Shared Nightmare [Adam/Ruby]

[Adam Milligan]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=valign,top][atrb=style, background: url(http://i51.tinypic.com/2cnt8y1.jpg) center bottom no-repeat; outline: 1px solid #7d776b; width: 500px; height: 600px; padding: 0px;, bTable] "Alec said she's hunter stock, that she was raised in the life." The entire show ran on gossip, sexual tension, and high-end coffee drinks and Adam wasn't above indulging. "Don't know more about it than that, but it makes sense that she'd understand some of the more metaphysical stuff. She gave me some 'scrips, to help with keeping shit together." Adam wasn't spectacularly skilled in communicating on multiple levels at once but this was clear enough. Telling Ruby, warning her, maybe recruiting her to the idea that Sam might need to be on meds for a while or even for a long time when he woke up. He smiled a bit then and admitted, "You know what I really want to learn? Long-range rifles and swords." A laugh, "Weird, I know. But I know me, I'm never gonna be great at the in-the-trenches kind of hunting. I'm picking up pistols because you oughta know how, but what I really want is to be the guy on the rooftop across the street with a silver bullet and a scope. And the sword thing is 'cause I did some sabre fencing in high school, I was thinking it might give me a basis. You know how to do either of those?" Funny how he perked up when he was talking about this. About making a change in his life, something he could be proactive about that wasn't dependent on some member of his family taking care of him. Location: Sam's Hotel Room, NYNY Casino, Las Vegas NV Music: Jesus Walks - Kanye West Outfit: Comfortable in black and gray, with bare feet and rumpled hair Notes: He needs a project.

[Ruby]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=valign,top][atrb=style, background: url(http://i51.tinypic.com/ei88w7.jpg) center bottom no-repeat; outline: 1px solid #ccc; width: 500px; height: 572px; padding: 0px;, bTable] “Hunter’s stock….I wouldn’t have pegged her as that really, must have been the Prada. Scrips are good I guess it’s just are they going to slow you down at all? Will they make you zig when you should have zagged? How reliable can you be medicated? I know it may be a mess without them but is there something else that doesn’t involve some chemical alteration that can be done?” Really there wasn’t anything she knew of that would help, hell if she knew some sort of magic that could make someone who went to hell less messed up she’d have used it already. Slowly it was starting to look like perhaps the winged wonders might have had the right idea with walls and memory wipes, and that they may have to be asked to do it again. Damn she hated when angels got involved in shit, made things fifty times more complicated. “Rifles and swords, I fight with knives, fists, and magic…well I did with the magic. Rifles I imagine your father would be the best to teach you those, he’s one of the best with them isn’t he? A few years back I heard about a hunter who used swords but I don’t recall the specifics, I guess fencing would be as good of a place to start as any. There is more to hunting though than just how you fight, hell knowing what to use and where is the most important thing, knowledge. My suggestion, start reading, start your own journal with notes and facts, start talking to experienced hunters and learn everything you can from them because you’ll never know when one day something you learn from someone saves your life or the life of someone else.” LOCATION: Sam’s room NYNY Casino, Vegas baby MUSIC: A Nightmare Remembered by Dream Theater OUTFIT: I killed bambi NOTES:Look at her give him one.

[Adam Milligan]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=valign,top][atrb=style, background: url(http://i51.tinypic.com/2cnt8y1.jpg) center bottom no-repeat; outline: 1px solid #7d776b; width: 500px; height: 600px; padding: 0px;, bTable] Adam shook his head. "I'm trying to stabilize my own meds, ask me in a week whether they ruin your edge. But I'll tell you this, the antipsychotics give me at least a shot at telling the hallucinations from reality. I mean, when the walls start bleeding or I feel chains wrapping around me, I can usually tell that's not actually happening. But when I start having memories of my mother dying in ways she didn't? Start believing that somebody told me that Michael found a new vessel and is back on earth? That's the shit the pills help with. They give me time to think about it, examine before I start reacting." "Also?" A sly smile, these little gestures that were most of what was left of the boy he'd been. "Let's face it here, if there was ever a candidate for antidepressants, Sam was it even before the Wall came down. I love my brother better than any other person on the planet, but the guy's moody as shit and he goes tumbling into despair and self-loathing every time he stubs his damned toe, much less comes across a real crisis." He fidgeted with his lighter because holding still was always a problem these days. "And oddly enough, knowledge isn't my problem." He reached up, tapped a temple with two fingers. "Michael left a lot behind. Memories, ideas, lore. I speak Enochian now, isn't that a useful skill? My Dad's going to let me go through his journal, see how much of it jibes up with what I got out of my Adventures In Possession. But I've got a pretty decent grip, I think." Location: Sam's Hotel Room, NYNY Casino, Las Vegas NV Music: Jesus Walks - Kanye West Outfit: Comfortable in black and gray, with bare feet and rumpled hair Notes: If there's gonna be a bright side...

