...And Not Entirely Human

There's a reason ghouls don't eat live.

"Are you sure we should be doing this?" He—because it had been centuries since he had his own name, and not just something he took from his meals—looked up at his sister. Right now, she was a rather shapely college student with dark brown skin, and pretty doe eyes framed by long lashes. She'd be pretty if she wasn't his sister. "I mean, there are rules for a reason right? There's a reason we don't eat live."

He rolled his borrowed blue eyes, trying to hold on to his patience. He tapped his foot as he told her, "Come on Carla, what better way to lure that Winchester bastard here than to eat his own flesh and blood?"

"I get that but," she gnawed on her lip uncertainly. If he concentrated enough he could see the ghoul underneath the pretty, fake skin. Ash grey skin stretched tight over bone, vein and thin strips of muscles spread out beneath the paper thin skin, like a map with no key and leading to nowhere, razor sharp teeth and a gaping black mouth. He blinked and all he saw was the pretty, black 22 year old female she was masquerading as again. "Can't we just kill them and get it over with?"

"Sis," he murmured quietly, taking a step towards her and tilted her head up with a finger under her chin. Most humans wouldn't be able to feel the ghoul skin underneath the normal, soft human skin but he could. It was scratchy and dry and tough and he could feel the hunger that defined ghouls lurking underneath the skin. It made his teeth itch. "Don't back out on me now. I can't do this without you, that bastard killed our father who never did anyone any wrong. Ghouls eat from the dead and yet we still get killed, still get hunted."

She still looked unsure, he lowered his voice even more until it was barely above a whisper. "Please Carla, I need you."

And just like that, whatever pathetic excuse for a soul ghouls had was gone from her eyes, and all that was left was hunger. She smiled cruelly, needle sharp teeth hiding as dull human ones. "Let's get started brother."

He grinned at her, a twisted sort of affection on his face, he turned to their two guest tied up in their coffins. "Hello Kate. Hello Adam. Welcome to hell."

They decide to start with the woman first but she's stronger than they thought—mother's instinct to protect their young he supposes—and Carla ends up pushing her back too hard, tripping her, and cracking her head against the tomb floor. She's dead in seconds but that doesn't matter as Carla descends on the, now dead, body. He smiles faintly at his sister's enthusiasm and decides to let her have the woman to herself. That means he gets the boy though.

"Hello Adam," he purrs, pulling the gag down.

To his surprise he doesn't beg, but he does snarl at him even while tears chase one another down his face, eyes fastened to his sister feasting on the boy's mother. His hand reaches out to stroke the boy's dirty hair and he flinches back, for that he grabs a handful of hair and yanks, until the clump comes out, there's pink blood mixed in with the dirty blonde strands. Adam presses his lips together but doesn't make a sound. He scowls, he wants to hear the Winchester's boy scream and beg and plead, not glare at him with defiant eyes. He wants to pluck those eyes out of his sockets and pop them in mouth like grapes. Taste the sweet juices explode against his tongue and slide down his throat. He shivers at the thought. Suddenly, he's hungry, ravenous; he grabs the boy's hair again and yanks it back to bare his throat. He leans down and bites hard, feeling the blood splurt down his throat, hot, sweet, and heady. Most ghouls prefer the meat, maybe the marrow from the bones, but he preferred the blood because each flavor was unique. It spoke of their upbringing, how they grew up, about their personalities. But there was something different about Adam's blood. Each flavor bursting on his tongue brought on an image, a thought, a memory.

Candy that was so sour, it twisted your face, and tingled on your tongue before giving away to a mild sweetness.

A boy growing up without a father was difficult enough but with a mother that worked 17 hour shifts? Even harder. When he finally met his father, when he was 12, he wasn't naive enough to believe that it would change anything that he would finally get the apple pie, picket white fence American dream but he was foolish enough to hope that it would. His father—a tall man with broad shoulders and permanent salt-and-pepper stubble on his face—was everything he had hoped for. Commanding, firm, caring, and, most importantly, his father.

