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apocalypsosTitle: clay and paste and down
Author: Troll Princess
Fandom: Supernatural
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Sam/Jess, John/Mary
Word count: 3,500 words.
Summary: Perfect. Hell, sometimes that's more of a curse than you think it is.
Author's note: I've been wanting to write wingfic for a while, but not, you know, "Dean's been cursed and now he's got wings for a couple of days!" (Not that there's anything wrong with that, because GUH.) So, here it is.
** clay and paste and down **
1.
In retrospect, it was a good thing that Mary slid headfirst into a fast and strong labor in your small bathroom, that when you turned to grab the phone and call for help Mary said, "There's not enough time," and pushed.
Dean slips from the safety and warmth of his mother's body into the worn cradle of your callused palms, his cries sounding more like laughter than tears.
The two of you stare down at the newborn in your hands.
"God in Heaven," Mary says. She's as lapsed as you are but she crosses herself just the same, and you nod without thinking, without even knowing what you're agreeing with.
The thing is, you wish for a perfect child. Everyone does. You wish for the ten fingers and ten toes and the sharp mind. You want him to be kind and brilliant and helpful and creative. You want him strong, you want him better than you. You put your hand on the gentle swell where he grows for nine whole months and want him more than anything, want nothing more than a happy healthy perfect baby.
Perfect. Hell, sometimes that's more of a curse than you think it is.
2.
Two days later the three of you leave Lawrence for good. All of your savings are tucked away in the diaper bag, all of your valuables sold to the local pawn shop within hours of Dean's birth.
Your uncle used to have a place, a comfortable cabin deep in the woods in Montana that ended up in your name when he passed away a few years back. You go up there occasionally, make sure the cabin's clean, that nothing's gotten inside and taken up residence under the sink. You speak to Mike on the phone before you leave about selling the house for you and mumble something about a family emergency.
Mary strokes a hand over the soft curve of Dean's head, sending up a line of wispy blond cowlicks, and Dean smiles up at her.
Dean hasn't cried in days, not since the moment he was born.
He wriggles and the baby blanket wrapped around him twitches ominously. It's like he's trying to shed the damn thing, trying to let them out, but he's too small yet. They're too small just yet.
You grip the steering wheel of the Impala tightly as if that'll be enough to wear away the phantom sensation of soft white feathers brushing across your palms.
Mary gives you a look from the other side of the car, sighs, and says, "Well, look at the bright side."
"Bright side?"
You wonder if what she's about to say involves guaranteed job security in the circus sideshow industry, but Mary simply says, "He'll never have to worry about not having bus fare."
You glance over at her and wonder what the hell ... but the way her lips are twitching in the corner, you get it. You smile, and so does she, and when she elbows you a second later and says, "Come on, Daddy, your turn," you think of never needing to invest in down-filled coats and always being able to reach the high shelves and getting to bag all the really kinky girls when he grows up.
Mary slaps you playfully on the arm when you tell her that and threatens to end the game then and there, but she's giggling when she does it.
3.
You settle into something vaguely resembling the life you both had in Lawrence, with the sole exception that after he's too big to be wrapped in blankets all the time you keep Dean at home.
You get a job at the garage in town and Mary stays home with Dean. There's a photo on your desk at the shop of the two of them, Dean flashing the camera that grin that'll charm all the girls when he gets older and Mary with her arms wrapped around him in a bear hug. The shot strategically omits the small pale wings poking through the back of one of the shirts Mary altered for him. When they sweep him into their arms Dean's wings still to avoid hitting them, but the rest of the time they flutter in an excited blur as he darts through the cabin. That's always how you picture them, even when you know they've stopped moving.
A blissful whirling dervish, a tiny ball of energy bounding through the dried leaves in the surrounding woods and sending them flying up behind him in his wake.
When you come home at night he yells, "Daddy!" and runs into your arms, and you swing him around in the air until those wings of his flap like crazy.
They can't support his weight just yet, but they will.
Until then you throw Dean into the air, listen to him laugh with joy, and watch as his wings gain strength with every grasp they make at the air.
4.
