"Mend These Broken Things"

[kellifer]

Title: Mend These Broken Things
Rating/Warning: Mature themes
Wordcount: 6,857
Spoilers: None
Fandom: SPN
By: kellifer_fic
Category: Gen - AU wing!fic)
Notes: Written by request for poisontaster because I'm not above bribery... Part of my Gen Wing!fic 'verse.

“Dean!”

Dean stumbled out of his bedroom, one leg in and one leg out of his jeans, left hand holding his precarious pants and the right rubbing at his eyes like a tired schoolboy. “What?” he demanded because it was way too early for Sam to be mad at him.

He followed the sound of Hell Hound scuffing around and came out onto the porch, Sam crouched near the steps with his back to Dean and his wings fanned behind him. Sam moved to the side as Dean pushed the screen door open and he could see a neat pile of Tupperware containers sitting on the top step. All looked to be full of casseroles, pies and desserts.

“Did you, perhaps, in passing maybe, claim that you were starving?” Sam asked, standing and wincing when his knees popped. Dean grimaced in sympathy and then looked down at the pile of home-baked goods that had been left.

Dean rubbed the back of his head and frowned. “I think I might have mentioned to Freddy that you weren’t letting me eat anything but wheat germ and barley burgers… but I was kidding,” Dean said, indignant. Sam was looking at him with the kind of exasperation he usually reserved for when Hell Hound ate something whacky, like a whole stick of butter.

“For one, that’s not true and second, you obviously can’t say something like that. It looks like the whole town organised a Feed The Winchester drive.”

“Is there cheesecake?”

“You’re incorrigible,” Sam sighed, but Dean caught the grin he was wearing as he hunkered back down to gather the containers. Sam started stacking them up his arms like a waiter and Dean opened his mouth to ask if Sam had done a shift or two when in Stanford to subsidise the meagre scrapings Dean was able to send infrequently but closed his mouth again with a snap.

There was a missing four years that neither of them knew much about.

Sam’s spotty recollections and overlaid memories had become just something else they dealt with but every now and again it would hit Dean that anything Sam might recall may have never happened. Anger burned through him, quick and bright and also impotent because the man that had violated Sam in such a horrible way was dead and buried.

Dean had half a mind to summon him back up from the depths of hell just so he could put another bullet through him.

Something of what he was thinking must have shown on his face because Sam stopped before moving through the doorway with a concerned furrow deepening the line between his brows. “Dean?”

“I bags any brownies,” Dean said, trying for levity that he didn’t feel. It had the desired effect though, Sam rolling his eyes and shouldering through the screen door with a muttered “Not if I get them first.”

Sam was back out before Dean had finished his own stack of meals to take inside, mostly because he was lifting the lid of everything and taking a whiff. He’d set aside one container and Sam nudged it with his foot.

“What’s wrong with this one?” he asked.

“Tuna fish,” Dean said, pulling a face of disgust.

“We don’t like tuna fish?” Sam asked, looking puzzled and Dean snapped his gaze to Sam, hating the way Sam was rubbing his forehead and biting his lip. The truth was, no matter how hard it was for Dean, the memory loss was a constant struggle for Sam.

Instead of letting Sam dwell, Dean stood and told him a story.

“There was this three month period where Dad was working a trawler and didn’t bring anything home but tuna…” As Dean told his story, he opened the container and pushed it under Hell Hound’s nose, who looked delighted with the unexpected windfall.

000

Dean snapped awake that night, heart pounding. He couldn’t remember what he’d been dreaming about but it was bad. He knew it was a nightmare because the smell of smoke was always heavy in his nostrils whenever he dreamed about his mother.

“Sorry, I wasn’t going to wake you,” Sam said from the doorway and Dean rolled over. Sam was holding the cordless phone loosely in one hand and hopping from foot to foot. Dean put a hand out without asking and Sam took the three steps necessary to bring him up against Dean’s mattress. Dean raised an eyebrow as he was handed the phone and Sam looked away, always a bad sign.

“Dean?”

