A/N This is way later than I'd planned due to my being very sick, which is also the reason for this boring exposition - I was off my face on meds at the time of writing this. Don't worry, things will be speeding right up next chapter, but warning now that this'll be a long-ish fic.

Chapter Two- Family Affairs

Dean was not happy. At all.

He's not a doctor, nurse, maid, or housewife. He is a fearsome hunter; an extremely attractive and manly dude who drives an awesome car and plays by no one's rules but his own. He did not sign up to babysitting a comatose angel. That was chick stuff!

That comment had earned him a hard smack from Ellen and a look so withering it made his balls attempt to climb back into his body (not an unkind word was uttered, but there was definitely some unspoken threats involving kitchen utensils and all the ways they can hurt being directed at Dean via Ellen's eyes).

But Dean was a Winchester, naturally stubborn to a fault, and unabashedly immature, so he was not going to check in on that damn angel again, no matter what Ellen said or did.

And he wasn't warily hiding in the study either. He wasn't.

"Boy, will you stop hiding in the study and get your ass back upstairs!" Ellen snapped.

"Why do I gotta keep the bedside vigil?" Dean (very politely) grumbled back. "It's not like Mr. Comatose is going anywhere and these shows aren't going to watch themselves."

He was half expecting the smack for back chatting. "None of you boys know what happens to an angel post-Grace except that something does happen," reminded Ellen, returning to the kitchen. "And I would like a little warning if it's going to explode or go homicidal on us. So get moving."

"Bobby's upstairs, get him to do it."

"No. In fact, I don't want him up there anyway 'cause I know he's got a 'secret' stash of booze tucked away somewhere, so when you head on up tell him to come help me with dinner."

"Damnit, Ellen, my show's on and my ice-cream's melting, it can wait."

"You're TiVo-ing it, you lazy punk! I've already got Sam to worry about and dinner to make, and you and Bobby ain't helping by moping about the place, so you best get your ass up those stairs before I kick it up there, you hear?"

Judging by her tone, it was definitely time to stop pushing it (especially when kitchen knives were so close at hand).

"Alright, alright, I'm going!" Slouching out of the study, Dean quietly muttered, "Frigging nag", but under his breath just in case – Ellen had proven to have almost superhuman hearing, and rare was the hushed insult that went unheard in the Singer household.

A wooden spoon hit the side of Dean's head. He put on his best innocent pouty face.

"Don't test my patience," said Ellen testily, "Or you can forget about dinner."

Stomping up the stairs to project his frustration to the rest of the household is not childish not matter what everyone seems to think (they also tell him it's childish to deny that by replying "Is not!" but it really isn't, so apparently Dean just can't reason with them), but he will concede that slamming the door and then reopening it to slam it again is beneath him.

He does it anyway.

"What are you, three?" is yelled from the attic.

"Your wife wants you downstairs, talk to her!" he yells back, smirking in satisfaction when he hears loud and colourful cussing which gets an angry, "BOBBY SINGER, YOU GET DOWN HERE NOW OR I'LL BE SLIPPING LAXATIVES INTO YOUR BLOODY GROG, YOU MARK MY WORDS!"

Petulant grumbling passes the door as Bobby descends, and Dean sniggers loudly, at least until an annoyed "If you're laughing I'll delete your shows, boy!" is shouted back up at him.

Dean huffs and turns, half-considering welching, until he catches sight of the angel – and promptly freaks out.

Now that he's actually here, alone in a room with an angel he made Fall, a prone figure spread out over the covers of Bobby's ratty spare bed, he suddenly couldn't remember what he'd come for, couldn't do anything but look.

Black shoes were tucked slightly under the foot of the bed, evidence that Ellen had been there before him, fussing over a frigging creature to make sure it was comfy. Dean had been a hunter – a good hunter – long enough to pay no attention to appearance when judging someone's character, when half the monsters he hunted could pass for human and demons could possess any unfortunate sucker.

But he was looking at an angel.

An unconscious angel that wore black socks.

