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“Sammy, what the hell?” Dean asks after peeking his head around the corner and into the room.
His brother looks up from brushing his teeth, eying him questioningly through the small mirror above the sink. He spits out the foam and scrubs the back of his hand across his mouth before he answers, “It’s called hygiene, Dean. It’s a health and decency thing most humans strive for along with this weird thing called ‘courtesy’ that is often found by means of respecting others’ spaces or at least fucking knocking.”
Dean shrugs because that’s fair. He’s already half a step into the space so he adds another full one since he crossed that proverbial line anyway. He gestures roughly in the direction of his brother, in the direction of his bare back, in the direction of things prominent and strange. “Those are new,” he says, knowing he’s not fully explaining himself and not really caring.
Sam freezes for a moment and looks like he’s tempted to grab the shirt he tossed over the towel rack. He doesn’t, which means he probably realizes he’d just be covering something already seen and it would lead to more questions, including about what else he might have been hiding. His hands fist against the sink for a moment, toothbrush set aside and forgotten, before he releases them one finger at a time. “Which ones?” he finally asks with a defeated sigh.
Dean raises his eyebrows at that. He takes another step closer and his eyes trace over the expanse of skin. There’s a few fine lines that weren’t there the last time he had reason to look, which was probably when he added to those lines with his excellent stitching before everything was wiped clean. Something that looks like the sun-flare of a healed bullet wound hovers about four inches above the flat unevenness of what must have been skin scraped raw or maybe a splash of a burn, but those pale in comparison to the obvious.
He tries to speak, swallows, then tries again. “When I came back, the only marks I had on me were my tattoo and the handprint. This… these are different.”
Sam turns around to face him, which doesn’t really help as now his back reflects in the glass behind him. “I was back for a while before you found me,” he reminds him, not unkindly. “Hunting with Samuel and Gwen and…. We got into a few scrapes that left behind some marks, same as always.”
It’s more than that and Dean knows it’s more than that. Hell, Sam knows it’s more than that. His brother’s memories are not one hundred percent but he’s as real and whole as he’s going to be. The illusions are gone from his mind even though nightmares that Dean knows not to mention overhearing remain. His hand drifts up to the dull ache of his own burned skin that never fades even if the mark itself has lightened over the years.
“These are different,” he repeats.
Sam coughs a snort and shakes his head. He grabs his shirt and tugs it on, the deep lines of not-quite-parallel scars that much closer before they are hidden by cotton. Red. Raised. Deep. These were an injury. These were possibly multiple injuries endured again and again. These are something he knows about and has chosen not to talk about, chosen to hide, on purpose. “We are not having this conversation without alcohol,” Sam mutters before he pushes past his brother and out of the room.
It’s over an hour of awkward non-conversation later before they sit at the table, safely out of sight and sound of anyone who could overhear them and lock them away. Sam’s got a six pack of some fancy microbrew next to him and Dean’s got a bottle of something that starts with Glenn and a relatively clean glass, the matter serious enough to spend a little extra against the stolen cards. Two large pizzas fill the vast expanse that settles between them.
Sam pops the top on one of his beers and downs about a third before he sets it down with a heavy sigh, finally ready to speak. When he does, it’s not what Dean was expecting. “Lucifer was, er, is, an angel,” he begins.
“So is Cas? So are all those other winged idiots,” Dean comments, not fully understanding. Sam looks at him expectantly; stares at him as if to encourage him to go back over what he just said. He does, slowly, and a possible meaning and realization dawns on him just as slowly. “Wings? As in… wings? Flappy feathery follicles?”
Sam nods, lips pressing tightly together for a moment before he opens his mouth as if he is going to say more. He must think better of it as he stuffs a slice of greasy goodness there instead, large enough to prevent him from talking around it. Dean’s ready to wait him out but, when he washes the dough and meat down with another third of his beer, he realizes he has potentially quite the wait.
“Again, I say, so is Cas? Never saw something like this on him,” he points out.
Sam tilts his head to the side, either considering the situation or his next words. “Did you ever see Cas as just Jimmy? Not an angel, but after being an angel for a while and before he became one again and could heal any lingering damage? Before any of his buddies could?”
