Shannara810

For one absurd, dizzy second, Adam thought he'd finally cracked. That the pain had cooked his brain past the point of coherent thought and now it was just serving him hallucinations on a silver platter, because there was no way — no way — that the guy standing in the wreckage of the door, radiating enough power to make the room look like a tanning bed gone nuclear, was the same guy who'd once argued with him about whether dipping fries in a Frosty was a war crime.

Zachariah clearly didn't share the sentiment. The angel had gone the color of ash, his mouth working around a sound that never quite made it out.

"That's..." Zachariah started, and stopped, and started again. "That's not possible."

"Oh, it's very possible." Gabriel strolled in like he owned the place, like the shattered door and the cracking static weren't such a big deal. "Turns out faking your own death for a couple of centuries really does wonders for your skin tone. You should try it sometime, Zach. Might loosen up that stick you've got so far up your—"

"You're dead." Zachariah's voice cracked on the word, somewhere between disbelief and something that sounded dangerously close to fear. "Michael grieved you. We all grieved you."

"Aw." Gabriel pressed a hand to his chest, mock-touched. "Did you cry? Tell me you cried. Actually, don't, I don't think I could handle the mental image of you doing anything as human as feeling."

His gaze flicked, finally, to the chair. To the blood. To the boy strapped down and shaking, one eye swelling shut, held together by nothing but spite and a truly impressive amount of stubbornness.

Something in Gabriel's expression broke wide open. The smirk didn't disappear so much as curdle, the gold in his eyes flaring hot enough that the shadows in the room seemed to lean away from him.

"Hey, kid. Still with me?"

"Took you long enough." Adam's laugh came out wet and ragged around the blood in his mouth. "You said you were coming, like, an hour ago? Two? Did you stop for a burger on the way?"

"I was right in the middle of a winning hand, you brat. And had a great night ahead of me..." Gabriel crossed the room in a few lazy strides. "Couldn't you just stay put like a normal kidnapping victim? Nope, you had to go and piss the guy off."

"He was talking trash about Mike." Adam's jaw tightened, and for a second his bravado slipped, revealing how young and scared he really was. "Gabriel, he won't answer. I've been calling and calling and there's just... nothing. What if something happened to him, what if Zachariah did something—"

"Hey. Hey, look at me." Gabriel crouched in front of the chair, his banter vanishing entirely. His hand came up, cupping the back of Adam's neck the way you'd steady someone about to fall. "Michael doesn't go down easy, kiddo. Trust me. He's blocked, not gone. I'll find him the second I'm done here, I promise you that. But right now I need you breathing and in one piece, deal?"

Adam swallowed, and nodded, and some of the tension in his shoulders eased at the certainty in Gabriel's voice.

"Deal," Adam rasped. "Sorry. I'll be sure to check your agenda next time some winged jackass tries to peel my brain apart."

"Damn right you will." Gabriel's fingers were at the cuffs, and the metal simply ceased to exist, dissolving into nothing under his touch. Adam's arms dropped like dead weight, and he barely had time to register the pins-and-needles agony of blood rushing back before two fingers pressed, gentle as a whisper, against his forehead.

Warmth flooded through him, clean and gold and right, chasing the pain out from every fractured place Zachariah had carved into him. Adam's split lip knit shut. The nausea in his gut unraveled. Even the raw, scraped-out feeling behind his eyes, the one Zachariah had put there on purpose, eased into something he could almost call quiet.

Adam sucked in his first full breath in what felt like hours. "Okay. That's... actually, that's pretty great. Ten out of ten, would get kidnapped again."

"Don't you dare." Gabriel's mouth twitched with the ghost of a real smile this time. He straightened, and the warmth in his face vanished the instant he turned back to Zachariah, replaced by something flat and ancient and furious. "Sit tight, kiddo. Let the grown-ups handle this, okay?"

"Gabriel." Zachariah had recovered his composure, standing tall with that smug arrogance of a man who still believed he was in charge. "You have no idea what you're stepping into."

"See, that's the thing about hiding for a few hundred years, Zach: gives a guy a lot of time to listen. To watch. To find out exactly which little worker bees have been buzzing around torturing teenagers on their lunch break."

"He's a vessel." Zachariah spat the word like it settled the matter. "An object. You don't get sentimental over the silverware. But then, sentiment was always your problem, wasn't it? That's why you fled, hiding among the monkeys because you couldn't stomach picking a side."

"Careful." The archangel's tone dropped an octave, all the playfulness bleeding out of it in one clean stroke. "You really don't want to be the one lecturing me about cowardice, Zach."

"Say what you want." Zachariah's chin lifted, defiant even with his back nearly to the wall. "It's the plan. Our Father's great design."

