Spring Fic Exchange: "Crossing the Streams"
Written for the 2020 Spring Fic Exchange
Title: Crossing the Streams
Written for: jdl71
Author: candygramme
Artist: kingstoken
Beta: spoonlessone
Rating PG13, just to be on the safe side
Prompt: I kind of smooshed in 3 of your prompts and made this into something that doesn't seem to be any of them. Sorry! The specific prompts were:
3. Reading through a grimoire, Dean recites a spell that causes him to tell Sam how he feels about him.
4. Sam inadvertently binds him & Dean together with a spell, and they can read each others minds - makes it hard to keep secrets from each other.
5. Dean wakes up to discover he has wings.
Word Count: 3,229
Author's Notes Please appreciate the art! kingstoken forgot to sign it, which is a sad thing, but I owe him/her immense gratitude. So pretty! As ever, this is crack.
Rowena’s apartment was just as they’d left it the day they’d discovered that Sam was her heir. It hadn’t really been Sam’s desire to start himself on the path to witchhood, but both he and Dean - who was apparently his familiar now, who knew? - knew they were going to have to find something really powerful to beat God and end his obsession with them. After a lot of thought they had decided that they couldn’t allow their personal biases to stand in their way of a job that needed to be done.
So here they were in Rowena’s workshop, poring over grimoires and ancient tomes that promised arcane knowledge if they could only just find it. Dean had never been excited by the idea of research, but ever since he’d become Sam’s familiar he’d at least taken some of the burden from Sam’s shoulders. Even Sam couldn’t fault his diligence today as his brother paged through book after book, journal after journal in search of something - anything - that might help.
The day was growing late. Sam was feeling cross-eyed with the effort of perusing through Latin, Aramaic, Greek and even Enochian texts, some hand written in a variety of noxious substances. The ones made from vellum were bad enough, but the ones made from skin were horrible to touch, and gave Sam the creeps. One little booklet that seemed promising, had flapped its pages when Dean reached for it and somehow managed to elude his grasp for almost 10 minutes.
Sam wasn’t at all surprised when Dean tossed the booklet aside, and gave a heavy sigh, which turned into a yelp as the booklet snapped at him with its surprisingly strong covers.
“Getting hungry here, Sammy. Can we go eat before we get into the next shelf?”
“Yeah. Just a minute. I’ve got something here that might be helpful. Let me just...” Sam leaned forward and made several gestures that reminded Dean of someone trying - and failing - to do the Macarena. He was about to tell his brother so when Sam raised his arms above his head and shouted something that sounded as though it contained far more consonants than it needed.
For a moment - a very long moment that left Dean red in the face and cussing up a storm - the two of them were frozen, while a sparkly whirlwind surrounded each of them. When finally they were released from their temporary paralysis Sam blinked.
"Can you please stop thinking in four letter words, just for a minute, while I catch my bearings?" he asked. Dean favored him with a very dirty look.
"For sure. Just as soon as you stop picturing me with duct tape across my mouth."
"Oh, no!" Sam picked up the book from which he'd found the spell and tried to find out what he'd done wrong. "I don't think it was meant to include you."
“Well, pardon me for being here,” said Dean, grumpily. “Would you mind letting me know exactly what you’ve included me in?”
“The spell is supposed to give me the ability to read minds,” said Sam. “Me, not us. Me!”
“Hey, reading minds will be fun,” said Dean. “You were gonna keep it to yourself?”
“The book didn’t say anything about affecting more than the person casting the spell,” said Sam. Dean nodded but eyed Sam balefully as he caught his brother’s follow up thought about how inconvenient it was going to be.
“Hmph! Well, anyway, I’m hungry. Let’s go.” Dean turned to make for the exit. “Release the wards or whatever it is that you do.”
The little book that Dean had been reading flapped a bit and seemed to follow him as he went to the door, flopping after him and ending up clinging to the edge of his jeans. Heaving another sigh, Dean bent to retrieve it and slid it into his pocket. “Seems like I’ve got a pet,” he muttered, before forgetting about it completely.
