#poor kev's gonna have whiplash

[mirainawen]

Little!Adam + Kevin, "We must make more cookies before they come back and find the jar empty!" "No, you just want to eat more." A pout. "Well, I guess we could make more and then leave them one each." "Sounds fair to me. Besides if they asks, I'm telling them you ate them all." "Hey, I thought we were a team. And besides, they'd never believe you, especially with that chocolate all over your face."

So…a million years later…I slowly begin to write again…

What do you call an overwrought prophet and a de-aged half-Winchester? The beginning of a terrible, cosmic joke

He’s certainly seen weirder things, Kevin thinks one surreal Saturday morning in early May. Just…maybe none quite so strange as the one that sat across from him that morning. He wasn’t even supposed to be here and somehow Sam and Dean did what Winchesters do best in his life: railroad it. Dean’d, of course, gotten the last word, slamming the bunker door shut tight as he and Sam headed out, and the silence had hung heavy and bitter over the whole place.

Kevin’s less than thrilled, and had been all night. Sleeping on it hadn’t taken much of the sting out of it, though ‘sleep’ was used loosely. As for the only other occupant, well, nothing had ever seemed to sit well with him in the first place, and now? Now, he didn’t have a clue what to do with the motion-sensitive bomb turned-

“What?” Adam suddenly grumps, staring in disgruntlement at the box of Lucky Charms in his small fingers.

-turned five-year-old.

And wasn’t that the most bizarre thing of all? Nothing he’d seen since the Winchester Intrusion had prepared him for this, and apparently Sam and Dean were just as stumped despite all their years in the business.

Kevin realizes he’s probably supposed to answer, so he manages tightly, “What?” He’s honestly not sure he really wants to approach whatever’s under Adam’s skin this morning with a ten-foot surgical knife. He’d witnessed some impressive fits of temper in his occasional visits the past year of “sabbatical.” Sabbatical? Was that even a thing in the hunter’s world? Or…Men of Letters? Whichever.

“Deh-coder’s gone.” Adam explains, shaking the cereal box to produce a rustle that drops an uncertain prick into Kevin’s stomach. It was half gone at the very least, and hadn’t they opened that box last night? (An uneasy dinner that was still…uneasy.)

Damn, but how much had the kid had already? And how long had he been up before Kevin had stumbled for the coffee pot? Adam hadn’t said a word, barely seemed to acknowledge him, and honestly…that, at the very least, had seemed about accurate for what he’d seen of Adam the past year. But, unfortunately, it had also meant that in his previous fog he had approached the situation with the same manner he’d treated it since Adam first arrived: Adam had alternated quietly disdainful and loudly argumentative, and he wasn’t on Kevin’s radar as long as Kevin wasn’t on Adam’s. And he usually wasn’t unless it was for a disdainful sneer.

But Dean had warned last night to keep a close eye on the de-aged kid, hadn’t he? Sam had seemed a little more lax, just shrugging with an assurance that Adam was fine most of the time. So…what had they gotten him into? Sugar-crazed kids were not his idea of a good time. How had he been tagged into baby-sitting duty? The half-Winchester was a Sam and Dean problem (case, point, name), and he had enough of his own as a stressed out, wanted prophet on the run from a tireless destiny. He was an unfortunate plaything of an indifferent and infuriating fate. Sam and Dean should be the ones giving him a break, not making things worse.

Winchesters bred extra bizarre at an alarming rate, and he wished they’d leave him out of it.

Adam sighs heavily, and Kevin careens abruptly back into the present with a blink. “Hello, prophet-man? What happened to it?”

“Uh…” Kevin scrambles, staring at the sleep-tousled five-year-old in one of Sam’s or Dean’s shirts. The kid stares back pointedly. What were they…?

Adam snorts. “Sam and Dean said you were sooooo smart.”

Taken aback, he realizes Adam had been looking to him for answers. But, “They do?” pops out before he can think about it, surprised.