There's something so pedestrian about the sight of feet encased in nondescript black socks that fills Dean with a fascination in the angel that has him moving forward before he can help himself.

He right away glanced nervously at the closed door.

In this house, anyone in a five mile radius could hear when someone walked up or down the staircase, but even so, Dean couldn't help checking over his shoulder as he casually wandered over to the bed. And then completely casually double-checked the door was closed before sitting down on the bedside chair.

He held his breath, listening out for the laughter and accusations that were sure to come, if not from his family, then Crowley spontaneously materialising just to taunt him for his own fascination.

There was silence, except for the faint banging of Ellen moving about the kitchen and Bobby speaking to her faintly. Everyone was busy, so they wouldn't be coming upstairs anytime soon. And even if they did, it didn't matter, because Dean wasn't doing anything wrong. Or suspicious.

Not at all.

Only in the privacy of his own mind did Dean allow himself to admit feeling a tad jumpy.

If only because he would set himself on fire if anyone were to walk in on him sitting watching an angel sleep. He felt dirty just thinking that.

But he wasn't doing anything wrong.

He wasn't!

Dean glanced around the room guiltily.

The angel screamed.

Startled, Dean jumped and toppled backwards over his chair. Ear-splitting screams filled the room, a duller version of angel-talk that overlayed a human voice in a strange harmony that was still severe enough to send Dean to his knees in agony. With no earplugs for protection, it felt like his brain was being liquefied.

On the bed, the angel was thrashing wildly, hands clawing at thin air as it wailed its suffering to the heavens. Blue eyes opened only to roll back into its skull, foam gathering at its lips.

The windows rattled in warning but didn't break as the single light bulb overhead flickered to life, only to immediately short out.

Tears clouded Dean's vision as the strange combination of human and angelic screaming surrounded him, dragged him down, deep down, ringing in his ears, in his soul, until it reached that place that housed a warm voice and a soft smile that held him close and whispered to him of angels. The tiny remnants of the child who had listened and believed with wide eyes surged forth, and then, Dean knew. As deeply and firmly as he knew his own name, as he knew anything at all, he knew that he'd done something unforgivable.

Screaming in his ears, his soul, condemning him for what he'd done – this sin so great nothing could wash away its stain – for the monster he'd become, that he was, that would rape another's very essence and leave it broken on the floor. What he'd done could not be undone. A crime so great there was no fitting punishment.

Murderer.

Sinner.

He deserved to die.

The screaming faded.

Light seeped through cracks in the darkness. Dean blinked wetly and frowned.

He was sitting hunched on the sofa, cradled in Ellen's arms, soft words being whispered into his hair as she stroked his neck. The cotton beneath his cheek was damp.

Dean extracted himself from the embrace, flushing with shame when he spotted the wet patch on Ellen's shirt. From his tears. He didn't even remember crying, but his eyes felt puffy and his throat tight, and when he slid away from Ellen, he realised he was shaking.

"Wha-"All that came out was an embarrassing croak. He tried to clear his throat as discreetly as possible. She handed him a beer, letting Dean busy himself with the familiar task as he tried to pull himself back together; Ellen tactfully not drawing attention to how his hand was shaking hard enough to make the beer slosh out the top.

Only when the bottle had been drained did Dean try speaking again. "What the hell happened?" he asked the ceiling, voice gruffer than usual. Either from the crying or the screaming, though which was the more humiliating was impossible to tell, and until someone verbally acknowledged his doing either he would do what he did best and pretend it never happened.

Ellen paused before replying. "We're not sure about that, hon. Far as we can tell, you were hit by some angel whammy. Are you–?"

"I'm fine," he cut her off before she said something he'd regret. "Feel like shit, but that's just my bruised ego hurting." He rubbed knuckles over his eyelids, wincing as his head throbbed. "Didn't think those angels could do that kind of mental shit after they'd been de-haloed."

Ellen's laugh was in no way amused. "Apparently it's a sort of angelic defence mechanism. There'll be some more weird stuff as the change happens, least ways that's what Bobby was told."