[Ruby]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=valign,top][atrb=style, background: url(http://i51.tinypic.com/ei88w7.jpg) center bottom no-repeat; outline: 1px solid #ccc; width: 500px; height: 572px; padding: 0px;, bTable] “Well I think that could be said for any of us by society’s concepts of sanity. Hell hunters choose a life apart from society, risking their lives and saving other people to only have most of the world not believe in what they do. We’d all be locked up in looney bins if we told the real people who and what we were.” Perhaps a little protective of Sam as well, she knew very well he wasn’t stable but who could honestly blame him. He also was a hero, an unsung one who she knew would get back up on his feet and head back out to fight the good fight again. She had to have that kind of faith in him, hell she had to have that sort of faith in something, why not Sam? “Enochian hua? That is useful. Hey, you think you can help with something then. You know the guy Christopher who has come in here and pulled me out? Cas picked him up saying he had work to do and dumped him off with the group and hasn’t told him anything since. Any memories in there from Michael have his face on them or his vibe to them? I could use any help you can offer where he’s concerned, frankly I’m worried what Cas wants with him.” Afraid also that she’d gotten attached to Christopher now not knowing what it was that Cas did want with him worried her. What if he had some great destiny and she’d now become attached to him for him to have to leave her for it? What would happen if she were going to have to choose between her loyalty to Sam and this new feeling towards Christopher? She chided herself for not thinking things through before going with her emotions on this, fighting that attraction she had to the man for the sake of what if’s. LOCATION: Sam’s room NYNY Casino, Vegas baby MUSIC: A Nightmare Remembered by Dream Theater OUTFIT: I killed bambi NOTES:Could he help?

[Adam Milligan]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=valign,top][atrb=style, background: url(http://i51.tinypic.com/2cnt8y1.jpg) center bottom no-repeat; outline: 1px solid #7d776b; width: 500px; height: 600px; padding: 0px;, bTable] Adam frowned, not displeased but thoughtful. "Mmm, I haven't really paid any attention to him other than to catch his name, but sure. I mean, I can give it a shot. You want to, um," he thought about it, glanced through the blinds to see that for the hundred and fourteenth time in a row, Sam hadn't moved, and lit a fresh cigarette. "Go out to breakfast or something some morning when Norah and the doc come bustling in here and giving us 'get out, there's real work to be done' looks?" He grinned, the bitterness wasn't in any way real. Adam, and this wasn't a great surprise if one considered his psychology, liked bossy women. "I usually keep those memories kinda locked away, they do nothing but confuse things. But I'm willing to root around some, see what I can find." Michael's memories were alien, inhuman in the most literal sense. Touching them always left a cold feeling in the pit of Adam's stomach that took hours to fade away. But he was looking for ways to become useful, and so declining the first favor anybody had asked him wasn't really cool. Ruby had been good to him, within both their limitations, he'd go digging around some for her sake. Location: Sam's Hotel Room, NYNY Casino, Las Vegas NV Music: Jesus Walks - Kanye West Outfit: Comfortable in black and gray, with bare feet and rumpled hair Notes: An avenue he hadn't previously considered.

