Sam and Dean came back earlier than anticipated, the brothers had run into another hunter while hunting ghouls in Delaware, his help had helped them finish things faster. Which good, Dean couldn't stand ghouls.
As the brothers climbed down the stairs, the lights flickered and a high pitched ringing rippled through the air, a crash being heard somewhere. Alarm seized them, had something gotten into the bunker? How?
Sam and Dean's thoughts were cut short and their legs moved on instinct as Castiel's voice echoed down the hall with a pained shout.
What the hell had gotten in here? There was a literal angel and demon here and they were both far from defenseless.
Yet, as the brothers burst into Cas' room, it's to find the angel shirtless and attempting to wrestle Meg off of his back with honest to God physical wings that are very much flailing all over, a bookshelf laying on the ground sawed in half with books scattered all over. That explained the loud crash.
But there's also broken feathers scattered all over the floor, some bloodied, bloodied feathers. As the demon tries to reach for his already very fucked up looking wings.
Well… It's not a good sight, and for a moment, the brothers forget all about Meg's actions that had proved her having changed or the fact that she had almost died for Cas. Because there's a demon trying to grab an angel's fucked up wings and that feels seven levels of wrong.
Yet, before either of them can pull a gun out or something. Meg speaks as she puts Cas in a headlock while somehow managing to avoid getting hit by the flailing, bony wings.
"You told me to help! So shut the fuck up, sit the fuck back down and let me help you you big baby!"
"I changed my mind!"
"Well, that's too damn bad!"
Sam finds himself coughing, making both turn to look at him, finally seeming to realize they weren't alone.
But Meg didn't let Cas go.
"You are back early." She points out, voice calm and expression relaxed, as if she wasn't currently giving Cas a headlock or anything at all was unusual about the whole picture.
"Yeah… What the hell is going on here?" Dean asks, motioning at the whole mess. Definitely not staring at Cas' tattered wings which seem to almost take the whole room despite how little feathers there are left. The remaining feathers completely askew and sticking all over the place. Some broken, others frayed and others barely looking like feathers at all.
The feathers weren't white as he had expected but a dark color, like different shades of brown, gray and black but not quite. More like something that's been covered in grim and soot.
Neither Castiel or Meg answer for a long moment.
And then.
"Chuck fixed my grace, meaning my wings can grow new feathers but…" He trailed off, and when it became clear he wouldn't finish the sentence, Meg did it for him.
"He's gotta get rid of some old, broken ones that won't fall on their own, but since he didn't have the guts to do so I offered to do it."
As if to prove her point, she pulled at a charred blackish feather that was snapped and bent in half, frayed. Prompting Castiel to hiss and the lights flicker.
"Stop that." He snaps without actual heat as Meg holds the broken feather up with a triumphant look.
At first, Meg had been kind and nice and understanding, because it had taken him a painful hour of awkward half sentences and mumbles before he had finally told her what had him in such a sulking mood lately.
And alright, she might have also been too nice out of her own nerves over the fact that she was handling angel wings, demons might be able to get glimpses of angels, but never their wings, their wings were something out of reach, something many wouldn't hesitate to destroy if given the chance.
Even she would have done it once upon a time. But not now, even less his. She hadn't been sure what to expect, but she hadn't expected wings that were more bone than actual wings, with just a handful of tattered feathers left, broken and bent, charred in hellfire and some had even dug into the flesh of the bone. How the hell had he managed to ignore that all this time was beyond her.
But having him yelping, flinching and moving and just acting far too much like a cat who hates water she had lost her patience.
She was still being extra careful, of course, she didn't want to hurt him, and she didn't pull at the bloodied feathers as hard as the others, even if doing so would be better, like ripping a bandaid, but she really doesn't want to fuck up, and as long as his protests of pain didn't go past the 'it's annoying and I'm uncomfortable so I must make it everyone's problem'. She was gonna keep doing it. He was just being a big baby.
"So you are not killing each other." Dean states, relaxing his shoulders. Sam next to him putting the knife away without being noticed.
"Pfft, no. He's just acting like a big baby."
"Alright."
And with that, Sam and Dean shut the door again, leaving.
"No, Dean! Sam!"
The brothers ignored Castiel's shout, as tempting as it was to offer help, neither felt like ending like that bookshelf. Better leave that to Meg.
Even if it did feel a bit wrong to just leave a demon to pluck an angel.
~
Sam and Dean didn't see much of Cas on the following week, or Meg, but since there were no shouts or flickering lights, both tried to not give it mind.
And Cas was alive. Sam had checked, sure, he didn't see him, but Cas had insisted he was fine and to please not come in. He had sounded beyond miserable.
Sam had done some research on wings and molting and whatnot. And if Meg had been pulling his feathers along how his wings had looked in general… he had an incling feeling about the reason behind the angel's miserable tone.
He hated to admit it was a bit hilarious to imagine Cas of all people being embarrassed. Cas who even after almost ten years held zero grasp on situational awareness.
But he guesses it's also understandable, wings sound like something angels would hold on high regard, birds were all about patterns and colors, maybe angels were like that too. Plus, it was a part of his true form, maybe that also played a huge part on it all.
Sam and Dean were at the war room when Meg appeared out of thin air, Dean had at this point given up on telling her to stop doing that. Neither commented on the bright, red feather lodged on her hair, shimmering as the light hit upon it.
"You two. Room. Now. I need more hands." And with that, she's gone. Sam and Dean frowned, confused, but both were curious, and thus, both ended up getting up and going over to Cas' room.
The door was open, and as the brothers peeked into the room, the air was knocked out of them.
Because there were wings. Not tattered, dark feathered wings.