You explain away Dean's absence from town by homeschooling him, claiming he's sick a lot. It'd probably just be easier and safer to not talk about him, to pretend you don't have a son, but he curls up in your lap after dinner and grins up at you with hazel-green eyes wide and glittering in the flickering light from the fireplace and it's impossible to hide all of that from the world, even if.
Then Mary turns up pregnant again, and the two of you don't know whether to be thrilled or terrified.
Samuel Winchester is born at home on a crystal clear night as quick as you please, ten fingers and ten toes and thin velvety skin on his back that's startling in its normalcy.
You place the baby in his big brother's arms and Mary places a hand on the back of Dean's neck as Dean looks down at Sammy in wonder.
"This is your little brother," Mary says to him. "The two of you are always going to have one another, so you have to take care of him and protect him. Got that, kiddo?"
Dean nods, not tearing his gaze away from Sammy. You expect his wings to flutter with excitement, to tremble at finally being able to hold the baby brother he's been waiting to meet for months now. But instead they go still and curve around the two of them, hiding the baby from view.
Ten minutes in and he's already shielding Sammy from everybody else, even though there's a part of you that thinks Sammy's going to have to be the one to stand up for his big brother.
5.
It takes you and Mary only a few short weeks to realize it isn't Dean and Sammy anymore, it's Deanandsammy, like they're one person with two heads and four arms and two wings.
Mary turns her head for a moment, washes dishes or does the laundry or gives herself a few short minutes with a good book, and when she lifts her head Dean's carted him off again. She never worries, not really. Dean’s gotten the hang of how to hold him, and it's not like Dean can go anywhere. Four-year-old boys can't get too far when they're walking and all of your playful tosses into the air haven't strengthened Dean's wings enough for him to get off the ground.
Or at least, that's what you think.
When Sammy is four weeks old, Mary finds him cuddled in Dean's arms, cooing happily as Dean tells Sammy a rambling story about the horses at the ranch across the valley.
Dean's feet dangle four feet off the ground from the branch he's sitting on, a spot he could have only reached with his baby brother in his arms if he'd flown up there.
You come home from work to find Mary holding the baby in trembling arms and torn, so damn torn. Yes, Dean never should have brought Sammy up there and he is so very grounded, but ...
"But, John, he flew," she says, her voice choked with tears. "Really flew, and we missed it."
You hug her and try to breathe as if your body's forgotten how to.
Maybe this feels a little too much like missing his first steps.
6.
For Halloween, you have a tradition.
You and Mary sit down with Dean and come up with a costume, whatever he wants that goes with the wings. Dean never complains about his limited options, too excited at the chance to go out in the world without fear, to run and laugh and beg for candy like every other kid his own age. You wonder sometimes if that's what he thinks life away from the cabin is like, if he'll grow up and go out into the world only to find out you can't just go door to door and ask for Snickers bars anytime you want.
You always get compliments on the costume, on how gorgeous the wings look. It doesn't even matter if the people have seen them before the previous year. Nobody ever suspects, it seems, because the last kid at the door wore a tiny realistic fireman's outfit and the older kid behind you is sporting some frighteningly authentic burn makeup covering half of his face.
You worry every time, but Mary always says, "He only gets to fit in one day a year, John," and rumples his hair before sending him on to the next house.
This year you stomp up to front doors with a giggling Dean dressed in white in one arm and a babbling Sammy dressed in red in the other, Mary stifling her laughter behind you. You lean forward so Dean can knock and wait for the instant grins that flash across people's faces when they look at you and see the angel on one shoulder and the devil on the other.
"You're going to give them ideas," Mary says. "When Sammy turns out to be a little punk as a teenager, don't say I didn't warn you."
7.
Two days later Sammy burbles in his crib as Dean leans over to kiss him goodnight, wings waving in the air behind him. You watch from the doorway as Mary smoothes one hand over the rounded curve of Sammy's tummy, threads the other one through the thick white feathers of Dean's wings.
It's the last happy memory you have left before you smell smoke and hear Mary scream.
8.
There's nothing of Mary left to bury after the fire. The biggest parts of her still left in the world lie curled up together on a dingy motel room comforter, Sammy snuggled up against his brother, Dean's arms and legs and wings wrapped around Sammy as if that will hide him from the thing that took their mother.
