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.fic: The thing with feathers (Dean, Sam, Castiel) PG 1.2
Posting the first part of this because I have had an utterly craptastic week, and would like something to show for it. The second part should be up tomorrow or Saturday ♥
The thing with feathers (Dean, Sam, Castiel) PG | ~7,020 (this chapter)
This is possibly the most toxically cute thing I have ever written. It has wee!Winchesters and it is a fusion/reworking of Hayao Miyazaki's My Neighbor Totoro. A while ago, Mel introduced it to me as a movie that never fails to lift your spirits after a lousy day. And damn it, she's right; every time I'm feeling down and cranky and fed up about the world, one viewing takes the edge off, enough for me to be human again. While I was watching it for the first time, between the oohing and awwwwing, I observed to Mel that Satsuki (the older sister) is rather a bit like a cheerful version of Dean, watching over her adventurous and stubborn younger sister, Mei (i.e. Sam) while their father is away teaching at the university (or hunting demons). There's a powerful spirit who lives in the forest behind their house. Things developed from there.
You don't need to know the movie to follow this; some things had to be adjusted for the... darker, Winchesterian outlook on the world and all things supernatural, but I really recommend you get a hold of it. It's a lovely, simple, cheerful story.
The thing with feathers
Dean vaguely remembers a home that doesn’t involve words like "efficiency" and "weekly rates," but only vaguely. He'd learned addition and subtraction by figuring room rates, and by counting change for candy bars and those crappy plastic toys that Sammy liked to gnaw on when he was teething; they kept him quiet so Dean didn't have to worry about some hotel manager butting in about the crying kid.
This place is different, though, because it's an actual house for one, and for two, Uncle Bobby's driven up to help Dad get things squared away, things like furniture and hooking up a generator and adult stuff Dean can't help with. "Keep an eye on your brother," Dad tells him, which sometimes exasperates Dean; this is one of those times, feeling like he's being shuttled off somewhere to the side. Other kids, he knows, get paid for watching their bratty little siblings.
He tells himself to quit being a pussy and shut up, and grabs Sam's hand.
"C'mon," he says to Sam, "let's go exploring."
"'Asploring," Sam repeats in his squeak of a five-year-old voice.
Most of Dean's memories of their house are connected to fire and terror. The flight of stairs, in his mind, stretches on endlessly, dark except where the fire lights the very top, and makes his shadow stretch long and desperate ahead of him. In his arms, Sammy is heavy and shrieking his head off, even above the fire roaring and Dad shouting for Mom. Other than the smoke, there isn't much. He tries, sometimes, and comes up with warm smells and notches carved into the post of a door, and the garage where the Impala would sit, and the yard with its soft grass.
This house doesn't feel the same, in a way Dean can't put his finger on. It's old and creaky, the kind of house that he guesses where ghosts like to hang out, or would, if it didn't belong to a hunter. The wallpaper is mostly stain, and as he and Sam shuffle along the dust bunnies rise up and skitter away, bouncing off the floorboards where the wallpaper's peeled away to reveal molding paint. Sam doesn't let go of Dean's hand, and Dean can feel his hand getting sticky from the juice Sam had spilled over himself earlier.
"Izzt haunted?" Sammy asks, peering into a room that looks like a parlor, with furniture covered by yellowing sheets.
"Don't be stupid," Dean tells him. His heart goes all weird whenever Sammy comes out with questions like that, and his brain gets dizzy as he tries to think back and remember if he'd accidentally slipped and said something that would clue Sam in. It's the secret, the one other promise he'd made to Dad. Keep Sammy safe, and don’t tell him about any of this. Not, Dean thinks, that Sammy won't figure it out on his own one day anyway.
"I'm not stupid." The half-screech bounces off high ceilings.
"Maybe you're too stupid to know you're stupid." Only Sammy is kind of freakishly smart. He solves puzzles in the doctor's office in ten minutes and he can read like he was born knowing.
In protest, Sam wrenches his hand free and stomps down the hall. Dust clouds around his ankles and Sam's sneakers leave behind tiny prints. There are dark spots on the wallpaper from where pictures used to hang and where the sun couldn't reach; they look like ghosts, the ghosts of picture-frames. Wuss, Dean thinks to himself, and chases after Sammy, who's found the kitchen and is doing something with the chairs, dragging them back and forth to some private rhythm.
"Jeez, quit messing with things," Dean hisses as he grabs Sam under the armpits. Sam wriggles and protests and shrieks like a banshee right in Dean's ear.
"Boys!" Uncle Bobby's voice drifts down the hall. "Quit horsin' around."
"Tell him to stop!" Sam howls. He draws out stop into twenty syllables that end in a pathetic whimper.
"Oh, shut up." Depositing Sam in the middle of the kitchen floor isn't easy, because Sam clings like a vampire suddenly, wanting the exact opposite of what Dean wants, which is Sammy's sticky, wriggling body off him. Once he's on the floor, Sam glowers at him indignantly. They'd been in the car all day and the afternoon is dragging on, and Dean's back hurts from having to scrunch up in the passenger seat with some bags and boxes, and his head hurts from listening to Sam bellowing his favorite songs at the top of his lungs.
Dad appears in the kitchen doorway, leaning against the wall, and Dean knows enough to know that he's tired too.
"Why don't you go outside while Bobby and I get things squared away?" It's not really a suggestion. "Don't go far."
"We won't," Dean says, and tugs at the dead weight that is his little brother. "C'mon, Sammy." Sam doesn't budge; not only that, he makes himself weigh two hundred pounds. "Sammy."
"Don't wanna," Sam whimpers, but Dean glares at him, and with a world-weary sigh he clambers to his feet. Dean clamps his mouth shut around a sigh of relief. The linoleum, loosened from the floor, creaks and crackles underfoot, and the screen door doesn't move as Dean pulls on it. Then Sammy ducks through it where the screen has pulled away from the frame, and grumbling, Dean follows him.
Outside is mostly woods, woods in all directions interrupted only by the thin strip of asphalt that is the road. The way up had involved a lot of turning and a trip across a stream, which had interrupted Sam's concert long enough for him to ask about fish, and then up a hill, past a handful of houses. A girl a bit younger than Dean, with blonde hair and suspicious eyes, had huddled behind her mailbox and watched as they'd driven by, and she'd been the last person they've seen.
So, yeah, woods: green and green and green, looming around the house and its small expanse of overgrown yard. Even the grass is mazelike and all one color, and Dean keeps a tight grip on Sam's hand. Fortunately, Sam doesn't seem to mind, sticking close like he's a bit weirded out by it too. They wander slowly across the yard, downhill to where the stream runs – Dean can hear Dad's voice in his head, not too close, Dean followed with warnings about drowning and opening in Dean's head a huge chasm of guilt and failure if something should happen. Every few steps Dean looks down to make sure the small, sweaty hand clenched in his really is Sam and not his imagination, and then he turns back to look and make sure the house is still there.
Next to the woods, everything else – the house, the faint sound of Uncle Bobby hollering at their dad about something, the shiny bulk of the Impala in the drive – doesn't quite seem real. Maybe it's a dream or a hallucination, like what some spirits can make you see. A sudden wind whips across the lawn, cool against the warm day, bending the grass over sharply and making Dean take a step forward. He shivers, but as soon as he does, the wind has passed and is gone, already rippling the grass across the street and the trees in the far distance.
"Dean? Dean!"
"What, dorkface?" Dean about-faces and looks back down at Sam's dirty, impatient face.
"Lookit," Sam orders, pointing. Dean does.
"Wow," Dean breathes.
The wow is for an oak that towers over all the other trees, the green of its leaves richer and darker, glossy against the sky. A few birds, dark arrows against the blue and the clouds, swoop and circle on the high currents before flying into the safety of its branches. The thing is huge, living, old and a lot of other things Dean's nine-year-old brain can't quite wrap around, like it's been there forever and the entire forest grew up around it. All the other trees crouch at its feet, almost, the oak standing head and shoulders taller than the rest of them, the crown spreading out and the breeze tugging it this way and that.
"'S big," is Sammy's brilliant observation. He knuckles his hair out of his eyes for a better view.
"No duh," Dean says, trying to sound unimpressed.
"Maybe we could go climb in it," Sam says.
"Yeah, and maybe Dad could kick our asses." Mostly Dean wants to keep looking at it, even though it's a freaking stupid tree.
"Watch your mouth," Sam tells him. He sounds a lot like Dad when he does that, all flatly disapproving in a way that makes Dean instantly ashamed and makes him want to mutter the forbidden phrase under his breath just because. The impulse is usually squashed; the shame stays put.
"Watch your mouth," Dean says. He glowers down at Sam, who glowers back up at him, mouth thin with copycat severity. It's sort of a relief to be able to look away from the tree, and to stay looking away as he tells Sam no, they're not going down to the stupid stream to look for fish.
