48. Chapter 48

The next week was calm in a way that Dean was unfamiliar with. Every morning when he woke up, both Castiel and Gabriel were there waiting for him. He and Gabriel baked a pie together twice. All three of them went for walks right before lunch. One afternoon, Balthazar showed up with flavored popcorn and they introduced Castiel to Star Wars. Gabriel cooked something for supper each night; one evening, they went to the little lake and Dean had the chance to build another sandcastle, since he couldn't go swimming with the wing sleeves on.

It was... weird. Peaceful. Dean couldn't get over the feeling that something was going to happen, especially when he started feeling a little better. His fever was finally gone, but he still got tired ridiculously easy. It was embarrassing. Especially when Castiel was taking full advantage of it, picking Dean up and carrying him to bed for two naps a day no matter how much Dean protested. The fact that he actually fell asleep every damn time was worse.

He woke from one of said naps slowly, rubbing at his eyes and realizing that he was in his bed with the comforter pulled up to his waist. The mobile was still revolving above his head, though it wasn't playing any music now. The room was silent aside from the sound of rain against his window. He figured that meant their morning walk was going to be cancelled, which sucked. Nature was kind of cool when you actually had the time to stop and look at it.

Since the mobile was still moving, that meant he hadn't been asleep for long. Castiel usually let him sleep for at least an hour during the first nap of the day. Dean wondered what had woken him up. He sat up carefully and looked down at his pillow. There was a pacifier laying beside the imprint of his head; his bee and his fox were tucked up close to his tummy where they belonged.

Then he felt it again and realized what it was. An itchy feeling was coming from his wings. He'd been feeling it over the past day or so, but the wing oil helped to soothe the itch just as much as it did the pain, so he hadn't bothered to say anything. He didn't like to think too closely about the fact that he had such ugly things attached to him. Never mind that it meant he was really an angel's baby now, he'd always imagined his wings to be more like his daddy's. What he had was just... gross.

"Sam would never let me hear the end of it if he saw what they looked like," Dean muttered, picking up his fox for comfort. He nuzzled his cheek against her fur and winced when the itching only grew worse. He really wanted to reach back and scratch it, but his wings were unbearably sensitive even now. Castiel had promised that it would get better when his feathers came in, but Dean wasn't sure he believed it.

So far, this whole hatchling thing sucked.

He wiggled his shoulders, half-tempted to lay down on his back so that the pressure would help. He had a vague memory of having had chicken pox when he was a child. To this day, Dean still wasn't sure what his father had been hunting, and the journal had never mentioned this particular case, but it had taken up so much of John's time and attention that Sam and Dean had ended up with a local baby-sitter. It just so happened that chicken pox was spreading like wildfire through the town at the time.

If Dean was remembering correctly, Sam had only been about a year old at the time and he'd come down with it first. He definitely remembered how hard it had been trying to keep Sam from scratching. John had still been busy, so it was up to Dean to try and distract him. The only fortunate thing about the whole miserable experience was that by the time that Dean got sick, Sam was mostly healed.

But that didn't mean the experience had been any less miserable for five-year-old Dean. He could remember wanting to scratch desperately and being told he wasn't allowed to, and knowing that he had to listen to what John said or suffer the unpleasant consequences. One of the few things that had brought him any relief was putting pressure on the itchiest spots. Which sometimes had meant sprawling out on the floor with Sammy on his chest and the floor against his back, when both sides of his body were equally itchy.

The problem was that laying down on his wings would be ridiculously painful. Dean scowled and rubbed his eyes again. Much as he hated to admit it, he was sleepy and his pillow looked awfully comfortable. He wanted to go back to sleep, but he knew that there was no way he'd be able to. Even though Gabriel had rubbed on fresh oil just three or four hours ago, the feeling was getting worse instead of better. It felt like someone was tickling his wings. He squirmed around and finally gave in, putting his hand back and carefully scratching at the worst spot.

Surprisingly it didn't hurt. It just felt really good. Dean whimpered with relief, scratching a little harder. It was difficult to get his arm back far enough to scratch the way he really wanted to, but even just this little bit was bliss. He closed his eyes and was so focused on scratching that he didn't even notice the door was opening.

"Dean? What are you doing awake?"

Dean froze and dropped his hand quickly. "Nothing. I'm not tired," he lied.

Castiel frowned, clearly not buying the story. "What were you doing to your wings? Are you in pain?" He crossed the room. The movement caused his feathers to rustle; his wings flexed unconsciously in response, something that Dean had noticed happened every time Castiel or Gabriel entered a new room. He tried not to frown jealously.