Dean purses his lips and scrunches up his nose as he tries to think about it. The memories all sort of meld together. Cas as Cas. Cas as an angel. Cas as an angel with impossible power. Cas as an angel with no power at all. Cas as human. Rarely did he ever see the being unclothed in any significant way. Rarely did he know what version he was seeing if he did.
“So, what, you have wings?” he blurts.
A shadow passes over his brother’s face. A look of horror and darkness that he hasn’t seen since the wall came down in his mind. A blink, and it resolves into sadness instead. “I did,” he whispers before downing the last of beer number one.
Dean doesn’t stop him from grabbing the next one, mainly because he’s too busy pouring himself something far stronger. He takes a sip and lets it burn before he decides screw it and tosses the rest of the glass back only to refill it. “You had wings. You had wings?”
Sam shakes his head and places another piece of pizza on his plate. This one he doesn’t stuff in his mouth and just kind of picks at idly. “Lucifer had wings. I was Lucifer.”
“You were Lucifer’s vessel, his meatsuit,” Dean corrects.
“I let him in. I became him. This… this body was his and I was shoved to a back corner of its mind,” Sam tells him, voice a sort of hollow sorrow that makes Dean’s skin itch and creates an almost overwhelming urge to go damage something.
“And it – he – had wings in it?”
Half the cheese is picked off his piece by the time Sam speaks again. “We landed in Hell as this weird sort of amalgam. Part him, part me, part neither,” he shrugs. “Michael didn’t care which one I was and hacked away, fought us both. Even when we became separate entities, even when I was split between having a body up here and a soul down there, it was like the soul part physically experienced everything, it left a mark on me. My body was healed but my soul continued to be…. When my soul rejoined my body, some of the marks showed up here.”
Dean sets aside his own piece and folds his hands in front of him. “What marks? What other scars? Cas said you were damn near flayed alive, burnt to a crisp inside and out. I don’t see any of that, but I do see…”
“You see where Lucifer’s wings were hacked off. You see where they burst through the skin and regrew only to be ripped and torn and sheared again. I had no body and my soul was damn near tied to his. Michael was pissed because I ruined his mission, ruined his purpose in life, and I was to be punished as much as his brother. My wounds, the ones I received as me, were healed when my body was brought topside.”
“And Lucifer?” Dean prompts.
Sam breathes out through his nose, slow and tired and bone-weary. “You know how time works down there, right? Eventually, it must have lost its appeal. I must have lost appeal. His own anger and frustration at me ruining their little plan fizzled out and he focused on Michael instead. I don’t doubt he’d eventually have come back around for me like a plaything to poke at, but it never came to that. He shoved me to the side, tucked me into a little nook with flames and chains and nightmares and everything else, but Michael couldn’t get to me, not really. I felt whatever happened to him, but kind of like it was muted, turned down from before. He’d heal himself and some of the pain went away. We were still bonded, but he took the brunt of it, said I was too weak to handle it, that he needed me whole if he was going to escape and use me again, and I swear he just grew stronger with every attack. He definitely grew more pissed.”
“Lucifer?” Dean clarifies. “Lucifer protected you?” He shakes his head and pours himself another, and then another after that one disappears in a quick burn.
“I think it was less protection and more get rid of the distraction so he could focus on beating the shit out of his brother,” Sam shrugs. And, yeah, that was a sentiment he could recognize.
“Might have helped Death come gather your soul while they hammered away at each other,” Dean reasons. “But it still doesn’t explain the scars.”
“You left Hell with yours, I guess these are mine,” Sam replies. And Dean can see it, see his brother with wings held high behind him, see those wings torn and slashed and see the empty space they left behind only for that space to be filled again. Angels were far too prideful to not allow for the thing that defined them to be as real and whole as possible. Far too needing of the reassurance of what they once were to not leave some reminder behind if they fail.
They dig into the pizza for a bit, needing something to cushion against the booze and memories. He remembers chains and racks and pain and salvation. He remembers flesh tearing and burning and healing only to start all over again until one day it didn’t. A glance at his brother shows something viscerally similar but so very different. Eventually, Dean asks, “The wings, did you feel them when you had them?”
Sam sets his next bottle to the side and looks him right in the eyes when he says, “I still do.”