AN: My youngest niece likes to give me story challenges, (i.e. I bet you can't think of a story about a house that can fly), which is something my own kids did when they were smaller.
Well, on Thanksgiving, Leanne asked if I could think about a story about a chicken, and thus the first part of this story was born, though the version I told her was a little happier. (For the record, I have never yet been stumped by a story challenge, even when the premise was a robot having a birthday party.)
Beta'd by the ever wonderful Janice, who indulges my story whims, no matter how whack-a-doodle.
* * *
An old chicken named Henrietta lived with a bunch of other chickens in a yard surrounded by a tall chicken wire fence. She had long since stopped laying eggs, but either because she'd been a good layer or simply because they'd forgotten about her, the farmer's family let her be to live her life. She foraged for her own food and slept comfortably in the corner of the coop, so she didn't cost them any work or attention.
One day, something fell from a tree branch that stretched above the enclosure and landed inside the fence. The younger hens crowded around, curious. Henrietta walked up just as the others were discussing whether or not the thing was edible. It was a small baby bird, blinking up at the gawkers with confused eyes.
Henrietta knew she couldn't let the intruder be eaten. She'd never had a fertilized egg, but here was a chance to act like a mother. She pushed back the other hens and made it clear that the baby bird was hers. It wasn't hurt, and she was going to make sure it stayed that way.
It was the farmer who gave the chickens their names, so Henrietta just called the baby Bird. She taught him how to find bugs and seeds (though he only ate the latter) and kept him warm every night. He grew, though he'd never be anywhere as large as a chicken, and the feathers on his back began to show a beautiful blue color. His breast slowly turned a soft orange color, but his belly stayed white. He looked nothing at all like the big white chickens all around him.
Henrietta never talked about how he was different from the rest of them and pretended not to notice how Bird would sometimes just stare at the sky. She did her best to distract him when he asked questions and sometimes just resorted to walking away when Bird refused to stop asking. He eventually learned to stop asking.
Henrietta and Bird were happy and carefree all summer long, until one day the farmer's dog barked suddenly and a bunch of the chickens flapped their wings in surprise. Bird watched, fascinated. He extended his own wings slowly, then retracted them just as slowly. He repeated the action a few times. Then, suddenly, he hopped as high as he was able and flapped madly, rising a good foot off the ground.
"Wait, Bird! You'll get hurt!" Henrietta called in desperation, but Bird hardly listened.
"No, no," said Bird, sounding both distracted and excited. "I can do this. I have to do this!"
Bird began to flap again, but this time, he made a different sort of motion with his wings and was propelled up and forward at the same time. He made a happy trilling sound Henrietta had never heard from him before. She had a brief thought that she was much bigger and heavier, and could stop him, but she loved him and hesitated. Then it was too late. Bird was perched on the top of the wire that bounded the chicken yard.
"Bird! Bird!" Henrietta called, but he spread his wings. "Go, then," she said bitterly, turning her back so she didn't have to watch him fly away.
She'd saved his life and helped him and loved him. She'd never thought he'd leave.
Finally, Henrietta turned back. Bird was far away already, a little clumsy but getting better at flying by the second. The other hens were unusually silent. Even the farmer, who'd been standing nearby, was looking after Bird.
"You can't change someone's nature, Henrietta," the man said, for he was very wise.
"It's safe here," Henrietta answered, sulky and sad and angry. She thought it was a fair trade – safety and warmth and a place to sleep and plenty of food to eat more than made up for living in a cage, in her mind. Why couldn't Bird see that?
"I don't understand," she said.
"You probably never will, Henrietta," said the farmer in a kind voice. "But maybe, if you are lucky, he will come back some day. If you love something, let it go. If it comes back, it really is yours. If it doesn't, it never was."
The end.
Sammy took the book away from Dean and opened the back cover again as if making sure that there wasn't any more to the story. "That's all?" he asked in disbelief. "I'm gonna tell Unca Bobby to bring that one back to the li-berry. I don't like it."
