DCBB Black Glass pt.2
Part 1
When Mary Winchester returned from the town market, she was just as much at a loss as her husband, with less experience with winged children. But if there was one thing Mary was good at, it was being a mother.
“The poor thing hasn’t spoken a word?” Mary asked, kneeling down to smooth the child’s hair from his face, trailing the back of her hand down his cheeks, checking for fever. John shook his head, sitting with the child in his lap. The boy kept squirming, but didn’t seem too upset; then again he looked too young to care about where he was, let alone speak. But Mary’s suspicions were normal, a child this young should have cried out by now being held and handled in a room full of strangers.
Dean and Sam peeked their heads around the upholstered armchair, trying to get a look at the boy. Dean himself seemed fascinated in his own, quiet way, though Sam soon lost interest, trailing away to play with his toys by the fire.
“Here, Dean, hold him for a minute, I have to talk to your mother,” John said, placing the now disgruntled child in Dean’s arms, and he held him awkwardly, at a loss for what to do other than plop to the floor and wait. Dean was twelve years old, but was muscled from working on the land with his father, yet the boy was incredibly heavy in Dean’s arms. Not even Sam weighed so much when he was this little.
Must’ve been the wings, Dean thought.
Earlier they had pried open the child’s hands and revealed black glass slippers, and his father had taken one look at them and then put them away in the box on the mantle, telling Dean not to speak of them again. Dean thought it might have been because they hurt the boy, his hands were raw and cracked from being stuck to the glass and then painstakingly removed, he might even scar from it.
“I can’t keep calling you boy,” Dean whispered, bouncing the child up and down on his knee and the boy smiled in delight, clapping his hands. “I saw those black shoes before Dad took ‘em away, they had a name on ‘em, though I don’t read much. I did see a C-A-S though. Ring any bells?” The child huffed and batted at Dean’s hands when he reached to pluck at his wings playfully.
“I’ll call you Cas, how does that sound?”
Cas stopped fidgeting and stared up at Dean with those eyes of his, almost in a childlike awe.
“You like that?” Dean huffed a laugh, bouncing Cas on his knee again. Cas seemed happy with his new name, but again, no sound came from his mouth save for a sharp gasp when Dean lifted him up and held him high, twirling him around like he knew Sam liked when he was that young. Dean set him back down when he saw his father watching from the other room. He looked scornful, though Dean didn’t know why. It was always in his nature to play with children, to make them happy. Dad was absent for much of Sam’s infancy, and when momma was away in the town it was up to Dean to watch Sam and take care of him. Sam was older now, about six or seven, and well-adjusted to living on his own in the secluded cabin, and Dean missed playing with a child, especially his innocence.
Cas looked like he was maybe 3-4 years old, but he couldn’t be sure. Either way, that innocence would be gone soon, too, and Dean wanted to cling to it as long as he could.
“Mary, you can’t possibly be serious…”
“What else are we going to do with him? You can’t take a winged child into the town orphanage, they’ll kill him!”
“You’re over exaggerating…”
“Am I, John?”
John sighed, this was the last thing they needed, another mouth to feed in the dead of winter. Hunting had been unsuccessful as of late, and the lake had frozen over. They could only get supplies from in town and they had no money, and they were swiftly running out of things to barter. He glanced into the living room, frowning when he saw Dean playing with the boy, and he knew once Dean formed a connection he was difficult to tear away.
“Something’s just…something is off with that child…” John sighed, running a hand through his hair and turning back to his wife. “The man I told you about, the one in the forest? I went back to bury the body and it was gone, Mary.”
She crossed her arms and looked down, her lips a thin line.
“Maybe…maybe the wolves got it,” she nodded her head, looking in at her son and the unfortunate child in his arms.
Cas crouched at the mountain crest overlooking his childhood home, breath fogging in his face. The snows had come earlier than expected, but he had persevered, he had traversed nearly the entirety of his family’s lands and farther in search of game. He shifted his braces of rodents and fowl over his shoulder and began the slow descent down to the frozen lake. The silent child had grown into a stoic young man, a prolific hunter who was more at home in the wilds of the woods than under the roof of the Winchester’s lakeside cabin. His silence frightened the older Winchesters, but Sam and Dean took him in as their own brother, and much of what Cas knew now was straight from Dean’s example, though through the intensity of how he threw himself into the wild, he surpassed even Dean.