[Ruby]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=valign,top][atrb=style, background: url(http://i51.tinypic.com/ei88w7.jpg) center bottom no-repeat; outline: 1px solid #ccc; width: 500px; height: 572px; padding: 0px;, bTable] She reached out a hand, placing it on Adam’s shoulder in a gentle thank you, just looking at the poor boy a moment. Memories locked away, how well she knew how those could pull out horrible monsters of the past. The truth was that with people who had as many years of experience as Adam, Sam, Ruby…stolen years as Angelic vessels or years locked into life as demons, it wasn’t the living that could kill you, it was getting caught up in memoires that could. Ruby already knew for the little she had pulled up tonight that she’d bury them in a bottle or two before sleep, hell she might even leave Sam’s side and curl up into Christopher’s arms letting the adoration the two of them shared be her shelter and remind her that hell wasn’t this world. She’d let him be her comfort again. “I don’t want to do anything to make it worse for you Adam, I mean I don’t want you to do anything to make it worse. I don’t know what it’s like to play host to a feather brain as far as memories and experience.” Her own experience as a demon was strange, she was one, full and whole, yet it was almost like that demonic part of her was separate and tempting, something in her nature she had to fight and lock away once Sam began to make her want to be better. It wasn’t easy, hell it was the hardest thing she’d ever done, and truthfully in the end the demon reveled in the betrayal of him but Ruby as a whole did not.. LOCATION: Sam’s room NYNY Casino, Vegas baby MUSIC: A Nightmare Remembered by Dream Theater OUTFIT: I killed bambi NOTES:Yea, still hating on the Angels.

[Adam Milligan]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=valign,top][atrb=style, background: url(http://i51.tinypic.com/2cnt8y1.jpg) center bottom no-repeat; outline: 1px solid #7d776b; width: 500px; height: 600px; padding: 0px;, bTable] A crooked smile. "Honestly? Avoiding the things that might make it harder doesn't actually appear to make it any easier. I think this is just something I need to learn to cope with and keep functioning. And it's in a good cause." He wished he could have sounded tougher, cooler about it, but it turned out that he wasn't really all that tough. Surprise, surprise, the premed kid from Minnesota wasn't a tough guy. "And being a meatsuit isn't fun. From what I understand, it's not fun no matter who's holding the reins." Malaki was supposed to take him for a day trip soon to a guy in North Vegas who did anti-possession tattoos, but Ki's sister had just shown up in town so they were doing family stuff. "Anyway, if you bring him around for breakfast or something one day I'll see if Mikey had any memories about him. Just, uh, let him know that if I seem to zone out or go all strange I'm not trying to be offensive? It's been borne in me lately that I'm rude." He didn't mean to be, but he was working on it. Location: Sam's Hotel Room, NYNY Casino, Las Vegas NV Music: Jesus Walks - Kanye West Outfit: Comfortable in black and gray, with bare feet and rumpled hair Notes: Trying to pull his shit together.

[Ruby]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=valign,top][atrb=style, background: url(http://i51.tinypic.com/ei88w7.jpg) center bottom no-repeat; outline: 1px solid #ccc; width: 500px; height: 572px; padding: 0px;, bTable] Reaching over Ruby did something she’d never have done had she thought about it because it wasn’t totally within her nature, she softly rubbed Adam’s back, a small sign of affection for the younger kid who she saw a lot of Sam in, the way Sam used to be, the core of him, hopeful, willing to help. “I think angels call them vessels demons call them meatsuits cause demons are jackasses while angels are just eloquent dicks. I remember being the one holding the reigns and I’m afraid I was never too nice of a rider; I used to break their spirits so they’d just accept their fate. This body, coma girl, was the only one since the body I was born in that ever felt like mine, no other person to fight for control over.” Simple fact, it was what she used to do and there were oh so many bodies before Coma Girl, countless in fact, mostly female, that she’d taken as her own. Of course in her vanity all the women had long gorgeous hair, she’d always wanted at least that. “Hey, I think I have the market on rudeness at times, he seems to put up with me okay.” A soft smile at the thought of Christopher’s words to her, telling her he wanted to keep her, asking her if he could, oh how she wanted that so much, to have someone who wanted her just for being her. Of course part of her was sure he was going to find out what she had done in great detail eventually and then he’d be disgusted to know the creature, the woman he’d allowed into his heart like that. Of course until then she could live in denial and enjoy every moment right? “Thank you Adam, it means a lot to me that you’re willing to help us.” Yea, she said us, if it wasn’t already apparent to Adam her feelings about Christopher that probably clinched it there. LOCATION: Sam’s room NYNY Casino, Vegas baby MUSIC: A Nightmare Remembered by Dream Theater OUTFIT: I killed bambi NOTES:Look at that twipperpation.