As the brothers finally emerged from Rowena’s stronghold, they were completely unaware of the fact that they were being observed by malevolent eyes.
~0~
On the way home, both men were aware of thoughts from outside the car, but they passed by too swiftly to give either brother the opportunity to test out their new skill. Once back inside the bunker the buzz of alien voices ceased as soon as the door was closed, and they were left with just themselves.
“I think I’ll go...”
“Why don’t we...”
The two of them started to speak at once, attempting to talk louder than their thoughts, and then laughed uncomfortably because they could tell exactly what was happening.
“This could become a double edged sword,” said Dean after a minute. “We need to learn how to block thoughts out if we don’t want to ‘hear’ them. Was there anything about that in your fancy spellbook?”
“No,” said Sam, looking glum. “Not that I saw. I’ll find something here, though. I’m sure. There was a whole section on mind reading in that little room at the end of corridor 2.”
“Well, okay then.” Dean positively beamed. “Go get it, geek boy, and while you’re looking, I’ll go on a beer run. Pretty sure it’s going to be that sort of evening. You want Chinese or Italian?”
“I’m in the mood for Chinese,” announced Sam, after picking up Dean’s thought about the local restaurant’s chicken with cashew nuts. “Get a few things and bring me an 8 treasure rice too if you can. I’m hungry.”
“Got it.” Dean nodded and twirled his keys around his finger as he headed back up the stairs. As he went, Sam could feel the vast relief that emanated from Dean’s mind as he escaped his brother’s pesky thought reading abilities.
~0~
Dean soon found that he could control the hubbub of random thoughts as he made his way into Lebanon. He was starting to be able to isolate particular voices, although it gave him a headache to focus on doing so. Entering the liquor store, he clearly heard the man behind the counter complain about his back as he rose to his feet to serve Dean.
“How are you doing today?” he asked.
“Just a bit creaky. Think I pulled something hauling a couple of cases up from the storeroom,” was the reply, but behind the words the thought that Dean was such a nice young man was strong, and it made Dean smile.
“Hey, if you need anything else hauled, sing out. I can do it for you.”
“Got it all for today, but thank you,” was the response, and Dean murmured his goodbyes amid a warm wash of affection.
Making his way back to the car, Dean felt like kicking his heels together in sheer joy. He could isolate the thoughts of those who were nearby but, much more importantly, somewhere in the back corner of his mind, Sam’s inner monologue never ceased, and it gave Dean a weird sense of peace that he’d never realized was missing before. He could tell that Sam had hit the books, and that he was looking for anything to do with their current situation, although now Dean had had time to consider, he really hoped that Sam wouldn’t find a cure. He liked hearing his brother and knowing that he was safe. A thought occurred to him, and he decided to test it out.
He went to put his purchases into the back of the car, then, leaning against the door he aimed what he hoped would be a loud thought at his brother.
“Hey, Sammy”
For a moment or two, he thought that it wouldn’t work and chastised himself for thinking he’d have the kind of skill to achieve what he wanted, but then he detected a note of surprise in Sam’s internal monologue and tried again.
“Hey, Sammy” He’d closed his eyes tightly and was holding his breath as he strained to push the thought to his brother.
“Dean? Where are you?”
It worked. Dean was pumped. He gathered his energy to tell Sam he didn’t want to lose this amazing new ability. Concentrating as hard as he was, he didn’t notice anything untoward until there was a sudden unspoken sense of gloating malice that invaded his thoughts and made him gasp, and then a smack to his head that caused him to crumple to the ground, no more thoughts and no more consciousness.
~0~
At first, Sam thought he had imagined Dean’s call, but then it came even stronger. He was about to try and respond when all of a sudden Dean was silent. Not just his call had gone, but so had the comforting background babble of Dean’s passing thoughts. He gasped. Something was wrong. Something had to be wrong, because there was nothing coming from Dean at all - not even a lecherous thought about a passing girl.
Sam wasn’t sure what to do. There was no point in calling Cass. He and Dean were both hidden from angels by dint of the Enochian symbols engraved on their ribs. Rowena was dead, and that made her hard to contact. That meant that he was on his own. Sighing, he went to a different room to find a book about how to find a missing familiar.