The animals of the forest didn’t seem frightened of him, which of course gave him plenty leave to hunt, and food was plentiful in the Winchester house. Dean thought it might have been his wings, and he certainly had an air about him, his silence, his grace…even he couldn’t help but gravitate to the man. The intensity in his eyes spoke volumes more than any of the dusty tomes Sam buried himself in day after day. No knowledge held in Cas’s eyes could be found in those books. Nothing could. Everything Dean needed to understand was in his brother’s eyes.
Dean looked up from scaling a Bluegill when the hunter came through the open door for the first time in months, shaking off his furs and crossbow, kicking them off to the side as well as his moccasins. He held up a clutch of rabbits and squirrels, all scrawny but volume made up for their size. Dean smiled and nodded, beckoning him forward. Cas walked with a silence that other wildsmen would envy. Dean wondered if maybe his bones were thin and brittle like a bird’s, full of holes to make them lighter than any others, so he could fly with his wings. Dean wished he had wings, like Cas, so that they could fly together. Dean had seen him do it before. Short, gliding bursts, nothing more, but still…they were a sight to behold.
“Get anything else out there? Noticed you were missing more than a few arrows.” Dean asked, and Cas motioned to the door and made a swooping motion upward behind his ears. Dean raised his eyebrows.
“A deer?” Cas nodded. “That’s great Cas, we can cook up some venison for momma.” Cas smiled and placed the clutch on the table, moving back outside to most likely gut the deer. Dean frowned slightly, hoping Cas kept his wings out of the way of the blood, last time it took multiple washes for Dean to clean it all out, and Cas was always so finicky whenever anyone else besides Dean touched him.
First time Mary attempted to straighten his wings he lashed out violently, hissing in anger and drawing back behind Dean’s bowed legs. Dean had been shocked, sure, but he merely dug his thumb into Cas’s wing joint and the boy whimpered, lowering to the floor and glancing apologetically up at Dean. The act had felt right at the time, and he certainly hadn’t expected Cas to react like he did. It sent a rush of heat through his body, it felt like power. For once in his short life Dean held sway over another that he knew to be stronger than he. Dean shook his head and pointed at their mother and Cas keened, looking to Mary. She smiled at him, but she was shaking and she didn’t look all that convinced.
Dean jerked, almost nicking his thumb when Sam thundered down the stairs, books and bag in hand.
“And where’re you goin’? Cas just came back, you could stick around for once…”
Sam sighed lowly, stopping at the open door and wrinkling his nose at the dead animals on the table.
“Sam, he barely knows you…Please…”
“Well, he might recognize me if he stayed home more. He goes off on his hunts and he’s away for weeks at a time, this time he was gone for nearly three months!” Sam snorted.
“He puts food on our table, and he is your brother. Respect that, at least.”
“He is not our brother! He never was, Dean! He came in this house and took over our lives! I had to put my dreams on hold to take care of him, then dad died and…”
Sam stopped when Cas came back in with wrapped packages of deer meat. He stopped and stared at Sam for a moment, narrowing his eyes and edging around him to place the paper-wrapped packages next to the rabbits and squirrels that would also need to be gutted.
“Thanks, Cas.” Dean muttered, eyes not leaving Sam’s. Cas huffed, his customary way of saying something along the lines of “you’re welcome.” He also didn’t look away from Sam, and Dean knew firsthand what being held in that gaze was like. Sam eventually looked away, coughing slightly and placing his bag on the floor.
“You stayin’ long, Cas?” Sam asked, and Dean smiled grimly, at least he was making an effort with him.
The younger man looked hesitant, eyes darting between Dean and the food laden table, as well as the pile of fish Dean had managed to catch earlier that day. His shoulders and tawny wings slumped and he nodded.
“Great.” Sam said, he didn’t look all that enthused, though neither did Cas.