"There's a bridge." Sam's voice goes high, the pitch precisely calculated to rub on Dean's last, travel-stretched nerve.
"Yeah, and it's probably rotting." Dean spins on his heel and heads back to the house, still aware of the tree and the weird, totally whacked-out sense that they're being watched. "And there's probably bears or whatever in the woods."
"Liaaaaaaar," Sam moans, and offers half-hearted resistance to Dean's pulling him along. Dean gives him the chance to go and find out for himself, which makes Sam stick to him like glue, and once they're back inside among the dust and creaky floorboards, tell Dad Dean threatened to feed him to the bears.
"I did not," Dean protests.
"Maybe one of you should be asleep," Bobby says. That's not a suggestion either. "We've got your bedrooms set up."
"Bedrooms?" Dean repeats, to make sure he's heard the final -s properly. Bobby nods, and Dean's joy spikes unexpectedly.
And crashes at Sam's desolate face.
So Sam ends up sleeping with him anyway, in a bed that's small and narrow and too squishy, with blankets that smell like mothballs and second-hand stores. Even Dean, who's used to industrial detergent and hotel rooms that have marinaded in God only knows what, sneezes and rubs itchy eyes, and has to concentrate to ignore it. Sammy slithers up small and hot, a portable furnace, against Dean's side, and the breeze through the window doesn't make up for all the heat Sam's putting out. Sighing, Dean twists around so Sam's sweaty face presses against his back and looks out the window, to where the oak tree slowly tosses its head in breezes Dean otherwise can't see.
* * *
That night, the reason for them setting up house becomes clear. There's a handful of cases Dad and Bobby are working between them, some kind of ghost-plague – they've vaccinated the house, the ghost equivalent of a cootie shot, with the circle-circle, dot-dot and all – that will need some time to sort out.
"School's starting soon, too," Dad says. "You'll need to go for a little while."
"Dad!"
"Dean." Dad gives him the look, the one that closes off all argument. Dean scowls at the worn surface of the tabletop.
"Who's gonna look out for Sam?"
"He'll be starting kindergarten." Dad's hands move competently, quickly, over his gun. Dean knows the movements by heart, the disassembly, the cloth and oil, the reloading. They only do this after Sam's safe in bed, too conked out to be defiant and stay up. Times like this, it's just the two of them, Dad telling stories about his hunts and telling Dean how to kill any one of a dozen different things, and some nights, talking about football or his days with the Marines. In the face of this news, though, Dean struggles against helplessness and anger, even with the sawed-off in his hands, his head thick with betrayal.
"I won't be able to keep an eye on him." Worry jitters along his nerves, Sam too twerpy and dumb to get along with kids, and kindergarteners are little freaking monsters, Dean should know, and you can't shoot or stab them.
"You won't be able to, not all the time," Dad allows. "But you'll be in the same school, and Bobby's agreed to come up and check on you if I have to stay gone for a while."
"But you won't be gone too long." Dean glances anxiously out the window. He can barely see the oak, the tallest shadow in the wall of darkness ringing the house. Next to it, the night sky is the softest, deepest blue, and there are a few stars. After nights and days spent on the road, or in motels next to highways, the quiet almost overwhelms him.
"As long as I need to get the job done. It won't be too long, though, with Bobby working with me." A click as Dad re-engages the safety and tucks the pistol safely away. "You should be in bed."
"I can't sleep." He'd ended up drifting off that afternoon, watching the oak tree and the birds, his bones doing that weird humming thing they do when he's been in the car all day and the Impala's vibrations have worked its way into his body. It isn't really energizing, even though it feels like an adrenaline rush.
"You should try," Dad says. "I'll need you to keep an eye on Sam while Bobby and I go over some stuff. Make sure he doesn't interrupt us."
"Yeah," Dean sighs. That's Secret-related, and usually that would mean plopping Sam in front of the TV or playing hide-and-go-seek in Bobby's scrapyard, but all they have now is no TV and the woods they aren't allowed to go in.
"That's my boy," Dad says, and smiles, and in the glow of that, warmer than the lamps they've lit to save the generator, Dean is happy.
* * *
Sam's bored. Bored with a capital B.
Dean's reading one of his comic books, which he usually starts out reading out loud, and explaining the pictures and why Batman wears tights and Robin's eyes go all white when he has his mask on, and how it is no one recognizes Robin even though the mask doesn't hide very much. Somewhere around page ten, though, he'd forgotten and had stopped doing the sound effects and the explanations, and when Sam had reminded him, had told him to buzz off.
So Sam buzzes off, through the broken screen door, down the slope to the woods. Dad and Bobby are holed up in the study, the door shut, and Dad had said something about absolutely no disturbances unless it's life or death, and Dean had pulled Sam almost to the opposite corner of the house. And it's not like Dad specifically said the woods are off-limits, just that there's stuff in it, and anyways he's bored and Dean had been all sorts of stupid about the bridge and not doing anything fun and getting back to the house.
After yesterday the bridge is easy to find, even in the tall grass and all, a matter of listening for the stream. The bridge looks almost new, not rotting and gross like Dean had claimed, and the wood doesn't even creak underfoot as Sam crosses it. Beneath the bridge, water flows in long, clear streamers, over rocks that Dean says used to be rough but the water has smoothed them out over millions and millions of years. Which, Sam supposes, is a long time.
Under the trees the air cools down, and is dark and heavy and also old, like it hasn't gone anywhere in a long time. Sam wanders along a track, a narrow strip worn smooth that leads him into a tunnel of undergrowth and soft green grass. Despite the overgrowth the sun trickles down, in rays and spots and odd patterns that shift and move as Sam crawls forward. In the back of his head, Sam can hear the Dean-voice that tells him this is a seriously bad idea, and he'll catch heck for it, but the forest is quiet and calm, and the sun gives him plenty of light.
And anyway, he's not a wuss.
He keeps going, gradually realizing that he's going uphill and the grassy path has given way to gnarled roots and vines that catch his sneakers. Grunting, he tugs his foot free, and it comes loose from his shoe. Stopping is annoying, but he'll definitely catch heck for losing his shoes – which, the Dean-voice says, are expensive and cost money so God, Sam, take care of your stuff, geez – and at least the shoes are Velcro and not lace-up, which are still difficult for him.
Shoe restored, he continues on. After a few more minutes the tunnel ends, and Sam finds himself, out of breath, at the foot of the oak tree.
It's of course a lot bigger up close, so big Sam can't see the top, with the tree's thick tangle of branches. He remembers Dean showing him pictures of the big trees in California, the red ones, and Dean had said that Sam's seen them, only Sam can't remember that at all, and he's pretty sure he'd remember trees that big, even if he was (according to Dean) a stupid baby and had no idea what was going on.
"You cried most of the time, and you still had diapers," Dean had said.
"I did not," Sam had told him.
According to Dean, trees, like bratty little brothers, get bigger the older they are. It has to do with the rings, Dean had said, only Sam can't see any on the oak tree, what with the bark. Still, he's pretty sure this tree is old, millions of years, maybe, Dean's favorite number for anything so incomprehensibly huge even a nine-year-old can't describe it. Which, Sam supposes, has to be seriously huge. Some of the branches hang low, low enough, in fact, for Sam to climb onto them, with some work, and to walk along them without them bending under his weight.
He does this, imagining Dean freaking out if he even knew. Part of him feels bad, but not bad enough to keep him from slithering over one limb and heading for the next. It's like being Tarzan in one of Dean's comic books, except without the washcloth around his waist, and Sam doesn't have an animal friend, and there aren't vines, only leaves and leaves and leaves.
The bark scrapes at his palms and knees, and it stings, and he's covered in dirt. There's a couple places where he's itching, bug bites already swelling up. Absently, Sam scratches at them and heads around the tree, stepping up onto a gigantic root to reach for the next low branch.
Before he knows it he loses his footing, and he can't even scream or think before he finds himself aching, breathless and bewildered and very far downhill from where he'd started. A long way; the oak, he realizes, is on top of a hill, and its roots twine down in a big circle so there's a sort of hollow in the hillside, surrounded by smaller trees. Quiet presses down on him, so his breaths seem very loud, and this far under the oak tree Sam feels incredibly tiny, like standing next to his dad.
The hollow hides low on the side of the hill, sheltered from the breeze. Despite being so low down, with the oak and the other trees towering up all over, the sun makes its way through so the grass is a vibrant green and the light is hazy and rich, and there are even small flowers, white ones, growing where the roots of the oak hold soil, like cupped palms holding water.
"Wow," Sam breathes. He forgets the aches and the scrapes, and the bug bite behind one knee. Dean's favorite word comes to mind, the only word that seems capable of grasping all of this.
"Awesome."
He squints up into the light, turning in a slow circle to inspect the hollow. Dean might like it, he might like it enough not to get angry when he inevitably finds out what Sam's been up to. Sam has no idea how long he's been out here, but it's probably been hours, or maybe even most of the day.