~0~
Dean woke up with a pounding headache and a terrible pain in his back to find that he’d been stripped naked and laid across what appeared to be some kind of altar. “why do they always want me naked in these scenarios? Perverts!” he thought. Black candles were burning around him, and beyond the light they gave he could see vague shapes dancing around him. There was chanting and weird shrieks, but he could make neither head nor tail of them.
From the voices, he could tell that most of the dancers were female, but beyond that he knew nothing. It was difficult for him to move, but not totally impossible, and he wriggled a little in an attempt to ease the cramp in his back. As he did so, the chanting and wild cries came to a crescendo and stopped abruptly.
A lone voice from somewhere behind his head proclaimed, “Sisters of the Order of Chiroptera, our vengeance is complete. Now, we must wait.”
One by one, the candles were extinguished. Something fluttered above him, and he could make out small creatures swirling and swooping above him, dipping over him with little squeaks. He wasn’t sure what they might be until one alighted on his chest, peering at him, its wings brushing against his skin to raise goose-bumps at its touch.
He could feel others lower down at his ankles and still more of them continuing their swirling dance above him. There was a brief pulling sensation at his feet, and they fell free as the small creature there rejoined its confreres in their patrol. The one still on his chest didn’t stir.
“You’re a bat, aren’t you?” asked Dean, more for something to say than anything else. He was rewarded with a loud squeak along with a vague sense of approval that seemed to be emanating from the bat. Blinking in surprise, he tried to focus on that approving thought and found that the bat seemed to be feeling very positive about him, although the reason why wasn’t clear.
“Perhaps you could help me out, little bat. My back is hurting from lying stretched out in this position for god knows how long, and I’m cold. You’ve got fur, but I don’t.”
The bat chattered and fluttered aloft in seeming response to his words. Struggling, Dean attempted to roll onto his side and as soon as he succeeded, a couple of the creatures left their patrol and flew down to release his hands from their bonds.
Finally able to sit up, Dean thanked the bats sincerely and stretched, wincing as he felt the blood flow into limbs that had lost their sensation. For a few moments, the pins and needles of their recovery had him moaning, but before too long he was able to get to his feet, albeit somewhat shakily, little chitterings and squeaks of approval sounding as he did so.
“Son of a bitch!”
Something was different. Something was very wrong. As he stretched, getting the feelings back in his limbs, he could feel folds of skin that just shouldn’t be there. He moved his arms and the folds moved too. They seemed somehow to be attached. It took him a few minutes to work out just what they were, but when it finally dawned on him what had happened, it was because the squadron of bats conveyed the information to him.
“Holy crap! I’m Batman.”
Dean extended what were undoubtedly wings and flapped a little, feeling himself begin to leave the ground as he did so. Hastily he let himself drop down onto the dusty ground and swallowed down his approaching panic. “Okay, guys. Let’s go home.” A sudden thought occurred to him. “Correction. Let me get dressed first, and then go home.”
Sam’s thought hit him suddenly - a mixture of love, relief and annoyance. “Where are you? What happened?”
“You’re not gonna believe me if I tell you. Wait 'til I get home, okay?” Peering around in the gloom, Dean spotted his clothes lying in a discarded pile on the floor. Gratefully approaching them, he began to pull them on. His T-shirt gave him trouble, but he did manage to get it on by cutting off the sleeves. His overshirt proved to be a whole other story, and eventually he shrugged and tied it around his waist, along with his jacket. The book from Rowena's lair fell out of his jacket, and as dean bent to replace it, he saw on the pages where it had fallen open the words, They shall not constrain you while you have me.
Thoughtful now, Dean allowed the bats to lead him to the front of what now proved to be a cave, only to be stopped by a large, older woman wearing a hat that was shaped like a bat.
“Stop!”
Looking her up and down, Dean suppressed a tendency to giggle. ”What do we think, guys? Do we stop for the lady in the funny hat?” There was twittering and squeaking as the bats conferred, but the consensus of opinion appeared to be negative, and Dean passed her by before wheeling around and raising an eyebrow at her.
