heart and places his free hand over them. I was gonna say something about, also, getting to the serious point, yes, I forgive you for being pushed to your limit and making a bad choice, I’ve made some of those myself, but now that we’ve turned this into a love fest…. He smiles. You remind me that I’m worth something, is the simplest way I can put it.
You have to understand, Adam, Michael starts, pauses, finishes, I would do anything for you.
Keeping their hands intertwined, Adam crooks two fingers out, places them gently under Michael’s chin. Can I try something?
Michael sends his assent through his grace. Anything.
Adam presses their lips together.
iv.
We can really do anything we’d like now, Michael says, his apparition cuddled snug against Adam’s side, we don’t have to worry about being found out by heaven.
What better things are there to do than this?
Well, we could go and see your mother.
Adam grins. Like you promised.
Like I promised.