He loved his mother, he did, but for the longest time he felt like something was missing. And when his father came to the door, he felt something in him close. And then John—can't call him dad, can't ever call him dad—left him and Adam didn't see him again until a year later on his 13th birthday. That happened for the next 3 years. He would show up on his birthday, take him out, than was gone the next day by the time Kate or Adam woke up. He remembered trying to stay up one night on his 14th birthday to try to catch his father when he left—like he was seven and believing in Santa again—but—just like Santa—he fell asleep and when he woke his fa—John was gone.

And when Adam turned 16, his John visited him one last time and Adam never saw him again. But that was fine because by his 14th birthday he realized John was nothing more than a pipe dream and his already large appreciation for his mother grew bigger. Because John may be his father but he wasn't Adam's dad, and that made all the difference in the world. And it was with that thought that Adam greeted the adult world with, shedding his childhood dreams of both a mother and father and a white picket fence dream.

Intense cold—like mint—and was deceptively mild until you got to the core of it.

If you asked his classmates to describe Adam, they would describe him as quiet and sarcastic but if you asked the people closest to him they would describe him as self-contained. Besides a few passive aggressive remarks or a snarky comment, he kept his cards close to his chest. That didn't mean he was a pushover though, it just meant when he did snap it would be sudden and quick. No build up, no warning just a storm that was too much to be contained any longer.

There was a moment like that back in 9th grade, he was a freshmen and already one of the smartest people at school (not that it was hard, there really wasn't much to do at home besides study, he didn't have cable and his mom didn't come back home until about midnight). He didn't have many friends and one of his only friends was a foreign exchange student from France, dude didn't speak a lick of English but he could read, write, and understand it better than most that grew up in America. Adam didn't speak French—he was taking Latin and it was too far in the school year to change the course—so they mostly spoke through hand gestures, facial expressions, and writing.

There was this 10th grader that liked to pick on Adam, truth be told he picked on everyone but he liked Adam the most. Adam was one of the shortest boys in school, and one of the skinniest too, and he never fought back besides some rather scathing comments, he was an easy target. That day though, everyone got a glimpse of the riptide underneath the ice.

No one was really sure what happened—besides Adam, the foreign exchange student, and the bully and none of them were talking—all they knew was that the bully sauntered up to Adam and Chase—the exchange student—and had said something. Next thing anybody knew, Adam was suddenly on the bully, punching, clawing, and kicking while screaming obscenities at him. It took two teachers to haul him off the boy. They later learned the bully had said something about his mother.

The bully ended up in the hospital with a broken nose and two cracked ribs. Adam was still bullied but now people knew better than to bring his mother into it.

And suddenly it isn't flavor anymore, its dreams and thoughts and feelings and Adam Milligan.

Everything...just...goes...black.

When Adam comes to again, he's covered in blood and beside him is a pile of bones with very little meat on it left. He has to turn away because he could feel whatever's in stomach trying to crawl back out. Something's different, Adam realizes. It takes him a minute but when he realizes it, he feels sick for an entirely different reason.

He's Adam. Not just looking like Adam and with his memories like Adam but actually fucking Adam. And he doesn't panic but when he turns to look at his sister—she's curled up on the ground sleeping, looking almost innocent if not for the blood around her mouth and the heap of half eaten corpse next to her—all he feels is loathing, disgust, and sadness. Because his mother is dead dammit, and these monsters killed her and more importantly, he's one of those monsters and he helped kill his own mother.

This time he does throw up.

He has the shotgun aimed at his sister's face and he knows he should turn around and jam the butt of it into his brother's face but he can't.

"Adam! That is not your mother!" Sam says from behind him and Adam already knows that. Because that's his sister but Sam is also his brother and it's too much. There are too many voices outside his head and too many voices inside his head. Adam remembers the first time he saw the Winchesters, he was supposed to act surprised but hopeful, happy. But then he realized that it wasn't an act. That he genuinely liked his brothers, wanted their approval, wanted their love. But they were Hunters and they killed things—monsters—like him. And he was conflicted, because for so long he was a monster right alongside his sister, and suddenly he had two brothers who could help him not be a monster. And he's never wanted anything more.