“Who says?” he asked.
“You must!” she said. “I am high priestess of the Order of Chiroptera, and you are now bound to obey us.”
“I think I missed the memo,” said Dean, grinning, and the little book that was still in his pocket jacket fluttered its pages as it accepted Dean's hastily given thanks. “Sorry about that, but I’ve got to get back to Sam. He’s worried about me.” Turning, he resumed his path towards the exit, accompanied by his cloud of myotis lucifugus. “Me and my homies here are keen to be elsewhere.” And with that, he left her behind, spluttering.
~0~
It took Dean quite a while to work out a way to kind of wrap his wings around his arms in such a way that he could get his coat on without causing himself acute agony. It wasn’t quite comfortable, but it would do. The walk back to Lebanon was fortunately reasonably short, although the accompanying convoy of little brown bats couldn’t quite ’get’ his determination to walk rather than fly. He was hoping that he wouldn’t have to confess his fear of flying to them just yet. The very idea had him humming “Enter Sandman” under his breath.
He was relieved to see that his beloved Baby had remained untouched where he had left her, and that his beer was still on her back seat. Making his way into the Chinese restaurant, he gave his order, and insisted that his escort remain outside while he waited. Fortunately, the bats didn’t seem to want to go inside with him. He got a strong sense from them that they preferred the open air, and he approved, merely cautioning them against dive bombing any stray pedestrians.
Sam was coming in loud and clear now, even louder than the very cute Chinese waitress who was helping him with his order. Ordinarily Dean would have paid homage to the pretty lady even if he wasn’t intent on hooking up with her, but today he just wanted to get home to his brother, who he could feel was becoming more worried by the minute as Dean refused to say what had happened to him.
Besides, his head still hurt where he’d been hit earlier.
He’d given Sam no indication at all about what had happened to him, but he had asked him to open the louvers to the huge garage area, thinking A: that his bats would be able to roost there, and B: if his bats were going to roost there he would need to cover Baby.
Smiling his thanks to the waitress when she brought his order, he gathered it up and left the restaurant, feeling a little hurt at the thought that followed him out. He thought his legs looked great. It was imperfections that made him accessible rather than too perfect to be real. Hopping back into the Impala with his takeout caused a bit of an argument amongst the bats, but finally they allowed him to drive as long as one of them accompanied him, clinging to the fabric of his coat.
Sam was waiting for him at the doorway when he arrived, and was able to take the food in while Dean carried the case of beer. He scrutinized Dean for a few moments and then asked what the big mystery was all about.
“I didn’t want to worry you,” murmured Dean. “But I got waylaid.”
“That much I gathered from the complete radio silence that suddenly happened.”
“Yeah. They cold-cocked me while I was concentrating on sending you a thought. Back of my head is still really sore.” Dean dumped the beer on the kitchen counter and made his way along the corridor to the garage, followed closely by Sam. “Did you open the louvers like I asked you?”
“Well, yeah, but…” Sam peered at the bat sitting on the lapel of Dean’s jacket. “You’ve got a little brown bat,” he said, reaching out with a finger to pet the little creature.
“Yeah. About that…” He suggested to the bat that it should go up and out through the opening at the top of the room and go get the others when they were ready to roost. With a squeak, the bat was gone. “It’s a long story, but, hey, Sammy, I’m Batman!”
Turning, he headed back to the kitchen, relating the events of the evening as they went.
~0~
Much later, Sam turned over in the bed and reached for Dean, but the place where he usually lay was empty. He reached out with his mind to feel that Dean was close by and sleeping blissfully. Knowing he wasn’t in the bed where he should be, Sam jumped out of bed, afraid that his brother was sleep walking and likely to put himself in danger if he strayed into any of the storerooms with cursed artifacts.
“Better go find him,” he grumbled. “Dean’s been in enough trouble for one day.” He made his way into the map room looking around as he went, and paused, dumbfounded as he realized where his brother had gotten to.
Hanging from the balcony rail, wrapped in his beautiful, leathery wings, upside down and fast asleep, was Dean Winchester... The Batman.
