We Mortals Be

Shall we their fond pageant see? Lord, what fools these mortals be!

A Midsummer Night's Dream

Don't screw with fairies.

Dad used to announce that every time he came back from another fairy hunt in a piss-poor mood. After he was out of earshot—in the shower, getting wasted or whatever—Dean would repeat it over again and again in every voice he could come up with. It was all very satisfying because Sammy would laugh himself sick—once even to the point of throwing up. That was pretty awesome.

As a smartass fourteen-year-old, Sam had Dad's warning made into a bumper sticker and presented it proudly to Dean on his eighteenth birthday.

Dad didn't think it was very funny.

If Dad was here, they would have to sit through the most epic Told You So of all time, and they would have deserved every minute of it. But honest to God, Dean doesn't remember a thing about any random fairy curses involving killer plants or he'd never have let Sam go near those ferns in the first place.

Sam is obviously trying to hold it together while Dean cleans the wound, but he holds his breath every time Dean digs a little deeper. Dean knows it hurts but he's trying his best to flush out all the forest crap that somehow ended up under Sam's skin.

Sam says, "It hurts too much for what it is. I don't know…maybe poison… it's burning. I think there was something—ouch, damnit, don't rub it so hard— something poisonous on the blade."

"Sammy—you got attacked by a fern, not a sword."

Sam grits out, "That's what you call that part of a fern, you idiot. The blade is part of the frond."

"What the hell's a prond?"

Sam flinches. "Frond, not prond—you know, the pointy part. Shit, that hurts…"

There was a time when Dean would've never let Sam hear the end of it—the geek knows the parts of a fern. But this isn't one of those times. They aren't easy with each other any more, not any more, not since Lucifer. They are still fighting on the same side, hunting when they can, but everything is different. Dean is empty, and Sam has changed. Dean doesn't believe they'll ever be the same. He's not going to get his little brother back again.

"Hold still, Sam. I gotta wash it out."

Sam sucks in a big gasp of a breath and holds it while Dean trickles peroxide over the wound. It dribbles down Sam's side, getting his jeans wet, but it can't be helped. It's so cold, what with the fog that seems to be getting even thicker. It had been a beautiful sunny day when they'd started.

"Try holy water."

"It wasn't a demonic fern," Dean mutters, but he pours some holy water out of his flask anyway. It might not help, but it won't hurt either.

The truth is they have no idea what they're dealing with. Of course they scanned Dad's journal before leaving, but all the entries on fairies were pretty vague—more a checklist of how not to piss the little buggers off than what to do once you did. Fairies were apparently very easily miffed.

Dean needs to get the dirt out. He winces at the way Sam's side looks like it went through a cheese grater. The pronds…fronds...or whatever the hell they're called... acted like blades the way they slashed at his brother. Dean's arms are scratched up and a little bit chewed—the ferns fought back when he was trying to pull them off Sam.

Sam says pointedly, "Save some of it for you. You're still bleeding."

"I'm fine," Dean says, uncomfortable with the attention. "Stay here. I'm gonna run a salt line around us, just to be sure."

Sam nods and settles back against the only log in the clearing. Dean already fired a couple rounds of salt into it, just to make sure it wasn't going to bludgeon them when they turned their back. Reanimation is the oldest trick in the book, but from everything he could see, the log is really and truly dead.

"Be careful," Sam says, and Dean shrugs, not knowing what to say back. It's been awkward like this since they started hunting together again. They're together…but not together. In some ways, this is harder than the time they spent apart.

Dean loves his brother—he always has, always will—but Sam's just so friggin' vulnerable right now. It makes Dean's insides hurt, but Dean still knows that he can't let his own worry for Sam distract him from the job. He'll get them both killed that way…

He and Sam broke the world…they're going to fix it. But Dean isn't sure he'll ever be able to be what Sam needs him to be.

Dean pours a salt line around the perimeter of the clearing before coming back to his brother. Sam is hanging in there. The wound finally stopped bleeding but it's red and swollen around the edges.

Dean offers Sam a drink and waits to make sure he's keeping it down. "Okay, let's think. What did we do that pissed off a fairy?"

Sam frowns, wiping off his mouth with his sleeve. "We were being careful. I didn't see any fairy mounds…no fairy circles. Hey—maybe it was that tree…"

"Um, Sammy? We're surrounded by trees—cursed forest, remember?"

"No, before they put their mojo on the forest. Remember the branch you broke off that oak tree…the one you used it to poke that nest—"

Dean looks at Sam, exasperated. "Fairies don't live in nests. They don't lay eggs."