And something did. Something with yellow eyes that left the scent of sulfur in its wake.
You don't see it yourself but Dean's drawings show the way, a dark shadow that's supposed to be a man drawn in black crayon pressed hard into the paper. Dean draws Mary on the ceiling of the baby's room, orange and dark red and lemon yellow crisscrossing the top of the paper in an angry mess. You take the drawings to a psychic and get your answer, a real honest-to-God answer, and you feel like you’re going to be sick.
Sometimes you look at your boys, think of demons in your house and Dean with his pristine white wings.
Sometimes you think the demon was in the wrong damn bedroom, and you hate yourself for it.
9.
The first time Dean fires a gun the recoil sends him flying backwards, his back hitting the ground and his wings trembling in protest. He’s always felt lighter than he looks, and a few hours spent researching birds in the library one rainy day makes you think his bones might be hollow.
He learns to compensate soon enough, though, and by the end of the afternoon he’s pegging every bottle and Coke can you line up on the fence of your new home in Minnesota with startling accuracy.
“Look what I did, Daddy!” he says, and beams with the gun in his small hands pointed safely towards the fence.
You force a smile and try to keep your mind clear, try not to let yourself think the one thing that you’ve been thinking since you started debating whether or not to train Dean how to hunt the evil things out there in the darkness.
You’re not corrupting something perfect. You can’t be.
10.
By the time he’s thirteen Dean can fly for miles, looking down on the world from on high with his wings spread and an ever-present grin on his face. He stands out against the crystal blues and rainy-day grays of the sky with stark definition, and even though you tell him to be careful you can’t help but understand when he whoops and hollers when his feet leave the ground.
When Sammy finishes his homework Dean wraps his arms around him and takes off. Sammy knows how it feels to fly almost the same way Dean does, and there are times you curse the fact that Sammy was born without the wings, as normal as can be.
Those times are few and far between, though, regardless on the look on his face when Dean’s hands latch onto him and lift off.
It’s Jim Murphy who brings it up.
Not that that you’ve never thought it before, but it’s blasphemous above all else. It can’t be real, in spite of all else. Not you, not your damn family.
But one day when you’ve gone to the church for advice Jim watches as Dean chases Sam through the fields next to the church, white wings trailing out behind him as he pounces on his little brother and play-wrestles him to the ground.
It’s not like Jim’s never seen the wings before. He’s one of the few who has.
For the moment, though, he stops. His words die off in his throat like they’ve slammed into a brick wall, and he stops looking out the open doors of the church to glance over at the stained glass window nearest the front door. The one with the warrior raising his sword above his head, flames dancing at the tip in sharp contrast to the glaring white of angelic wings.
“You take care of that boy,” Jim says, and you shake your head.
“He’s not --”
“Do you really want to take that chance?” Jim says, then adds, “You of all people should know that you never really know.”
He’s right, of course, but he can’t be right. Not about this. Not about your son.
11.
Mary was right, though. Sammy turns into a real punk.
Okay, punk. Teenager. Same difference.
He argues, and fights simply to fight, and all he wants to do is leave. Get away from all the weirdness, everything in this stupid life that’s not anything close to normal, and when you see the stricken look in Dean’s eyes you can’t help but argue back.
It doesn’t help that you’ve been hearing things. Things about the demon, signs that say he’s headed this way.
You’re easy to find, after all. How many other people have a son with wings?
So when Sam throws the acceptance letter to Stanford in your face you throw it right back and tell him to leave and never come back.
Maybe he’ll be safer there without you.
Where nothing evil will know where he is, where no one can use Dean to find him.
12.
For four years Sam doesn’t contact you, but you’re sure he hears.
Neither of you keep in contact with a lot of people -- if you’re not sure what people will do to Sam, you’re terrified what they’ll do to Dean -- but the rumors get around. There’s a man saving people, or something kind of like one. Something with gorgeous white wings that appears out of nowhere at night, looking like an avenging angel and saving everyone he can.
You’ve told Dean not to do that shit. Showing off like that will just get him shot.
