Title: Even Trade: A Retelling of the Little Mermaid

Author: Silverkitsune1

Warnings: None

Rating: PG-13

Disclaimer: Neither Supernatural or Hans Christian Andersen's story of "The Little Mermaid" belong to me.

Summary: Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid took the story in one direction. Sam and Dean took it in another.

Author's Note: This was written for the spnfairytales challenge over on livejournal. I have to thank livejournal users Samcandoit, and insomniageek who all took the time to beta this for me. Their sharp eyes helped me polish and shape this story.

"Happy are those who dream dreams and are ready to pay the price to make them come true."

-Leon Joseph Cardinal Suenens

The rain had been falling steadily for the better part of the day when Dean broke through the surface of the water. It was January, and the raindrops that fell into the ocean were cold and fat. The sun was setting, sometimes covered by the storm's thick purple clouds and other times proud and visible as it burned in the red, orange and yellow streaked sky, spreading its light and color across the sea and making the water shine.

It was beautiful, but Dean was too busy suffocating to take much notice.

Coming to the surface was a painful transition for every mercreature, and Dean, just fifteen and new to the surface, was no exception. The gills that lined either side of his neck had closed, and his lungs, muscles that had before that day never been used, strained and stretched, unsure about what they were being asked to do. Dean's long black-scaled tail thrashed in the water, and he fought to keep his panic at bay. He had been warned about this discomfort.

His lungs finally accepted the mouth full of oxygen he dragged past his teeth, as his father had told him they would, and as breath was drawn down his throat Dean laid his clenched fist against the wet, bare skin of his chest. The thrum of his heart, familiar if unusually rapid, was joined by a slower steadier rhythm as his lungs expanded and collapsed, expanded and collapsed. It was an odd sensation.

Dean stayed above water, the rain keeping his upper body comfortably wet, until the sun set and the rain clouds were drained dry. Then he dove, swimming back to his father and younger brother.

The surface had many things the deep sea lacked. It had the moon which would sometimes glow fat and solid in the sky and other times grinned at him with bright silver teeth. It had the stars which Dean liked to watch, waiting for one to break away from the inky black that held it and go hurtling across the sky to places unknown. It had solid pieces of rock made warm by the sun where Dean could stretch and sleep and watch beads of sea water drip off his tail. It had large hulking ships made of rotting wood and light fishing boats Dean secretly liked to race. The surface was an interesting place, but it was also rather uneventful. He could never linger for more than the span of a day before boredom would set in. The wind would hiss across the water, the only sound except for Dean's deep breathing. The ocean would feel large and endless and Dean would remember how small and alone he was. He would dive when those feelings appeared, swim until the warmth of the sun left his skin, and safe in the ocean's embrace, he would seek out his brother and swear never to visit the moon or the stars or the fishing boats again.

Then Sam turned fifteen, and prepared to take his first trip to the surface. However, unlike Dean, he wasn't permitted to make it alone.

Sam, furious and hurt, claimed that they would break hundreds of years of tradition if Dean was allowed to accompany him.

"It's not a coming of age ritual if you're still being treated like a three year old during it! I can take care of myself."

But their father was firm in his decision and, before setting off to parts unknown in his search for answers he had yet to find-in search of their mother, his Mary-he laid an order at Dean's feet. Dean was not one to disobey.

It was night, and the dark expanse of sky was decorated with pock marks of silver that shimmered and winked at them as Sam gasped and struggled through the transition.

He swam away from his brother when he was done. His cheeks flushed a dull red, and his brow furrowed. He looked ready to sink back under the sea, and end the night quickly. A wave of water splashed over his face, and Sam's dark green tail thrashed with annoyance as he sputtered and spat the sea water from his mouth.

"Come on," Dean said. "Let's swim."

The water was calm and as they darted through the waves Sam brooded, his anger over the companion he should have been without evident. Dean nudged Sam hard in the ribs.

"Race you, Sammy."

He didn't wait for a response, but took off across the water, knowing Sam would follow.

"So what's it feel like to be slower than me?" Sam floated on his back, his hands folded on his stomach like a sea otter.

"I let you win. That's your birthday gift. Happy birthday."

Sam snorted. "Sure."