Dean glanced up sharply. "Who did he speak to? Was it Crowley?"

Ellen nodded unhappily. Dean rubbed his hands gleefully and went to stand up – he immediately toppled sideways, and was only saved the indignity of face-planting it on the floor by Ellen grabbing the back of his jacket to haul him back onto the sofa. Dean groaned in annoyance at the dizzy spinning in his head.

"It ain't what you're thinking," she said, rubbing his shoulders in a comforting way. "Bobby used the emergency line to get hold of him; damn near went out of his mind with worry when you went down, but Crowley's still busy with the demon revolt, so we're still on lockdown."

He scowled at that. "Aw hell, that means I'm still on angel-sitting duty, doesn't it?"

Seeing that he'd almost fully recovered, Ellen smiled, patting his head as she stood. "You betcha, kiddo. Don't worry about dinner; I'll bring it up to you."

Dean suspected she was smirking, though he couldn't see her face as she left. "Oh sure, I'd love to get right back to hanging out with the dude who can attack me while he's freaking sleeping," he yelled after her.

"All I ask is you to keep your hands to yourself," she yelled back.

Dean was glad he was alone, so no one saw him flush guiltily.

Day Two after the angel hunt began with Dean skulking down in the basement; making himself miserable listening to Sam's pained yells on the other side of the heavy iron door and starting in on his drinking a little earlier than usual.

Despite Ellen's best efforts to hide all alcohol in the house, every time lockdown was called he and Bobby went about damaging their livers like there was no tomorrow and refusing to sleep for more than an hour or so. The last time this had happened, Ellen had gotten so furious with them she'd stormed out and didn't return till three days later, leaving them to scrape by on tinned food (Dean was either to smashed or too hung-over to go on supply runs and Bobby couldn't go further than a ten foot radius of the house without his seal acting up).

This time around, he and Bobby were trying to keep their dealing methods as low key as possible – hurriedly sneaking a quick nip whenever Ellen was not around and keeping their sulking to empty rooms.

Sam's frightened cries echoed through the panic room, making Dean want to press himself up against cool metal and just reach through the walls and ease his baby brother's pain.

"Fucking Crowley," Dean muttered into his bottle of Jack. Even though he understood why lockdown was necessary, like anything demon-related in his life, it still really, really pissed him off.

Small scale rebellions by the demons still loyal to Lucifer usually never caused much of a fuss, but Dean hadn't needed an explanation when the Hellhound had zapped them into Bobby's car-yard instead of Crowley's angel barracks. There had been only one major uprising in Hell after the war – many of the demons clamouring to free Lucifer from his Cage so that he might rule Heaven and Earth – but that had ended abruptly and violently when Lilith had stepped in. Still, Dean remembered well enough how that had gone down that he didn't kick up a fuss when Bobby calmly informed them that Crowley had ordered them on lockdown until he'd cleaned up the 'minor revolt'.

Until Sam went into withdrawal.

Lockdown meant no leaving Sioux Falls, and being in Sioux Falls meant no demons which also meant no outside contact with demons, so pretty much that meant Sammy was screwed – unless Ellen could track down and successfully bleed a demon for them, but Bobby was adamant that she not leave the protection of Haven's Field, and Sam had refused to let her even think of trying.

It took until the day after the hunt for Sam's condition to deteriorate enough that he had to be locked in the panic room, and another few hours for it to get so bad that Dean was no longer able to remain in the room with him as papers and pens began to move on their own. The last time Sam had gone into withdrawal Dean had learnt firsthand that, little brother or not, playing doctor to a hallucinating psychic ended up with broken bones and an extensive acquaintance with the iron walls.

As annoying as it is, Dean has no choice but to wait until the lockdown is over.

From above, a crunch of gravel signals Ellen's return from the library. Dean hurriedly stows his bottle behind a pile of rusted car-radios and bounds up the stairs two at a time. Lurching around the corner, he flies past the study, heading for the safe zone that is the kitchen when Bobby calls out after him.