Dean sat up when he recognised Bobby’s voice, rubbing the cold sweat still left on his brow from his dream with the back of his hand. He looked at the clock on his side table and was surprised to see it was only ten at night. He’d crashed early and felt like he’d slept most of the night, not just three hours. “Hey Bobby, anything wrong?”

“Not exactly,” Bobby said, but he sounded nervous and Dean knew he was about to be asked to do something he wouldn’t like. He also knew considering it was Bobby, that he was the last resort. “Listen, me and another couple of guys were checking out a report of a sorcerer in Arizona. Started with pets going missing and the guy progressed to kids. We’ve found his place and we’re pretty sure he has a couple of little ‘uns inside but he’d warded himself in and we can’t get to him.”

“What can I do?”

“Nothing really. I need… Dean, I need Sam.”

Dean looked at Sam sharply, wondering whether Bobby had asked him first but by the way Sam wouldn’t meet his eyes, Dean knew he was only being told as a courtesy. It had been decided without him but Dean liked to think he had the power to veto.

“No way,” Dean said, tempted to hang up but not doing so because it was Bobby. “You know we can’t risk Big Bird here being seen by other hunters. Just takes one of them to not understand before we have trouble.”

“Dean-” Sam started but Dean held up a hand, asking for a silence he didn’t expect to get but for once Sam obliged.

“I understand that, but Sam’s the best I know when it comes to breaking wards. He was always a natural at protections and runes and we’re running out of options.”

“It’ll take us two days to get there,” Dean tried, knowing that Bobby was aware of their current location but was asking anyway.

“Isn’t it possible Sam could get here faster?”

‘Okay, let me reiterate. Hell no,” Dean snapped.

“You can follow on but he could get here in half a day easy. What’s the saying? As the crow flies.”

“He’s never flown that far before. Hell, only two months ago he was still landing on his butt more times than not.”

“I’m still in the room, you know,” Sam interrupted, sounding irked. Dean was willing to piss Sam off if it meant he would stay safe.

“You know I wouldn’t ask if there was any other way,” Bobby said, starting to sound a little pissed himself. Dean knew his mile-wide protective streak had sometimes gotten in the way of hunting, of letting Sam do his own thing, but there was good reason for it. Sam had a way of attracting trouble and while Dean had left, he hadn’t been able to stay away and he’d also known that Sam would be staying put in a place that seemed bent on looking after him, to an almost scary degree.

“I understand that but I still gotta say no.”

“You’re not Dad!” Sam snapped and Dean held the phone away from himself to give Sam a hard look.

“Did I ever claim to be?” he ground out as Sam’s face collapsed into anger, lips thin and eyes narrowed.

“What makes you think I need your permission?” Sam said, voice neutral but with the tiniest tremor to it. It was the way he had always sounded when he was on the verge of having a screaming match with their dad and Dean had never heard it directed at him before.

“Dean!” Bobby’s voice was tinny with distance until Dean put the phone back up against his ear. “I don’t want to get between you boys but Sam has already agreed to come and with kids’ lives at stake I can’t really worry about whether your comfortable with this or not.”

“We come together or not at all,” Dean said.

“Kiddo, they’ll more than likely be dead in two days,” Bobby said, voice careful. Dean rubbed a hand over his face. Out of the corner of his eye Dean saw Sam disappear out into the hallway and come back into the room with the pack Dean had fashioned so he could carry weapons and supplies when flying. It was suspiciously full. Sam also had his crossbow on its leather harness in his other hand.

Dean huffed out a frustrated sigh, feeling well and truly broadsided. “If anything happens to him,” Dean said into the phone, leaving the rest unspoken.

“I get it. No one will touch him, I swear,” Bobby reassured. “Dean, you-”

The rest of what Bobby was going to say was lost when Dean hung up and then tossed aside the phone. “You just pack your bags and do whatever the hell you want, every time,” Dean accused and hurt flashed across Sam’s face, clear and bright making Dean feel like a heel for the low blow but unable to let Sam go without a fight, even if he had to fight dirty.

“I seem to remember you were pretty good at leaving too,” Sam threw back and Dean dropped his head into his hands.

“Don’t do this, Sammy. It’s a risk.”

“Can you honestly tell me you’re happy with little kids dying when we could have done something?”

