Scar sighed and stared angrily at the bruises marking Sam up and down. He'd been manhandled by that brat of a human, all for speaking out of turn. Scar had been unable to prevent any of it, which was his job as the knight in charge.

"You'll need some Prayers of your own," he determined. Before Sam could try to brush aside his own injury and insist he was fine, Scar added, "I need everyone in the best shape they can be, as usual."

Jacob returned with another ice pack, this one bigger than Scar's. He set it down near Sam and Bowman and then took the other chair at the table at last. He leaned his chin on his hand and told them, "That's for both of you. Bowman, you could probably use some ice, too."

Sam had to restrain another eyeroll, but gave in. He was sore, and it wasn't like Dean to give in. That couldn't have changed, even in the years since he was a headstrong teen. With a wince, Sam leaned back against the icepack, letting the chill soak in and numb the pain. His eyes fell closed as the soreness he'd dealt with for the last day waned.

Dean sat up with them finally taken care of, turning his thoughts to other jobs of import. "We need to eat," he determined. They hadn't taken the time to stop and grab a bite with everyone so injured in the car, leaving the three humans starving and the sprites feeling hunger pangs. They could live off sunlight but food would be better for them, especially after the strain of the last day. "You want to order something?" he asked Jacob, digging out a credit card he'd set up using one of his many scams. "I'll pay."

Jacob glanced over the three on the table, each blissfully relaxing against their ice packs, and nodded. It would be good for everyone to finally get some food in their bellies. It struck him all of a sudden that he hadn't even stopped for food on the way to Bobby's; in their hurry, they'd gone straight there.

The excitement at his former friend's house had pushed all thought of food out of his mind, and he was willing to bet Dean was the same. "Yeah, I'll order something," he agreed, leaning over to grab a pamphlet off the dresser. The local pizza restaurant advertised their number and a small menu on it, perfect for the job.

While Jacob took Dean's card and leaned back to poke at his phone, Bowman surveyed the damage on all of them yet again. Rischa would be waiting at home, fretting, only for the three brothers she'd adopted as her own to come home battered and bruised. She would have words for all of them, he was certain.

"You shoulda seen Dean after he got his arm fixed up," Bowman pointed out suddenly, aiming a thumb at the human while looking at Sam. "Head in the clouds like I've never seen before."

"Really?" Sam's eyebrows went up, and he turned to Dean, catching him with a deer-in-headlights look since he'd been staring at the bruises that covered Sam's tiny chest. Sam ignored that, starting to get used to the staring. He'd only discovered them the day before and needed time to adjust to everything and until then couldn't help himself. "What did you do?"

"I…" Dean trailed off, scrunching his forehead in concentration as he worked to recall the night before. Driving from the forest, leaving Bowman in the car, the hospital… and then nothing. "I have no idea," Dean had to admit. "I just remember getting my arm set then I was waking up today with Bowman using me as a bed."

Jacob was already ringing the pizza place, so all he could do was smirk as he remembered every one of Dean's antics from the moment he walked back to the waiting room. From the looks of things, Bowman remembered enough too, because the tired little sprite snickered. If he could, Jacob would have pointed out that Bowman wasn't far from the same state himself with his sun-deprived wings drooping down so much the night before.

Bowman didn't notice Jacob's look. "He said I look like a fairy," he said, exasperated as he could be. He remembered Sam making a similar comparison at one point in their childhood. "Someone got the wrong information into all of your heads at some point."

"You do look like a fairy," Dean protested in an attempt to save himself. "It's not my fault. The only thing that would make you more fairy-like is if you had butterfly wings to go along with the whole forest getup."

Sam grinned in turn. He'd warned the sprites that might happen, knowing just what image most people had in their heads for fairies. With their size working against them, along with wings and forest style clothing, especially what any flowerkin wore, the end result was Bowman would never escape that impression. "It's your lot in life," he quipped gamely as he shifted his position again. There was no way to be completely comfortable, considering how cold he was getting, but it did help the pain.

Bowman huffed and crossed his arms. He glanced down at his boots, fashioned out of sturdy leaves and tree bark, and at the earthy tones of his other clothing. Even the scarf around his waist was reminiscent of the joyful dandelions that grew in patches wherever there was enough sunlight for them.

He glanced over at Scar to see what he thought of the whole thing, but the injured knight's eyelids were drooping. His hands, so often clenched into fists for the last 24 hours, rested in his lap. From the looks of things, none of the conversation got through to him, and Bowman didn't dare wake him.

Instead of finding the opportunity to defend himself any further, Bowman flinched when Jacob's deep voice spoke up. "Yeah, hey," he greeted the phone in his hand, a sight that still baffled Bowman despite knowing what it was. "I'd like to order for delivery over at the Oasis Motel, it's- yeah, over on sixth. Just want a large pizza with vegetarian on one half and pepperoni on the other," he paused to glance across the table at Dean in case he had a protest about the food, but when he got nothing his focus was on the call again. "Card. Yeah, here's the numbers."