Title: Crossing the Streams
Written for: jdl71
Author: candygramme
Artist: kingstoken
Beta: spoonlessone
Rating PG13, just to be on the safe side
Prompt: I kind of smooshed in 3 of your prompts and made this into something that doesn't seem to be any of them. Sorry! The specific prompts were:
3. Reading through a grimoire, Dean recites a spell that causes him to tell Sam how he feels about him.
4. Sam inadvertently binds him & Dean together with a spell, and they can read each others minds - makes it hard to keep secrets from each other.
5. Dean wakes up to discover he has wings.
Word Count: 3,229
Author's Notes Please appreciate the art! kingstoken forgot to sign it, which is a sad thing, but I owe him/her immense gratitude. So pretty! As ever, this is crack.
Rowena’s apartment was just as they’d left it the day they’d discovered that Sam was her heir. It hadn’t really been Sam’s desire to start himself on the path to witchhood, but both he and Dean - who was apparently his familiar now, who knew? - knew they were going to have to find something really powerful to beat God and end his obsession with them. After a lot of thought they had decided that they couldn’t allow their personal biases to stand in their way of a job that needed to be done.
So here they were in Rowena’s workshop, poring over grimoires and ancient tomes that promised arcane knowledge if they could only just find it. Dean had never been excited by the idea of research, but ever since he’d become Sam’s familiar he’d at least taken some of the burden from Sam’s shoulders. Even Sam couldn’t fault his diligence today as his brother paged through book after book, journal after journal in search of something - anything - that might help.
The day was growing late. Sam was feeling cross-eyed with the effort of perusing through Latin, Aramaic, Greek and even Enochian texts, some hand written in a variety of noxious substances. The ones made from vellum were bad enough, but the ones made from skin were horrible to touch, and gave Sam the creeps. One little booklet that seemed promising, had flapped its pages when Dean reached for it and somehow managed to elude his grasp for almost 10 minutes.
Sam wasn’t at all surprised when Dean tossed the booklet aside, and gave a heavy sigh, which turned into a yelp as the booklet snapped at him with its surprisingly strong covers.
“Getting hungry here, Sammy. Can we go eat before we get into the next shelf?”
“Yeah. Just a minute. I’ve got something here that might be helpful. Let me just...” Sam leaned forward and made several gestures that reminded Dean of someone trying - and failing - to do the Macarena. He was about to tell his brother so when Sam raised his arms above his head and shouted something that sounded as though it contained far more consonants than it needed.
For a moment - a very long moment that left Dean red in the face and cussing up a storm - the two of them were frozen, while a sparkly whirlwind surrounded each of them. When finally they were released from their temporary paralysis Sam blinked.
"Can you please stop thinking in four letter words, just for a minute, while I catch my bearings?" he asked. Dean favored him with a very dirty look.
"For sure. Just as soon as you stop picturing me with duct tape across my mouth."
"Oh, no!" Sam picked up the book from which he'd found the spell and tried to find out what he'd done wrong. "I don't think it was meant to include you."
“Well, pardon me for being here,” said Dean, grumpily. “Would you mind letting me know exactly what you’ve included me in?”
“The spell is supposed to give me the ability to read minds,” said Sam. “Me, not us. Me!”
“Hey, reading minds will be fun,” said Dean. “You were gonna keep it to yourself?”
“The book didn’t say anything about affecting more than the person casting the spell,” said Sam. Dean nodded but eyed Sam balefully as he caught his brother’s follow up thought about how inconvenient it was going to be.
“Hmph! Well, anyway, I’m hungry. Let’s go.” Dean turned to make for the exit. “Release the wards or whatever it is that you do.”
The little book that Dean had been reading flapped a bit and seemed to follow him as he went to the door, flopping after him and ending up clinging to the edge of his jeans. Heaving another sigh, Dean bent to retrieve it and slid it into his pocket. “Seems like I’ve got a pet,” he muttered, before forgetting about it completely.
As the brothers finally emerged from Rowena’s stronghold, they were completely unaware of the fact that they were being observed by malevolent eyes.