“Of course not,” Dean exclaimed. “Just…”

“It’s dangerous for us no matter where we are,” Sam pointed out, dropping his pack and crossbow and sitting on the corner of Dean’s bed. “We still hunt even though we don’t travel that far and this place isn’t impenetrable. Casen found me here. Hell, I got hexed by a resident.”

“If we don’t stop we can do it in a day and a half, maybe less,” Dean tried.

“Dean… sometimes I wonder why I have these things. It would be awesome to think that they serve a purpose other than making my life difficult,” Sam said with a wry grin and Dean looked at him, resigned.

“Listen to you,” Dean laughed. “Maybe I should sew a big S on your t-shirt.”

“You already write my name on the tags in sharpie,” Sam said and Dean shrugged.

“I got tired of accidentally putting your shirts on and drowning in fabric.”

“Dean, I have to do this. You know that.”

“Yeah, I do. Doesn’t mean have to like it.”

000

Sam waited until Dean had packed the Impala, looking impatient to leave but understanding Dean’s need to have them both take off at the same time. Sam then patiently stood while Dean checked his pack and fidgeted with the straps.

“Are you stalling?” Sam asked with a raised eyebrow.

Dean dropped his hands away and shoved them in his pockets. “Are you sure that thing still works?” he asked, eyeing the glamour knot Sam had unearthed. Anyone who wasn’t Sam’s blood specifically wouldn’t be able to actually see that he had large, white wings. Dean was worried that maybe Hunters would be able to see through something like that but Sam had been positive. “I mean, Casen is dead. Maybe it stopped working.”

“Magic isn’t like that. The power is in the design and what was put into it. Someone would actually have to make an effort to break the charm on the bracelet for it to quit working.”

“I just wish there were some way to test it,” Dean grumbled.

“Honestly, if I walked into town without the wings there’d be more concern,” Sam pointed out.

“Okay, so, I’ll drop Hell Hound off at Freddy and Melinda’s on my way out,” Dean said, looking down at Hell Hound who was sitting at Sam’s feet and who’s tail had started thumping at his name. “I won’t be far behind you.”

“Don’t kill yourself or break any land-speed records,” Sam said. He zipped up the coat Dean had modified for him, scowling whenever Sam had called him Susie Homemaker when he’d embarked on a new project but shutting up when Dean threatened to never make him anything again so he would have to learn to sew his own damn self.

“I’ve done this kind of thing before,” Dean dismissed, opening the Impala’s passenger-side door and snapping his fingers for Hell Hound, who happily bounded over to the car and inside, sprawling on the backseat. He stood and put his paws up on the window though, looking as concerned as a dog could when Sam didn’t follow him in and the door was closed. He whined low when Dean moved around to the driver’s side.

“The minute it’s dawn you land,” Dean said and Sam looked away. “Sam? I’m serious. I don’t want some local yokel mistaking you for a giant goose in the daylight and taking pot shots.”

“I should be able to make it before dawn,” Sam protested and Dean held up a hand.

“And if you don’t you land. Hitch if you have to the rest of the way but you promise me.”

“Okay, dawn I’ll put feet down, I swear.”

“Good,” Dean said, nodding. It was a small victory and he was pretty sure Sam would keep his word. He watched Sam cross to the dirt road that led to up to the farmhouse and fan his wings out. “Be careful,” Dean murmured as Sam took a run up and took off, arcing upwards and disappearing quickly into the night sky.

Hell Hound yipped in dismay and Dean got into the Impala and rubbed a hand over the mutt’s head. “I know,” he sighed.

000

It figured that the one time Dean really needed to make good time, he got lost.

Dean was hunkered over the map he was trying to keep on the hood of the Impala, pulled into a gas station and mad as hell that no attendant was in evidence to point him in the right direction. He liked finding the way himself usually, but time was of the essence and a good ol’ boy with a handy dandy short cut would’ve helped greatly.

It was already four o’clock in the afternoon and Dean hadn’t heard word one from Sam since he’d called right when the fingers of dawn were touching the horizon to tell Dean he’d arrived. Dean hadn’t taken his word for it, instead waiting until the phone was passed to Bobby to make sure.