"Yeah, me neither," Dean admitted. The Very Hungry Caterpillar might have been a little juvenile for Sammy, but at least it had a good ending. Still, he liked reading to his little brother. As fast as Sam was learning to read, soon he wouldn't need to Dean to read to him at all, and the thought made the older boy sad. Dean pushed Bird in the Henhouse aside, frowning at the little bluebird on the cover.
"Bird shouldn't have left," he said, digging through the rest of the bag Bobby had brought from the library. The latter always indulged Sammy's love of books, understanding it in a way that Dean just didn't.
"What?" Sammy stared at Dean in open-mouthed surprise. "No, Dean. Hen'etta shoulda told Bird he could fly."
Dean's forehead creased. "But she was his family, Sammy." On one hand, he couldn't believe that he was debating a children's book with a kindergartener, but this felt important.
"He'll come back," Sammy argued. He had lots of questions and opinions about a lot of things, and he was really smart for a little pipsqueak, but he was just dead wrong this time, Dean knew. "'Sides, maybe he had a brother left in the nest, and he missed him."
Dean grinned at Sammy. He couldn't help it. He loved the kid so much. He ruffled Sam's already unruly hair, making it stick out like a Koosh ball. "No. If he had a brother, the brother woulda jumped out after him when he fell," he said confidently. "Least, if he had a good brother."
Sammy grinned back, then dove at Dean in a tackle-hug that drove him into the back of the couch with a whoosh. "Like my brother. The bestest brother."
Sam said stuff like that a lot; he was very open with his affection. It made Dean's entire chest feel warm. Still, he was almost ten and too old to say stuff like that back, so instead he said, "Duh. You're a sap." (He didn't break the contact, though. Sammy was still little and needed hugs.)
"No, I'm not," answered Sam by rote, his head coming up from where it had been mushed against Dean's shirt. "What's a sap?"
Dean laughed.
"Winchester! Monkeys! Soup's on," Bobby called from the kitchen. He appeared in the doorway with a butter knife in his hand. "BLT's for us, peanut butter and banana for the ankle-biter."
Sammy growled theatrically and got down on all fours on the floor. "Gonna bite your ankle for real, Unca Bobby," he threatened, just like he always did.
"I'll get Oliver to defend me," Bobby declared, referring to his geriatric basset hound. "He'll slobber you to death."
"I'm not afraid of him!" Sam responded.
Dad walked into the room and scooped up Sam as he walked past. Sammy barked at him.
"Singer, you have any extra dog food for this pup?" Dad asked.
Sam pretended to throw up, Dean and Bobby laughed, and Henrietta's story was forgotten.
WINCHESTER * WINCHESTER
Sam was starting to drift and Dean was really hoping he'd pass out soon. It certainly would make the rest of the stitches less painful for the guy. The suanyu had gotten a good lick in when Sam had punted it off Dean. Two irregular gashes ran from the back of Sam's knee along the side of his calf all the way to his ankle. Suanyus didn't have poisonous claws or anything, luckily, so the wounds weren't dangerous once the blood loss was stopped. But getting double-digit stitches was never a fun way to spend the evening, especially when their only effective painkiller was the bottle of Svedka that Dean had lifted from the house of the bastard who'd summoned the Chinese monster to the once-peaceful village of Tamarack.
Sam had already patched up Dean's less severe injuries. The only reason he'd been allowed to go first was because he'd correctly pointed out that 1) Dean couldn't possibly reach the luckily shallow punctures in the middle of his back, and 2) Sam was pretty likely to pass out during his own treatment, thanks to pain, booze, and blood loss.
Though he hated vodka unless it was mixed with something like orange juice, Sam had willingly drunk all he could stand and was in and out by the time Dean was about halfway done with his quilting project.
Sam said something that Dean didn't catch because the former didn't use nearly enough vowels.