"Shouldn't you be upstairs with that angel?" comes the gruff reminder from his fellow prisoner, causing Dean to skid to a stop with a curse and race back down the hall for the stairs.

He's makes it to the landing just as keys scrap in the lock and the front door swings open. He freezes in place, tucked safely around the corner from view.

As usual, Ellen displays the sixth sense apparently inherent in mothers and yells, "You're fooling no one, boy, so get back to babysitting that angel now."

Dean, realising he has no dignity left to salvage anyway, hurried to do as he's told. He still had the lump from being hit with a massive encyclopaedia (which Ellen had threatened to knock him out with over breakfast when she found he hadn't slept again).

After what happened last time, Dean enters the spare room warily with a hand brushing over his gun (just in case).

The angel's still lying on the bed, and still unconscious, but no longer lying still – instead, it's twisting and twitching, skin shiny with sweat and eyes clenched shut as it mutters what sounds like broken Enochian.

Dean cursed, glaring about the room in the hopes of finding someone to yell at. Just his luck that the angel gets a frigging fever on his watch.

On the bed, the angel lets out a strangled moan.

Hopping nervously from foot to foot, Dean quickly lists and weighs the pros and cons of going over to help. It's a short list but a long struggle, and only his inherent craving to take care of Sammy that was going unfulfilled (and not at all because of the pained whimpers) forces him over to the bed.

Slowly and very cautiously, he pokes the angel's forehead. He wasn't immediately struck down by lightning or anything, so touching it seems to be okay. The skin is clammy and covered in a damp sheen, but it might as well be acid because Dean would rather die than mop someone's brow – hell, if he ever did, his balls would probably drop right off and he'd sprout a pair of breasts and start speaking like people from a period drama, 'cause there were just some lines in the sand he'd never cross, not even for Sam. Well, okay, maybe for Sam, but that was years and years ago and it was his kid brother, so it didn't count.

Dean's contemplating whether he's brave enough to remove the angel's jacket and shirt, when blue eyes fly open and immediately lock onto him.

Dean freezes for a moment, simply lost in twin pools of blue before his brain wakes up to scream at him to run, because hello, danger danger Will Robinson.

But an attack doesn't come. Instead, the angel stretches out a hand towards him, looking so pathetically lost, Dean moves forward before he can even think and grasps the trembling hand in his. Its palm is disgustingly damp, but the option of letting go is taken from him when fingers like a frigging vice close around his own, making Dean panic, because he didn't want to have his hand broken twice in the three days by the same person; that would just be embarrassing.

"Please," a voice rasps, and Dean jumps.

Blue, blue, blue eyes stare up into his own, too deep and too searchingly for him to be okay with, but the unbreakable hold on his arm stops him from pulling away like he really, really wants to. "Please," it said again, tugging on his hand. "Stop it, please."

Okay, now he's confused. "Stop what?" Dean asked stupidly.

The angel scrunched its face up in confusion as well. "The pain," it moans. "Please, please make it stop."

Wham. Sideswiped by a shit ton of guilt, great, he really needed that.

"I can't," Dean said gently and, only because, okay, it was his fault the angel was like this, and they were alone in the room, and the angel was feverish so there was a good chance it wouldn't remember this anyway, he gave the angel's hand a comforting squeeze.

Urgh, he could feel his testosterone levels dropping from the cheesiness.

If the angel heard him, it didn't matter, because it continued to feverishly babble at him. ""Please stop it, please, help me, please, oh God it hurts, please, please, I'm so sorry."

The apology hit Dean square in the gut, shame burning through him like a bushfire white-hot and unstoppable, because that was one thing he most definitely didn't deserve, least of all from this angel. He wanted to run, to pull away and curl up somewhere (preferably the impala) and let the guilt eat at him from within.

Gritting his teeth, Dean slowly prised the angel's fingers off of him and stood.

He didn't get far – the angel's hand shot out, gripping his bicep and hauling him back in close, too close, faces inches apart.

"Why?" the angel breathes against Dean's mouth, looking so lost and broken. "Why do you wish me to die?"