"Come on, Dean—think. It could've been a fairy tree. Irish lore says that if two trees are twined together and one of them is an oak, they're venerated by fairies and—"

Dean cuts him short. "Okay—I pissed off a fairy by messing with its tree. That still doesn't tell us how to get out of this."

Sam sighs and tilts his head back. Dean can tell he's thinking. He can also tell that Sam's in pain. He wishes he had more to offer than the last two Tylenol in his pack.

"I can't remember. I'm just not thinking right. Dad used to talk about how they hold grudges…they use glamours a lot, mess with time …but I just don't remember. I know they don't like iron or salt…"

"Little bastards can't even be original," Dean gripes. "God, I hate fairies."

Dean finishes wrapping gauze around Sam's stomach. The ferns took a big chunk out of his side but somehow missed his major organs and arteries, something Dean is very grateful for. As always, Sam getting hurt makes everything else fall by the wayside, but Dean knows he's got to stay focused.

Dad always taught them that if they fell into enemy hands, the first thing they need to do is take stock of their surroundings. Figure out what they're up against. Dean seriously doubts that Dad ever had to go up against killer ferns.

He hands Sam his .45 and says he'll be right back. He's got to scout things out, see if there's any obvious way out of a damn enchanted forest.

He doesn't go far and tries to stay away from plants, which isn't easy. The undergrowth is thick and obscenely green—almost like the highlighter pen Sam uses on his research. He doesn't see any animals or bugs, but the plants are all moving, stretching, crawling. He's pretty sure they're sentient because when he aims his gun at them, they back off.

He's not comfortable leaving Sam alone for this long so he makes his way back to the clearing. Sam has himself propped up against the log, gun drawn. Dean immediately goes on alert by the look on his brother's face. Something's got Sam freaked out.

"Do you hear that?" Sam hisses at him.

Dean can't hear a thing but he knows that Sam's affair with demon blood has done wonders for his senses. Dean knows Sam can hear and see things that Dean doesn't. It creeps him out, but they don't talk about it. There's not much that's safe to talk about these days. Just the hunt for Lucifer and whatever it takes to stay alive.

"No. What is it?"

"Singing," Sam says. "Bells, maybe—something chiming?"

Dean swears under his breath. They'd both heard bells chiming before they'd been swallowed up by fog and dropped into this forest. Music is a classic harbinger, but it rarely means a fairy is happy to see them.

"What do you hear?"

"There's something else. Voices."

"Like—fairy voices?"

"No, like people voices. Like kids."

"Crap." Dean reaches for his gun. "So we're talking about kid fairies?"

The fog is getting thicker. It's a living thing with tendrils and drifts, snaking between them and around them. For a second, Dean can't see Sam, and it makes him panic and grope for his brother.

"Sammy!"

But then there's an echo—only younger and more scared and Dean has no idea what's going on.

Sammy!

"I'm over here…Dean…"

That voice—it's got to be some kind of freakin' fairy glamour because Dean would know that voice anywhere. It's impossible—maybe they're not dealing with fairies at all. Maybe they're dealing with badass demons or a trickster or even Lucifer himself because it's not possible that the little boy voice could belong to anyone else but—

"Sammy?" Dean whispers.

As if summoned, two boys stumble out of nothing right in front of him…they're reborn out of thin air, mist, and vapor. The boys are choking and gulping in air, hanging on each other to stay upright.

Dean takes a step forward, even though he can hear Sam shouting for him, lost somewhere in the fog.

"Sammy?"

Long bangs hanging over suspicious eyes, stupid flannel shirt that was always two sizes too big, dimples that showed up even when the little geek wasn't even smiling.

Little brother…

But Sammy isn't alone. There's an older kid next to him who immediately steps in front of the boy. He can't be much older than sixteen, but Dean would know the punk anywhere. Hell, Dean spent enough time as a teenager checking himself out in the rear view mirror.

"Holy crap," Dean says, and to his terror and irritation, the teenager says the same thing at the same time. Like funhouse gunslingers, they both go for their guns, cocking the hammers as they get each other in their sights.

But the little boy…it's Sammy—has to be…grabs for the teenager's arm, just as Dean feels a familiar grip on his own, slamming down the hand holding the gun.

"What the hell?" Sam says with complete shock in his voice, and that's how Dean knows that he's not hallucinating.

Dad was so, so right. Never screw with fairies…

TBC