"Really?" Something silver and glinting slipped in Gabriel's hand, humming faintly with power. "And does your handbook tell you how to torture stubborn kids, too?"

Zachariah took a step back. Just one. But Adam saw it, and he felt something ugly and satisfied bloom in his chest at the sight.

There it is. Run, you son of a bitch.

"Would you really raise arms against your own kind?" Zachariah's composure splintered. "Against a brother? For a monkey?"

"Yeah, well. Turns out I've got a soft spot for stubborn kids who won't shut up even while they're bleeding on Heaven's furniture. Who knew."

"Don't waste your breath with him, Gabe. Just show the pencil-pusher what a real angel looks like."

Zachariah's head snapped toward the chair, fury bright in his eyes. "You insolent little—"

"Kid's got a point." Gabriel's grin turned razor-thin, all teeth and no warmth. "You always were somebody's errand boy, Zach. Question is, whose."

The archangel moved before Zachariah could even flinch, grabbing him by the throat and slamming the other angel against the wall. Zachariah's feet left the floor entirely, his vessel dangling like a coat on a hook.

"Let's try this again. Who gave the order, Zach? Who told you it was open season on a kid who hasn't even graduated high school yet?"

"I can't." Zachariah choked, clawing uselessly at the hand around his throat. "You know I can't. Kill me if you want, it changes nothing. Someone else takes my place by morning."

"Then I guess you're expendable." Gabriel's grip tightened. "Funny, that's what you told Adam, isn't it? Guess it goes both ways."

"Wait." For the first time, something like real fear cut through Zachariah's arrogance. "Wait. We're family, Gabriel. Brothers. Whatever you think of me, whatever I've done... I bled for our Father same as you. Same as Michael. Doesn't that count for something? You're not a killer, Gabriel. You never were. That's Michael's job. Not yours."

"Michael isn't a killer, asshole!" Adam was furious. "You don't know the first thing about him." A beat, and something in his tone thinned, in a way that had nothing to do with sarcasm. "Gabe... I just want to go home."

For one long, terrible second, Gabriel didn't move. Didn't even blink. And Adam — watching from the chair, still trembling, chest tight with something he didn't have a name for — felt his stomach drop, because for just a heartbeat, Zachariah's words looked like they'd landed.

Then something in Gabriel eased, even as the rest of him stayed carved from stone. "Hear the kid? Thank him. It's because of him you're getting off easy today."

He let go.

Zachariah slumped against the wall, playing the broken, defeated subordinate just long enough to lower Gabriel's guard. The second the archangel turned on his heel to walk away, an angel blade slid silently from Zachariah's sleeve into his palm, and he lunged forward, quick and vicious, aiming a strike straight at the back of Gabriel's skull.

"Gabriel!"

Adam moved before he could talk himself out of it, throwing his weight against Gabriel's shoulder with blind, desperate instinct, shoving him just enough to step out of the blade's path.

The strike went wide, angel steel screaming against the wall where Gabriel's head had been a fraction of a second earlier, gouging a long white scar into the plaster.

Gabriel didn't so much turn as snap around, and whatever restraint had been holding him back went out like a candle in a hurricane.

"You," he said, low and terrible, "just tried to gut me from behind, right after begging for your life. Wow."

The blade was already in his hand. Gabriel closed the distance in a single stride, offering no hesitation and no warning. The knife sank below Zachariah's ribs, angled upward with terrifying precision.

Zachariah made a sound Adam would remember for a long time.

A brilliant white flare turned the room to daylight and scorched a jagged brand of wings across the wall right behind them.

Zachariah's vessel sagged against Gabriel's grip like a puppet with its strings cut, sliding limply to the floor.

"Huh." Adam stared at his crumpled heap, then up at Gabriel, who was already wiping the blade clean like he'd just finished carving a turkey. "Remind me never to make you mad, man."

"Please." Gabriel flicked the knife and it was gone, swallowed back into wherever it had come from. "For my big brother's better half? This is nothing."

"I have no idea what you mean."

"Let's save the talk about the birds and the angelic bees for another day, yeah?" Gabriel stepped closer, giving Adam's shoulder a firm, grounding pat. He looked the boy up and down. "How you holding up? And I want an honest answer, not the tough-guy routine you were running on Zach."

Without waiting for a response, the archangel caught Adam by the arm, grace already crackling around them to yank the kid out of there before anyone else could show up.

But it was already too late.

"You always did enjoy a dramatic entrance, brother."

Gabriel went very, very still.

A figure stepped out of the dark, hands folded, wearing the patient, watchful expression of someone who'd been standing there the whole time. Watching. Waiting to see exactly how this would play out.

"Hello, Gabriel." Raphael's mouth curved, thin and cold. "It's been a long time."