Dean just grins and flashes him the cover of Weekly World News. He’s right up with the goddamn Bat Boy these days.
“Think Sammy’s seen this?” he says.
The photo’s blurry, but it’s him all right. Not a long list of other people it could be, after all.
Once you drive up to Palo Alto and catch a glimpse of Sam walking out of a café with a laptop bag slung over his shoulder, a tabloid open wide and an amused smile on his face as he shakes his head.
So, yeah, you’re sure. Sammy knows.
13.
It‘s coming.
Shit, he‘s coming.
He‘s coming for Sam. You know the drill already, too many years of learning the signs making them far too visible to miss. The strange weather, the animals acting up. It‘s hovering in the shadows, waiting to make its move on your family again.
On your baby boy, who stepped away from the protection of your arms and your knowledge and your gun without looking back.
There’s only one thing you can think to do.
Dean has this picture in his head, see. You and him and Sammy, all the time. The three of you, and maybe Mary if he’s really going for broke in the “perfect world” department, crossing the country in the rumbling body of the Impala. You in the driver’s seat and Sammy eating his weight in Cheetos in the passenger’s seat and him in the back seat lying down and snuggling back onto his wings like they’re a down comforter covered in the finest silk. The Winchesters, kicking ass and taking names.
And he isn’t letting go of you anytime soon, not when you’re the last bit of normal he’s got left.
His version of normal’s been Sammy’s abnormal for years now, and he’s damn proud of that. Proud of the gun in his jeans and the holy water in his long overcoat and even the goddamn wings. Hell, especially the goddamn wings.
The only way he’s going to Sam is if he’s got no one else to go to. And the only way Sam’ll take him back is if there’s some emergency.
You disappearing?
Aren’t many bigger emergencies than that for either one of them.
14.
It’s easy enough to hide in the shadows, to watch Dean arrive in the Impala and wriggle out of the driver’s seat as best he can. The wings are flexible enough to let him drive the car but not by much, and as much as he loves the damn thing he’s always preferred to fight against gravity and pull himself skyward, to put his full trust in the strength of his own wings.
He perches on the rooftop across from Sam’s apartment, wings tucked around his body, the delicate mass of them hard to see from the ground.
You know the damn demon’s coming for your son.
At least now you can be sure that he’s protected, even if he doesn’t know it just yet.
15.
You should leave.
If you were smart, you would just pack up your shit and leave town so fast there’d be a smoke outline of your truck left in its wake. And you will, but not now. Not while smoke is pouring from the ruins of Sam’s apartment, not while you can finally see.
With all of the other people mingling around to watch the firemen no one’s paying any attention to you, strategically hidden behind a pair of heavyset gossiping old biddies who point and stare at the poor homeless girl and her equally homeless boyfriend.
You never noticed.
How did you never notice?
It’s not like you’ve never been to Stanford before, never seen the girl from afar. Jessica, you remember, a small blonde girl you can only seem to picture in your mind with Sam’s arm draped around her shoulders.
Maybe that’s how you missed it, you think.
You can see the wheels turning behind Dean’s eyes as he watches his little brother calm his trembling girlfriend. As he watches Sam rub comforting circles over the blanket covering her, between her shoulder blades.
As the blanket twitches ever-so-lightly right about where her shoulders blades would be, in an all-too-familiar way that makes both you and Dean hitch in a shaky breath at the exact same time.
Of course, you think as you turn to leave before they can see you. I take away his guardian angel and the world sends him another one. Literally.
You want to laugh but you choke it back, practically making a run for the truck.
You can’t be here right now.
Not when your boys and that girl have work to do.
Author: Troll Princess
Fandom: Supernatural
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Sam/Jess, John/Mary
Word count: 3,500 words.
Summary: Perfect. Hell, sometimes that's more of a curse than you think it is.
Author's note: I've been wanting to write wingfic for a while, but not, you know, "Dean's been cursed and now he's got wings for a couple of days!" (Not that there's anything wrong with that, because GUH.) So, here it is.
In retrospect, it was a good thing that Mary slid headfirst into a fast and strong labor in your small bathroom, that when you turned to grab the phone and call for help Mary said, "There's not enough time," and pushed.