But bright feathers with all the possible colors on Earth, like an explosion of rainbows with bright and striking shades, swirling patterns and shifting shimmers, like someone had grabbed some sort of prisma and carved rainbows into it. And the wings looked impossibly bigger now with all their feathers.
The sudden throat clearing got them both snapping out of their shock. Meg rolled her eyes at them.
"You gonna stand there all day?"
"Shut up, Meg." Dean blurts out, a lame attempt at getting back some of his pride.
"What… what do you need?" Sam asks, voice a bit weak.
"Straighten feathers." Castiel was the one who answered, turning to look at them over his shoulder, he looked… exhausted. Since when did angels get exhausted? "I straightened some, and Meg's been helping me with the others, but she can't touch the secondaries and I myself cannot do it right now."
"You want us to-? I mean. Alright." Even if Dean said that, he was all things but alright. No one ever prepared him for this sort of situation.
Yet, he doesn't voice it. He just listens as Meg and Cas explain how to straighten the feathers and that's it.
As he goes through the secondaries, which he learns are the ones at the bottom, he realizes what Cas had meant with 'Meg can't touch them', those feathers, much like the ones at the base seem to almost glow through the vane, much brighter and noticeable, it makes his skin tickle, like being touched by one of those cheap toys for electrocuting pranks.
He guesses it stands to reason the demon can't touch something that seems to leak power from an angel to a point even his human skin can feel.
The three work in silence, quick and methodical, and Dean has to admit it's almost therapeutic.
Meanwhile, Sam's quite proud of himself when his hands stop shaking, this isn't something he ever even thought possible. He didn't even know angels could make their wings physical. Nor that their wings might not even be white, and there's like a dozen questions spinning around his head.
Do all angels have different wing colors? Do white wings exist? How were wings connected to grace? Could he fly with them while they were physical?
Yet, he didn't voice his questions, some of which he didn't think might be welcomed. He didn't want to come off as rude or accidentally ask something he shouldn't. He just focused on straightening feathers, mesmerized with them, he's seen angel feathers before.
But the ones in their spells' jar were nothing like these ones. Those were a dull white while these ones were vibrant, an explosion of shimmering colors with shifting streaks of even brighter colors. Thin bluish lines spreading across the rachis like glowing vines.
Castiel's dozing off, the brothers notice. Angels don't sleep.
"Cas? Buddy? You good?" Dean asks, making the angel startle, feathers puffing out for a fleeting moment.
"I'm fine, just… growing new feathers puts a big strain on my grace…"
Oh.
Dean accepted the answer and just went back to the feathers, as the wings shifted, dropping somewhat from their previous position, something caught the brothers' attention almost at the exact same time.
Scars.
Crescent moon shaped, jagged, deep scars right above and below the base from his wings, the scars seemed almost branded into his skin, angry and just painful to even look at.
And something about them sent shivers down their spines and made their hairs stand on end. Even more so when they realized the scars had the exact same size as the bones connecting his wings to his back. The horror hit like an atomic bomb that made them both freeze.
"W-" Dean didn't even get to formulate a single word as a hand covered his mouth, making him jerk back, but the grip was deadly on his face, he glared at Meg.
Meg who glared downright murder at them both. Eyes black as her expression became set stone cold, doing very well at reminding them both that she was, in fact, a demon. A demon who promised suffering beyond anything imaginable. Her lack of smile or teasing in general being enough to make their skin crawl.
Yet, despite the terrifying display, there's one simple message in her expression.
Do. Not. Ask.
And so both nod, which seems to be good enough for her since she releases Dean and goes back to rearranging feathers, as if nothing at all happened.
Castiel ends up falling asleep, and somehow manages to stay sitting during the whole ordeal.
~
"What the hell are those scars?" Dean demands to know, now standing at the war room, Meg scowls at him while Sam, who's sitting across from him gives his brother a look.
"I'm sorry, what makes you think I would tell you?"
"Because you don't want me to ask him."
"Well, Dean, have you ever considered that, and this is a wild idea, that maybe people don't owe you their life story?" Meg snaps back, crossing her arms over her chest, Dean glares at her, yet, before he can speak, Sam does.
"You don't know either." Sam said, looking at her and noticing that she did, in fact, not know either what the scars were. Meg rolls her eyes.
"So? I don't need to to know it's seriously fucked up to ask him about it. How would you feel if I asked you about what Lucifer did to you in the cage?" She states, looking at Sam before glancing at Dean. "Or what about you and your time in Hell? Do please tell me everything that happened there with Alastair, or what about your time as a demon?"
"That's-"
"It's the same." She cuts off. "That's shit people don't just talk about or want others to bring up. He didn't ask for you to help him so you could harass him later about something like that." She snaps before turning around. "I'm not kidding, don't fucking ask."
And with that, Meg leaves. She didn't need to know the story behind those scars to just know that that was forbidden territory. His reaction to her touching them that one time left it clear, there had been something in his eyes that had just made her feel all kinds of wrong.
She was a demon, little bothered her. Except for that look. And she will make damn sure no one brought that look back, she wasn't beyond killing.
Though Castiel might not take it well if she laid a finger on the Winchesters.
Meanwhile, Sam and Dean watched Meg leave, neither tried to stop her. As much as Dean hated to admit it, she did have a point. Plus, if those scars were from what he suspected…
Yeah, she might be right, bringing that up to Cas might not be the best idea. And considering he's had two ever since he met him… it was safe to say that wasn't new or recent, and that maybe it would be safer to not go around opening possibly old wounds.
Thus, he sighs, he guesses that would be just one of those odd things you knew about your friend but left unspoken, just a quiet acknowledgement.