Dean traced the map with a finger, cursing long and loud when he discovered he was mere streets away from his destination and had just wasted a good twenty minutes finding that out. He was never letting Sam fold a map again, the millions of creases making the map almost impossible to unfold straight. The tears in it from trying to wrench the thing open made tracking where he was harder than it should have been. Sam had always had the knack of making unreadable origami of any map in his possession.

He tried Sam’s cell as he got back into the Impala and when he got voicemail cursed again and tossed it on the passenger seat. Bobby didn’t actually own a cell phone and Dean was determined to rectify that fact as soon as humanly possible.

He pulled up to a faded blue house only minutes later, dilapidated and shabby where the rest of the houses on the street were neat. It stuck out like a sore thumb, crouched low to the street and with a second storey that almost looked tacked on like an afterthought. Bobby’s truck was nowhere to be seen and the street was quiet. Dean drove around the block and parked, walking back around to the blue house and eyeing it speculatively. If they’d finished up already Dean figured he would have merited a call.

Dean pulled the cell phone he’d hastily jammed back into his pocket and tried Sam’s phone again. He halted in his tracks when the faint strains of Enter The Sandman could be heard over the normal noise of the afternoon. Dean had loaded that song onto Sam’s phone himself after he’d been driven insane by whatever techno crap that had been Sam’s flavour of the month. It was surprising Sam hadn’t changed it back immediately and he thanked god for small mercies.

Dean followed the sound, redialling when the phone cut off and the voicemail picked up again. After some searching Dean finally found it under a hedge at the side of the house. The shrubbery was torn up a little and there were deep divots in the dirt and a single feather. Dean felt his stomach drop to somewhere in the vicinity of his knees and swallowed hard.

Dean made his way carefully back to the street and jogged down to the Impala, retrieving his dad’s journal out of the glove compartment. Sam had taken his own, having used the idle hours at the farmhouse to copy pertinent information from their father’s plus adding his own hints and tips as he went. Dean had bought Sam the journal himself the Christmas previous.

Dean flipped it open, having spotted something useful when he’d stopped briefly for coffee at dawn. He knew the place was warded, and heavily if Bobby couldn’t bypass it but there was a small note right near the back of the book about being able to bully past any protective charms. Dean frowned in concentration when he started drawing the symbol his father had copied onto his forearm with a felt-tip pen he’d unearthed, jammed into the small crevice at the back of the passenger seat. He knew that with such an intricate design there was a chance either his father or he would copy one small part of it incorrectly, thereby negating any power it had but he had to risk it.

Either by accident or design, Sam had left behind the two things behind in the hedge that would ensure Dean knew that he’d been taken by force.

Dean didn’t feel any different when he’d finished the symbol but he had to trust to luck. He approached the blue house again from the rear, pushing through a falling-down fence at the back and navigating the waist-high lawn, stumbling over a buried lawn mower. He reached the back door of the house without further incident and saw there were symbols he didn’t recognise scratched into the paint. When Dean looked closer, he realised that some of them were overlaid with other symbols in pen and he had to hope that it was Sam’s work.

Dean tried the doorknob, almost barking out a laugh of relief when it proved to be unlocked and swung open without any resistance. Dean pulled the automatic from the back of his jeans and slid inside, hugging the wall. He stepped sideways and crouched low, nudging the door closed again with his fingers.

Inside was gloomy and stale smelling. He was in a kitchen and his boots pulled away from the linoleum with a sticky pop. Dean was pretty sure that it was a blessing that there was only just enough light to see by without any real detail. Dean crossed the kitchen quickly and leaned up against the doorway on the other side, edging his head around to get a look at the next room before he committed to entering it.

It was when he moved through the inner doorway that pain lanced through him, driving Dean to his knees. The pain was gone as quickly as it had started and he shoved his sleeve up his arm, seeing the symbol that he’d etched glowing a faint orange against his skin. His father’s journal had warned that the symbol was a last resort kind of deal, something only meant to force your way through protections if there was no other way. Dean understood now that he was probably going to trip every ward that Sam hadn’t disabled on his way in but luckily he’d only get a quick jolt of their effects rather than being crippled by them. Dean braced himself and moved deeper into the house.