His calculations break off when, in the course of his circle, he sees the wings on a low branch.
Wings, two huge black wings wrapped up around something, like the alien pod in Dean's comics, but Sam can see the feathers, glossy black, edged here and there with grey. They move slowly, in time with the breathing of the whatever-it-is-concealed beneath them, and their owner rests against the tree trunk, maybe for balance.
"Far out." Another Dean phrase, almost as all-encompassing as awesome. Sam moves closer, as quietly as he can.
This is, however, not very quietly. Not five feet away, he steps on an unseen stick, something that cracks loudly in the silence. The wings heave and twitch, fanning out and flapping hard once, twice, ruffling Sam's hair. All around them, the leaves shiver, and a bird squawks and flies away.
Wow. Sam doesn't know if he's said it, or just thought it, but wow just the same. It's an angel, an actual angel. Maybe. Sam stares at the thing, the man, with feathers, and the man stares straight back with eyes that are very, very blue.
Sam's seen pictures of angels, and one time he'd gone into a church and seen the stained glass, and one time he'd looked one of Bobby's old books, the ones made out of parchment. (Dad had protested, he didn't want Sammy learning about "that crap," and Uncle Bobby had told him to shut the goddamn hell up.) Those angels had all worn robes and haloes, and some of them had white wings and some of them had wings colored blue and red and green.
None of them, so far as Sam can remember, had black wings, and most of them had golden, curly hair, not dark. And none of them wore a jacket and tie, or a trench coat that's wrinkled and battered. They also all wore sandals, not black shoes tied, to Sam's expert eye, very inexpertly. Clearly not an angel, then, maybe something else, something from Dean's comics.
"Hi," says Sam. "Are you a birdman?"
The guy with wings, the angel because there's no better word for him, regards him calmly and silently.
"Hi," Sam repeats, with emphasis.
One wing moves slowly back and forth, shuffing against the bark. The angel-birdman-thing inclines his head, and Sam feels very studied, by something far, far older than the tree and older, maybe, than the entire world. He tries to think about that, but it doesn't work so well.
"Hello," he says after a moment. The word is soft and calm.
"Are you a birdman?"
The deep blue eyes blink, and silence stretches on again. Sam wonders if maybe he's slow, or not used to talking (if he lives in the woods), or if maybe he's like one of the old made-up spirits Bobby talks about sometimes. Those ones live for years and years and go weeks without breathing, so maybe they can talk as slow as they want.
"I'm not," the creature says. "I'm an angel."
"Wow." Sam mulls this over. An actual angel. "What's your name?"
"Castiel," the angel says.
"I'm Sam," Sam informs him.
"Hello, Sam." The angel, Castiel, almost smiles – Sam can see it, just there, at the corner of his mouth, but mostly Castiel just seems puzzled by him, like a little kid out in the forest is weirder than an angel who lives in a tree. He also seems briefly confused by the hand Sam offers him, but he leans down, canting his wings for balance, and shakes Sam's hand in turn, closing one hand over their clasped ones. His hand feels like a normal human hand, warm and soft.
"So what do you do out here?" Castiel doesn't answer that, or Sam's question about if he has anything to eat, except to say that angels don’t need to eat anything, which Sam guesses is a no. Castiel stretches, both wings extending and flapping hard enough for Sam to feel the wind, and close enough for the feathers to almost brush his face.
"Can you fly with those?" he asks.
Castiel looks at him sideways, weighing the question and looking kind of like Dean looks when he's just about to lose his patience with Sam demanding to know things. At last, Castiel tells him that he does fly with them, what else would he fly with, and Sam says he supposes a plane, or a parachute.
"I don't fly in planes, or with parachutes," Castiel says, sounding vaguely irritated, how Dean gets when he's tired of Sam's very reasonable questions. He stretches once more, but doesn't flap his wings this time; instead, he leans back against the tree trunk, wings curved around his body again. They remain slightly open, like curtains, the long flight feathers trailing to the ground. Unable to resist, Sam touches one, and Castiel twitches it away with a soft sound before Sam can do much more than register how smooth it is.
"Were you sleeping?" Sam asks, and Castiel regards him levelly, of course I was sleeping written clear as day, and Sam thinks of some animal picture books with sleeping birds.
"I'll be quiet," Sam assures him. He sits down in the grass, tired suddenly, worn-out with climbing and wonder, the edges of bruised elbows and knees smoothed out by sleepiness. By Castiel, maybe, angels are supposed to be healers, he remembers Bobby saying, even though Bobby had been doubtful about that bit. With Castiel's wings shadowing him in warmth, Sam can believe it, and he wishes Bobby were here, so he could tell him.
It's the last thing he knows, other than drifting half-awake peace and, from somewhere far away, Dean's voice calling for him. He thinks about answering, but before he can really consider it, two fingers press against his forehead – Castiel, he thinks hazily – and suddenly he's awake and Dean is shaking him and hollering and pissed (not a word he should know, but he listens).
"How'd you get here?" he asks, yawning.
"I crossed the bridge, you moron." Dean smacks the back of his head and Sam yowls indignantly. "Were you asleep?"
"I was with Castiel." Sam sits up and blinks in surprise. He's not in the forest anymore, he's at the edge, just beyond where the trees stop. The stream and the bridge aren't far away. And Dean is here, right here, looming over him and really mad. Sam looks around for Castiel, but the angel has long vanished, back to his tree, maybe.
"Who's Castiel?" Dean says it wrong, probably on purpose. "Did someone come by? Jeez, Sammy, what did I tell you about talking to strangers?" Another smack, which brings with it a sudden awareness of his raw knees and bug bites.
"He's not a stranger," Sam says crossly, "he's the angel who lives in the oak tree."
"Oh, yeah." Dean rolls his eyes. "Duh, the angel who lives in the oak tree, why didn't I think of that?"
"Shut up," Sam says, "or I'm gonna – "
"What? Tell Dad?" Dean snorts. "He'll end you if he finds you snuck off. They aren't even gonna find pieces of you, twerp."
Sam has to admit that's true, and he's not mad enough at Dean to get Dean in trouble, and anyway, Dean was just worried and hovery like Dean usually is, like Sammy's still a baby and can't dress himself. Dad doesn't help.
"Come on," Dean sighs. He hoists Sam to his feet. "You need Band-Aids and stuff for your bites. God, you're dumb."
"I'm not dumb," Sam mumbles. "And I don't care if you don't believe me, I saw an actual angel."
"Yeah, well," Dean remarks, "I'll believe it when I see it. Now c'mon, Dad and Bobby are almost finished, and if they ask what you got up to, keep your trap shut."
"Okay, Dean."
And Dean kind of drives him nuts, being the big brother and always being right even if Sam suspects he's wrong, but in Dad-related stuff he's usually right. Sam keeps his mouth shut as they head back inside and creep up to the bathroom, and Dean cleans his cuts and sticks on the big Band-Aids meant for scraped knees. Sam bites his lip when Dean glares him into silence, even though the soap stings and Dean presses the adhesive to make sure it stays. He even puts on jeans without complaining, despite the warm day and how he feels sticky from sap and sweat.
"Tomorrow we can go meet Castiel," he offers, very softly, softly enough that he's pretty sure Dad and Uncle Bobby can't hear.
"Yeah," Dean says without enthusiasm. "Whatever."
"We can," Sam insists.
Dean doesn't say anything to that, just helps Sam down off the toilet and crams the bandage wrappers into his back pocket. He stares at Sam hard, like maybe suspects Sam is lying or crazy or both.
"Don't mention any of this to Dad, okay? Not where you were, and not your imaginary angel buddy. Swear it."
"I swear," Sam agrees, suppressing the demand for Dean to believe him, and offers his pinky.
Dean sighs and accepts it. It's a sacred trust, Sam's old enough to know that, and it means he keeps his mouth shut when Dean says they just read comic books and played in the yard, and yeah, Sammy had lunch, PB&J and milk. Dad nods and smiles, which makes guilt twist its mean, sharp twist in Sam's gut, but he remembers Dean's words and how Dean hadn't believed in Castiel, and keeps his mouth shut tight.
* * *
The only thing worse than school is starting at a new school when it's almost the end of the year. Dean fumbles along through the history and literature as best he can and doesn't bother with the books; he knows how to read, and Bobby's taught him Latin, which is all he needs. The math he can do mostly in his head, thanks to Dad, with the decimals and everything. Lunch, for the most part, is torture.
He's used to being alone in a crowd, a good thing because all the other kids have their groups and watch the new kid suspiciously and talk behind his back. The only person who doesn't do this is the blonde girl from down the way, who introduces herself as Jo, Joanna Beth Harvelle, and is that baloney? Wordlessly, Dean hands over his sandwich, and is sort of glad for peanut butter and grape jelly in return, even though it comes with the price of having to sit next to her and listen to the fifth-graders singing about Jo the freak and the new kid sittin' in a tree.