Dean slips from the safety and warmth of his mother's body into the worn cradle of your callused palms, his cries sounding more like laughter than tears.
The two of you stare down at the newborn in your hands.
"God in Heaven," Mary says. She's as lapsed as you are but she crosses herself just the same, and you nod without thinking, without even knowing what you're agreeing with.
The thing is, you wish for a perfect child. Everyone does. You wish for the ten fingers and ten toes and the sharp mind. You want him to be kind and brilliant and helpful and creative. You want him strong, you want him better than you. You put your hand on the gentle swell where he grows for nine whole months and want him more than anything, want nothing more than a happy healthy perfect baby.
Perfect. Hell, sometimes that's more of a curse than you think it is.
Two days later the three of you leave Lawrence for good. All of your savings are tucked away in the diaper bag, all of your valuables sold to the local pawn shop within hours of Dean's birth.
Your uncle used to have a place, a comfortable cabin deep in the woods in Montana that ended up in your name when he passed away a few years back. You go up there occasionally, make sure the cabin's clean, that nothing's gotten inside and taken up residence under the sink. You speak to Mike on the phone before you leave about selling the house for you and mumble something about a family emergency.
Mary strokes a hand over the soft curve of Dean's head, sending up a line of wispy blond cowlicks, and Dean smiles up at her.
Dean hasn't cried in days, not since the moment he was born.
He wriggles and the baby blanket wrapped around him twitches ominously. It's like he's trying to shed the damn thing, trying to let them out, but he's too small yet. They're too small just yet.
You grip the steering wheel of the Impala tightly as if that'll be enough to wear away the phantom sensation of soft white feathers brushing across your palms.
Mary gives you a look from the other side of the car, sighs, and says, "Well, look at the bright side."
"Bright side?"
You wonder if what she's about to say involves guaranteed job security in the circus sideshow industry, but Mary simply says, "He'll never have to worry about not having bus fare."
You glance over at her and wonder what the hell ... but the way her lips are twitching in the corner, you get it. You smile, and so does she, and when she elbows you a second later and says, "Come on, Daddy, your turn," you think of never needing to invest in down-filled coats and always being able to reach the high shelves and getting to bag all the really kinky girls when he grows up.
Mary slaps you playfully on the arm when you tell her that and threatens to end the game then and there, but she's giggling when she does it.
You settle into something vaguely resembling the life you both had in Lawrence, with the sole exception that after he's too big to be wrapped in blankets all the time you keep Dean at home.
You get a job at the garage in town and Mary stays home with Dean. There's a photo on your desk at the shop of the two of them, Dean flashing the camera that grin that'll charm all the girls when he gets older and Mary with her arms wrapped around him in a bear hug. The shot strategically omits the small pale wings poking through the back of one of the shirts Mary altered for him. When they sweep him into their arms Dean's wings still to avoid hitting them, but the rest of the time they flutter in an excited blur as he darts through the cabin. That's always how you picture them, even when you know they've stopped moving.
A blissful whirling dervish, a tiny ball of energy bounding through the dried leaves in the surrounding woods and sending them flying up behind him in his wake.
When you come home at night he yells, "Daddy!" and runs into your arms, and you swing him around in the air until those wings of his flap like crazy.
They can't support his weight just yet, but they will.
Until then you throw Dean into the air, listen to him laugh with joy, and watch as his wings gain strength with every grasp they make at the air.
You explain away Dean's absence from town by homeschooling him, claiming he's sick a lot. It'd probably just be easier and safer to not talk about him, to pretend you don't have a son, but he curls up in your lap after dinner and grins up at you with hazel-green eyes wide and glittering in the flickering light from the fireplace and it's impossible to hide all of that from the world, even if.
Then Mary turns up pregnant again, and the two of you don't know whether to be thrilled or terrified.
Samuel Winchester is born at home on a crystal clear night as quick as you please, ten fingers and ten toes and thin velvety skin on his back that's startling in its normalcy.
You place the baby in his big brother's arms and Mary places a hand on the back of Dean's neck as Dean looks down at Sammy in wonder.