He past through a dining room with a table and chairs set against the wall and covered in a plastic sheet. The next room was the living room and Dean was hit again by intense pain when he breeched the threshold, this time taking a few moments to recover, breathing hard and leaning over his knees. He’d kept his feet that time though, the element of surprise being gone.

He was almost out of the living room when Dean noticed a pair of boots sticking out from behind a stained couch. Dean crossed quickly to them and found a man he didn’t recognise lying face down. The man was breathing, but out of the count, a crust of blood at his mouth and nose. From the way he was dressed, heavy boots, jeans and a flannel jacket, he had hunter written all over him.

Dean moved on, knowing he should probably take the man outside and out of harm’s way but not wanting to risk being detected. He spied another man at the foot of a set of stairs, lying with his feet on one of the upper stairs and his head at the bottom. His eyes were wide open and glassy, neck at an unnatural angle.

Dean contemplated taking the stairs, but spied a doorway set underneath them. He put his hand to the wood of the door and warmth flooded his fingers and then faded. Dean traced the outside with a careful hand and found symbols carved deep into the wood. In the half-light he couldn’t make them out.

There was a bolt and a padlock on this door on the outside, obviously to keep something in rather than out. Dean pulled his set of picks from his front pocket and kneeled, working the lock open. It took longer than he would’ve liked because it was partially rusted and Dean fought the urge to kick the door open. The padlock finally gave grudgingly and Dean worked it free and then pulled the bolt back.

He wasn’t surprised to see another set of stairs leading down into pitch darkness. Dean tapped his pockets but knew it was in vain, his flashlight safely back in the Impala. He’d tossed it back to Hell Hound to chew while they drove to Freddy’s place and had forgotten to retrieve it. Dean put a hand to the wall just inside the doorway and felt for a light switch but didn’t find one.

Something came at him out of the darkness and Dean tried to step back but it was large. It barrelled straight into him and pitched him against the wall opposite with a teeth-rattling crunch. Dean had kept a hold of the gun though and brought it up and around, nearly squeezing the trigger before he realised that what had hit him was Sam.

“Jesus!” They both exclaimed at the same time and then let out equally identical shaky laughs. Sam offered Dean a hand up and clapped him on the shoulder when he was back on his feet.

“What happened to you?” Dean asked, brushing himself off. Sam had spotted the body at the bottom of the stairs down the hall though and his relieved expression melted.

“What happened here?”

“You don’t know?”

“No. I’d taken out the wards on the back door and was circling around to the front when something hit me from behind,” Sam said, rubbing at the back of his head. “I woke up in the basement. I think I busted my shoulder ramming it against the door.”

“You know who that is?”

“Yeah, guy called Rick. He came with Bobby and another guy, Derrick.”

“I think Derrick’s in the living room,” Dean said, steering Sam back down the hall and into the living room. “No sign of Bobby.”

“They must’ve come in after me,” Sam groaned. “Goddamit!” He smacked a fist against the nearest wall.

“Well, Derrick here is still breathing. You get him and I’ll see if I can find Bobby.”

Sam looked like he was going to argue for a second, but another look at the body on the stairs had him nodding with a grim face. He moved behind the couch and hefted Derrick in a fireman’s lift, making for the back door. When Sam reached the archway between the living and dining room he paused and turned.

“How did you get in?” he asked, leaning sideways to set his burden carefully on the floor and pulling a thick marker out of his breast pocket. He scratched a symbol over the etched ward and there was a dull sizzle.

Dean turned his forearm out so Sam could see it and Sam squinted at it in the dim light, face curious. “Dean, don’t the wards still hurt when you pass through with that thing?” he asked with a wry grimace.

“Like a bitch,” Dean said and Sam snorted. “Just get outside. Bobby might not be in here but I haven’t checked upstairs yet.”

“Okay. Be careful, I kinda got the feeling this was all a scam,” Sam said and Dean nodded, having had that impression as well. It wasn’t the first time some ambitious practitioner of the dark arts had laid a trap for hunters, rumors of children in peril being a popular way to guarantee that someone would come and check it out.