@gem-wildee @bethmints @yumenosability

His prison looked like a luxury hotel suite that had been bleached into a nightmare. Everything was white, perfect, and completely fake.

There were no windows, just the annoying hum of lights that never turned off and that pristine, mocking sense of comfort that made him feel like a lab rat in a cage.

Adam sat cuffed to a metal chair, his lip split and throbbing—the price he’d paid for sinking his teeth into Zachariah’s forearm until he’d tasted blood and grace.

It had taken two of Zachariah's goons to pry him off and lock him into that chair, and the memory of their grip still lingered under his skin, cold and bruising.

Zachariah stood a few feet away, dabbing at his arm with a pristine white handkerchief, disgust curling his features. He eyed the blood on the cloth like it was a stain on his honor.

"You are an animal," the angel hissed, tossing the soiled fabric aside. "To think you are supposed to be the vessel for the greatest warrior of God... and instead, you behave like a rabid stray."

Adam lifted his chin, eyes burning with a raw, defiant fire. A thin trail of blood trickled from his split lip, mixing with the dark, tacky smear of Zachariah’s.

He jerked his head forward, sneering, daring his captor to come closer. "Scared, Zach? I bet your face would look a hell of a lot better with a bruise or two."

Adam's muscles strained as he thrashed against the restraints, the cords on his neck standing out, but he couldn't break free. The handcuffs bit sharply into his wrists, tethering him firmly to the heavy chair and rendering every desperate, frantic movement useless.

The angel smirked at the boy’s attempts to free himself, a look halfway between amusement and pure contempt. "You know what strikes me, Adam? Your persistence. You really believe Michael cares for you. That your connection is… affectionate."

Zachariah leaned down, letting his act of "good and worried servant of the Lord" slip. Just for a heartbeat. "Michael isn't 'sad', brat. He's broken. Spending time among you monkeys has infected him with doubt. So, it's time we recalibrate him. You'd be surprised how cooperative a broken toy becomes once you take it apart and put it back together correctly."

Looking right into Adam's sky blue eyes, he grabbed the boy's chin. "But you? You are merely a spare part. A fallback plan till his true vessel — our dear Mr. Winchester — is ready to fight for us."

At those words Adam felt a cold knot tighten in his gut, but he forced himself not to look away. Don’t give him the satisfaction, Adam. Give him nothing.

It was a noble resolution, and one he was determined to keep. Even when his captor snapped his fingers and the room began to tilt.

A wave of agonizing, white-hot nausea ripped through his stomach, so intense it made everything blur. Adam’s breath hitched, his body folding in on itself in sheer, blinding agony.

He gritted his teeth until his jaw ached, fighting the darkness encroaching at the edges of his sight. He was trembling, shackled and reeling, but he pushed back against the pain with every ounce of his crumbling strength, refusing to let that winged prick break him and win.

Halo, you have to wake up! Please, we're in trouble!

But nothing. Not even a flicker. Something was blocking Michael out, and no matter how hard Adam pushed, how loud he screamed inside his own head, he couldn't find a way through.

"Still feeling sassy, little puppet?"

Zachariah crouched until they were face to face. Adam could smell the ozone-and-cologne scent of him. "Does your 'friend' hear you now? No? How sad. But I'm not surprised: Michael is nothing more than a weapon. A glorified, heavy-handed nuke that thinks he's daddy's perfect son."

Daddy’s perfect son.

It was just a stupid string of words, but every ounce of spite in Adam’s body ignited. Michael hated them. Adam hated them.

And that was enough to keep him upright. Though every nerve ending in his body screamed for him to give in, Adam buried the agony beneath a rising tide of fury. He’d let his body be broken, he’d let the room burn around him, but he’d be damned if he let this monster lay a finger on his best friend.

If Michael—the most powerful being Adam had ever known—wasn't answering his silent pleas, he had to be in deep, desperate trouble. Far worse than anything Adam was currently facing.

"Pfff. You sound like a petty accountant complaining about his boss. Is that the best you’ve got?"

"You insignificant little gnat. You think that mouth of yours can touch me? I’m an angel of Heaven. You don't even know what you’re messing with."

A dry, jagged laugh left Adam's lips.

Hook, line, and sinker. It really seemed like someone had a serious problem with hubris.

"You’re just cannon fodder, man. You know, the guy who dies in the first five minutes just to make the real villain look tough? If you were the one actually running this pathetic show, I’d be dead by now. But I’m still here. So, what’s the matter, Angel of the Lord? You scared I’m right?"

Zachariah went perfectly still. For a fraction of a second, his mask cracked.

Wait. Was that... fear?

