Title: By Morning Lights
Rating: PG only for show's language, this is total self-indulgent fluff
Word Count: 1200
Warnings: none unless warning for vague S8 spoilers.
Summary: Not everything around the Bunker is dangerous, and not everything Dean cooks ends up on the table.
A/N: My contribution to the recent SPN Seasons anthology, for the Fall/Autumn section. Oneshots were set at a word limit of 1200 and divided into the four seasons, vaguely thematic around each. Set in some indeterminate S8-ish time when there's no drama of the angel, demon, or anything else kind.
Five minutes after Sam bursts into the kitchen like a dripping, sweatshirted bat out of some particularly cardio-minded level of hell, Dean enters the garage as instructed (read: begged, and even he can't resist that look, okay?) and stops short, horrified.
"Oh, hell no."
"We don't have time, Dean, and the car won't make it that far back in the woods – they'll be gone before we get there if we walk back!"
"I am not cheating on my Baby with that…thing. Do you even know how to ride one anyway?"
"Yes. Now get on, or I'm leaving you."
Dean mutters and curses but eventually manages an ungraceful clamber up behind his brother on the dubiously-functional motorcycle. Smirking, Sam barely gives him time to settle before he's shot off down the tunnel that leads to the outside from their concealed garage. Dean can only pray that they don't both die today since obviously the Men of Letters were too idiot or too macho to believe in freaking helmets.
"Dude, relax," Sam yells over the screech of tires as he careens around a curve, engine growling with a guttural roar as he accelerates out of the turn. Dean's grip on Sam's sweatshirt tightens as fluorescent lights flicker past at an entirely too fast pace. "I've been on this thing a few times now, and it's ancient."
Right.
They burst out of the Letters' concealed tunnel entrance at what feels like way too high speed, but he can't help but hum the Batman theme only half in jest because really, it is freaking awesome. Sam's laugh rumbles through them both as the tires jounce slightly before gaining traction.
Soon, they leave the road onto a well-packed path, speckled with orange leaves that graduate into a thick scarlet carpet in the unexplored woods surrounding the Bunker. Sam jumps the motorcycle over a root system, bouncing them painfully in the air, and the engine coughs a protest.
After taking a side path deeper into the woods, Sam finally slows to a halt in a shower of skittering walnuts. His breath puffs, crystalline, as he hops off and then darts away through the trees without waiting for Dean to extricate himself and follow on wobbly legs.
Water splashes gently somewhere close by, and the air is crisp and sweet with a freshness that can never be found anywhere but the untouched, uncivilized world of greenery and curious animal life.
A mosquito bites him before he's gone ten feet.
God, he hates nature.
-0o0-
"Sam, if you've hauled me out here just to look at a nest of baby rabbits or something, I swear –"
He trails off, finally seeing what has captured Sam's attention.
Beyond the trees is a small clearing, ringed with a suspiciously symmetrical circle of stones under a leafy canopy dotted with patches of flickering sunlight.
And all around the clearing, up and down and back and forth and in lazy loop-da-loops and swooping curlicues…are what look like a few dozen oversized fireflies. Brighter by far than any he's ever seen, though, and at least a couple inches in diameter – green and purple and blue and white and orange and freaking pink, an actual glowing spectrum of color.
"What the –"
"Shhhh." Sam shushes him again, hand outstretched. "They're startled easily."
"And they are…?" Whispering, because hey, they are pretty cool, provided they're harmless. And anyway, Sam has that look again, like he's all of five years old and everything in the world is new and amazing.
"From what I can tell, they're devas."
"And a dayva is what, exactly?"
"Deva, not dayva. They're elemental spirits, although some people believe they're a type of fairy. But they're supposed to be friendly and kind, even helpful. They control the weather and the four elements."
"Huh." Yeah, not really fairies, if both he and Sam can see them, and that's probably just as well, past experiences considered. "And they're hanging around here, why?"
"I'm not exactly sure. I think, from the symbols carved in these stones, that they're a part of a protective enchantment on these woods. But that's a guess, and I don't know if they're native to the area or if the Men of Letters brought them here on purpose to help safeguard the Bunker."
Dean frowns. "You think they could be trapped here?"
Sam ducks his head as a curious teal-hued orb suddenly whizzes close to his nose and hovers there, almost quizzically. Dean grins as it bobs slowly around, as if studying them, then whirls off again in an almost sassy loop-da-loop back to its friends.
"I don't think so, at least I haven't seen any symbols that indicate confinement; and they can leave this place if they get startled – I found that out the first few times I saw them. They seem to be happy, too."
"Huh." Dean steps back warily as a tiny pink glow-ball darts past his head with a faint sound of tinkling bells, and then whirls back again, dizzyingly fast, to plink against his nose and bounce away into the forest canopy. "Dude!"
Sam's laugh rings in the quiet of the clearing, and several of the gleaming orbs halt in their antics, bobbing in place for a moment.
"They seem to be here only certain times of the day, usually early morning – before the sun is high and burns the dew off the grass," Sam muses softly, watching as the little orbs bounce around the clearing, zipping in multi-hued patterns over ground and tree and stone. "My guess is they're water elementals. I don't know where they go after they disappear from here, but this seems to be some kind of…fairy circle that attracts them, I don't know."
"We have a whole Bunker full of potentially dangerous and crazy magical crap, and you would find a friggin' fairy circle out jogging."
Sam blushes. "Anyway," he continues, turning away and, for the first time, looking slightly embarrassed. "I just…thought it was cool. Y'know, something supernatural that isn't trying to kill us for a change."
Dean's an older brother, but he isn't heartless; there will be plenty of time to tease Sam about this later. He hides a smile as spirals of the little lights go whirling suddenly up into the trees. Moments later, they all have disappeared into the sunbeams, and the clearing is still and quiet once again.
"So." Sam shrugs, scuffs a battered sneaker through a pile of tangerine-hued leaves as they head back toward the motorcycle. "Breakfast?"
"Probably not edible at this point, thanks to Tinkerbelle and friends." Sam's eyeroll is almost forceful enough to flip his hair. "You owe me, dude. Do you have any idea how hard it is to make Quiche Lorraine? It's like, a breakfast pie, Sam. There is an art to that sh-"
Sam interrupts him by straddling the bike and revving the engine, eyes gleaming with mischief as his brother reluctantly re-mounts with considerably less enthusiasm.
He then takes off like a cannon-shot, nearly throwing Dean off the back of the bike, and has the audacity to laugh aloud at the resulting yelp and the way Dean grabs hold of any part of the giant idiot he can reach.
From somewhere nearby, the tinkling sound of bell-like laughter carries on the wind, as a few stray glowing orbs float gently away.