The joy of the win had smoothed the anger from his brother's face, and Dean congratulated himself silently from his spot next to Sam.

Sam blew a wet lock of hair away from his eyes, and stared up at the infinite number of winking stars. "I thought the surface would be so empty, but it's full of so many things. How many stars do you think are up there?"

Dean shrugged. "Don't know."

"Do you think anyone has ever tried to count them?"

"There are too many to count, Sammy."

"Oh." Sam paused. "What do you think they're for?"

"Light," Dean answered. "To help the things who live up here see when the sun goes down."

Sam blinked, and his head swerved as he took in the sky, the ocean, and the stars. "It doesn't always look like this up here?"

Dean laughed and playfully smacked his brother's chest with his webbed fin.

"I'll take you up again when the sun's out. You've got to see the moon when it comes back out. The moon is awesome."

SSSS

It started with simple questions. Questions Dean or John knew the answers to because they had been asked by generations of their people.

"In what direction does the sun rise? What direction does it set?"

"Rises in the east, and then it sets in the west. Come on, I'll show you."

"How many phases does the moon have?"

"Eight phases, Sammy. Now go to sleep."

"How long does it take to get a full moon?"

"A month, now move your tail, we're late!"

"Will the stars always be there? Do they ever not come out?"

"No. They're always there. Sometimes you can't see them because of the clouds, but they're always there."

The answers kept Sam satisfied for about a day. Dean knew he was in trouble when Sam asked him why the moon sometimes disappeared from the sky all together. It was the first in a long line of questions he had no answer for.

SSSS

The weather chose to celebrate the end of summer with one final violent storm. The waves around them attempted to brush the sky with their foamy tips, and the wind shrieked its encouragement across the waters. Rain, thick and cold attacked the churning waters, and lightening so bright it was blinding flashed across the sky.

Dean pressed his arms flat against his side as he swam, moving like quicksilver through the salt water. He crashed through the center of a wave, and was momentarily air-borne before he slid under again and the wave collapsed around him. A flash of lightening lit the sky, and Dean saw the green of his brother's tail just ahead. Sam turned to face him, his grin bright and his hair clinging to his face. Dean sped up until they swam shoulder to shoulder, racing and leaping like a pair of dolphins.

It was Sam who spotted the ship. It was larger than the thinner, faster fishing boats they usually followed, but the hulking mass of wood and metal was tossed about by the storm like a child's toy. Pieces of the ship were torn off and tossed into the deep, and the brothers darted around these unforeseen obstacles as they grew nearer.

"On your left, Dean!" Sam shouted, and Dean veered sharply to the right, narrowly avoiding a heavy chest as it made its way to the ocean floor.

"We're too close to it," Dean called back. "We need to get away from the debris."

Sam gave a jerky nod. Planks of wood, chains, cannons and trunks, large pieces of what had once been the mast and a tangle of sails were tossed into the water as the large bellied ship sank. Dean dove and swerved, keeping one eye always on Sam. He disappeared under the water for what could only have been moments, but seemed like hours. In his haste he didn't notice the curved bottoms of the long boats that fought to stay afloat, or the oar heads that frantically dipped in and out of the waters. Dean surfaced at the foot of a growing wave, fierce in its intent; the destruction of the small long boat behind him. Dean leapt out of the water and through the climbing wave as he made his escape. He landed awkwardly, more of a belly flop than a graceful dive and stinging pain ran up and down his stomach and arms.

Another wave crashed, and muscled him under. His equilibrium gone, Dean somersaulted, twisting as he swam and tried to make his way to the sandy bottom below. He dove deep pushing through the pain in his chest as his lungs ached for oxygen that Dean was unable to provide, and relief flooded through his body when his gills opened, and he could breathe.

Above him the sea sang with a heavy bass that beat out harsh rhythms against the taut surface of the water, destroying everything in its path. Dean was far below the tumultuous storm. At first the quiet of the deep filled him with relief, then terror when he realized that Sam was no longer with him.