Adam sighs again, this time heavier and more annoyed. The box thunks softly on the table before he pushes it away. “Yeah,” he grouches, “but they’re kinda stupid so whatever.” He’s glaring down at the bowl with…wait…Kevin blinks, peering closer. Was the kid pouting?

Suddenly he realizes just what he’d started to think the night before: if he ignored the fact that he’d been informed upon his arrival that this tyke was Adam Milligan, half-Winchester, angelic body bag and the stubborn little shit giving Sam and Dean all kinds of grief the past year, he could easily believe that the irritated five-year-old Dean had gotten into a shouting match with at bedtime was actually a next-generation Winchester kid, product of a busted condom and one of Dean’s conquests or something. Adam could rival Dean on his best day even before the kid had been de-aged.

He shakes himself from this ridiculous train of thought before it derails entirely. Pouting though he may be, there’s still plenty of room for the animosity Adam never seems short on.

“Of course,” he snarks in return. But…well, he agrees with the disgruntlement Adam feels, if not the outright sentiment. Plus, he has no desire to set the kid off: Adam had proved he could throw quite the meltdown over the fury and hatred he harbored towards his brothers, and Kevin knows it’s still in that frame, even if it was much smaller now; Adam’s animosity was a lot like cigarette smoke: lingering long after the smoker is gone. No need poking a sleeping grizzly. Last night had proven that.

Adam’s eyes flick to his face, a cutting look that pours ice through Kevin’s veins; he’s seen it a dozen times before, even if the face forming the expression is softer and younger. Shit, what had he said?

Worry over a tantrum vanishes as Adam smiles. “Maybe you’re not stupid.” He grants benevolently, and Kevin thinks sarcastically how nice it is to be let off by a five-year-old. He does not mention that this grant insinuates that Sam and Dean might actually be smart enough to know what they’re talking about then. Adam’s not going to give ground on his brothers, and honestly, Kevin would be shocked if he ever did.

“Now,” Adam pauses, stretching a little before settling deeper into his chair, Lucky Charms softening in whole milk. “The deh-coder is gone.”

“Maybe Dean took it.” He snarks, shrugging around his coffee. He’s not had nearly enough.

Electric blue eyes narrow, something tightening along Adam’s jaw. “Dick.”

Kevin’s brows shoot toward the roof and the coffee stings at the back of his throat as he narrowly avoids choking. Had to be Dean’s influence. Had to.

Well imagining the bitchiness on Sam’s face every time Dean did what Dean did best (and that is, be himself) in front of the kid, he stifles a chuckle at the image.

Adam seems relatively satisfied with Kevin’s answer because he shoots forward and digs into his bowl with all the put-out gusto the kid was known for, twenty-something or five irrelevant. Two charms slide stickily down the outside of the bowl and a splash of milk pulls three pieces of grain with it. Kevin’s suddenly standing in his mom’s kitchen five years previous with his cousins in the process of destroying it and he was in charge.

“Don’t make a mess,” he grumps sharply into his mug, swallowing the horror he feels at having to babysit again.

Adam smacks his lips. “No,” and there it is, the contrary brat is back full force. So much for appeasing the kid with snarks about his brothers.

How had he gotten roped into this?

*

It’d been an hour and death cannot come fast enough for Kevin. Honestly, when would he be released from this mortal coil? He hated his life, hated it ever since the incident, see, and having powers sucked, and he never asked for any of this. He’s going to kill Sam and Dean slowly and painfully with some trick he’s learned from that angelic tablet, he swears it, while Adam “don’t call me Winchester” Milligan takes a long hike off a short pier.

The kid was a nightmare on steroids with an unhealthy side of late night haunting, and Kevin’s going to lose his goddamned mind again. That would make the third time this year, but honestly who’s counting? (He is. He’s counting. He hates it.)

“Adam!” He snaps for the fifth time in as many seconds. Adam wasn’t listening.

“I’m busy, prophet-man!” Adam snaps, launching himself to the other side of the couch. The kool-aid Kevin most certainly did not get him sloshes dangerously close to the brim of the cup in Adam’s hand. “You’re inner-uping!” Adam starts his count over, hop, hop-

“No, get off the couch with that!” Kevin snatches for Adam’s arm, which is stupid, stupid, on his part; first, that kool-aid’s definitely going overboard; second, Adam’s…Adam’s never taken well to his personal space being invaded. He’s seen Dean make that mistake a few too many times.