"This is your little brother," Mary says to him. "The two of you are always going to have one another, so you have to take care of him and protect him. Got that, kiddo?"
Dean nods, not tearing his gaze away from Sammy. You expect his wings to flutter with excitement, to tremble at finally being able to hold the baby brother he's been waiting to meet for months now. But instead they go still and curve around the two of them, hiding the baby from view.
Ten minutes in and he's already shielding Sammy from everybody else, even though there's a part of you that thinks Sammy's going to have to be the one to stand up for his big brother.
It takes you and Mary only a few short weeks to realize it isn't Dean and Sammy anymore, it's Deanandsammy, like they're one person with two heads and four arms and two wings.
Mary turns her head for a moment, washes dishes or does the laundry or gives herself a few short minutes with a good book, and when she lifts her head Dean's carted him off again. She never worries, not really. Dean’s gotten the hang of how to hold him, and it's not like Dean can go anywhere. Four-year-old boys can't get too far when they're walking and all of your playful tosses into the air haven't strengthened Dean's wings enough for him to get off the ground.
Or at least, that's what you think.
When Sammy is four weeks old, Mary finds him cuddled in Dean's arms, cooing happily as Dean tells Sammy a rambling story about the horses at the ranch across the valley.
Dean's feet dangle four feet off the ground from the branch he's sitting on, a spot he could have only reached with his baby brother in his arms if he'd flown up there.
You come home from work to find Mary holding the baby in trembling arms and torn, so damn torn. Yes, Dean never should have brought Sammy up there and he is so very grounded, but ...
"But, John, he flew," she says, her voice choked with tears. "Really flew, and we missed it."
You hug her and try to breathe as if your body's forgotten how to.
Maybe this feels a little too much like missing his first steps.
For Halloween, you have a tradition.
You and Mary sit down with Dean and come up with a costume, whatever he wants that goes with the wings. Dean never complains about his limited options, too excited at the chance to go out in the world without fear, to run and laugh and beg for candy like every other kid his own age. You wonder sometimes if that's what he thinks life away from the cabin is like, if he'll grow up and go out into the world only to find out you can't just go door to door and ask for Snickers bars anytime you want.
You always get compliments on the costume, on how gorgeous the wings look. It doesn't even matter if the people have seen them before the previous year. Nobody ever suspects, it seems, because the last kid at the door wore a tiny realistic fireman's outfit and the older kid behind you is sporting some frighteningly authentic burn makeup covering half of his face.
You worry every time, but Mary always says, "He only gets to fit in one day a year, John," and rumples his hair before sending him on to the next house.
This year you stomp up to front doors with a giggling Dean dressed in white in one arm and a babbling Sammy dressed in red in the other, Mary stifling her laughter behind you. You lean forward so Dean can knock and wait for the instant grins that flash across people's faces when they look at you and see the angel on one shoulder and the devil on the other.
"You're going to give them ideas," Mary says. "When Sammy turns out to be a little punk as a teenager, don't say I didn't warn you."
Two days later Sammy burbles in his crib as Dean leans over to kiss him goodnight, wings waving in the air behind him. You watch from the doorway as Mary smoothes one hand over the rounded curve of Sammy's tummy, threads the other one through the thick white feathers of Dean's wings.
It's the last happy memory you have left before you smell smoke and hear Mary scream.
There's nothing of Mary left to bury after the fire. The biggest parts of her still left in the world lie curled up together on a dingy motel room comforter, Sammy snuggled up against his brother, Dean's arms and legs and wings wrapped around Sammy as if that will hide him from the thing that took their mother.
And something did. Something with yellow eyes that left the scent of sulfur in its wake.
You don't see it yourself but Dean's drawings show the way, a dark shadow that's supposed to be a man drawn in black crayon pressed hard into the paper. Dean draws Mary on the ceiling of the baby's room, orange and dark red and lemon yellow crisscrossing the top of the paper in an angry mess. You take the drawings to a psychic and get your answer, a real honest-to-God answer, and you feel like you’re going to be sick.
Sometimes you look at your boys, think of demons in your house and Dean with his pristine white wings.
Sometimes you think the demon was in the wrong damn bedroom, and you hate yourself for it.