"Go to hell," Jo advises them, which makes Dean blink and the other kids gasp in horror. She's on the shrimpy side, all skinny bones and second-hand clothes, and she's a grade behind him. Also, a girl. "Morons," she mutters, and takes a bite of Dean's baloney sandwich.
Dean endures the stares and all of it, and wishes escaping back to class and Ms. Appleton's civics lesson didn't sound so wonderful. It's freaking pathetic.
It also gets worse when Ms. Appleton is droning on about how bills become laws, and the door opens. Thirty heads, including Dean's, swivel around, and to his unending mortification, Dean sees Ms. Conley, the assistant principal, standing there, with a tearstreaked and rebellious Sam next to her. Ms. Conley asks Ms. Appleton over, and they hold a whispered conference with a lot of meaningful looks in Dean's direction. Sammy sniffles, loudly.
"Well, there's nothing else for it, then," Ms. Appleton sighs. She kneels down and smiles at Sam, who determinedly looks away from her. "Sweetie, you want to go sit next to your brother?"
Sam doesn't answer, just marches over to the empty desk next to Dean and clambers into it. Dean tries to melt into the plastic and plywood, but it doesn't work; he stays whole, with every other kid in the third grade staring at him, and Sammy rubbing tears and snot off his face.
"I told you to behave yourself," he hisses.
"I knowwwww," Sammy whimpers, so despondent that Dean almost, almost feels bad enough to stop being embarrassed by his little brother turning up in class.
"Sammy," Ms. Appleton tells the class as she deposits some paper and crayons on Sam's desk, "will be spending some time with us today. Now, while I talk to Dean, why don’t you all answer the first three study questions in the back of your chapter?"
Everyone else pretends to answer the study questions while Ms. Appleton kneels by Dean, and explains that they tried to call his father, and then Mr. Singer, but couldn't reach either number, and is there another number they could try? Dean registers the question through the haze of this is the worst day of my life and I'm gonna strangle you, Sammy, and a fierce yearning to go home. He shakes his head.
Ms. Appleton makes noises about parent-teacher conferences and sighs before walking away.
"Why couldn't you just suck it up?" he growls at Sammy, who's wiped away his tears and is drawing happily. "And what the hell is that?"
"Castiel," Sammy says. He points to two large black scribbles. "These are his wings."
"You have got to let that go," Dean says to his civics book.
"I do not."
Dean bites his tongue. Probably Ms. Appleton's already annoyed with him, and he's been in two fights already in two weeks; he maybe has one more chance before she writes him off. Anyway, starting the Castiel argument up again isn't going to achieve much for Dean; it hasn't done much yet except annoy him and make him angry enough to storm off to his room – their room – and slam the door and barricade it with a chair. He'd buried his head under a pillow to drown out Sammy's howling and furious banging.
"Why won't you believe in him?" Sammy had asked later as he'd plowed through macaroni and cheese. "He's an angel."
"Just shut up about it, okay? Jeez." There's no way, no way he can talk about Castiel without talking about that night when Mom had died, and the last words she'd said to him, because if angels were real and actually watching she wouldn't have died.
He thinks all of this again, stewing in anger and just wanting to grab Sammy and shake reality into his stupid five-year-old head. Dad's the only thing that's real, he wants to say, only he has no idea how to say it that doesn't sound crazy, so he has to shut up, and that just makes him madder. The anger lasts him through the last period of the day, almost sharp enough for him to try to get a seat by someone else on the bus, but Sammy, oblivious to the fact that Dean is seriously seriously pissed, clings to his side, sheaf of Castiel doodles in his free hand.
And what the hell kind of an angel wears a trench coat anyway? A Castiel angel had been Sam's answer when Dean had asked.
The bus rumbles up and down hills, through the dying light of afternoon. Dean hears a rumble that isn't the bus's engine, but thunder. The bus is too big to fit on the road up to their house; it's almost a mile of bad, narrow asphalt, a walk Dean likes less and less every day, and especially dislikes when it rains.
"Freaking awesome," he mutters. "Come on, Sammy, we're gonna have to make a run for it."
Sam protests about the drawings, and Dean sighs, stuffs them in his backpack as they climb out, along with Jo, into a humid breeze and a darkening sky.
"You kids hurry home," the bus driver tells them.
"Duh," Jo says.
The rain starts up the second the bus leaves. Sammy shrieks and Dean mutters curses under his breath. Jo produces an umbrella and hands it to him.
"What?"
"It's an umbrella, idiot." Jo shakes it meaningfully, and water sprays on Dean's shirt. "I don't mind getting wet, and I bet you'll catch it if your little brother gets sick."
"Thanks," Dean mutters gracelessly, taking the umbrella and handing it to Sammy, who clutches it happily in both hands. "Say thanks, freakazoid."
"'M not a freakazoid," Sam says instead.
Jo takes off without waiting, all skinny legs and small feet dodging the puddles. Dean can't run that fast, not with Sammy stumbling along and stepping in every puddle on the way, but he manages to move faster when the sky suddenly goes really dark and the wind whips up and the trees hiss and rustle angrily. The rain comes down in sheets, and the road twists on and on, Dean soaking because even though he's stolen the umbrella from Sam the umbrella isn't very big and Sam needs to stay dry.
At long, long last the house looms up out of the forest, almost swallowed by the trees and the rain, and all of it dwarfed by the oak. Dean hustles Sam in through the front door, and they track rainwater and mud all the way upstairs to the bathroom. Sam doesn't protest much when Dean pulls his clothes off and dumps him in the tub, although there's some whining at the hot water.
"I'll put clothes out for you," Dean tells him, and squelches his way to the bedroom.
Eventually they both go downstairs, the house echoing silently around them, only the sound of the rain and the hum-tick of the generator. Technically they're not supposed to be here, Dean knows, the place is owned by a hunter who lets other hunters use it in exchange for information and weapons, cash sometimes. Dean's not really supposed to know that, but he figures it could be useful.
Just like it would have been useful to know that Bobby'd gotten called away on something related to the current case. Their dad, though, Bobby's note informs him, will be back tonight. When he learns this, Sam is euphoric. Mostly, Dean is relieved.
The afternoon drags on, Sammy pestering Dean to come look at his drawings some more, which are mostly huge black scribbles of wings with brown and white and tan scribbles, and a ragged blue line that Sam says is Castiel's tie. Dean pretends to be interested, gets Sam's snack, goes back to pretending interest until he thinks his eyes are going to explode in their sockets.
"It's getting dark," Sam moans from the epicenter of a disaster of drawing paper.
"So turn on a light, baby." Dean makes a point of sitting in the easy chair and staring at the mostly-invisible page of his math book. Not like he was paying attention to it anyway. With an aggrieved sigh, Sam rolls to his feet and goes to turn on the lights, and when Dean looks out the rain-streaked window, the darkness outside is approaching absolute.
"When's Dad getting home?" Sam asks as he restores himself to the center of the paper storm.
"When he gets home. Quit whining."
"When's that?" Already Sam's pretty good at pretending to be doing something else while pestering Dean to the point of murder.
"When it is. Shut up."
"I wanna go wait for him."
"Yeah, well, I want Holly Hunter and pizza for dinner, but it ain't happening. Shut up."
"Who's Holly Hunter?" Sam's back on his feet again, roaming around the room. He makes a circle around the coffee table, the one other chair, brushes deliberately close against Dean's feet, so Dean jerks back with an exasperated noise.
"A girl at school."
"I wanna go down and wait for Dad." Sam's voice is definitely shading toward whiny, and Dean has to suppress the urge to strangle him. Instead, he points out that they need to stay put and Dad will skin him alive if anything happens to Sam and Dean's in charge, and all Sam has to say to that is, "I wanna go down and wait for Dad."
Which is how Dean ends up at the rainy, half-flooded turnoff to their road, huddled under one umbrella while Sam, in his raincoat and boots, moaning about how he's too tired to hold up his umbrella but nonononono he doesn't want to go back up to the house, leans wetly against him. The water slicking off his coat seeps through Dean's jacket and jeans.
"It's a good thing you're my little brother," Dean tells the top of Sam's head. Sam nods, either in agreement or because he's sleepy and has totally violated naptime by insisting on coming down here. Coming down here in the freaking pouring rain and getting Dean all soaked. Sighing, Dean props Sam's umbrella – Jo's umbrella, really – against his leg and tries to keep it from falling over.
At least Sam's quiet, Dean tells himself. Everything's quiet, except for the soft machine-gun patter of rain on the leaves and the ground and Dean's umbrella, and the rushing water in the culvert nearby, all muddy from the gravel and dirt on the roadside. Just that, just the water, no birds, no wind, the air all heavy and still, and nothing to look at except long dark green stretches of woods, and the shiny road, the dirt, the two dress shoes that have appeared, visible under the margin of Dean's umbrella.