"I-I don't," Adam stutters, swinging the shotgun between the two family members, feeling torn right down the middle. There was a part of him—the larger part of him—that wanted to shoot his sister in the head and turn his back on what he was. But the shame of that thought stopped him.

"What are you doing Adam?" His sister wearing his mother's face hissed at him.

"I—" and the next thing Adam knows there's brains—his sister's brains—all over him and his sister's body is on the floor with a hole in her head. He looks up from the body to see his other brother with a gun hanging loosely in his fingers. Adam sees red and lunges at him, "You son of a bitch!"

But before Adam can even reach him, he's being held back by two arms wrapped tightly around his waist but Adam is strong and desperate and Sam has to sit on him before he's fully incapacitated. "Adam! Calm down, I'm sure Dean has a good reason." Sam looks over at Dean with a steely look in his eyes, "Right?"

Dean nods, looking uncomfortable, "Yeah, uh, ghouls. Your mom was a ghoul."

Adam stops struggling and looks up at Dean with an uncomfortable amount of hope in his eyes, "Does that mean my mom's alive?"

Dean shook his head sadly, watching as his little brother—his first little brother—help up his other little brother. "Sorry kid but, uh, your mom's dead."

Adam gets up shakily, tears in his eyes, takes one look at the body on the ground and throws up. He knows that all of this was supposed to be an elaborate con but it still fucking hurts even though he already knows what's happened to her. Because what kind of monster kills their own mother, let alone one that was a fucking nurse. All she ever did was help people and Adam killed her.

He throws up again.

"Come on kid," Dean says, while Sam rubs his back soothingly. "Let's get out of here."

That catches his attention; he takes the wet cloth and wipes the vomit away from his mouth. "What?"

"Did you really think we were going to leave you here?" Dean asks, and yes he did because the older man wasn't exactly subtle about his distaste of Adam's...existence in general actually.

Adam just shrugs. Sam, after shaking off his surprise, fucking beams at both of them. "You're part of the family kid."

"But—"here Adam hesitates because he knows what the real Adam would say but also what the new Adam would say. His brothers just look at him patiently even while they're cleaning up any evidence they were there in the first place. "What about school?"

"Adam, look," Sam placed a hand on his shoulder. "The police are going to come here but they're just going to end up blaming you. You'll just end up in jail and if you do ever get out, you'll be treated differently."

The blonde swallows and nods, "Let me just get my stuff."

The next couple of weeks practically fly by in haze of hunts and the warm feeling of brotherhood, and the nearly bottomless hunger that used to consume his life never sneaks up on him. Until a month in and, suddenly, food is all he can think about. He's careful though, sneaking strips of flesh from corpse bodies in the morgue and from bodies' right before they have to burn them. It's not even close to fulfilling—but then again nothing is enough food wise—but it's enough to curb his hunger so that he never has to worry about attacking his brothers out of hunger. And his brothers are none the wiser.

Adam's foolishly optimistic enough to think that it'll last.

When they finally catch on, it's at his worst. With his face and mouth smeared with rotting flesh and black blood, hands knuckle deep into the corpse's intestines and a manic gleam in his eyes. At first there's nothing but shock on their faces, than anger, than...nothing. And that's the most terrifying of all because Adam can't tell what they're feeling, can't tell what they're thinking and his imagination runs wild: them killing him right then and there, them beating him to an inch of his life, or worse, them just turning around and leaving him. He thought he had more time, that Sam and Dean would be too busy cleaning up to notice he snuck away until a good hour later.

"Please," Adam whispers, suddenly feeling sick—but then he's always felt sick, because he's a monster and monsters deserve hell and more—and gets up on wobbly legs.

Dean pulls out his gun, shoots him in the knee cap and Adam cries out as he falls. He breathes out heavily and his hands automatically go to stem the wound.

"Come on," Sam's voice is quiet but all the more deadly for it. Winchesters are loud and passionate but it's when they're quiet that you know to be afraid of them. Guess it's a family thing, Adam muses, half delirious with pain. "Get up."