Dean resurfaced, calling for his brother. He swam hard, his strokes strong and determined. The wreckage was gone, pulled away by the storm, and Dean fought to hold is own against the amalgam of tumultuous elements. Mercreatures, unlike humans, were not susceptible to a death by drowning, but there were other dangers. Sam could be unconscious in the waters, a blow to the head delivered from a plank of wood or a copper chain, leaving him vulnerable to the human eye and the hunger of the sharks. He could be smashed to pieces against jagged rocks or iceburgs. The ocean was infinite and cruel and even Sam, one of its favored children, would not be spared if the tide ran foul.

By dawn the storm had departed, lightning, thunder and rain clouds all packed up and herded toward the hills and valleys that lay behind the sandy beaches. Dean followed, terrified that he'd find Sam beached on land, fresh meat for the seagulls to peck at and two-legged children to gawk at.

He could hear the town's Sunday morning church bells ringing as he swam along the coast line, ever on the watch for his brother or for the peering eyes of a two-legged land walker. The sky was overcast and a dull tarnished gray, and the beach was marked with tide pools that held schools of tiny orange fish. There was no Sam to be found, and Dean was on the verge of full blown panic when Sam found him. The younger Winchester darted around the tip of a long peninsula, arms held straight in front of him as though he were stretching. He squeaked with surprise when Dean grabbed him around the shoulders and hauled him under the water.

"Are you ok?" Dean asked, his eyes raking over his brother's form. "Are you hurt?"

Sam was glassy-eyed and pale. A purpling bruise peeked out from under his mop of unruly hair, and one of his fingers had swollen to twice its size.

"Sammy?" Dean asked, gentling his tone.

Sam brushed away the thick school of thoughts that had been swimming around his head. "I'm fine. Let's go home. We should go home."

SSSS

In the dream Sam hangs from the prow, his wrists bruised and scratched from the iron chains that hold him tight. The ship is huge, new, and the polished wood gleams. There are no stars in the sky, no moon, but bursts of light, sound and color bloom across the expanse of empty space. The light reflects across the full white sails, three to a mast and three masts in all. There are voices above, two-legers attached to them and they sing and laugh and fill the warm night with their sound, but Dean only has eyes for his brother, and only has ears for the creak the chains make as Sam swings.

Dean leaps for him, dives under the water and swims at top speed to the surface shooting into the sky like a dolphin, but his fingers don't even brush Sam's tail, and he goes tumbling back to the sea every time.

At first he thinks his brother must be unconscious, but then Sam's eyelids lift and large brown eyes find him. He watches Dean and the black waters of the ocean as it laps the bow of the ship. The scales of Sam's tail are sickly green in color and his skin is pale and gray.

Dean beats against the wood of the ship with his fists and then with his tail, trying to punch a hole into the side, trying to sink the ship and bring Sam home.

His brother wines low in his throat and Dean abandons his anger and his plan to look up. Sam's mouth is open, his face twisted in agony, but no sound slides out. Silently, Sam writhes against the chains, and Dean watches, horrified, as the bones of Sam's tail bend and break and the sinew and muscle rip down the middle before melting and molding into something new and perverse.

Out of the corner of his eye, Dean catches a glimpse golden hair and a flash of orange fin.

When he jolted awake, the scream denied to Sam tumbled out of his mouth.

SSSS

John returned with the high tide, his arm broken and his left fin bleeding sluggishly. Dean put his father to bed, and packed sand and seaweed against the hurt until the blood clotted.

The younger Winchester hovered over Dean while Dean, in turn, hovered over John. Worry lines ran across Sam's forehead as he watched his father jerk and twist, his dreams disturbed and feverish. By the end of the first day Dean was beginning to feel the onset of claustrophobia set in.

"Go kick some waves up," Dean finally said after the second day, pushing his brother away. Sam floated backwards and crashed into the delicate formation a passing school of orange fish had created. "Go for a swim. Go read something. Go."

Sam waved the fish away, the tiny blue bodies darting under his arms and skirting around his torso.

"Don't you need help?" Sam asked.

"Dad will be fine," Dean responded. "You, on the other hand, might not be if you keep crowding against my tail. Go find out what the weather is like up there."

Sam looked unsure, but finally nodded, his head bobbing up and down slowly.

Dean waited until Sam was nothing more than a dark shadow in the water before waking their father enough to ask.

"Anything?"

John stayed silent, but the dull dead look in his eyes was answer enough.