The two shoes, Dean realizes, and the black feathers that trail in the water.
-tbc.-
The thing with feathers (Dean, Sam, Castiel) PG | ~7,020 (this chapter)
This is possibly the most toxically cute thing I have ever written. It has wee!Winchesters and it is a fusion/reworking of Hayao Miyazaki's My Neighbor Totoro. A while ago, Mel introduced it to me as a movie that never fails to lift your spirits after a lousy day. And damn it, she's right; every time I'm feeling down and cranky and fed up about the world, one viewing takes the edge off, enough for me to be human again. While I was watching it for the first time, between the oohing and awwwwing, I observed to Mel that Satsuki (the older sister) is rather a bit like a cheerful version of Dean, watching over her adventurous and stubborn younger sister, Mei (i.e. Sam) while their father is away teaching at the university (or hunting demons). There's a powerful spirit who lives in the forest behind their house. Things developed from there.
You don't need to know the movie to follow this; some things had to be adjusted for the... darker, Winchesterian outlook on the world and all things supernatural, but I really recommend you get a hold of it. It's a lovely, simple, cheerful story.
The thing with feathers
Dean vaguely remembers a home that doesn’t involve words like "efficiency" and "weekly rates," but only vaguely. He'd learned addition and subtraction by figuring room rates, and by counting change for candy bars and those crappy plastic toys that Sammy liked to gnaw on when he was teething; they kept him quiet so Dean didn't have to worry about some hotel manager butting in about the crying kid.
This place is different, though, because it's an actual house for one, and for two, Uncle Bobby's driven up to help Dad get things squared away, things like furniture and hooking up a generator and adult stuff Dean can't help with. "Keep an eye on your brother," Dad tells him, which sometimes exasperates Dean; this is one of those times, feeling like he's being shuttled off somewhere to the side. Other kids, he knows, get paid for watching their bratty little siblings.
He tells himself to quit being a pussy and shut up, and grabs Sam's hand.
"C'mon," he says to Sam, "let's go exploring."
"'Asploring," Sam repeats in his squeak of a five-year-old voice.
Most of Dean's memories of their house are connected to fire and terror. The flight of stairs, in his mind, stretches on endlessly, dark except where the fire lights the very top, and makes his shadow stretch long and desperate ahead of him. In his arms, Sammy is heavy and shrieking his head off, even above the fire roaring and Dad shouting for Mom. Other than the smoke, there isn't much. He tries, sometimes, and comes up with warm smells and notches carved into the post of a door, and the garage where the Impala would sit, and the yard with its soft grass.
This house doesn't feel the same, in a way Dean can't put his finger on. It's old and creaky, the kind of house that he guesses where ghosts like to hang out, or would, if it didn't belong to a hunter. The wallpaper is mostly stain, and as he and Sam shuffle along the dust bunnies rise up and skitter away, bouncing off the floorboards where the wallpaper's peeled away to reveal molding paint. Sam doesn't let go of Dean's hand, and Dean can feel his hand getting sticky from the juice Sam had spilled over himself earlier.
"Izzt haunted?" Sammy asks, peering into a room that looks like a parlor, with furniture covered by yellowing sheets.
"Don't be stupid," Dean tells him. His heart goes all weird whenever Sammy comes out with questions like that, and his brain gets dizzy as he tries to think back and remember if he'd accidentally slipped and said something that would clue Sam in. It's the secret, the one other promise he'd made to Dad. Keep Sammy safe, and don’t tell him about any of this. Not, Dean thinks, that Sammy won't figure it out on his own one day anyway.
"I'm not stupid." The half-screech bounces off high ceilings.
"Maybe you're too stupid to know you're stupid." Only Sammy is kind of freakishly smart. He solves puzzles in the doctor's office in ten minutes and he can read like he was born knowing.
In protest, Sam wrenches his hand free and stomps down the hall. Dust clouds around his ankles and Sam's sneakers leave behind tiny prints. There are dark spots on the wallpaper from where pictures used to hang and where the sun couldn't reach; they look like ghosts, the ghosts of picture-frames. Wuss, Dean thinks to himself, and chases after Sammy, who's found the kitchen and is doing something with the chairs, dragging them back and forth to some private rhythm.
"Jeez, quit messing with things," Dean hisses as he grabs Sam under the armpits. Sam wriggles and protests and shrieks like a banshee right in Dean's ear.
"Boys!" Uncle Bobby's voice drifts down the hall. "Quit horsin' around."
"Tell him to stop!" Sam howls. He draws out stop into twenty syllables that end in a pathetic whimper.
"Oh, shut up." Depositing Sam in the middle of the kitchen floor isn't easy, because Sam clings like a vampire suddenly, wanting the exact opposite of what Dean wants, which is Sammy's sticky, wriggling body off him. Once he's on the floor, Sam glowers at him indignantly. They'd been in the car all day and the afternoon is dragging on, and Dean's back hurts from having to scrunch up in the passenger seat with some bags and boxes, and his head hurts from listening to Sam bellowing his favorite songs at the top of his lungs.
Dad appears in the kitchen doorway, leaning against the wall, and Dean knows enough to know that he's tired too.
"Why don't you go outside while Bobby and I get things squared away?" It's not really a suggestion. "Don't go far."
"We won't," Dean says, and tugs at the dead weight that is his little brother. "C'mon, Sammy." Sam doesn't budge; not only that, he makes himself weigh two hundred pounds. "Sammy."
"Don't wanna," Sam whimpers, but Dean glares at him, and with a world-weary sigh he clambers to his feet. Dean clamps his mouth shut around a sigh of relief. The linoleum, loosened from the floor, creaks and crackles underfoot, and the screen door doesn't move as Dean pulls on it. Then Sammy ducks through it where the screen has pulled away from the frame, and grumbling, Dean follows him.
Outside is mostly woods, woods in all directions interrupted only by the thin strip of asphalt that is the road. The way up had involved a lot of turning and a trip across a stream, which had interrupted Sam's concert long enough for him to ask about fish, and then up a hill, past a handful of houses. A girl a bit younger than Dean, with blonde hair and suspicious eyes, had huddled behind her mailbox and watched as they'd driven by, and she'd been the last person they've seen.
So, yeah, woods: green and green and green, looming around the house and its small expanse of overgrown yard. Even the grass is mazelike and all one color, and Dean keeps a tight grip on Sam's hand. Fortunately, Sam doesn't seem to mind, sticking close like he's a bit weirded out by it too. They wander slowly across the yard, downhill to where the stream runs – Dean can hear Dad's voice in his head, not too close, Dean followed with warnings about drowning and opening in Dean's head a huge chasm of guilt and failure if something should happen. Every few steps Dean looks down to make sure the small, sweaty hand clenched in his really is Sam and not his imagination, and then he turns back to look and make sure the house is still there.
Next to the woods, everything else – the house, the faint sound of Uncle Bobby hollering at their dad about something, the shiny bulk of the Impala in the drive – doesn't quite seem real. Maybe it's a dream or a hallucination, like what some spirits can make you see. A sudden wind whips across the lawn, cool against the warm day, bending the grass over sharply and making Dean take a step forward. He shivers, but as soon as he does, the wind has passed and is gone, already rippling the grass across the street and the trees in the far distance.
"Dean? Dean!"
"What, dorkface?" Dean about-faces and looks back down at Sam's dirty, impatient face.
"Lookit," Sam orders, pointing. Dean does.
"Wow," Dean breathes.
The wow is for an oak that towers over all the other trees, the green of its leaves richer and darker, glossy against the sky. A few birds, dark arrows against the blue and the clouds, swoop and circle on the high currents before flying into the safety of its branches. The thing is huge, living, old and a lot of other things Dean's nine-year-old brain can't quite wrap around, like it's been there forever and the entire forest grew up around it. All the other trees crouch at its feet, almost, the oak standing head and shoulders taller than the rest of them, the crown spreading out and the breeze tugging it this way and that.
"'S big," is Sammy's brilliant observation. He knuckles his hair out of his eyes for a better view.
"No duh," Dean says, trying to sound unimpressed.
"Maybe we could go climb in it," Sam says.
"Yeah, and maybe Dad could kick our asses." Mostly Dean wants to keep looking at it, even though it's a freaking stupid tree.
"Watch your mouth," Sam tells him. He sounds a lot like Dad when he does that, all flatly disapproving in a way that makes Dean instantly ashamed and makes him want to mutter the forbidden phrase under his breath just because. The impulse is usually squashed; the shame stays put.
"Watch your mouth," Dean says. He glowers down at Sam, who glowers back up at him, mouth thin with copycat severity. It's sort of a relief to be able to look away from the tree, and to stay looking away as he tells Sam no, they're not going down to the stupid stream to look for fish.
"There's a bridge." Sam's voice goes high, the pitch precisely calculated to rub on Dean's last, travel-stretched nerve.