He catches air instead as Adam whips to the side to avoid him, overbalances, and there goes the kool-aid down Kevin’s front (not the couch, he thinks thankfully, but still irritated). Adam kicks the cushion, pushing into the back of the couch with a growl.

He kicks his leg out. “Now I have to start again,” he grouches.

“Not with that,” Kevin snatches the now-empty cup.

“Hey!” Adam snaps. “That’s mine!”

“Well it shouldn’t be,” Kevin’s grouching as he wipes the bright red liquid off his face. Now he needs a shower…he shudders to think what would happen if Adam was left unsupervised even for a military one. “I didn’t say you could have kool-aid.” It just pops out, and Kevin shudders harder at suddenly turning into a disgruntled authority figure. Why should he care if the kid has too much sugar?

He remembers Sam’s disheveled appearance at the bunker door last night as if he hadn’t slept in an age, and remembers why.

Sleep was about the only pleasure Kevin had left to him. With few nightmares, courtesy of a mental block Cas had given him. He didn’t dream much, but it was better than being on pills, he supposed. 

“Yeah, well, you’re not Dean.” Adam grumps, and Kevin snorts.

Yeah, thank God. He got to check out as soon as either Winchester returned. Why hadn’t they just called Garth if they needed to check a lead? This seemed way more like a Garth gig than a prophet’s duty.

Kevin’s stomach sinks through the floor, though, as he abruptly realizes he’d said Yeah, thank God out loud when Adam’s face darkens.

“Yeah, well I didn’t say I wanted you here.” Adam shoots back.

“No.” Kevin admits. Avoid the tantrum, is all he’s thinking. Don’t set the kid off. Adam’s fine most of the time, Sam had assured, and so that had to mean that Sam had tricks that Dean didn’t; channel Sam. Keep the peace. “And I didn’t say I wanted to be here, either, kid. Guess neither of us got much say in this.”

Adam’s scowl grows darker. “Don’t call me a kid. I’m not a kid.”

Yes, he’d heard that quite a bit last night during that shouting match. A glance or two at Sam’s pointed look at the far wall had confirmed Kevin’s growing theory: it wasn’t a new argument, and no doubt he’d been hearing it in various forms for far longer than a couple weeks. Say, a year?

“Fine. Just remember, dude, this is your brothers’ doing.” As much as Adam didn’t need much prodding to light that anger he harbored toward them, blaming absent parties seemed the easiest way to diffuse his disgruntlement toward him. The last thing Kevin wanted to deal with was Adam’s temper.

Adam groans, long, hard, angry. “Uggggghh, I KNOW.” He throws himself off the couch. “They don’t like me!”

That’s unexpected, but, well…not surprising. You’ve been a huge pain in the ass since you got back, kid is not going to go over well, even if he substituted ‘Adam’ for ‘kid’. But maybe that was the problem, Kevin thinks abruptly. He is a kid, at least now - and what kid wanted to feel like his own family didn’t like him? Sam had hinted the night before that Adam’s…consciousness seemed to come in and out: in moments he seemed more his old self, but those moments were fewer and farther between. This Adam was young and ruled by emotions he didn’t understand. At least the adult probably did.

Adam pauses and whips back around on Kevin, glaring up at him. “You don’t like me,” he accuses, and Kevin’s brows bounce toward the ceiling.

“You’re not particularly likeable.” He shoots back before he can think.

Adam’s eyes narrow. “You’re not either! You’re AH…noying.”

“You know, I think you said the same thing about Dean last night. Sammy too?” he goads.

“You can’t call him Sammy.” Adam’s voice has turned to venom, and for a moment, Kevin thinks he probably should have quit while he was ahead. He doesn’t know what he’s falling head first into.

“You know something, Adam, I think you think everyone’s annoying because you don’t like anyone.”

