Chapter Text
Sam heaved a weary sigh, watching as his brother and his angel husband fussed over his five-year-old Nephil niece, wondering first of all, how his life had come to this, and second, if he was perhaps the only sane person in the house.
“Hurry up and eat, Wren, we need to do up your wings,” Dean told his child, patting one of the dark, downy appendages sticking out from behind her shoulders.
“I still don’t understand why we have to make her hide them,” Castiel grumbled, watching him sulkily from his spot at the table beside them, unsurprisingly not eating because everything apparently “tastes like molecules”.
“Look,” Dean grunted, “I don’t like it any more than you do, but Wren cannot go to school with a pair of wings sticking out under her backpack. Humans don’t accept different things like that. They’d freak out.”
“I think her wings are lovely,” Castiel cut in defensively.
“Of course they are, Cas, but I don’t want her to scare people, or end up in a zoo, or get dissected!” Dean argued.
Cas frowned, but didn’t object. “I will go and get the supplies.”
“Yeah,” Dean said, “You do that.”
“Daddy?” Wren asked, staring up at him with wide blue eyes.
“What is it, sweetie?” Dean asked distractedly.
“Will people really dislike me if they see my wings?” she asked.
Dean looked a bit conflicted, but finally said, “It’s best that you learn the truth now. There is nothing wrong with your wings, dove, but nobody can know about them, or that you’re half angel, okay?”
“Is it because I’m an abo-abomination?” the little girl forced out, studying her pancakes.
Dean’s eyes blazed with fury, clearly swearing vengeance upon every one of the angels, monsters, and hunters who had ever dared to let his daughter hear them use that word. “Of course not,” he said, “You are not an abomination, Wren. You’re just special, that’s all.”
“Special in a good way or a bad way?” Wren grumbled, already shockingly perceptive for her age.
“A good way,” Sam said with a smile, “How many of your classmates can fly, or smite monsters? Trust me, you’re the real winner here!”
The child giggled, although she was not yet allowed to do either of those things.
“And if anyone calls you the ‘a’ word again,” Dean added, “Go ahead and smite them too!”
“Dean!” Cas gasped out from the stairs, where he was standing with his hand in their younger daughter, Deryn’s, shocked, “Don’t teach her things like that!”
The hunter smiled innocently, “Just a little self-defense,” he said.
Castiel rolled his eyes, coming over to join them. “Wren,” he said seriously, “Do not listen to your father. It is never okay to smite other children.”
Wren tilted her head in confusion, but nodded. “I understand, Daddy,” she said, although she still looked puzzled.
“Wen!” Deryn cried out from beside Cas, “Wen!”
She beamed at her little sister. “Good morning, Deryn!”
“Wen,” the toddler squeaked out, concerned, “You’re going away?”
She nodded. “I am going to kindergarten, Deryn. I will see you again after school.”
“No!” Deryn whined, reaching up for her, “Don’t go! Don’t go!”
She burst into tears, and Dean and Cas had her surrounded in an instant.
“It’s okay, Deryn,” Wren told her as Cas scooped the three-year old up in his arms, and Dean tried to comfort her from beside him, “I will only be gone for a little while. I need to go and learn. You can come with me, when you’re big.”
Dean and Cas exchanged a glance, but Deryn had stopped crying, so they decided not to tell the girls that they would be in different grade levels. Deryn nodded at her sister. “I come!” she offered, boldly.
“No, Deryn,” Wren corrected her, “When you’re big!”
Deryn sniffled. “I am big. I’m a big girl, Wen!”
“It’s okay, Deryn,” Sam said from his place at the table, “We’re going to have lots of fun here, right guys?”
Dean and Cas nodded feverently. “Yes,” Castiel said seriously, “We will have lots of fun.”
“Fly?” the little girl asked extending a fluffy, light brown wing towards her father from where she sat in the angel’s arms.
Dean instantly stiffened.
“No,” Castiel replied, shaking his head at her, “You don’t have your flight feathers yet. You are far too young to fly.”
Dean let out a small sigh of relief.
“What about me?” Wren piped up, “I’m a big girl! I can fly!”
Castiel frowned, inspecting the nestling’s wings carefully from where he stood. “Soon,” he said finally, noting the emergence of her first few short, stubby black flight feathers, which, like Castiel’s own feathers, bared more resemblance to a raven’s than a wren’s.
Dean’s face fell for a moment, and Sam recognized the brief presence of something akin to horror in his brother before he apparently shoved the feeling away. “Speaking of wings,” he said, “Time to tie them up.”
Wren pouted. “I don’t want to!”
“Well you have to,” Dean said simply, “Or you can’t go to school. Cas, pass me those belts, would you?”
The angel nodded, handing them to him. “I am sorry, Wren. I promise the restraints can come off as soon as you get home.”
“No!” Wren cried, “No, no, no, no-”
Dean sighed. “Sammy, could you give me a hand here?”
He nodded, helping Dean to bunch Wren’s wings up as flat as possible against her back, so that they wouldn’t stick out. “I’m sorry,” he whispered throughout the entire ordeal, more than familiar with the feeling of being a freak that needed to hide who he was. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m-”
With one more little tug, the last of the three belts used to secure Wren’s wings was in place. “There,” Dean said triumphantly, “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”
Wren burst into tears.
Dean swore, and Cas scolded him for using such indecent language in front of their children, to which Dean looked ashamed.
“Look Wren,” Dean sighed, “I know it’s not comfortable, but it’s just for a few hours, okay? This is to help you, I promise.”
“I don’t like them!” Wren wailed.
Castiel appeared to be fighting some parental instinct to run to her and comfort her right that instant. “Wren,” he said quietly, “Listen to your father. This is for your own good.”
“Do they hurt?” Sam asked, but apparently Wren was too hysterical at this point to express coherent thought.
“It can’t hurt that bad,” Dean protested, “I barely tightened them at all!”
“Don’t… want!” Wren screamed.
Seeing her sister’s distress, Deryn burst into tears too.
“Well shirt,” Dean muttered, nevertheless earning himself a glare from Cas.
“Deryn,” Cas said softly, “Deryn, Wren… Come on… Don’t cry…”
Sam sighed to himself. This was going to be a long day.