"Yeah, and it's probably rotting." Dean spins on his heel and heads back to the house, still aware of the tree and the weird, totally whacked-out sense that they're being watched. "And there's probably bears or whatever in the woods."
"Liaaaaaaar," Sam moans, and offers half-hearted resistance to Dean's pulling him along. Dean gives him the chance to go and find out for himself, which makes Sam stick to him like glue, and once they're back inside among the dust and creaky floorboards, tell Dad Dean threatened to feed him to the bears.
"I did not," Dean protests.
"Maybe one of you should be asleep," Bobby says. That's not a suggestion either. "We've got your bedrooms set up."
"Bedrooms?" Dean repeats, to make sure he's heard the final -s properly. Bobby nods, and Dean's joy spikes unexpectedly.
And crashes at Sam's desolate face.
So Sam ends up sleeping with him anyway, in a bed that's small and narrow and too squishy, with blankets that smell like mothballs and second-hand stores. Even Dean, who's used to industrial detergent and hotel rooms that have marinaded in God only knows what, sneezes and rubs itchy eyes, and has to concentrate to ignore it. Sammy slithers up small and hot, a portable furnace, against Dean's side, and the breeze through the window doesn't make up for all the heat Sam's putting out. Sighing, Dean twists around so Sam's sweaty face presses against his back and looks out the window, to where the oak tree slowly tosses its head in breezes Dean otherwise can't see.
That night, the reason for them setting up house becomes clear. There's a handful of cases Dad and Bobby are working between them, some kind of ghost-plague – they've vaccinated the house, the ghost equivalent of a cootie shot, with the circle-circle, dot-dot and all – that will need some time to sort out.
"School's starting soon, too," Dad says. "You'll need to go for a little while."
"Dad!"
"Dean." Dad gives him the look, the one that closes off all argument. Dean scowls at the worn surface of the tabletop.
"Who's gonna look out for Sam?"
"He'll be starting kindergarten." Dad's hands move competently, quickly, over his gun. Dean knows the movements by heart, the disassembly, the cloth and oil, the reloading. They only do this after Sam's safe in bed, too conked out to be defiant and stay up. Times like this, it's just the two of them, Dad telling stories about his hunts and telling Dean how to kill any one of a dozen different things, and some nights, talking about football or his days with the Marines. In the face of this news, though, Dean struggles against helplessness and anger, even with the sawed-off in his hands, his head thick with betrayal.
"I won't be able to keep an eye on him." Worry jitters along his nerves, Sam too twerpy and dumb to get along with kids, and kindergarteners are little freaking monsters, Dean should know, and you can't shoot or stab them.
"You won't be able to, not all the time," Dad allows. "But you'll be in the same school, and Bobby's agreed to come up and check on you if I have to stay gone for a while."
"But you won't be gone too long." Dean glances anxiously out the window. He can barely see the oak, the tallest shadow in the wall of darkness ringing the house. Next to it, the night sky is the softest, deepest blue, and there are a few stars. After nights and days spent on the road, or in motels next to highways, the quiet almost overwhelms him.
"As long as I need to get the job done. It won't be too long, though, with Bobby working with me." A click as Dad re-engages the safety and tucks the pistol safely away. "You should be in bed."
"I can't sleep." He'd ended up drifting off that afternoon, watching the oak tree and the birds, his bones doing that weird humming thing they do when he's been in the car all day and the Impala's vibrations have worked its way into his body. It isn't really energizing, even though it feels like an adrenaline rush.
"You should try," Dad says. "I'll need you to keep an eye on Sam while Bobby and I go over some stuff. Make sure he doesn't interrupt us."
"Yeah," Dean sighs. That's Secret-related, and usually that would mean plopping Sam in front of the TV or playing hide-and-go-seek in Bobby's scrapyard, but all they have now is no TV and the woods they aren't allowed to go in.
"That's my boy," Dad says, and smiles, and in the glow of that, warmer than the lamps they've lit to save the generator, Dean is happy.
Sam's bored. Bored with a capital B.
Dean's reading one of his comic books, which he usually starts out reading out loud, and explaining the pictures and why Batman wears tights and Robin's eyes go all white when he has his mask on, and how it is no one recognizes Robin even though the mask doesn't hide very much. Somewhere around page ten, though, he'd forgotten and had stopped doing the sound effects and the explanations, and when Sam had reminded him, had told him to buzz off.
So Sam buzzes off, through the broken screen door, down the slope to the woods. Dad and Bobby are holed up in the study, the door shut, and Dad had said something about absolutely no disturbances unless it's life or death, and Dean had pulled Sam almost to the opposite corner of the house. And it's not like Dad specifically said the woods are off-limits, just that there's stuff in it, and anyways he's bored and Dean had been all sorts of stupid about the bridge and not doing anything fun and getting back to the house.
After yesterday the bridge is easy to find, even in the tall grass and all, a matter of listening for the stream. The bridge looks almost new, not rotting and gross like Dean had claimed, and the wood doesn't even creak underfoot as Sam crosses it. Beneath the bridge, water flows in long, clear streamers, over rocks that Dean says used to be rough but the water has smoothed them out over millions and millions of years. Which, Sam supposes, is a long time.
Under the trees the air cools down, and is dark and heavy and also old, like it hasn't gone anywhere in a long time. Sam wanders along a track, a narrow strip worn smooth that leads him into a tunnel of undergrowth and soft green grass. Despite the overgrowth the sun trickles down, in rays and spots and odd patterns that shift and move as Sam crawls forward. In the back of his head, Sam can hear the Dean-voice that tells him this is a seriously bad idea, and he'll catch heck for it, but the forest is quiet and calm, and the sun gives him plenty of light.
And anyway, he's not a wuss.
He keeps going, gradually realizing that he's going uphill and the grassy path has given way to gnarled roots and vines that catch his sneakers. Grunting, he tugs his foot free, and it comes loose from his shoe. Stopping is annoying, but he'll definitely catch heck for losing his shoes – which, the Dean-voice says, are expensive and cost money so God, Sam, take care of your stuff, geez – and at least the shoes are Velcro and not lace-up, which are still difficult for him.
Shoe restored, he continues on. After a few more minutes the tunnel ends, and Sam finds himself, out of breath, at the foot of the oak tree.
It's of course a lot bigger up close, so big Sam can't see the top, with the tree's thick tangle of branches. He remembers Dean showing him pictures of the big trees in California, the red ones, and Dean had said that Sam's seen them, only Sam can't remember that at all, and he's pretty sure he'd remember trees that big, even if he was (according to Dean) a stupid baby and had no idea what was going on.
"You cried most of the time, and you still had diapers," Dean had said.
"I did not," Sam had told him.
According to Dean, trees, like bratty little brothers, get bigger the older they are. It has to do with the rings, Dean had said, only Sam can't see any on the oak tree, what with the bark. Still, he's pretty sure this tree is old, millions of years, maybe, Dean's favorite number for anything so incomprehensibly huge even a nine-year-old can't describe it. Which, Sam supposes, has to be seriously huge. Some of the branches hang low, low enough, in fact, for Sam to climb onto them, with some work, and to walk along them without them bending under his weight.
He does this, imagining Dean freaking out if he even knew. Part of him feels bad, but not bad enough to keep him from slithering over one limb and heading for the next. It's like being Tarzan in one of Dean's comic books, except without the washcloth around his waist, and Sam doesn't have an animal friend, and there aren't vines, only leaves and leaves and leaves.
The bark scrapes at his palms and knees, and it stings, and he's covered in dirt. There's a couple places where he's itching, bug bites already swelling up. Absently, Sam scratches at them and heads around the tree, stepping up onto a gigantic root to reach for the next low branch.
Before he knows it he loses his footing, and he can't even scream or think before he finds himself aching, breathless and bewildered and very far downhill from where he'd started. A long way; the oak, he realizes, is on top of a hill, and its roots twine down in a big circle so there's a sort of hollow in the hillside, surrounded by smaller trees. Quiet presses down on him, so his breaths seem very loud, and this far under the oak tree Sam feels incredibly tiny, like standing next to his dad.
The hollow hides low on the side of the hill, sheltered from the breeze. Despite being so low down, with the oak and the other trees towering up all over, the sun makes its way through so the grass is a vibrant green and the light is hazy and rich, and there are even small flowers, white ones, growing where the roots of the oak hold soil, like cupped palms holding water.
"Wow," Sam breathes. He forgets the aches and the scrapes, and the bug bite behind one knee. Dean's favorite word comes to mind, the only word that seems capable of grasping all of this.
"Awesome."
He squints up into the light, turning in a slow circle to inspect the hollow. Dean might like it, he might like it enough not to get angry when he inevitably finds out what Sam's been up to. Sam has no idea how long he's been out here, but it's probably been hours, or maybe even most of the day.
His calculations break off when, in the course of his circle, he sees the wings on a low branch.