He jumped at the touch to his wings - that would never stop being weird - but Castiel's hands were as gentle as always, sliding the wing sleeve off. At first it was a relief, but then the itching came back even worse. Dean couldn't help himself. He didn't know when his will power had dissolved to nothing, but apparently it had yet to make a return. He started to reach around his ribs, aiming for a spot near the base of his wings, but Castiel caught his hand. When Dean glanced back at him, scowling, he saw that his daddy was smiling.

"Oh, little one, you're getting your pin feathers," he said, sounding absurdly happy for something that was driving Dean crazy. Then the words sank in, and Dean straightened up.

"Feathers? Really?" he asked.

"Yes. Why didn't you tell me you were so uncomfortable?" But Castiel already knew why, of course, and anyway it didn't sound like he was really expecting Dean to answer the question. He was already sliding his hands under Dean's armpits and hefting Dean up onto his hip, then turned away from the bed and carried him over to the mirror. Dean hid his face in Castiel's shoulder rather than look. The wing sleeves weren't too bad to look at it, but he loathed the sight of his fleshy,, icky wings. It was always enough to make him cry and he hated that, too.

"Dean, come on, sweetheart. Don't be like that. It's okay."

"No," Dean said stubbornly. He didn't want to look and Castiel couldn't make him.

"But baby boy, don't you want to see what color your feathers will be?"

That was enough to catch Dean's attention. Slowly, he lifted his head and gave his daddy a suspicious look. Castiel was a notoriously bad liar - he always got this little dent between his eyebrows, and he could never look Dean in the eye - and right now he was staring straight at Dean with nothing but excitement in his blue eyes.

In all honesty, Dean had kind of wondered about the color of his wings. Castiel's wings were a beautiful, glossy shade of black. The coloring suited Jimmy's vessel very well, though Dean didn't think that actually had anything to do with it. Balthazar's wings had been a different color every time Dean saw him, and Balthazar refused to say what color his wings actually were. By contrast, Gabriel's wings were silver shot through with the occasional gold feather. Castiel had told him once that archangels had six wings, but didn't usually manifest four of those wings; Dean had often wondered if Gabriel's other four wings were pure gold.

All of the hatchlings and nestlings that Dean had seen up till now usually had more colorful wings. Charlie, for example, had bright purple wings. Dean figured his coloring would be along the same lines, and he was hoping for something more like a neutral brown. It would be better for hunting if he had something that didn't stand out too much. Even green or blue would have been okay. He was just concerned he'd end up with pink or purple wings, a color that would probably have John rising from beyond the grave just to have a heart attack.

"Go ahead, Dean," Castiel said, angling their bodies so that Dean had no choice but to look. Or at least, that's what he told himself as he peeked very cautiously into the mirror. He hadn't figured out how to make his wings move yet, so that was the only way he could see.

He squinted in the dim light, and Castiel's finger shifted. The overhead light came on. It was too bright on Dean's eyes, but it did make it much easier to see the - what had Castiel called them? Pin feathers? That's not what Dean would have called them. There were dozens of them sticking up all over his wing, and he could tell from the bumpiness of the wing sleeve he was still wearing that his other wing had suffered the same fate. They looked like the tips of white straws, or maybe that weird plastic thing at the end of shoelaces. They certainly did not approve the look of Dean's wings, and he felt his eyes welling up with tears.

"It's okay, baby. Look. See, right there?" Castiel pointed to a couple of feathers near the tip of the wing. The pin feathers did look a little different because an actual feather was starting to poke through the tip. Dean just couldn't tell what color it was yet. It looked like brown, maybe, or a brownish red. He reached for the pin feather, planning to pull the straw-thing off so that he could get a better look, but Castiel grabbed his hand again.

"I know it's uncomfortable, and you don't like the way they look. But you can't remove the sheath just yet. That's to protect your feathers while they're still growing. If you pull them off too soon, it will be very painful. You have to wait until your feathers are ready. It will take another three or four days."

"But it's itchy," Dean said. His voice quivered. Castiel sighed.

"I know it is. I'm sorry. We'll rub some more oil onto your wings, and then we can put some ice on them. That will help. You can't scratch, though. Your wings are very delicate right now."

"I don't like it," Dean mumbled. The room blurred as the tears finally spilled over, sliding hotly down his face.

Castiel hugged him. "I know you don't. I promise that it will be over soon, little one."

Not fast enough.