Adam’s lips thin into a scrunched, wet line. There’s a kool-aid stain rimming the sides of his mouth, at glaring odds with the fury radiating off his impossibly tiny frame. “Maybe,” he challenges, “I hate everyone cause everyone hated me first.”

That gives Kevin pause, stilling the world for a moment. He can see how Dean so easily gets pulled into arguing with him. There’s something about Adam that dares people to challenge him, something about his absolute certainty in anything he says that demands a retort. No wonder Dean can’t leave it be. And Kevin…well, Kevin’s not really sure why he let himself get drawn in. Channel Sam.

“Nobody…nobody hates you.” His incredulity takes centre stage first. He wouldn’t say that Sam and Dean loved Adam, and feeling obligated is a far cry from caring, but…hate was a strong word. And felt vile coming from a child about his own family. He knows, logically, it’s not a child saying it and blood doesn’t automatically mean family, he’d learned that lesson the hard way a few times over, but something in Kevin wants to reach out regardless.

Saving people. He wasn’t quite to the whole hunting things stage, but maybe he’d always been in the business of salvation. He’d never had faith in a great many things, and even less the past few years, but there were many different forms of salvation. Everyone starts with a soft heart, his mother used to say. Nobody was born angry or hard.

It’s easier not to care. He knows that. But he’d had a few arguments with certain Winchesters about it for good reason. Damn, but he missed his mom unbelievably, all the time.

Adam’s staring resolutely across the room, brow puckered and lower lip matching, but…but it’s not trembling, thank- whatever. (He hasn’t decided.)

“Hey,” he says softly, reaching out to gently put a hand on a bony shoulder. Adam turns to look at him, electric blue eyes cold and lined in red, light bruising across the bridge of his nose from some accident; those eyes seem somehow ancient and dead and lost all at the same time, and the room goes cold to Kevin. “Sam’s very fond of you.”

“Sam left me.” Adam answers in a dull tone that strikes a funny feeling in Kevin’s gut.

Sam left me… Kevin stares into those eyes, but even he doesn’t know what he’s searching for. Answers, maybe. Guidance, oddly enough: a way to help. Kevin feels it pulsing beneath his skin, an alien power to save save save, and-

“It was cold.” Adam offers softly, head tilting slightly. One shoulder rose and fell. “And hot. It was so bright. Always. All the time. And dark. So dark and quiet.” He raised one finger to his lips. “Shh, Sam.” The hand fell in mid-air, the other raising to join its counterpart inches apart with palms curled upward as though he held something in them. “I…” he shudders a breath, and Kevin doesn’t quite know why but he shudders too, a freezing tingle up his spine that needs someplace to escape.

Adam’s eyes flick to Kevin’s again. “Don’t wake up.” He says.

Kevin’s brow furrows, until his mind echoes the shuddery breath, I…don’t wake up. The floor disappears out from under him.

Adam abruptly pushes his hand off his shoulder and steps back. “Only you here, prophet-man.” He says, smiling with something so acrid it, too, is vile on the face of a child.  “They left.”

They left you? Kevin thinks, but can’t speak. Doesn’t even know that he should. He doesn’t know enough, he doesn’t know anything. And what had- what had he felt, prickling along the edges of Adam’s skin, thrumming against his hand? It hadn’t felt…it had been alien. It had felt…no, he doesn’t want to think it. But it reminds him of holding the tablet and he doesn’t know enough.

He takes a second, sits down properly on the floor and stares at Adam. The kid hasn’t stormed off, so maybe there was talking to him.

“You’re mad Sam and Dean left last night, aren’t you?”

Adam’s brow lifts, which is unexpected for a five-year-old. “I don’t care.” He says stiffly, making as though to turn away, but he wavers. He glances sidelong at Kevin with an uncertainty that keeps Kevin’s gears turning wildly. There’s less of that bizarre dead look in his eyes and more of the angry kid he’s been seeing the past some-odd hours. Less chill.

“I think you do.” He says.

“I think you’re mad.” Adam shoots back, squinting at Kevin. “You don’t wanna be here.”