Wings, two huge black wings wrapped up around something, like the alien pod in Dean's comics, but Sam can see the feathers, glossy black, edged here and there with grey. They move slowly, in time with the breathing of the whatever-it-is-concealed beneath them, and their owner rests against the tree trunk, maybe for balance.
"Far out." Another Dean phrase, almost as all-encompassing as awesome. Sam moves closer, as quietly as he can.
This is, however, not very quietly. Not five feet away, he steps on an unseen stick, something that cracks loudly in the silence. The wings heave and twitch, fanning out and flapping hard once, twice, ruffling Sam's hair. All around them, the leaves shiver, and a bird squawks and flies away.
Wow. Sam doesn't know if he's said it, or just thought it, but wow just the same. It's an angel, an actual angel. Maybe. Sam stares at the thing, the man, with feathers, and the man stares straight back with eyes that are very, very blue.
Sam's seen pictures of angels, and one time he'd gone into a church and seen the stained glass, and one time he'd looked one of Bobby's old books, the ones made out of parchment. (Dad had protested, he didn't want Sammy learning about "that crap," and Uncle Bobby had told him to shut the goddamn hell up.) Those angels had all worn robes and haloes, and some of them had white wings and some of them had wings colored blue and red and green.
None of them, so far as Sam can remember, had black wings, and most of them had golden, curly hair, not dark. And none of them wore a jacket and tie, or a trench coat that's wrinkled and battered. They also all wore sandals, not black shoes tied, to Sam's expert eye, very inexpertly. Clearly not an angel, then, maybe something else, something from Dean's comics.
"Hi," says Sam. "Are you a birdman?"
The guy with wings, the angel because there's no better word for him, regards him calmly and silently.
"Hi," Sam repeats, with emphasis.
One wing moves slowly back and forth, shuffing against the bark. The angel-birdman-thing inclines his head, and Sam feels very studied, by something far, far older than the tree and older, maybe, than the entire world. He tries to think about that, but it doesn't work so well.
"Hello," he says after a moment. The word is soft and calm.
"Are you a birdman?"
The deep blue eyes blink, and silence stretches on again. Sam wonders if maybe he's slow, or not used to talking (if he lives in the woods), or if maybe he's like one of the old made-up spirits Bobby talks about sometimes. Those ones live for years and years and go weeks without breathing, so maybe they can talk as slow as they want.
"I'm not," the creature says. "I'm an angel."
"Wow." Sam mulls this over. An actual angel. "What's your name?"
"Castiel," the angel says.
"I'm Sam," Sam informs him.
"Hello, Sam." The angel, Castiel, almost smiles – Sam can see it, just there, at the corner of his mouth, but mostly Castiel just seems puzzled by him, like a little kid out in the forest is weirder than an angel who lives in a tree. He also seems briefly confused by the hand Sam offers him, but he leans down, canting his wings for balance, and shakes Sam's hand in turn, closing one hand over their clasped ones. His hand feels like a normal human hand, warm and soft.
"So what do you do out here?" Castiel doesn't answer that, or Sam's question about if he has anything to eat, except to say that angels don’t need to eat anything, which Sam guesses is a no. Castiel stretches, both wings extending and flapping hard enough for Sam to feel the wind, and close enough for the feathers to almost brush his face.
"Can you fly with those?" he asks.
Castiel looks at him sideways, weighing the question and looking kind of like Dean looks when he's just about to lose his patience with Sam demanding to know things. At last, Castiel tells him that he does fly with them, what else would he fly with, and Sam says he supposes a plane, or a parachute.
"I don't fly in planes, or with parachutes," Castiel says, sounding vaguely irritated, how Dean gets when he's tired of Sam's very reasonable questions. He stretches once more, but doesn't flap his wings this time; instead, he leans back against the tree trunk, wings curved around his body again. They remain slightly open, like curtains, the long flight feathers trailing to the ground. Unable to resist, Sam touches one, and Castiel twitches it away with a soft sound before Sam can do much more than register how smooth it is.
"Were you sleeping?" Sam asks, and Castiel regards him levelly, of course I was sleeping written clear as day, and Sam thinks of some animal picture books with sleeping birds.
"I'll be quiet," Sam assures him. He sits down in the grass, tired suddenly, worn-out with climbing and wonder, the edges of bruised elbows and knees smoothed out by sleepiness. By Castiel, maybe, angels are supposed to be healers, he remembers Bobby saying, even though Bobby had been doubtful about that bit. With Castiel's wings shadowing him in warmth, Sam can believe it, and he wishes Bobby were here, so he could tell him.
It's the last thing he knows, other than drifting half-awake peace and, from somewhere far away, Dean's voice calling for him. He thinks about answering, but before he can really consider it, two fingers press against his forehead – Castiel, he thinks hazily – and suddenly he's awake and Dean is shaking him and hollering and pissed (not a word he should know, but he listens).
"How'd you get here?" he asks, yawning.
"I crossed the bridge, you moron." Dean smacks the back of his head and Sam yowls indignantly. "Were you asleep?"
"I was with Castiel." Sam sits up and blinks in surprise. He's not in the forest anymore, he's at the edge, just beyond where the trees stop. The stream and the bridge aren't far away. And Dean is here, right here, looming over him and really mad. Sam looks around for Castiel, but the angel has long vanished, back to his tree, maybe.
"Who's Castiel?" Dean says it wrong, probably on purpose. "Did someone come by? Jeez, Sammy, what did I tell you about talking to strangers?" Another smack, which brings with it a sudden awareness of his raw knees and bug bites.
"He's not a stranger," Sam says crossly, "he's the angel who lives in the oak tree."
"Oh, yeah." Dean rolls his eyes. "Duh, the angel who lives in the oak tree, why didn't I think of that?"
"Shut up," Sam says, "or I'm gonna – "
"What? Tell Dad?" Dean snorts. "He'll end you if he finds you snuck off. They aren't even gonna find pieces of you, twerp."
Sam has to admit that's true, and he's not mad enough at Dean to get Dean in trouble, and anyway, Dean was just worried and hovery like Dean usually is, like Sammy's still a baby and can't dress himself. Dad doesn't help.
"Come on," Dean sighs. He hoists Sam to his feet. "You need Band-Aids and stuff for your bites. God, you're dumb."
"I'm not dumb," Sam mumbles. "And I don't care if you don't believe me, I saw an actual angel."
"Yeah, well," Dean remarks, "I'll believe it when I see it. Now c'mon, Dad and Bobby are almost finished, and if they ask what you got up to, keep your trap shut."
"Okay, Dean."
And Dean kind of drives him nuts, being the big brother and always being right even if Sam suspects he's wrong, but in Dad-related stuff he's usually right. Sam keeps his mouth shut as they head back inside and creep up to the bathroom, and Dean cleans his cuts and sticks on the big Band-Aids meant for scraped knees. Sam bites his lip when Dean glares him into silence, even though the soap stings and Dean presses the adhesive to make sure it stays. He even puts on jeans without complaining, despite the warm day and how he feels sticky from sap and sweat.
"Tomorrow we can go meet Castiel," he offers, very softly, softly enough that he's pretty sure Dad and Uncle Bobby can't hear.
"Yeah," Dean says without enthusiasm. "Whatever."
"We can," Sam insists.
Dean doesn't say anything to that, just helps Sam down off the toilet and crams the bandage wrappers into his back pocket. He stares at Sam hard, like maybe suspects Sam is lying or crazy or both.
"Don't mention any of this to Dad, okay? Not where you were, and not your imaginary angel buddy. Swear it."
"I swear," Sam agrees, suppressing the demand for Dean to believe him, and offers his pinky.
Dean sighs and accepts it. It's a sacred trust, Sam's old enough to know that, and it means he keeps his mouth shut when Dean says they just read comic books and played in the yard, and yeah, Sammy had lunch, PB&J and milk. Dad nods and smiles, which makes guilt twist its mean, sharp twist in Sam's gut, but he remembers Dean's words and how Dean hadn't believed in Castiel, and keeps his mouth shut tight.
The only thing worse than school is starting at a new school when it's almost the end of the year. Dean fumbles along through the history and literature as best he can and doesn't bother with the books; he knows how to read, and Bobby's taught him Latin, which is all he needs. The math he can do mostly in his head, thanks to Dad, with the decimals and everything. Lunch, for the most part, is torture.
He's used to being alone in a crowd, a good thing because all the other kids have their groups and watch the new kid suspiciously and talk behind his back. The only person who doesn't do this is the blonde girl from down the way, who introduces herself as Jo, Joanna Beth Harvelle, and is that baloney? Wordlessly, Dean hands over his sandwich, and is sort of glad for peanut butter and grape jelly in return, even though it comes with the price of having to sit next to her and listen to the fifth-graders singing about Jo the freak and the new kid sittin' in a tree.