[Adam Milligan]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=valign,top][atrb=style, background: url(http://i51.tinypic.com/2cnt8y1.jpg) center bottom no-repeat; outline: 1px solid #7d776b; width: 500px; height: 600px; padding: 0px;, bTable] A short laugh. "They can call it any pretty name they like, it's being a meatsuit. Ask Castiel sometime about how Jimmy Novak volunteered to be his vessel-for-life. And at least Michael had never heard of that thing about 'don't shit where you eat'. He tore his vessel up something fierce. If the angels hadn't built me a new one from scratch I'd be literally a shambling half-there zombie instead of only figuratively." He smiled at Ruby, thin only because all his smiles were these day. "And no problem, I just hope I can actually do any good." He leaned more heavily against the rail, smoking and watching Sam through the glass door. "He'd hate this. And love it. Everybody worrying over him. The world coming to a halt because he's down. All his self-loathing, and he still loves being loved so well." Location: Sam's Hotel Room, NYNY Casino, Las Vegas NV Music: Jesus Walks - Kanye West Outfit: Comfortable in black and gray, with bare feet and rumpled hair Notes: Crazy about his brother. Knows him well.

[Ruby]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=valign,top][atrb=style, background: url(http://i51.tinypic.com/ei88w7.jpg) center bottom no-repeat; outline: 1px solid #ccc; width: 500px; height: 572px; padding: 0px;, bTable] “Yes well I’d rather not ask any of those feathered assholes anything if at all possible, Castiel included. I don’t care what Sam says, he’s a much of an asshole as the lot of them.” Her opinion of angels not likely to change, centuries of resentment grown only to be added onto it what she saw happen to Sam now as a result of the angel’s plans, Sam and Adam, she’d do without the lot of them if she could. There was always other ways then getting angels involved and she was thankful that she’d found in Adam a way to help Christopher that didn’t include asking Cas for anything, he’d done enough, he’d dropped Christopher off on them and left him clueless long enough. Turning to look at Sam she really studied him for a good long while, trying to form the right words that she’d been working on in her gut for some time, a real explanation to something she’d been feeling for some time. “I felt like I knew Sam better than I knew anyone else in the world. I used to be able to tell you how he’d react to any situation that he would be faced with, how he could be manipulated, how you could convince him of anything. Now…look what I’m saying is that he is so very different now. It used to be it didn’t matter what he was going through he’d swallow it all down and worry about the people around him, care more about those who needed help more than focusing in on his own problems. Since I’ve been back with him all he can do is wallow. I think that more than anything is telling me that I don’t even know him anymore.” Her gaze lowered from Sam, looking down at her boots a moment before she looked over at Adam. It killed her that she felt like a failure that everything she’d done so far to try to help him hadn’t helped, that she who should have all the answers didn’t. “I don’t know what he’d feel like anymore Adam. Sammy, my Sammy, he’d think we were all overreacting, that we should be out there making a difference, and he’d be touched that we all we worried about him.” LOCATION: Sam’s room NYNY Casino, Vegas baby MUSIC: A Nightmare Remembered by Dream Theater OUTFIT: I killed bambi NOTES:Lived and breathed Sam Winchester for years, yea, doubting herself now.