John slept for the better part of the day, waking only when Dean forced him to abandon sleep for food. He was so occupied with his father's well-being that he failed to notice when Sam came back, his face a storm of confusion and wonder.

SSSS

In the dream Dean is enclosed in a large glass box filled with sea water. Tiny red fish swim around his head and tail, so fast that they seem to flicker in and out of being. Dean presses his hands against the glass and then his nose, curious, but not panicked, confused, but not frightened. A pair of steady brown eyes set in the face of a beautiful mermaid, stare back at him. Her skin is dark brown, the same color as her eyes, and she presses a hand against the box. If not for the glass their palms would have touched. A lock of curly black hair falls in her face, but she doesn't move to brush it aside.

The mermaid turns to leave, the outline of her hand smudged against the glass. She swims forward, then pauses, her arms spreading wide, her finger beckoning. Light rolls into the room like a fog, and as the darkness scatters Dean sees polished white marble floors. Again the mermaid swims forward and stops, beckoning with her long fingers. A thousand candles light at the movement. There are tables set up across the floor, each covered in stiff white table cloths. Forks, knifes and spoons fashioned out of gold are laid next to white bone china plates piled high with food. Two-leggers dance across the floor and around the tables, not one step out of place, not one beat missed. There are high glass windows that line the wall, and the ceiling rises to dizzying heights.

If he looks to the left, Dean can see the ocean through the windows, blue-green and gentle. The sun is a large red circle in the sky. If he looks to the right, Dean can see the ocean through the windows, the stars bright dagger points, and the waters the same dark blue as the curly haired mermaid's tail.

Three small red fish dart around Dean's arms and speed past his eyes. They're the same color as the dresses all the two-legged women wear, the same color as the ties around the necks of the two-legged men.

Sam dances past him. There's a girl in his arms who Sam smiles brightly at, but who Dean can't see clearly, but the girl is the least of his concern. He only has eyes for his brother who dances on two legs, his feet following the lively melody with grace, as sure of his movements as the waves are sure of their destination as they crash across the shore.

A hand covers Dean's own, and he is caught by the sight of the small, white appendage, the nails ragged and chewed, the nervous habit of a person who is otherwise unshakable. His mother swims next to him, and suddenly the box is too small. There are blood-red flowers woven into her long blond hair, and oysters clamped to her tail. The blood they draw traces the wavy outline of her shining black scales. She intertwines her fingers with her eldest son's; his beautiful mother, gone for so many years, and together they watch as Sam breaks away from the girl with a bow and a kiss to her hand. His smile is genuine, but his lips never break apart to form the words Dean is so used to hearing.

Sam collapses onto one of the beautiful chairs, but he makes no move to eat or drink. With the young woman gone the jubilant expression washes out of his face and is replaced by exhaustion, the corners of his mouth tight with pain. Sam's large hands remove the shoes from his feet. The feet, larger than Sam's hands with five wiggling pieces of flesh at their ends, fascinate Dean. Sam takes hold of the heel of his shoe and tips the piece of leather and lace upside down watching as a thick stream of blood pours out, staining the white marble below. Sam's lips part as he sighs, and a thin river of blood seeps down his chin.

Dean woke with his skin flushed as though with fever. He spent the rest of the night at Sam's side, watching his brother, waiting for the frantic beating of his heart to slow.

SSSS

"I can see Cassiopeia."

The bit of shared information caught Dean off guard, and he raised startled eyes up from his spot on the rocks.

"What?"

"Cassiopeia," Sam repeated. "That cluster, right there see, is called Cassiopeia."

Dean rolled onto his back, and squinted up at the sky. The tips of his tail dipped in and out of the water, the only part of his body not lying flat on the chilly rock.

"Sammy, I don't-"

Sam snagged his brother's hand and raised it towards the sky. "See." He dragged Dean's hand down then up, down then up. "Right there. Do you see now?"

And Dean could.

"Cassiopeia," Dean said, trying the name out. "I like it. Where did you learn that?"

Sam released him, drawing his hand back to scratch his stomach. "It's just something I heard."

"Heard where?" Dean asked.