The first time Dean fires a gun the recoil sends him flying backwards, his back hitting the ground and his wings trembling in protest. He’s always felt lighter than he looks, and a few hours spent researching birds in the library one rainy day makes you think his bones might be hollow.
He learns to compensate soon enough, though, and by the end of the afternoon he’s pegging every bottle and Coke can you line up on the fence of your new home in Minnesota with startling accuracy.
“Look what I did, Daddy!” he says, and beams with the gun in his small hands pointed safely towards the fence.
You force a smile and try to keep your mind clear, try not to let yourself think the one thing that you’ve been thinking since you started debating whether or not to train Dean how to hunt the evil things out there in the darkness.
You’re not corrupting something perfect. You can’t be.
By the time he’s thirteen Dean can fly for miles, looking down on the world from on high with his wings spread and an ever-present grin on his face. He stands out against the crystal blues and rainy-day grays of the sky with stark definition, and even though you tell him to be careful you can’t help but understand when he whoops and hollers when his feet leave the ground.
When Sammy finishes his homework Dean wraps his arms around him and takes off. Sammy knows how it feels to fly almost the same way Dean does, and there are times you curse the fact that Sammy was born without the wings, as normal as can be.
Those times are few and far between, though, regardless on the look on his face when Dean’s hands latch onto him and lift off.
It’s Jim Murphy who brings it up.
Not that that you’ve never thought it before, but it’s blasphemous above all else. It can’t be real, in spite of all else. Not you, not your damn family.
But one day when you’ve gone to the church for advice Jim watches as Dean chases Sam through the fields next to the church, white wings trailing out behind him as he pounces on his little brother and play-wrestles him to the ground.
It’s not like Jim’s never seen the wings before. He’s one of the few who has.
For the moment, though, he stops. His words die off in his throat like they’ve slammed into a brick wall, and he stops looking out the open doors of the church to glance over at the stained glass window nearest the front door. The one with the warrior raising his sword above his head, flames dancing at the tip in sharp contrast to the glaring white of angelic wings.
“You take care of that boy,” Jim says, and you shake your head.
“He’s not --”
“Do you really want to take that chance?” Jim says, then adds, “You of all people should know that you never really know.”
He’s right, of course, but he can’t be right. Not about this. Not about your son.
Mary was right, though. Sammy turns into a real punk.
Okay, punk. Teenager. Same difference.
He argues, and fights simply to fight, and all he wants to do is leave. Get away from all the weirdness, everything in this stupid life that’s not anything close to normal, and when you see the stricken look in Dean’s eyes you can’t help but argue back.
It doesn’t help that you’ve been hearing things. Things about the demon, signs that say he’s headed this way.
You’re easy to find, after all. How many other people have a son with wings?
So when Sam throws the acceptance letter to Stanford in your face you throw it right back and tell him to leave and never come back.
Maybe he’ll be safer there without you.
Where nothing evil will know where he is, where no one can use Dean to find him.
For four years Sam doesn’t contact you, but you’re sure he hears.
Neither of you keep in contact with a lot of people -- if you’re not sure what people will do to Sam, you’re terrified what they’ll do to Dean -- but the rumors get around. There’s a man saving people, or something kind of like one. Something with gorgeous white wings that appears out of nowhere at night, looking like an avenging angel and saving everyone he can.
You’ve told Dean not to do that shit. Showing off like that will just get him shot.
Dean just grins and flashes him the cover of Weekly World News. He’s right up with the goddamn Bat Boy these days.
“Think Sammy’s seen this?” he says.
The photo’s blurry, but it’s him all right. Not a long list of other people it could be, after all.
Once you drive up to Palo Alto and catch a glimpse of Sam walking out of a café with a laptop bag slung over his shoulder, a tabloid open wide and an amused smile on his face as he shakes his head.
So, yeah, you’re sure. Sammy knows.
It‘s coming.
Shit, he‘s coming.
He‘s coming for Sam. You know the drill already, too many years of learning the signs making them far too visible to miss. The strange weather, the animals acting up. It‘s hovering in the shadows, waiting to make its move on your family again.