“No, I didn’t.” Kevin admits.

Adam nods. “Then you don’t have to pretend to care about me. I can take care of myself.” He snatches the empty cup from the coffee table. “This is my cup,” he says plainly, and it’s so absurdly young and childlike that Kevin wonders what had been going through his head a moment ago. Kid had some serious nightmares. Nothing angelic about it, barring their source.

“Um, sorry, but no more kool-aid for you.” Kevin gestures pointedly at himself, feels the sticky pull where the drink had dried on his skin, especially his face.

Adam looks at him like he’s plainly stupid. “If you weren’t here, where would you be?” he asks unexpectedly, and Kevin blinks.

“Oh, um…uh…Probably Colorado.” Garth had set him up pretty solidly out in the national forest. It was no veritable fortress like the Men of Letters bunker the Winchesters had inherited, but a cabin in the woods on the river was remote enough to give him some peace of mind. Cas had put some security measures in place, and Kevin had since reinforced them with further tricks he’d translated from the tablet.

Adam nods, turning away. “Then I think you should go back there, prophet-man.” The voice is deceptively light and...sweet.

Kevin blinks. “Yeah, nice try. Your brothers would kill me.”

“No,” Adam executes a turn on his heel. “They like you.” And the way Adam juts out his chin hints at bitterness.

Kevin sighs. “I’m afraid they’d still kill me, Adam. You’re like 2 feet tall and five. Not exactly old enough to be left alone.”

Adam folds his arms. The cup wavers against his side, tilting back and forth as his mind turns. “You sound like Dean,” he finally passes judgement.

“Well, sometimes Dean has like a little bit of sense.” He pinches his fingers close together to illustrate, hoping to draw the kid out.

Adam plucks his empty hand from the crook of his elbow, splaying his fingers as he stares down at them. “I’ve saved them a few times, you know,” he says loftily, and Kevin suddenly wonders if maybe he hasn’t been talking to the kid at all the past few minutes. His consciousness seems to slide back and forth between... Sam’s uncertain voice tapers off.

He doesn’t know what to do, but he finds himself reaching out. Adam’s just at arms’ length and Kevin leans in, closing his fingers around the tiny fist; the fingers are soft and malleable, bending beneath Kevin’s. Adam slowly raises his eyes, but they don’t hold the same look they did earlier: distant, sure, but not a deadly maelstrom like before. Kevin can’t put his finger on this one.

Why had he never had a single conversation with the adult? Adam’s just as lost and angry and terrified as the rest of them, and Kevin thinks they might have been friends.

“What happened?” he asks softly, and something jerks through Adam’s frame.

He tugs on his hand. “It was sup-POSed to be okay. He said…he said…”

“Who said?” he asks gently. There’s that feeling again, of touching the tablet; it wiggles beneath the skin of Adam’s fingers, but it's softer now, not quite as volatile.

Adam looks down, and that feeling passes. It’s a five-year-old hanging his head before Kevin, eyes shut, letting out a breath to his bare feet. “I think...I think I did something bad.” He says softly. “Is that...is that why Sam and Dean are mad at me all the time?” And if there’d been any doubt a moment before, it’s certain now: that’s all child staring back at Kevin, frightened and sad and desolate.

“No,” he finds himself shaking his head, because salvation is first and foremost for lost children, isn’t it? Nobody is born with a hard heart, Kev. Anger is where hurt still touches a tender place. “They were born grumpy.” He pokes at Adam’s stomach, because, well, okay, he doesn’t know what he’s doing.

Adam doesn’t smile, but he doesn’t flinch either.

Kevin stifles a sigh. What did one do for kids who used to be adults who’d been eaten alive, resurrected, thrown into a demonic, eternal cage with the devil himself, then rescued and brought back to the very people who’d only tolerated your existence the first (second?) time and who saw you as an obligation? Dean’s guilt could fill stadiums, but it couldn’t build a damned thing. 

Not that he knows much better, either. None of this was exactly covered anywhere in his past life and there was nothing at all of help in that tablet. 