The palm of Sam's hand rested over his bellybutton, and his fingers fanned out across his pale skin, his fingertips brushing the beginnings of his dark green scales, the same color as seaweed and Dean's eyes.

"I don't remember."

SSSS

In the dream Dean's scales slip between his fingers like grains of sand and gather on the wooden planks of the dock, a neat pile of glistening black shapes. He has a faint memory of a mermaid with long black hair and sorrowful eyes plucking the scales from his tail, but the past is not his concern anymore, not with a steady pain washing up and down his body, and a murky cloud of blood surrounding him. He has to focus on the present.

The knife that Dean lays next to the pile of scales is sharp and polished so that the steel of the blade shines like the full moon. Sam is tall with his legs, so tall that he has to kneel to meet Dean's eyes, and to close his hand around the knife's hilt. Sam's free hand is fisted over his heart.

"I traded them," Dean tells him, his breaths coming in quick harsh pants. "I traded them so you could come home."

"Dean." Sam's mouth doesn't open, his tongue is still, but his voice fills the air around them and Dean drags the sound down into his lungs with every breath he takes.

"It's easy," Dean says. Every flick of his tail is agony, every nerve naked and twisted. "You can make it quick, and then you can come home."

"Dean please," Sam chokes. "Please."

"Sammy?"

Sam releases the knife, and instead leans against the deck. The fist he holds clenched tight fans open to reveal a bright ball of yellow, orange, red and blue dancing in the center of his palm.

"Please Dean, it burns."

Dean doesn't know this word. Doesn't understand what he's seeing when the ball of warm color starts to lick its way up Sam's arms and shoulders, rolls down his chest and finally claims Sam's new legs.

"Dean, please," Sam sobs. "Dean it hurts. Please, it hurts."

Dean pulls himself onto the dock, his elbows finding purchase in the gray, rotting wood. He grabs Sam by the cloth shirt, the blood-red tie still in place, and holds tight as he tips them both into the ocean. They land with a splash, and Sam is a heavy solid weight in his arms, squirming, and thrashing, but then he's gone and Dean is left holding nothing but sea foam.

Sam, frightened and begging, shook Dean awake from his nightmare, relieved to have stopped the crying that had poured out of his brother while he slept.

SSSS

On the third day of October their father left again. He told Dean he would swim south to visit their cousins in the warmer waters, hoping that one of them would have news. Dean let him go with a wave and a promise to look after Sam. He ignored the urge to watch John as he swam into the distance.

After their father left, Sam became nervous. Dean watched as his brother tried to read, but abandoned the stone tablets after his twitchy and upset body refused to relax. He somersaulted and circled around the small piece of the deep they called home. Watching him made Dean dizzy. Sam only picked at the food Dean handed him for lunch and then dinner, and then returned to swimming in complicated figure eights.

"You can go up if you want to," Dean said. "I'm turning in early."

Sam seemed to sink to the sand, his nervous energy suddenly penned up and full of destination. "You sure?"

"Yeah, go chase the moon or something."

Sam looked uncertain, but then nodded, swimming toward the sky with long graceful strokes. The occasional bright yellow fish a flash of gold as it followed after his younger brother's tale

It wasn't hard to follow his brother. It wasn't difficult to stay silent as he moved cautiously through the waves, or to know when he had to dive to stay out of sight. Sam took him closer to the shore than Dean had ever dared go; swimming with the kind of intent that only a well loved destination can forge. When Sam climbed onto a small cropping of rocks near the edge of a sandy bank, he wiggled across the wet moss-covered stone and settled himself into a position that looked familiar and habitual.

From his own hiding place, Dean waited. It was a long wait, and the moon was high in the sky before what Dean had been waiting for appeared.

The girl was as beautiful as Dean remembered from his dream, and the look in Sam's eyes let Dean know that he agreed. Dean watched her push sunshine yellow hair away from star bright eyes as she fiddled and twisted the knobs on a long copper tube that she kept pointed at the sky. Every so often her hand would drift to the folds of her long white dress, and she would scratch a note into the journal cradled in her lap.

After hours of watching, Sam slid silently into the water, and swam closer, his fingers tracing the sandy bottom as the waters grew shallow. Dean watched Sam with his heart in his throat, and waited.

