Wings of a Butterfly

Warnings: Mentally distressed post-hell!Sam (cause we love him that way the best)

Disclaimer: I borrowed the boys for a little bit, but I promise I will give them back.

Side note: I have wanted to post a tag to 6x22 since it aired, but never got anything readable down. So last night I FINALLY got hit by the muse and typed this in one go. I at the same time satisfied my hurt!Sam and wing!kinks, so I am happy ^^ I hope there aren't too many mistakes in here, but I wanted to get it on the air asap. Hope you guys like it! It COULD be seen as Wincest if you want to, but it is not meant to be. Just the brothers being caring brothers, the way they are supposed to be.

Side note2: The Italic can be read as thoughts OR spoken words. It is left open on purpose.

Music: Katie Grey - Set Free

Summary: Sam is breaking apart. Set after season finale 6x22 The man who knew too much.

He feels too full.

Bursting at the seams with ice that burns his insides like an everlasting flame, scorching and eating it's way through his layers until it can reach the outside to poison the world around him. If he looked closely he would see images of blood, pain and decades of torture edged into the sharp surfaces of each ragged piece of ice. His body is vibrating with it's barely contained power, but he can't let it happen, has to keep it inside himself like the cage that carved them. Shaking fingers grab blindly for something to hold onto, something to ground him and suppress the urge to let go and come apart. He can feel his insides shifting, tearing with every rasping breath.

He is not strong enough. No human should have to be. Not when your body feels like a tiny goldfish bowl in which someone tried to stuff the entire Arctic Ocean with all of it's floes that press and push and drift in all four cardinal directions.

A chocked off sob escapes him, high and pitiful. It's too much. He just wants to go to sleep. At least for a little while. An hour, a minute, a heartbeat...please, god, just let him sleep. Let him sink into beautiful oblivion and quiet darkness and never resurface again. But the screeching screams the ice makes as it shifts keep him here until he is stretched as thin as parchment paper, brittle to the touch.

Water runs down his face and he doesn't know whether it's tears, sweat or rain. Is he even outside? He doesn't know and it doesn't matter. Because he is burning up with shattering teeth, his hands buried in his hair while he desperately tries to stay in one piece.

Something warm whispers across his damp skin, light as butterfly wings and he shrieks back in pain. Tries to fold himself even smaller if that was possible. Too much. Too much and too little to hold onto. Everything is a blur and yet too sharp to look at.

I can't...I...please. Please let me die. Just...I...

The butterfly is back. It lands on his hair this time and still it torches through his skin, red-hot. He screams, but there is nowhere left to retreat to. Not when his insides are threatening to turn themselves out. Helpless sobs steal the little air he has left as the butterfly's wings seem to grow and spread somehow. The pain increases until he can feel the heavy wings engulfing his entire scalp. His screams have died down to a feeble and drawn out wail, like a wounded animal in it's death throws.

Please...

The pressure increases mercilessly and suddenly his hands are being pulled to the sides, taking little chunks of hair with them. He tries to resist, but the butterfly must have grown into a giant bat, because it overpowers him effortlessly and then his world shifts. He doesn't know anymore if his eyes are open or scrunched shut, but he can feel himself being lifted up into the air before he is crashing back down to the ground. Only his landing isn't as hard as he expected. It's somewhat soft and too warm and then the heat is folding itself around his entire frame. He waits for the earlier pain to explode across his skin, but it never comes. Instead he feels a heavy beat drumming in time with the shakes that are rattling his bones. With every too fast thud-thud it seems to be pushing the warmth through his pores where it crashes against the frozen miles inside of him. A harsh gasp escaped him as he feels the sharp edges of the ice floes melting away. Slowly at first, then faster and faster until they are smooth and round, manageable. He has no idea what is happening or why, but he is pretty sure that he has to thank the giant bat surrounding him for it. With a longing whimper he pushes into the warmth and feels the strong wings tightening even further around him, forming a little sanctuary for him to rest.

He has no sense of how much time is passing like this, maybe he even drifted off. When he comes back to though, the screaming inside of him has settled down to a low whisper. The first thing he notices is the warmth that is still enveloping him like a soft blanket and a familiar smell of old leather and faint traces of gun powder. Sluggishly he blinks his eyes open. The light burns a little bit, but after a couple of seconds he can make out the specks of dirt on the grey motelroom carpet beneath his sprawled out legs. His brow furrows in confusion of how he ended up on the floor, before his mind registers that he counts four legs instead of two.

"Morning, bro." says a low voice next to his ear, slightly cracking on the last word.

Tiredly he lifts his head up to be greeted by green eyes that are filled with a painfully familiar mixture of gratitude and worry.

"Hey." he rasps back with a ruined voice as his eyes follow the white tracks of skin, that are running down his brothers face where the dirt from the day has been washed away.

"Another one?" he asks, more out of habit than anything else.

Dean just nods his head, his mouth a tight line of concern. With a resigned sigh Sam lets his head drop bonelessly back to his brother's chest.

"How long?" he mumbles tiredly into the warm fabric there, his eye lids heavy with exhaustion. The arms around him fasten almost painfully as Dean answers.

"Too long."

There are so many different things conveyed in those two words. Things neither of them wants to say or hear out loud. So Sam does the only thing he can do and simply snuggles deeper into the warmth his brother offers so freely these days for both of their sanity's sake. For Sam it is the only thing that will pull him back when he is standing at the edge of the abyss in his mind. For Dean it's the only way to fight the helplessness he feels whenever Sam seems to be tumbling back towards the dark pit he threw himself into once before. He fears the day when that won't be enough anymore. When he will have to watch his little brother slip through his fingers like little grains of sand in a storm. But for now Sam is still fighting. And both of them know that Dean will always be there to pick up the pieces and hold on to him with all his might and even beyond that. Because they finally got it.

After years of destinies and misunderstandings and angels and demons and whatever else the supernatural world threw at them they finally got it. There will be no more Sorry's or Thank you's between them. They don't need them anymore. No more promises of applie-pie lives or last wishes. Where one of them goes the other one will follow and there is no changing that.

"Hey D'n?" Sam mumbles, eyes already closed.

"Hm?"

"You really are Batman."

A tired chuckle rumbles through the older hunters chest.

"Go back to sleep, Sammy."

(continue for Dean's POV)

So what did you guys think? Too angsty? If you are interested I might post a Dean POV, though I don't really thinks it needs it.