When he started to read something off of the card Dean handed him, Bowman turned back to Sam. "What's that thing he's got there?"

"It's, a, uh…" Sam met Dean's eyes in a question. "Credit card?" He got a nod in return, giving him confidence to finish his answer. "Humans use them to pay for food or anything they need. Remember way back when you first met me?" Sam had to smile at the memory of his first day in the cottonwood tree, when Gunner had taken him in and he'd found a tiny, fluttering sprite who was excited for a friend. "I didn't have any money on me, so I didn't know if I could have any food," Sam recounted. "Credit cards either store money on them or you can borrow money if you don't have it, and then you can get what you need."

Bowman remembered that first day Sam arrived and he doubted he'd ever forget it. A lot had changed that day, and it had begun a stream of questions between the both of them that hardly slowed down for months. "Money" was something that humans used to trade for things, a concept that the sprites didn't adhere to much.

He glanced back at the card in Jacob's hand before frowning slightly and shrugging. It didn't look like that thing could store much of anything, but then again there were a lot of human things that didn't look like they should be able to do what they did. Like the phone Jacob talked into.

"I guess it makes sense ... but I'm glad we don't do money in Wellwood." To Bowman, simple was better in many cases. It meant less time worrying about where the food might come from and more time to fly until the daylight waned.

"It works better in the Wellwood," Sam agreed, remembering how worried he'd been that first day. He hadn't had any money on him when the curse struck (Dean had always carried the money between the two brothers), so the first thing that rose to mind when they needed food was I can't pay for that. His entire life before that, after all, had been spent with his family scraping by and only just managing to get enough to eat, many times at Dean's expense if he couldn't find enough for both of them.

The way the sprites got food, it was available to all. Each day people would go out and help the community gather enough. Sam had been a part of that many times, discovering just what was edible in the forest. It was a peaceful way of life.

So long as Bowman wasn't putting him up to grabbing all the honeycomb in the storeroom. That had made for an interesting day.

"You'll have to tell me all about it."

Sam glanced up, surprised at the uncertain sound in Dean's voice. The hunter's eyes were distant, maybe thinking about his own childhood. They'd grown up apart, separated by more than just distance.

"Of course, Dean," Sam said solemnly. "I've always wished you were around to hear about it."

Bowman paused to reflect on Dean's expression. Behind him, Jacob finished up calling for food and fell silent as well. For a second or two, the room was peacefully quiet, but Bowman was focused on the solemn expression above. He'd always wished Dean could be around, too. Even after he found out that Sam used to be giant, and thus his brother would be too, Bowman always wanted to meet him.

"Sam came to live with me and my dad while the searches were going on," he spoke up, breaking the silence and hoping the words wouldn't be out of place. Even if Sam and Dean weren't the same species, Bowman knew well that family was stronger than that; Sam was his brother, and that meant Dean was, too.

"I was barely more than a sprout back then, really. Having an older kid around meant I could go exploring more without someone getting after me for it. We went all over the village."

Sam leaned over and made a snatch at Bowman's hair, aiming to ruffle it just like he'd done as a kid. "This guy could hardly sit still for a few minutes. I think I kept him out of trouble more times than not."

The very edge of Dean's lips turned up at that and he put his arm on the table. Leaning on it put him closer to their level and let him feel less like the outsider. They were letting him in on their lives growing up, and that felt special, especially since he was one of only two (full-sized) humans that had seen the village in living memory.

"Bowman showed me everything," Sam told Dean. "I even got to visit the village archives. Since they don't have paper or notebooks like we do, there's a place inside the cottonwood tree where their history is inscribed on the walls."

"That's just like your home was," Dean remembered, his eyes brightening at the memory of the tiny home in the branch.

Sam nodded. "I leaned the sprite script but I still sometimes write with the Roman alphabet," he confided.

Bowman flicked his wings and shifted away from his ice pack for a break, but added without missing a beat, "I learned your blocky letters, too. All the blasted corners humans have on everything used to really throw me for a loop."

Bowman remembered Sam handing him a sheet of paper on their first day. He'd been so fascinated with the sheer corners on it that he'd run his fingers over them repeatedly just to feel the texture. He'd done it so much that he bent them over and ruined the rectangular shape, something that had distressed him when he was a child. Sam had always assured him it was okay to bend the paper.

"Sam used to make paper birds for me when we were kids. As a nestling who hadn't learned to fly yet, I loved those things. He told me you taught him how to make them."

Jacob watched in silence and some awe. The conversation in front of him would probably seem so strange to any outsider. Three people that didn't quite match each other, catching up on their lives apart. He was seeing a family knit itself together right in front of him, and couldn't help a faint smile at the sight.

A/N:

As the great Bobby Singer would say, family don't end in blood! These brothers have a lot to discover about each other!

Next: May 3rd, 2020 at 9pm EST.

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