The stars glowed, and the planets watched silently. The girl yawned, her jaw cracking under the weight of her exhaustion. Rubbing her eyes with the back of her hand, she packed up her tube and her journal and walked away across the grass. Only when she was out of sight did Sam return to deeper waters and make for home. Only then did Dean understand what had to be done.

SSSS

The next night, Dean slipped the leaves of a piece of black seaweed into his brother's food. He put Sam to bed with the knowledge that his brother would stay put, then swam out to the shore, the rocks and the girl.

She sat on the sand, the journal open in her lap, and the copper tube reaching toward the sky, her position identical to the one Dean had seen her in the night before.

Dean crawled across the moss covered rocks, and gritted his teeth against the pebbles and sharp edges that tore his skin. He let his tail hang over the edge that faced shore and tipped his head back for one deep breath before calling out.

"Hello!"

The girl looked away from her tube and her book. She blinked, and rubbed grit and sleep out of her eyes before searching for the source of the voice.

"Right here," Dean called. "On the rocks."

The moon was full, round as a dinner plate and bright as polished silver. The girl stared at him, her eyes just as large, and nervously plucked a petal out of the red flower she had tucked behind one ear.

"What are you doing?" Dean asked.

"I-I'm studying." The girl rose to her feet, entranced and bewildered. "Are you a mermaid?"

"Merman," Dean corrected kindly. "Come here and talk to me."

She stumbled in her haste, and the hands that lifted the hem of her white skirts trembled as she picked her way across the rocks.

"Careful. Those things can be slippery," Dean warned.

Her pretty face was flushed and glowing when she settled next to Dean. She drank in the sight of his long black tail, and her blue eyes lingered on Dean's bare chest before she turned away, blushing.

"Do you have a name?" Dean asked.

"Jessica."

"Jessica," Dean repeated, letting the word linger on his tongue as he tested it.

Dean took her hands in his and was amused to see how small Jessica's hands were in comparison. A ruby ring encircled one of her long fingers, and a matching pendent hung between her breasts.

"What's that thing you're carrying around?" Dean asked, nodding to the copper tube.

"It's a telescope," Jessica said, shyly. "You look at the stars with it."

Dean's finger tapped Jessica's pulse point, and he spared a glance at the rippling waves beneath him. "Do you like the stars?"

"Yes."

Dean nodded briskly, his mouth suddenly falling into a grimace. His eyes glittered sadly as they met the girl's and he tightened his grip on her hands.

"So does my brother."

Scratches lined the arms that Dean used to pull his sleeping brother into his lap. Long red lines crisscrossed his forearms, and one deep red pit where the skin had been dug out decorated the top of his shoulder like a birth mark. Blue, orange and yellow bruises covered his torso, and a blackened eye was puffy and round on his face.

Dean ran his hands through Sam's long dark strands, and held him the way he hadn't since Sam had been a very small child. Hours later, when Sam woke, confused and still sluggish from the drug, he blinked and shifted, but didn't try to break away.

"Dean?"

Dean cupped the back of Sam's skull and rubbed his thumb down his brother's neck. "You were having a bad dream."

SSSS

They passed the object from hand to hand. The first one peered through the small opening. The second one twisted one of the knobs that decorated the end. The third one held the thing in her hands and closed her eyes as though she were weighing it.

"This is appreciated," the blue tailed one said.

"But unnecessary," finished the orange-tailed one, her long blond hair a cloud around her head. Several small red fish swam in and out of the locks.

Dean shook his head, nervous to be in the presence of such powerful sea witches. He was desperate to get home to Sam, who had been silent and depressed these last few days always asleep in the small sand bed he'd shaped like the sun. He planned on taking Sam south as soon as he returned. They would follow their father's trail and hope it led to a warmer climate.

"You warned me," Dean said carefully. "When you had no reason to. I don't know if you want it or not, but it seems like something you could use."

The dark eyebrows of the blue-tailed sea witch rose, and she shared a glance with her sisters.

"It's unnecessary," the yellow-tailed sea witch said, her brown eyes as sorrowful and dark as her hair. "Because your mother already paid us."

"Years ago," added the blue-tailed one.

"In full," confirmed the orange-tailed one. "We assumed you knew."