The man—ghoul—or whatever the hell he was now, the three psychics he went to had turned him away from their door the instant they saw him, calling him an abomination—grinds his teeth together in pain as he gets up. Tries to put as much weight as possible on his good leg.

"Let's go," Sam has a gun to his back and Adam wants to say it's not necessary, he wouldn't run—couldn't even if he wanted too—and he would sooner use that gun on himself before thinking of hurting either of his brothers. Each step is like a sledgehammer to his knee but the pain is deserved. Before Adam—that's how he thinks of his life now, before Adam and After Adam, before Monster and after Almost Human—the knee wouldn't have necessarily been healed by now but it would've healed enough that he could outrun both of them for a good hour-and-a-half before collapsing from pain and exhaustion. He's found that a lot of what he could do before, he can't do now. For example, his ghoul face is almost gone, the only thing that shows of his original nature when he looks in the mirror is a too thin face and skin a couple shades too gray to be natural underneath his outward face, he also couldn't change forms anymore either (though he doesn't really want to either). Another is his strength, now it's just a little above an average human and it kind of irritates him. The most noticeable though is his hunger, before hunger was all that drove him—all that drove any ghoul—but now the hunger was abated, not as bad as before and he was full for longer periods of time but when the hunger did come, it ripped at him. Before the hunger was nothing more than a constant ache, something that couldn't be necessarily ignored but put off long enough to think clearly. Now it was like someone jabbing at him with a thousand, hot needles. It was uncomfortable and painful.

He was so lost in his thoughts he didn't realize that they were back at the motel until Sam had unlocked the door and Dean shoved him forcefully inside. Adam stumbled, tripped, and fell on his knees. White hot pain exploded in his knee and for a couple minutes Adam couldn't think. When the pain finally subsided, the blonde carefully rolled over and got up unsteadily, using the chair next to him for balance.

"What the hell are you and what did you do to our brother?" Dean growled, gun loaded and cocked in his face.

"I-I'm your brother Dean," and it's the truth, he's more Adam than not.

"Yeah and I'm a Sheikh."

Sam steps in, "Dean, put the gun down, it's too hurt to do anything."

The fact that Sam—kind, gentle, too good for his good Sam—called him an 'it' hurt more than the gunshot wound.

"Sam, Dean," Adam tries again, pleading with his voice and face.

"Shut up," Sam says harshly, anger, hurt, and grief in his eyes. "I'm not saving you; I just don't want to wake up our neighbors."

Adam lets out a whine of pain—either from the knee or his wounded heart, it didn't really matter—and blinks to stop the tears that are pooling there. "Please, Sam. Dean. I'm your brother."

"Really?" Dean says, a disbelieving half crazed smiled on his face. "So our brother's a cannibalistic monster that likes to eat half rotted corpses for fun?"

"No—yes, yes, okay but that's only because I have no choice. It's either that or I die, and-and-and I'm not hurting anybody. I'm not—I'm not eating live. I'm just...I'm just taking as much as I need," his words come out rushed, spilling over one another and tripping over his tongue to get them to understand. "Please you have to understand."

"How long?" Sam asks, pulling himself up to his full height of six-foot-four, eyes dark and simmering.

Adam lets out a half sob. In all the time he's known them, they've been suspicious, sad, angry, jealous, proud, happy, but they've never been cold. Never been so...forbidding towards him. "Since the moment I first called you."

Dean's jaw locks and Sam's teeth clack together with an audible snap.

"Four months," Dean whispers, something dark gathering in his words. "Can I shoot it now Sam?"

Sam shakes his head, "Don't bother. It's not worth the bullet. Get out. We ever see you again and we will put a bullet between your eyes."

Adam nods, swaying slightly from blood loss and starts for the door. He stops with his hand on the doorknob and says, "For what it's worth, I really am Adam, just not in the way you used to think."

And then he was out the motel and walking into the rain. He looked up as he walked, the cold rain like tiny ice shards stabbing his face.

For a couple of minutes the motel was quiet, suffocated in silence and harsh, heavy anger.

"Four months," Sam whispered brokenly, eyes bright with tears for his dead brother. Were Winchesters really cursed?