On your baby boy, who stepped away from the protection of your arms and your knowledge and your gun without looking back.
There’s only one thing you can think to do.
Dean has this picture in his head, see. You and him and Sammy, all the time. The three of you, and maybe Mary if he’s really going for broke in the “perfect world” department, crossing the country in the rumbling body of the Impala. You in the driver’s seat and Sammy eating his weight in Cheetos in the passenger’s seat and him in the back seat lying down and snuggling back onto his wings like they’re a down comforter covered in the finest silk. The Winchesters, kicking ass and taking names.
And he isn’t letting go of you anytime soon, not when you’re the last bit of normal he’s got left.
His version of normal’s been Sammy’s abnormal for years now, and he’s damn proud of that. Proud of the gun in his jeans and the holy water in his long overcoat and even the goddamn wings. Hell, especially the goddamn wings.
The only way he’s going to Sam is if he’s got no one else to go to. And the only way Sam’ll take him back is if there’s some emergency.
You disappearing?
Aren’t many bigger emergencies than that for either one of them.
It’s easy enough to hide in the shadows, to watch Dean arrive in the Impala and wriggle out of the driver’s seat as best he can. The wings are flexible enough to let him drive the car but not by much, and as much as he loves the damn thing he’s always preferred to fight against gravity and pull himself skyward, to put his full trust in the strength of his own wings.
He perches on the rooftop across from Sam’s apartment, wings tucked around his body, the delicate mass of them hard to see from the ground.
You know the damn demon’s coming for your son.
At least now you can be sure that he’s protected, even if he doesn’t know it just yet.
You should leave.
If you were smart, you would just pack up your shit and leave town so fast there’d be a smoke outline of your truck left in its wake. And you will, but not now. Not while smoke is pouring from the ruins of Sam’s apartment, not while you can finally see.
With all of the other people mingling around to watch the firemen no one’s paying any attention to you, strategically hidden behind a pair of heavyset gossiping old biddies who point and stare at the poor homeless girl and her equally homeless boyfriend.
You never noticed.
How did you never notice?
It’s not like you’ve never been to Stanford before, never seen the girl from afar. Jessica, you remember, a small blonde girl you can only seem to picture in your mind with Sam’s arm draped around her shoulders.
Maybe that’s how you missed it, you think.
You can see the wheels turning behind Dean’s eyes as he watches his little brother calm his trembling girlfriend. As he watches Sam rub comforting circles over the blanket covering her, between her shoulder blades.
As the blanket twitches ever-so-lightly right about where her shoulders blades would be, in an all-too-familiar way that makes both you and Dean hitch in a shaky breath at the exact same time.
Of course, you think as you turn to leave before they can see you. I take away his guardian angel and the world sends him another one. Literally.
You want to laugh but you choke it back, practically making a run for the truck.
You can’t be here right now.
Not when your boys and that girl have work to do.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-01-09 02:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-09 02:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-09 02:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-09 02:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-09 02:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-09 02:52 am (UTC)*Smooshes this fic with kisses and promises I don't intend to keep*
:D
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Date: 2007-01-09 03:08 am (UTC)Can't wait to read what's next. No pressure, though.
Thanks,
DC
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Date: 2007-01-09 03:09 am (UTC)Very cool concept. I'd love to see you play with it some more.
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Date: 2007-01-09 03:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-09 03:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-09 03:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-09 03:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-09 03:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-09 03:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-09 04:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-09 04:17 am (UTC)Oh, that hurt a little.
*sniffle*
Really, really neat thing, new thing - great twist on an old idea, and i *love* wee!Dean running and jumping and almost!flying and then - the tabloids!
Heeeee.
Perfect!
no subject
Date: 2007-01-09 04:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-09 04:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-09 05:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-09 07:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-09 09:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-09 10:11 am (UTC)As the blanket twitches ever-so-lightly right about where her shoulders blades would be, in an all-too-familiar way that makes both you and Dean hitch in a shaky breath at the exact same time.
And I was speechless. Wow. Just... WOW. O_O
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Date: 2007-01-09 04:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-09 06:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-09 11:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-10 02:38 am (UTC)