Before Dean can even process that sentence, the angel arched off the bed, spine bending alarmingly as what sounds like bones crack and snap. Ignoring the agonising pain on his arm where the angel still gripped him, Dean jerked away so he could see the curve of its back and the –

There were two lumps.

Two very not-shoulder-blade lumps.

Seizing the angel by the neck, Dean hauled it upright then forced its head down into its lap. The twin lumps were the size of footballs and still growing, swelling at an alarming rate before his eyes. The white dress shirt was not strong enough to hold in the rising bulges, the rip of fabric accompanied by the ping of buttons ricocheting off the walls and ceiling.

Free from the confining fabric, Dean could at last see the lumps properly and then really wished he still couldn't.

They were two bulging bags of flesh and bones and veins and other bodily fluids he really didn't want to think about, and it was moving. Beneath the (too thin) layer of skin, Dean could actually make out the bones forming and extending, veins twisting around new ligaments, and budding muscles bunching and flexing.

When Dean was a young teenager, he'd kissed Brianna Straitsman, who unbeknownst to him at the time had a large pimple on her neck. He'd made the mistake of scraping his hand from her jaw to her shoulder as they were making out. What had followed had been absolutely disgusting and rather messy.

Unfortunately, the crucial action between remembering this and realising what was going to happen and moving the fuck away didn't happen due to an unyielding grip on his arm.

As a last resort, Dean flung his free arm over his face.

There was a sickening splat.

The angel howled in agony. Dean lowered his arm.

The mattress and walls (and himself, but he was trying to pay no mind to that right then) were covered in blood and... and fluids (which he really hoped was not pus) and some sort of black ooze which kind of burned where it touched his skin.

Not that he was paying that any attention whatsoever, because he was too busy watching an angel grow a set of wings – because that's what they had to be, even if they didn't look anything like wings at that point (instead resembling something you might find at the bottom of the ocean – in the process of eating itself).

"Dean!"

Bobby and Ellen burst through the door, guns cocked, only to freeze in place at the scene before them. Dean shot them a helpless look and a shrug. Like they hadn't had weirder shit happen to them before.

By now, the 'wings' were nearly as long as the angel and almost fully formed, bone and sinew covered in milk-white skin, goofy-looking chicken-wing tips brushing the wall as they spasmed and flexed, muscles experimentally twitching before finally settling down, curling back towards the angel's shaking body.

The angel groaned, sounding exhausted, before slumping sideways onto the bed in an unconscious sprawl.

"Well, that was interesting," said Bobby blithely.

Dean turned slowly on the spot and stared. "Thanks for that detailed review Bobby, you really managed to underline the nature of the situation here."

"Least I'm not covered in angel juices," Bobby said pointedly.

Ellen gently laid a hand on Dean's arm, face creased with concern. "You okay there, honey?"

He rolled his eyes, smiling fondly. "I'm fine, 'part from all the deep psychological scarring watching that just caused I'll be good soon as I can get a shower and wash away all my trauma."

"No," she said, "I mean, your arm."

Only then did Dean glance down where her hand was. Even though she looked to be gripping his arm pretty tightly, he couldn't feel a thing. Huh, so the angel had struck again – what was with it fucking with his arms anyway?

In all this time, he hadn't realised that the angel still had a grip on his left bicep, hand still firmly pressed to skin, a patch of cool numbness that spread out from where they were joined, but as Ellen slowly peeled back its fingers one by one, Dean saw why – the flesh beneath had been burnt raw, skin angry and inflamed-looking in a perfect copy of the angel's hand seared across his left deltoid.

"Son of a bitch," muttered Dean, angrily poking the mark. Ellen slapped his hand away.

Bobby raised his brows. "Well, if it ain't too serious then there'll be no problem with you still keeping watch over the angel."

If Dean's eyes welled up at that, it was because of his injury and not from the blatant unfairness. What was even the point of staying at home if he didn't even get to watch his shows?

Beside them, the angel mumbled in its sleep.

A/N For anyone confused, this diverges wildly from canon around the season 2 finale mark, and is set about a year after that point.