Dean didn't say anything, not trusting his voice, and sat heavily on one of the twin beds. "That son of a bitch made us think he was our brother."

Dean didn't hate Adam—despite what both Sam and Adam thought—it was just...one day he had one little brother and the next he suddenly had two, and he wasn't quite sure how to deal with it. Sam, he had taken care of since he was 4 but Adam? He didn't even know the kid existed. How was he supposed to react to the news of another kid brother? Especially one that wasn't even a kid anymore? He might not love the kid as much as he loved Sam but it was getting dangerously close.

Sam nodded, angry and somber but there was something niggling in the back of his mind. "Why would he though?"

"What?" Dean looked up.

"I mean, why would he pretend to be our brother for four months? What could possibly be such a big endgame that he needs to pretend for four months?"

Dean glared at him, "How the fuck should I know? Does it look like I speak monster?"

Sam shrugged and leaned forward, Dean could hear his oversized brain whirring, "I'm just saying it makes no sense. More importantly if he was really such a bad...person how comes Cas hasn't said anything?"

"I don't know, why don't we ask?" Dean scowled and said in a louder voice "Oh, Cas, I pray for you to get your feathery ass down here!"

"Yes?" Both Winchesters jumped, and turned to see Castiel by the motel door.

"Holy shit!" Dean yelped

Castiel tilted his head, his brow furrowing. "I don't see how excrement could possibly be-"

"It's an expression, Cas," Sam explained quickly, before Dean could say anything.

"Oh," Castiel nodded as if he understood but his brow was still furrowed. "How may I be of assistance?"

"Our brother, Adam." Sam started but was cut off by Dean.

"Did you know he was a monster?"

"You mean a ghoul? Yes, I did."

"What?!" Dean yelled, standing up. He stalked up to the angel and shoved him, not that it did much good, "You knew this entire fucking time and you never told us?!"

Castiel didn't blink, just stared owlishly at him. "I didn't tell you because it wasn't of any importance. Besides, Adam—the Adam you've known this entire time—is your brother."

"He's a ghoul, Cas!" Sam yelled, more in desperation than anger though.

The angel turned to look at Sam, his blue eyes holding something similar to frustration. "But he's also more human than not."

That stopped both of them short. "What?"

Castiel side stepped Dean and moved to the center of the room so he could address both of them. "There is a reason that ghouls don't eat live, haven't you ever wondered why? It's not that they're allergic; they certainly can if they try, but its instinct to not eat live. And there's a reason for that. One of the reason shape shifters are able to change their shapes is because of their...soul."

"Ghouls have souls?"

Castiel ignored him and continued on, "Each shape they take on, it leaves an imprint and the longer they stay in that shape, the stronger the imprint. And the stronger the imprint the more likely it is that'll stay that way. Ghouls are different from other shape shifters though, the reason they eat so much is because imprints never last long for them. But if they eat live? Than the imprint becomes...permanent."

Silence met his words.

"So what does that mean?"

If angels could look annoyed, that was how Castiel would look right now. "It means that Adam is brother in everything but a third of a species. If he continues like this, he will most likely turn into a human, but if he's alone it's more likely that he will give into his ghoul." Both brothers stiffened, identical look in their green eyes. But what the emotion was, Castiel couldn't tell. "Find your brother."

When Sam and Dean blinked, Castiel was gone, the sound of flapping wings and the feeling that something had been cleaned leftover.

"What do we do now?" Dean sighed roughly, hand running through his hair. His face lined with confusion and half-hope.

Sam looked at the dark red stain on the carpet; he knew that ghouls didn't bleed red. They bled black and the blood on the carpet was red, not black.

Red, not black.

Red, not black.

Red, not black.

Red, not black.

Castiel's words ran through is mind. Sam's jaw locked and he looked over at his other brother, "We go find our brother."

The Winchesters found him two miles down the road, lying face down and unmoving.

"Shit, Dean!" Sam was out the car before Dean had fully stopped it, Sam ran over to Adam. He turned him over and he cursed again, Adam was dangerously pale and he was completely soaked. The two brothers worked together to get him in the car and Dean raced back to the motel, while Sam cranked up the heat, and pulled off his jacket to drape over his little brother's shivering frame.