~0~
On the way home, both men were aware of thoughts from outside the car, but they passed by too swiftly to give either brother the opportunity to test out their new skill. Once back inside the bunker the buzz of alien voices ceased as soon as the door was closed, and they were left with just themselves.
“I think I’ll go...”
“Why don’t we...”
The two of them started to speak at once, attempting to talk louder than their thoughts, and then laughed uncomfortably because they could tell exactly what was happening.
“This could become a double edged sword,” said Dean after a minute. “We need to learn how to block thoughts out if we don’t want to ‘hear’ them. Was there anything about that in your fancy spellbook?”
“No,” said Sam, looking glum. “Not that I saw. I’ll find something here, though. I’m sure. There was a whole section on mind reading in that little room at the end of corridor 2.”
“Well, okay then.” Dean positively beamed. “Go get it, geek boy, and while you’re looking, I’ll go on a beer run. Pretty sure it’s going to be that sort of evening. You want Chinese or Italian?”
“I’m in the mood for Chinese,” announced Sam, after picking up Dean’s thought about the local restaurant’s chicken with cashew nuts. “Get a few things and bring me an 8 treasure rice too if you can. I’m hungry.”
“Got it.” Dean nodded and twirled his keys around his finger as he headed back up the stairs. As he went, Sam could feel the vast relief that emanated from Dean’s mind as he escaped his brother’s pesky thought reading abilities.
~0~
Dean soon found that he could control the hubbub of random thoughts as he made his way into Lebanon. He was starting to be able to isolate particular voices, although it gave him a headache to focus on doing so. Entering the liquor store, he clearly heard the man behind the counter complain about his back as he rose to his feet to serve Dean.
“How are you doing today?” he asked.
“Just a bit creaky. Think I pulled something hauling a couple of cases up from the storeroom,” was the reply, but behind the words the thought that Dean was such a nice young man was strong, and it made Dean smile.
“Hey, if you need anything else hauled, sing out. I can do it for you.”
“Got it all for today, but thank you,” was the response, and Dean murmured his goodbyes amid a warm wash of affection.
Making his way back to the car, Dean felt like kicking his heels together in sheer joy. He could isolate the thoughts of those who were nearby but, much more importantly, somewhere in the back corner of his mind, Sam’s inner monologue never ceased, and it gave Dean a weird sense of peace that he’d never realized was missing before. He could tell that Sam had hit the books, and that he was looking for anything to do with their current situation, although now Dean had had time to consider, he really hoped that Sam wouldn’t find a cure. He liked hearing his brother and knowing that he was safe. A thought occurred to him, and he decided to test it out.
He went to put his purchases into the back of the car, then, leaning against the door he aimed what he hoped would be a loud thought at his brother.
“Hey, Sammy”
For a moment or two, he thought that it wouldn’t work and chastised himself for thinking he’d have the kind of skill to achieve what he wanted, but then he detected a note of surprise in Sam’s internal monologue and tried again.
“Hey, Sammy” He’d closed his eyes tightly and was holding his breath as he strained to push the thought to his brother.
“Dean? Where are you?”
It worked. Dean was pumped. He gathered his energy to tell Sam he didn’t want to lose this amazing new ability. Concentrating as hard as he was, he didn’t notice anything untoward until there was a sudden unspoken sense of gloating malice that invaded his thoughts and made him gasp, and then a smack to his head that caused him to crumple to the ground, no more thoughts and no more consciousness.
~0~
At first, Sam thought he had imagined Dean’s call, but then it came even stronger. He was about to try and respond when all of a sudden Dean was silent. Not just his call had gone, but so had the comforting background babble of Dean’s passing thoughts. He gasped. Something was wrong. Something had to be wrong, because there was nothing coming from Dean at all - not even a lecherous thought about a passing girl.
Sam wasn’t sure what to do. There was no point in calling Cass. He and Dean were both hidden from angels by dint of the Enochian symbols engraved on their ribs. Rowena was dead, and that made her hard to contact. That meant that he was on his own. Sighing, he went to a different room to find a book about how to find a missing familiar.