"Go to hell," Jo advises them, which makes Dean blink and the other kids gasp in horror. She's on the shrimpy side, all skinny bones and second-hand clothes, and she's a grade behind him. Also, a girl. "Morons," she mutters, and takes a bite of Dean's baloney sandwich.
Dean endures the stares and all of it, and wishes escaping back to class and Ms. Appleton's civics lesson didn't sound so wonderful. It's freaking pathetic.
It also gets worse when Ms. Appleton is droning on about how bills become laws, and the door opens. Thirty heads, including Dean's, swivel around, and to his unending mortification, Dean sees Ms. Conley, the assistant principal, standing there, with a tearstreaked and rebellious Sam next to her. Ms. Conley asks Ms. Appleton over, and they hold a whispered conference with a lot of meaningful looks in Dean's direction. Sammy sniffles, loudly.
"Well, there's nothing else for it, then," Ms. Appleton sighs. She kneels down and smiles at Sam, who determinedly looks away from her. "Sweetie, you want to go sit next to your brother?"
Sam doesn't answer, just marches over to the empty desk next to Dean and clambers into it. Dean tries to melt into the plastic and plywood, but it doesn't work; he stays whole, with every other kid in the third grade staring at him, and Sammy rubbing tears and snot off his face.
"I told you to behave yourself," he hisses.
"I knowwwww," Sammy whimpers, so despondent that Dean almost, almost feels bad enough to stop being embarrassed by his little brother turning up in class.
"Sammy," Ms. Appleton tells the class as she deposits some paper and crayons on Sam's desk, "will be spending some time with us today. Now, while I talk to Dean, why don’t you all answer the first three study questions in the back of your chapter?"
Everyone else pretends to answer the study questions while Ms. Appleton kneels by Dean, and explains that they tried to call his father, and then Mr. Singer, but couldn't reach either number, and is there another number they could try? Dean registers the question through the haze of this is the worst day of my life and I'm gonna strangle you, Sammy, and a fierce yearning to go home. He shakes his head.
Ms. Appleton makes noises about parent-teacher conferences and sighs before walking away.
"Why couldn't you just suck it up?" he growls at Sammy, who's wiped away his tears and is drawing happily. "And what the hell is that?"
"Castiel," Sammy says. He points to two large black scribbles. "These are his wings."
"You have got to let that go," Dean says to his civics book.
"I do not."
Dean bites his tongue. Probably Ms. Appleton's already annoyed with him, and he's been in two fights already in two weeks; he maybe has one more chance before she writes him off. Anyway, starting the Castiel argument up again isn't going to achieve much for Dean; it hasn't done much yet except annoy him and make him angry enough to storm off to his room – their room – and slam the door and barricade it with a chair. He'd buried his head under a pillow to drown out Sammy's howling and furious banging.
"Why won't you believe in him?" Sammy had asked later as he'd plowed through macaroni and cheese. "He's an angel."
"Just shut up about it, okay? Jeez." There's no way, no way he can talk about Castiel without talking about that night when Mom had died, and the last words she'd said to him, because if angels were real and actually watching she wouldn't have died.
He thinks all of this again, stewing in anger and just wanting to grab Sammy and shake reality into his stupid five-year-old head. Dad's the only thing that's real, he wants to say, only he has no idea how to say it that doesn't sound crazy, so he has to shut up, and that just makes him madder. The anger lasts him through the last period of the day, almost sharp enough for him to try to get a seat by someone else on the bus, but Sammy, oblivious to the fact that Dean is seriously seriously pissed, clings to his side, sheaf of Castiel doodles in his free hand.
And what the hell kind of an angel wears a trench coat anyway? A Castiel angel had been Sam's answer when Dean had asked.
The bus rumbles up and down hills, through the dying light of afternoon. Dean hears a rumble that isn't the bus's engine, but thunder. The bus is too big to fit on the road up to their house; it's almost a mile of bad, narrow asphalt, a walk Dean likes less and less every day, and especially dislikes when it rains.
"Freaking awesome," he mutters. "Come on, Sammy, we're gonna have to make a run for it."
Sam protests about the drawings, and Dean sighs, stuffs them in his backpack as they climb out, along with Jo, into a humid breeze and a darkening sky.
"You kids hurry home," the bus driver tells them.
"Duh," Jo says.
The rain starts up the second the bus leaves. Sammy shrieks and Dean mutters curses under his breath. Jo produces an umbrella and hands it to him.
"What?"
"It's an umbrella, idiot." Jo shakes it meaningfully, and water sprays on Dean's shirt. "I don't mind getting wet, and I bet you'll catch it if your little brother gets sick."
"Thanks," Dean mutters gracelessly, taking the umbrella and handing it to Sammy, who clutches it happily in both hands. "Say thanks, freakazoid."
"'M not a freakazoid," Sam says instead.
Jo takes off without waiting, all skinny legs and small feet dodging the puddles. Dean can't run that fast, not with Sammy stumbling along and stepping in every puddle on the way, but he manages to move faster when the sky suddenly goes really dark and the wind whips up and the trees hiss and rustle angrily. The rain comes down in sheets, and the road twists on and on, Dean soaking because even though he's stolen the umbrella from Sam the umbrella isn't very big and Sam needs to stay dry.
At long, long last the house looms up out of the forest, almost swallowed by the trees and the rain, and all of it dwarfed by the oak. Dean hustles Sam in through the front door, and they track rainwater and mud all the way upstairs to the bathroom. Sam doesn't protest much when Dean pulls his clothes off and dumps him in the tub, although there's some whining at the hot water.
"I'll put clothes out for you," Dean tells him, and squelches his way to the bedroom.
Eventually they both go downstairs, the house echoing silently around them, only the sound of the rain and the hum-tick of the generator. Technically they're not supposed to be here, Dean knows, the place is owned by a hunter who lets other hunters use it in exchange for information and weapons, cash sometimes. Dean's not really supposed to know that, but he figures it could be useful.
Just like it would have been useful to know that Bobby'd gotten called away on something related to the current case. Their dad, though, Bobby's note informs him, will be back tonight. When he learns this, Sam is euphoric. Mostly, Dean is relieved.
The afternoon drags on, Sammy pestering Dean to come look at his drawings some more, which are mostly huge black scribbles of wings with brown and white and tan scribbles, and a ragged blue line that Sam says is Castiel's tie. Dean pretends to be interested, gets Sam's snack, goes back to pretending interest until he thinks his eyes are going to explode in their sockets.
"It's getting dark," Sam moans from the epicenter of a disaster of drawing paper.
"So turn on a light, baby." Dean makes a point of sitting in the easy chair and staring at the mostly-invisible page of his math book. Not like he was paying attention to it anyway. With an aggrieved sigh, Sam rolls to his feet and goes to turn on the lights, and when Dean looks out the rain-streaked window, the darkness outside is approaching absolute.
"When's Dad getting home?" Sam asks as he restores himself to the center of the paper storm.
"When he gets home. Quit whining."
"When's that?" Already Sam's pretty good at pretending to be doing something else while pestering Dean to the point of murder.
"When it is. Shut up."
"I wanna go wait for him."
"Yeah, well, I want Holly Hunter and pizza for dinner, but it ain't happening. Shut up."
"Who's Holly Hunter?" Sam's back on his feet again, roaming around the room. He makes a circle around the coffee table, the one other chair, brushes deliberately close against Dean's feet, so Dean jerks back with an exasperated noise.
"A girl at school."
"I wanna go down and wait for Dad." Sam's voice is definitely shading toward whiny, and Dean has to suppress the urge to strangle him. Instead, he points out that they need to stay put and Dad will skin him alive if anything happens to Sam and Dean's in charge, and all Sam has to say to that is, "I wanna go down and wait for Dad."
Which is how Dean ends up at the rainy, half-flooded turnoff to their road, huddled under one umbrella while Sam, in his raincoat and boots, moaning about how he's too tired to hold up his umbrella but nonononono he doesn't want to go back up to the house, leans wetly against him. The water slicking off his coat seeps through Dean's jacket and jeans.
"It's a good thing you're my little brother," Dean tells the top of Sam's head. Sam nods, either in agreement or because he's sleepy and has totally violated naptime by insisting on coming down here. Coming down here in the freaking pouring rain and getting Dean all soaked. Sighing, Dean props Sam's umbrella – Jo's umbrella, really – against his leg and tries to keep it from falling over.
At least Sam's quiet, Dean tells himself. Everything's quiet, except for the soft machine-gun patter of rain on the leaves and the ground and Dean's umbrella, and the rushing water in the culvert nearby, all muddy from the gravel and dirt on the roadside. Just that, just the water, no birds, no wind, the air all heavy and still, and nothing to look at except long dark green stretches of woods, and the shiny road, the dirt, the two dress shoes that have appeared, visible under the margin of Dean's umbrella.
The two shoes, Dean realizes, and the black feathers that trail in the water.
-tbc.-