"Huh?" he asked, tying off another stitch and wiping a little blood off the unstitched portion.
"B-by the age four 'r five, a kid's moral c'mpass 's mostly set a'ready," Sam slurred, apropos of nothing. "Sense of right 'n' wrong, ya know?"
"Um." Dean might find that interesting when he wasn't sewing Sam back together and coming down from a post-hunt-that-almost-went-very-wrong adrenaline rush. (Probably not, but at this particular moment, he really didn't care.) "What brings that up?"
Sam seemed to think about that for a few minutes and Dean was figured he'd forgotten, but then Sam started again. "The, the bird thing. We trap'd it in chicken wire." Sam was dropping the second half of most of his words, but Dean had been able to understand him since he was in diapers, and he caught the gist, if not the train of thought. Thing was, even drunk or concussed or about to pass out from blood loss (or two out of the three, as in this case), Sam usually made some kind of sense, even when his logic was a little twisted. Dean had no doubt that there was a reason Sam was talking about chicken wire and kids' sense of morality, but the connection was completely lost on Dean's very not-drunk self.
"Okay," he said conciliatorily. Sam was more likely to pass out if he thought he'd said his piece and been understood.
"I think... I think he came back," Sam rambled. "I did."
"Mm-hmm. Hey, Sammy, why don't you close your eyes for a couple? This is gonna take a while." The stitches just above Sam's ankle were going to hurt like a bitch if he were awake at the time.
"You coulda too. You coulda flown, Dean," Sam continued, probably because he was intrinsically opposed to making anything easier on himself ever.
Dean sighed. Sam was getting all earnest, but whatever wisdom he was trying to convey was lost in translation and confusion. "Be right back," Dean said, with a quick pat to Sam's foot. "I need more gauze cuz you're still leaking."
As he retrieved what he needed, Dean tried to calculate how much blood Sam had lost in total and make a plan for recovery. They'd need lots of orange juice and easy-to-eat food, and he really needed to score something better for pain or Sam would be in for a miserable few days. Luckily, they were pretty flush at the moment thanks to a few wealthy and hubris-filled poker players a few towns back, so Dean would pay for the room for the rest of the week. And they had plenty of the good antibiotic ointment.
"D'n?" Sam called, and Dean hurried out of the bathroom.
"Right here, dude. No worries, huh? Just had to get some crap out of the bathroom." Dean waved the gauze in explanation, putting a reassuring smile on his face. Though glassy-eyed, Sam was clearly worried or upset. "I know you're hurting," Dean said in apology for the well-meaning torture he needed to continue.
"No, not…" Sam relaxed but he was still frowning. "Just. 'M sorry I left. I...I make mishtakes. But, uh, 'll 'ways come back, Dean."
"Sammy." Dean paused, ready to start stitching again. He wiped his face against his shoulder. He'd been unprepared for the emotional deluge. "I know, okay. Just close your eyes, man."
"Ya know...ya know," Sam started as if Dean hadn't said anything. Sam ran out of steam for two stitches. "Ya know you aren't th' reason...I mean th' chicken, right?"
Oooookay. The coherency ship had officially sailed now. "Thanks?" Dean answered uncertainly.
"Welcome." Sam smiled, his eyelids fluttering. Apparently, that was what he'd been waiting for, because his body finally, finally went limp.
"Dude, you are so weird," Dean told his slumbering brother as he finished patching him up. Then, because there was nobody there to see, he used the back of one hand to brush the hair off Sam's face. "I don't know what that was about, but whatever it was, me too, little brother. Me too."
* * *
AN: A couple of notes, as usual.
The Very Hungry Caterpillar is one of the best children's books ever, written and illustrated by Eric Carle.
A suanyu is a Chinese cryptid that looks like a bird with a human face.
Tamarack is a kind of a tree but not, to my knowledge, the name of a village.
Svedka is a brand of vodka. It takes like kerosene, in my admittedly uncultured opinion.