Dean waited until Sam was safely outside before moving to the stairs leading up, carefully picking his way past the body and reaching the landing. He checked the bathroom and the two bedrooms on either side before finding Bobby in a room at the end, sprawled on his back on a bed that was listing to the left. Dean crossed to him, heart in his throat and only letting out a relieved sigh when he felt the steady thrum of a pulse under fingers he pressed to Bobby’s throat.

“Bobby!” he hissed, tapping Bobby on the cheek. The older man groaned and a hand came up to bat Dean away. Dean grabbed it and shook, repeating Bobby’s name until he opened his eyes. Bobby startled upright, hands balled into fists and eyes wide.

“Hey, calm down. Just me and I’ve already been knocked on my ass once today,” Dean said, stepping back and away from Bobby’s flailing. Bobby groaned and slid his feet to the floor, scrubbing a hand over his head and casting about for his hat when he found it bare. Dean spotted it on the other side of the room and handed it over.

“The others?” Bobby pressed as soon as he was awake enough to worry.

“Sam’s okay and your friend Derrick is unconscious but breathing. Looks like Rick took a header down the stairs though.”

“Christ,” Bobby swore. “Don’t know what’s going on but Sam disappeared so we tried coming in through the back. I don’t remember anything after going through the back door.”

“Yeah, sounds like Sam was grabbed as bait. There’s no kids, nobody else here. I don’t know what to tell you, looks like someone thought this was a good time.”

Bobby grimaced, stretching until his back cracked. “Let’s get out of here then,” Bobby said, looking both angry and disturbed. It was always hard when a hunter died, but to die when there was no good reason was far worse.

They found Sam in the backyard, having trampled down some of the long grass so he could lay Derrick flat and check him out. Sam squinted up at them when they emerged and relief flooded his features when he spotted Bobby. “He okay?” Bobby asked.

“Concussion I think. Nothing too serious though.”

“Okay, I’m going to go back in and get Rick. You boys stay here.”

Dean sat on the top step, watching Sam work over Derrick, large hands gentle as he prodded and probed, looking for possibly broken bones or other less obvious injuries. When Sam looked up and then blinked, Dean was going to ask him if he had something on his face when Sam said in a low, even voice, “Don’t move.”

“What-?”

“Dean, I swear to god, just trust me.” Dean tensed all over. There was the sounds from inside of Bobby retrieving the now dead-weight that had been a hunter called Rick and below that a faint whisper, the sound of something moving.

“Sammy…”

Sam had stood slowly and moved forward, hands out and looking scared. Dean’s back started to throb with sitting so rigid and he was desperate to ask just what the hell had Sam so spooked when Sam whipped forward and grabbed something just above Dean’s head. Dean jerked sideways and saw Sam stumble back with something long and black in his hands.

“Sam!” Dean exclaimed as Sam let out of cry of surprise. Sam turned and Dean could see that it looked like a jet-black snake he was holding, but as he watched the thing seemed to be fusing with Sam’s skin, wrapping around his forearm and melting into the flesh. “Jesus!” Dean cried, shooting off the steps and towards Sam.

“No, don’t touch-” Sam started to yell right when Dean tripped over the same buried lawnmower and crashed forward, bringing Sam down with him. Dean felt pain shoot up his arms and flood across his back, feeling like someone had taken a scalpel to the flesh.

Dean screamed.

000

Dean woke up facedown on a cold, metal table. He groaned and brought his dangling hands up so he could push himself off. When he rolled sideways though he kept going as something felt like it dragged him sideways. Dean let out a curse as he tipped over and landed on the floor hard. He heard running feet and then Melinda appeared, looking worried.

“Hey, no, no getting up,” she said, skidding to her knees by Dean. “Are you okay?”

“What the hell-?” Dean started to say and that’s when he caught sight of a wing out of the corner of his eye, but it was too close to be Sam’s. Dean carefully got to his hands and knees, extra weight on his back making him wobble as he carefully tilted upright. “Please tell me,” he said. “That I’m hallucinating.” As Dean gestured, his wings fanned out and he pitched backwards. He hit the floor and lay blinking at the ceiling for a second, mostly because his back was resting on feathers and his shoulder blades were up off the floor.