Sam and Dean all but kicked down the door to their room, hurriedly laying him on the bed. Dean went to the thermostat and turned it up full blast, while Sam peeled off Adam's soaking wet clothes.

"Dean," Sam called his brother over. Dean sucked in a breath at the sight of Adam's knee. The knee was absolutely mangled and a trickle of blood was still leaking from the wound, if Adam was really a ghoul the injury would've healed by now.

"Shit," Dean's voice came out mangled. "Sam, go get the first aid kit."

As Dean got the bullet out of Adam's knee and disinfect the wound, Sam went to the bathroom to fill up the tub.

Sam got back in time for Adam's eyes to flutter open.

"Hey buddy," Sam said softly but his eyes turned sad when Adam flinched back from them.

"What are you—"Adam tried to scramble back but groaned in pain.

"Hey!" Dean barked, quieting his voice when he saw him flinch. "You need to get warmed up. Samantha ran a bath for you, and we love you and all, but we are not going to strip you naked."

Adam slowly got up, a wary look on his face. It sent shards of ice straight through his brothers.

"Adam," Sam said softly. "Go take a bath. You need to get warmed up."

He nodded and slowly backed into the bathroom, refusing to turn his back to them. Dean let out a breath when the door closed and locked behind the youngest. "God Sam. Did you see him?"

"Can you blame him Dean? We practically tortured him."

Dean sighed, running his hands through his hair, "What do we do now?"

"I don't know."

Adam stepped out of the bathroom, dressed in only a towel. His eyes flicked between them, "I forgot my clothes."

"Oh," Sam leapt up, almost tripping over himself to get Adam's clothes. His hands shook as he gave it to him. "Here."

Adam tentatively took it with one hand, the other holding up his towel, his expression unreadable. His blue eyes stared into Sam's greens, searching for something, his expression didn't change but his shoulders relaxed and he nodded like he found what he was looking for. He hurried back into the motel bathroom. A second later he came out, towel draped over his arm. "Why am I here?"

"You were out in the rain, with no supplies, what did you expect?" Dean scowled.

Adam stared at him and Dean shifted uncomfortably, "I mean, why am I back? You told me, if you ever saw me again you'd put a bullet between my eyes."

"We...might have overreacted." Sam squirmed.

"No, really? 'Cause threatening your younger brother with death totally isn't overreacting." Adam bit out sarcastically.

"You were the one lying to us for four months!" Dean snapped, jumping to his feet.

"Because I knew this was how you guys would react!" Adam yelled back, the nervousness from earlier gone. "Excuse me for not wanting to get killed by my brothers!"

Dean clenched his jaw but he knew the kid was right. Sam intervened, "We know. And we're sorry; we shouldn't have reacted like that."

Adam took a deep breath and shook his head, "No. No, I'm sorry. You guys...you guys were right to act like that. I would've probably reacted the same way if I learned my brother was a monster."

"Hey," Dean said sharply. "You are not a monster."

"Really?" Adam laughed humorlessly. "I eat corpses to survive Dean, how does that not make me a monster?"

"We had a talk with Cas," Sam said. "He told us about what happened to you...before we met you. He also told us that you were becoming...human."

Adam's head whipped towards him, "What?!"

"You're becoming human, Adam." Sam said gently, Dean watched from the bed.

"That's impossible."

"Not according to Cas it's not." Sam smile tentively at him.

"No more corpses? No more hunger pains? Just human, completely human?" Adam asked, hope lighting up his face.

"Unless you decide not to eat for a week, than yeah, no hunger pains." Dean shrugged, trying to lighten the mood. It worked, Adam's eyes crinkled as he smiled, blue eyes twinkling.

"Does this mean I can stay with you too?"

Sam smirked, "You're our brother, Adam. You're kind of stuck with us."

Adam just smiled wider.

One Shot for Adam Milligan cause I love him. As for my other story, it's coming up. Don't worry.

Now edited because the mistakes were bothering me.