~0~
Dean woke up with a pounding headache and a terrible pain in his back to find that he’d been stripped naked and laid across what appeared to be some kind of altar. “why do they always want me naked in these scenarios? Perverts!” he thought. Black candles were burning around him, and beyond the light they gave he could see vague shapes dancing around him. There was chanting and weird shrieks, but he could make neither head nor tail of them.
From the voices, he could tell that most of the dancers were female, but beyond that he knew nothing. It was difficult for him to move, but not totally impossible, and he wriggled a little in an attempt to ease the cramp in his back. As he did so, the chanting and wild cries came to a crescendo and stopped abruptly.
A lone voice from somewhere behind his head proclaimed, “Sisters of the Order of Chiroptera, our vengeance is complete. Now, we must wait.”
One by one, the candles were extinguished. Something fluttered above him, and he could make out small creatures swirling and swooping above him, dipping over him with little squeaks. He wasn’t sure what they might be until one alighted on his chest, peering at him, its wings brushing against his skin to raise goose-bumps at its touch.
He could feel others lower down at his ankles and still more of them continuing their swirling dance above him. There was a brief pulling sensation at his feet, and they fell free as the small creature there rejoined its confreres in their patrol. The one still on his chest didn’t stir.
“You’re a bat, aren’t you?” asked Dean, more for something to say than anything else. He was rewarded with a loud squeak along with a vague sense of approval that seemed to be emanating from the bat. Blinking in surprise, he tried to focus on that approving thought and found that the bat seemed to be feeling very positive about him, although the reason why wasn’t clear.
“Perhaps you could help me out, little bat. My back is hurting from lying stretched out in this position for god knows how long, and I’m cold. You’ve got fur, but I don’t.”
The bat chattered and fluttered aloft in seeming response to his words. Struggling, Dean attempted to roll onto his side and as soon as he succeeded, a couple of the creatures left their patrol and flew down to release his hands from their bonds.
Finally able to sit up, Dean thanked the bats sincerely and stretched, wincing as he felt the blood flow into limbs that had lost their sensation. For a few moments, the pins and needles of their recovery had him moaning, but before too long he was able to get to his feet, albeit somewhat shakily, little chitterings and squeaks of approval sounding as he did so.
“Son of a bitch!”
Something was different. Something was very wrong. As he stretched, getting the feelings back in his limbs, he could feel folds of skin that just shouldn’t be there. He moved his arms and the folds moved too. They seemed somehow to be attached. It took him a few minutes to work out just what they were, but when it finally dawned on him what had happened, it was because the squadron of bats conveyed the information to him.
“Holy crap! I’m Batman.”
Dean extended what were undoubtedly wings and flapped a little, feeling himself begin to leave the ground as he did so. Hastily he let himself drop down onto the dusty ground and swallowed down his approaching panic. “Okay, guys. Let’s go home.” A sudden thought occurred to him. “Correction. Let me get dressed first, and then go home.”
Sam’s thought hit him suddenly - a mixture of love, relief and annoyance. “Where are you? What happened?”
“You’re not gonna believe me if I tell you. Wait 'til I get home, okay?” Peering around in the gloom, Dean spotted his clothes lying in a discarded pile on the floor. Gratefully approaching them, he began to pull them on. His T-shirt gave him trouble, but he did manage to get it on by cutting off the sleeves. His overshirt proved to be a whole other story, and eventually he shrugged and tied it around his waist, along with his jacket. The book from Rowena's lair fell out of his jacket, and as dean bent to replace it, he saw on the pages where it had fallen open the words, They shall not constrain you while you have me.
Thoughtful now, Dean allowed the bats to lead him to the front of what now proved to be a cave, only to be stopped by a large, older woman wearing a hat that was shaped like a bat.
“Stop!”
Looking her up and down, Dean suppressed a tendency to giggle. ”What do we think, guys? Do we stop for the lady in the funny hat?” There was twittering and squeaking as the bats conferred, but the consensus of opinion appeared to be negative, and Dean passed her by before wheeling around and raising an eyebrow at her.