“Where’s Sam?”

“Here,” Sam said and his head bobbed into view. He was looking strained, skin tight around his eyes and there was something missing..

“Oh hell no,” Dean breathed.

000

“Hey, you always accused me of perching,” Sam said. “Now you know why.” He was watching Dean shuffle around, trying to sit on the couch in Melinda’s vet surgery waiting room and finding it nearly impossible. Melinda took pity on him and dragged a chair out from her office that Dean turned around backwards and straddled with a grateful look.

“These are yours,” Dean grumbled. His back was already aching, shoulders tired and feeling strained. Sam was pacing the room, looking strangely naked without his wings and even though he’d been without them for a few years, Dean had always thought he looked odd without them.

Dean had found out he’d been unconscious for the entire trip back to Sanctuary, loaded like luggage into the back of Bobby’s truck. Bobby was still there, back at the farmhouse, Melinda gently but firmly urging him to go get some rest. She’d closed her surgery when Sam had pointed Bobby in her direction when they’d first arrived back in town and had tended to Dean ever since.

He’d given Sam a hard time about seeing a vet and now he was being treated the same.

“I noticed,” Sam said. “I was halfway through telling you not to touch me when you fell on me,” Sam added. “I had a hold of a Chaos serpent.”

“A whata?”

“Chaos Serpent. Pure summoned chaos energy. Whoever owned that house knew more than to just lay a few protection wards.”

“How do we reverse it?” Dean asked, not wanting to sound as irritated as he felt but unable to help it.

“I talked to Missouri a few hours ago. She’s looking into it but she was pretty sure that the effects are only temporary. Order will reassert itself naturally and all that.”

“Oh well, ain’t that peachy?” Dean snorted, making to stand and overbalancing. He thought he might’ve had half a chance if the wings were the right size for him but he’d gotten Sam’s. The top tip was over Dean’s head and the bottom feather dragged the ground. They were heavy and unwieldy and seemed to have a life of their own. Dean tried concentrating on raising them and they gave a half-hearted flutter and settled again.

“Why can’t I control them?” he huffed as Melinda came back into the room.

“From what I can tell, you just don’t have the muscle to do it,” she said, narrowing her eyes when Sam hid a grin behind his hand. “Sam’s wings grew in when he was younger and even though from what you guys have told us they were gone for a little while, Sam’s body would’ve still retained most of the muscle mass necessary. When he got them back it took a while to retain control because he was like a colt with wobbly legs. Muscles are there, just takes a little while to learn how to use them again.”

“So, I can’t even fly with these bad boys?” Dean asked, knowing that that would have been the only saving grace to his annoyance.

“I wouldn’t,” Melinda said. “You’re just not built for it. Although, technically Sam shouldn’t be able to fly either, so you never know.”

Dean stood and turned, knocking the chair he’d been sitting on sideways and into the reception desk with a crash. “Just perfect,” he huffed.

“Dean?” Sam said, looking down. “There’s something else.”

“Yeah, what?”

“You remember the first time you helped me cut off the wings. You looked so green, I thought you were gonna puke.”

“I was not… Sam! You remember that?”

“I remember everything,” Sam said but he wasn’t looking thrilled with the prospect like Dean thought he should be. He looked from Melinda back to Dean. “I think I’m… I think I’m going to lose it all again when this all wears off.”

000

Dean felt like one big bruise by the end of the first day. He and Sam had seen Bobby off after Missouri had called back to assure them that everything would go back to normal. Dean had then spent the rest of the time tripping over, falling off or stumbling through things. Sam had laughed the first couple of times, but even Sam was now looking sympathetic.

Despite Melinda’s misgivings, the next morning Dean climbed the back fence of their property and dived off. He landed in an undignified heap and with great consternation when he noticed Sam and Hell Hound standing nearby watching.

“Wanna try the barn roof?” Sam asked with a grin and Dean flipped him off. Sam brought something out from behind his back and waggled it. Dean recognised the paintball gun he’d used to help Sam train how to avoid projectiles in the air.

“You’re hilarious,” Dean grumbled.