It was a mere flicker, gone as soon as it appeared, but it changed everything. The crushing pressure in Adam’s chest shifted. For the first time, he realized his captor wasn't just being arrogant—he was desperate. "That's it, isn't it? You're terrified. If Michael doesn't fall in line, they're going to bench you."

A controlled chuckle cut through the air as Zachariah hopped up onto the edge of the table, settling between the clutter of grease-stained wrappers and cold fries—the same mess he’d used to try to coax Adam toward 'reason.'

"Oh, I see." The angel's fear was gone, tucked back out of sight. "You truly believe Michael will save you. A weapon does not have friends, Mr. Milligan. It does not have attachments. And it certainly does not need a seventeen-year-old boy playing the martyr for him."

Zachariah pressed two fingers to Adam's temple, in the way you'd brush hair from a child's face.

A new burst of pain flared white behind Adam's eyes—an invisible blade carving slow, deliberate lines into his mind. Zachariah wasn't just hurting him; he was taking his time, making sure Adam felt every jagged inch of it.

And Adam’s world simply shattered.

Somewhere distant, he heard himself make a sound he didn't recognize as his own. Blood trickled fresh from his mouth, dripping onto his collarbone, and he couldn't tell anymore if his skull actually ached or if his brain had simply run out of ways to describe agony.

"Do you want the truth, Adam?" Zachariah spoke slowly, deliberate, clearly enamored with the sound of his own voice. "Do you want to hear what your 'friend' Michael truly thinks?"

Adam gritted his teeth, sweat and blood trickling down. "Fuck... you..."

"Still with the attitude. Seriously, kid, someone ought to wash your mouth out with soap. Didn't your mother ever teach you how to talk to your superiors? But we can discuss that later."

Zachariah cleared his throat, his posture shifting. When he spoke next, his voice changed—the pitch dropped, the cadence smoothed out.

"So you're Dean Winchester. The Righteous Man." A beat, almost amused. "Funny, I expected more from something my Father was so proud of. You're just… what's that human word? Right. A prick."

Adam went cold. He knew that tone. He knew that voice down to the marrow.

It was Michael.

"See? To Michael, you and the Winchesters are nothing but cutlery. There is no friendship. There is only the Apocalypse. And you are nothing but the lubricant for it. So, hand Michael over. You don't have to suffer more. It's not your role: you're just a temporary host. Let Dean Winchester do what he was born for. Your family doesn't deserve your sacrifice."

How dare he? Nobody, nobody got to play games with Michael.

Adam was white-hot with fury. He spat a mixture of saliva and blood at the angel's feet. If the son of a bitch thought that performance would break him, he was dead wrong. It only made him fight harder.

"You think I care what happens to Dean?" Adam laughed, his lungs burning from the inside. "Met him once and we hated each other on sight. It was a real charming family reunion."

The kid leaned forward as much as the restraints would allow. "And my… father? Just some guy who’d crash for a night, spin Mom some half-assed story, and vanish again. He isn't family. My family is my mom. My family is Michael. People who actually chose to stick around."

Adam's lip curled, bitter. "So don't you dare stand there and act like Michael not wanting to be your good little soldier makes him broken. Family isn't a script you're born into, Zach. It's who shows up. And Michael showed up. That's more than I can say for anyone who actually owed me that much."

Zachariah opened his mouth to unleash another wave of venom, but Adam cut him off, still goaded by a fire that wouldn't die. "So, stupid son of bitch in a suit... who’s really running this circus?"

That did it. Whatever thin control Zachariah had been holding onto snapped clean in half. His face twisted, turning an ugly, mottled shade of rage. "Careful, boy. Some questions get people killed."

Adam's bloody smile didn't waver. "Yeah? Add it to the list."

"You arrogant little worm. You think you understand the cosmic order? We don't need you to make Michael cooperate. A body without a soul works just as well."

The angel raised his hand, his eyes burning like dying stars, ready to tear Adam's mind apart for his insolence.

Mike, Mike I need you! Please, wake up! I don't know how long I can resist!

If Michael didn't wake up, Adam's life was going to burn right there and then.

But then, the air in the white room buckled.

The doors blew off their hinges, shattering, as a blinding, golden light poured through the void, carrying with it the scent of summer rain and something older, something infinitely more dangerous.

Zachariah spun around, his arrogance curdling into sudden, genuine panic.

Because standing in the epicenter of the destruction, wings unfurled in a display of terrifying, raw power, was a being everyone in Heaven had long assumed dead.

Gabriel.

The archangel glanced at the trembling, tortured boy in the chair, then back to the shocked Zachariah, his green eyes so sharp they could have cut through the fabric of the world itself.

Gabriel tipped an invisible hat, his voice a low, dangerous purr that vibrated in everyone's bones.

"Honey, I'm home!"

Part I | Part II | Part III | Part V