“Who says?” he asked.
“You must!” she said. “I am high priestess of the Order of Chiroptera, and you are now bound to obey us.”
“I think I missed the memo,” said Dean, grinning, and the little book that was still in his pocket jacket fluttered its pages as it accepted Dean's hastily given thanks. “Sorry about that, but I’ve got to get back to Sam. He’s worried about me.” Turning, he resumed his path towards the exit, accompanied by his cloud of myotis lucifugus. “Me and my homies here are keen to be elsewhere.” And with that, he left her behind, spluttering.
~0~
It took Dean quite a while to work out a way to kind of wrap his wings around his arms in such a way that he could get his coat on without causing himself acute agony. It wasn’t quite comfortable, but it would do. The walk back to Lebanon was fortunately reasonably short, although the accompanying convoy of little brown bats couldn’t quite ’get’ his determination to walk rather than fly. He was hoping that he wouldn’t have to confess his fear of flying to them just yet. The very idea had him humming “Enter Sandman” under his breath.
He was relieved to see that his beloved Baby had remained untouched where he had left her, and that his beer was still on her back seat. Making his way into the Chinese restaurant, he gave his order, and insisted that his escort remain outside while he waited. Fortunately, the bats didn’t seem to want to go inside with him. He got a strong sense from them that they preferred the open air, and he approved, merely cautioning them against dive bombing any stray pedestrians.
Sam was coming in loud and clear now, even louder than the very cute Chinese waitress who was helping him with his order. Ordinarily Dean would have paid homage to the pretty lady even if he wasn’t intent on hooking up with her, but today he just wanted to get home to his brother, who he could feel was becoming more worried by the minute as Dean refused to say what had happened to him.
Besides, his head still hurt where he’d been hit earlier.
He’d given Sam no indication at all about what had happened to him, but he had asked him to open the louvers to the huge garage area, thinking A: that his bats would be able to roost there, and B: if his bats were going to roost there he would need to cover Baby.
Smiling his thanks to the waitress when she brought his order, he gathered it up and left the restaurant, feeling a little hurt at the thought that followed him out. He thought his legs looked great. It was imperfections that made him accessible rather than too perfect to be real. Hopping back into the Impala with his takeout caused a bit of an argument amongst the bats, but finally they allowed him to drive as long as one of them accompanied him, clinging to the fabric of his coat.
Sam was waiting for him at the doorway when he arrived, and was able to take the food in while Dean carried the case of beer. He scrutinized Dean for a few moments and then asked what the big mystery was all about.
“I didn’t want to worry you,” murmured Dean. “But I got waylaid.”
“That much I gathered from the complete radio silence that suddenly happened.”
“Yeah. They cold-cocked me while I was concentrating on sending you a thought. Back of my head is still really sore.” Dean dumped the beer on the kitchen counter and made his way along the corridor to the garage, followed closely by Sam. “Did you open the louvers like I asked you?”
“Well, yeah, but…” Sam peered at the bat sitting on the lapel of Dean’s jacket. “You’ve got a little brown bat,” he said, reaching out with a finger to pet the little creature.
“Yeah. About that…” He suggested to the bat that it should go up and out through the opening at the top of the room and go get the others when they were ready to roost. With a squeak, the bat was gone. “It’s a long story, but, hey, Sammy, I’m Batman!”
Turning, he headed back to the kitchen, relating the events of the evening as they went.
~0~
Much later, Sam turned over in the bed and reached for Dean, but the place where he usually lay was empty. He reached out with his mind to feel that Dean was close by and sleeping blissfully. Knowing he wasn’t in the bed where he should be, Sam jumped out of bed, afraid that his brother was sleep walking and likely to put himself in danger if he strayed into any of the storerooms with cursed artifacts.
“Better go find him,” he grumbled. “Dean’s been in enough trouble for one day.” He made his way into the map room looking around as he went, and paused, dumbfounded as he realized where his brother had gotten to.
Hanging from the balcony rail, wrapped in his beautiful, leathery wings, upside down and fast asleep, was Dean Winchester... The Batman.