000

Dean was demolishing a particularly tasty lasagne that night and plotting how to bring up again the notion that he was being starved by an evil brother to the local townsfolk when Sam dropped into the chair opposite and said, “They’re not my memories.”

“What?” Dean asked through a full mouth. He cast about for a napkin to wipe off his hands and when he couldn’t find one, reached back and rubbed his hands down the length of one wing.

Sam looked horrified before he recovered enough to say what he’d been meaning to. “I just.. at first I thought I’d gotten my memories back but it took me a little while to realise that… well, they’re yours.”

“How do you figure?” Dean asked.

“The Stanford stuff is still muzzy but I can remember with perfect clarity screwing Stacey Barns.”

“Why wouldn’t you? She was your girlfriend for three months,” Dean said.

“Yeah, and the furthest she let me get was a hand down her top. Plus, she kept saying Dean.”

Dean flushed red and suddenly found his dinner fascinating. “Oh… uh, well, that happened way after-”

“Dean, I’m not mad at you about that. I’m a little weirded out but I’m not mad. I mean, it’s true that I couldn’t really tell at first because for most of our lives whatever has happened to you has happened to me but… I’m seeing things a different way. I know I’m going to lose this but I just wanted to say… “ Sam swallowed hard and looked away.

“I wanted to say I’m sorry.”

“For what?” Dean asked, truly puzzled. Being brothers, he knew he and Sam had done some pretty lousy stuff to each other over the years but he couldn’t think what Sam would be seeing that he would think would warrant an apology.

“When I got my wings removed the first time. We… Dad and I didn’t tell you. I remember feeling hurt and betrayed and… but that’s not me. That’s you, isn’t it?”

“Aw Sammy,” Dean groaned, rubbing a hand over the back of his head.

“You had that damn letter I wrote and you could’ve given it to me anytime but you didn’t. You let me go off to Stanford and you carried it all that time. I know why you came back when Jess died. I know everything and before I forget again I wanted to tell you I’m sorry and thanks.”

Dean squirmed, unsure what to say. “Look, I left you too. We’re even stevens.”

“It’s not the same.”

“Yeah, okay maybe not but… look, I forgive you alright. I never… geez, I was hurt sure but…” Dean shrugged, at a loss. He knew that he should say something along the lines of I love you no matter what shitty things you do to me but he wasn’t quite sure how to articulate it. Sam had always been the wordsmith, talking circles around he and their father both from a ridiculously young age.

He hoped Sam in some weird sibling telepathy would just get it.

Strangely, Sam seemed to. He nodded and sat back, looking at Dean from under his bangs a little warily. “Dean?”

“Yeah?” Dean dreaded what Sam was going to come out with next.

“Did you really take a tap class when you were sixteen?” Dean dropped his head to the table with a thud and groaned. “Only,” Sam continued and Dean could hear the grin in his voice now. “I remember you really enjoying it.”

“How about you never mention that again and we’ll really be even?” Dean proposed, rolling his head from side to side as Sam started laughing.

000

Hell Hound barking had Dean up and stumbling out of bed. When he didn’t immediately fall flat on his face, Dean knew something had changed.

No wings.

Dean made his way to the back of the house, coming out on the back porch in bare feet and grimacing because the chill of the morning hadn’t left the bare boards yet despite the promised warmth of the day. He saw Hell Hound running in circles down in the yard and looked up, seeing Sam doing lazy figure eights high above. Dean took the steps down until he was standing in grass and put a hand up to shade his eyes.

“Get down here and make me pancakes, bitch!” Dean called and saw Sam tip sideways and then circle down, pulling up at the last moment but clipping Dean on the shoulder with a sneakered foot. Hell Hound, who’d been ghosting along in Sam’s shadow and not watching where he was going, barrelled into Dean’s legs and knocked him flat.

Dean laid back, arms outstretched and his brother above. Hell Hound flopped down next to Dean and he rubbed a hand over the dog’s head. Dean heard the gentle thump-ump of Sam landing and then a head blocked out the sun.

“There’s a whole apple pie left because I hid it from you,” Sam said with a grin and Dean sat up.

“Pie for breakfast? Do we dare?” Dean asked and Sam nodded, offering out a hand to help him up.