“Sam’s not grumpy ‘less I wake him.” Adam finally says, softly but like he wants to contribute.

“No,” Kevin agrees, forcing a small smile to tick at his mouth. “You really gotta get on Sam’s nerves, don’t you?”

“And I do.” Adam is speaking to his toes again, and Kevin frowns.

“Somehow, I doubt that.” Kevin lies, rolling his eyes.

Adam’s frown deepens even as it turns on the prophet. “You don’t lie good.”

Well. He stifles a sigh.

“Nobody gets on Sam’s nerves like Dean, even you. Don’t argue with me, I have more experience than you.”

Adam folds his arms. “Yeah, and whose fault is that?”

“Not mine or yours.” Kevin shoots back as he pushes to his feet. “Now, uh...I think dysfunctional family-” Adam cocks his head like he’s puzzled “-means we should have milk and cookies.” Mom always made milk and cookies after a bad day: bad grades, rejection, bullies- you name it. Kevin feels a bit wistful even thinking about carrying on the tradition, but at the same time: it feels...good.

Adam, of course, careens full force into five-year-old and lights up like it's Christmas. “Yes!” He shoots from the room like a rocket, and Kevin startles.

“Hey! Wait!” And chases after the kid.

*

Adam’s feet are swinging freely in the air as he maws through a cookie the size of Kevin’s fist, reheated just enough in the microwave that they were soft and gooey. Crumbs decorate his lap, the floor, and even the counter on his left like incriminating evidence. His face fares little better, but he’s clearly feeling better. Kevin thinks he can forget all about the chill that had crept up his spine and that tugging sense of urgency to fix. Vivid imagination, right?

“You know,” he says, leaning on the end of the counter. Adam doesn’t turn his head, but his eyes cut his direction. “Your brothers are very annoying, you know that?” He’s ignoring a text from Garth -GARTH!- asking after Adam’s well-being. Damn Sam and Dean haven’t even bothered to check in.

Adam snorts. “You’re tellin’ me, prophet-man. Dean thinks I need supervision.”

Kevin’s jaw drops at the deadpan look the kid, a kid, gives him. Somewhere in there, Adam’s not a kid, but right now- there’s not a trace of anything else, and it is honestly screwing with Kevin’s mind. And his mind has been screwed with a lot.

Adam jams the rest of the cookie into his mouth, takes a big sip of milk before carefully returning the cup to the counter, rimming his messy face with a white mustache. “They mess up your life too?”

“You’re pretty grim for a five year old.” Kevin says instead.

Adam shrugs. “You ask stupid questions for a smarty pants.”

“Touche.” Honestly, at this point, he’s pretty sure he should just get used to it. If this was what adult Adam was like...might be worth making a friend. Wouldn’t that drive Dean up the wall?

Adam half reaches for the empty plate behind him when Kevin says, “That’s it. They’re all gone.”

Adam’s eyes widen. “What?” He stares at the plate, then across the room at the cookie jar.

“Nope. All out.” Kevin confirms.

Adam is quiet for a moment, mouth working, before he looks at Kevin with sudden urgency. “We’ve gotta make more before they come back and find the jar empty!”

“No, you just want to eat more.” Kevin laughs.

Adam’s lower lip protrudes. Pouting.

“Well…” Kevin finds himself hedging. “I guess we could make more and then leave them one each.” He reasons.

Adam nods solemnly. “Agreed. Besides, if they ask, I’ll just tell them you ate them all.”

“Hey! I thought we were a united front against your brothers? They’ll never believe you, especially with that chocolate all over your face!”

“I’ll wash! Can’t stop me, prophet-man!” Adam pushes off the counter, nearly giving Kevin a heart attack as he lands with a rather unpleasant slap of bare feet against the tile, but Adam gets up like he throws himself off of stuff all the time and-

The sound of the bunker door unlocking and opening sounds through the place. Adam’s eyes widen as they land on Kevin.

“We’re screwed.” Kevin announces, just as Sam’s voice carries through the bunker.

“Hey, guys?”