[Adam Milligan]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=valign,top][atrb=style, background: url(http://i51.tinypic.com/2cnt8y1.jpg) center bottom no-repeat; outline: 1px solid #7d776b; width: 500px; height: 600px; padding: 0px;, bTable] "I didn't know him before." And this, of everything they'd spoken about in the past hour, sounded sad. "I've got a handful of Michael's memories about him and Dean back before, but those are at several steps removed. I don't know what he was like before just before the apocalypse-that-wasn't. But in the Cage we had decades to talk. He wallows, yeah. I had it easier, some ways. I never thought I deserved it. No matter what fucked up shit happened down there, I was real clear that there was nothing justified about it. Sam always thought maybe he did, and it ate at him as the time went on." He was staring into the room, at Sam so unmoving on the bed. He was always staring at him, it made Adam feel at least a little like a creeper. "I think he will say that we're overreacting. But that if we didn't react in just this way? He'd be hurt and take it as proof that he's unloved." The thought flashed through his mind, brief but vivid, that he was making his brother sound like a whiny teenaged girl. But what the fuck, he was a bipolar drug addict. He wasn't throwing stones. Another look through the window and then he had to admit, "I should go back to my room for a while. Take a shower, grab a nap in a bed instead of slumped in a chair." He didn't want to, but he never wanted to. He could recognize, though, that it needed to be done. Location: Sam's Hotel Room, NYNY Casino, Las Vegas NV Music: Jesus Walks - Kanye West Outfit: Comfortable in black and gray, with bare feet and rumpled hair Notes: He tries so hard to be rational. He fails as often as he succeeds.

[Ruby]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=valign,top][atrb=style, background: url(http://i51.tinypic.com/ei88w7.jpg) center bottom no-repeat; outline: 1px solid #ccc; width: 500px; height: 572px; padding: 0px;, bTable] Taking a deep breath she searched her mind for the right words to describe Sam to someone who never knew him, something that would sum him up, but there wasn’t just one. She’d studied him like a scientist, picked him apart like a psychologist, and put him back together like some strange emotional glue yet the whole of Sam Winchester was still so amazing to her that she couldn’t simply describe him. Really the closest she could come was this. “You remind me of him. Protective of his big brother, caring, willing to help….you’re different in that he’d not poke and prod the way you do about emotional stuff, he had a soft touch about people’s hearts but still I see him in you. It’s a good thing Adam, your brother is amazing. I’ve lived very long and known many people and only maybe four in the entire world are a unique as he is, possess the heart he does. I hope someday you get to meet the Sam Winchester I knew. That Sam, the one before all of this would wake up and ask where we all were, ask if we were okay, be afraid that maybe something had happened to us, and if we weren’t there he’d stand up and go looking for us, ready to jump into any fight we might need him in, no matter what the cost. Everyone else in his life was more important to him then himself.” That was as close to who Sam was as she could explain really, to her he was someone you’d have to experience. Of course her view of him was also the biased view of someone who had loved that Sam, at least she was sure she had, if ever a demon could love. “Go on Adam, I’ll stay with him then.” Still unwilling to leave Sam’s side till Christopher deemed her having had enough of the bitter penance that she had deemed her lot in life. LOCATION: Sam’s room NYNY Casino, Vegas baby MUSIC: A Nightmare Remembered by Dream Theater OUTFIT: I killed bambi NOTES:

[Adam Milligan]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=valign,top][atrb=style, background: url(http://i51.tinypic.com/2cnt8y1.jpg) center bottom no-repeat; outline: 1px solid #7d776b; width: 500px; height: 600px; padding: 0px;, bTable] "Maybe he'll heal." It was the most hopeful thing Adam could think about any of them these days. Sam, his father, himself, even Nick in her way. With so much to put behind them, with so many hurts that had to be scarred over or forgotten or forgiven, Adam couldn't even phrase it as a definitive statement. Maybe they'd heal. Maybe someday that Sam that Ruby remembered would exist again, the one who was strong and sure and cared more about other people than himself without going into a fit of martyrdom about it. Maybe someday John would crawl out of the bottle and be able to meet his sons' eyes. Maybe someday Nichole would stop waiting for the world to present her with what she thought she was owed and step forward to get something on her own. Maybe someday he himself would re-find the part of him that had wanted to be a healer, was willing to work for years to learn what he needed to make people whole again. Maybe it would happen. He gave Ruby a smile that was thin and tight but real enough. "Don't stay so long you pass out. Doesn't do him any good." As though any of them obeyed that advice. But it was a good note to go out on, and after another smile and an awkward nod, he tossed the cigarette butt and headed back inside to touch Sam's shoulder once in passing and then leave for his room. Location: Sam's Hotel Room, NYNY Casino, Las Vegas NV Music: Jesus Walks - Kanye West Outfit: Comfortable in black and gray, with bare feet and rumpled hair Notes: That could all have gone way worse.