Birth of an Angel—Chapter 2

Dean blinked hard and seemed for a moment like he needed to clear his head. "Wait. What?"

"Like I said, I've never seen this before, but at the subatomic level, there are changes in you," Marla explained. "There's something going on where the trials, well, the trial that you completed, are readying you for…celestial—stuff."

Sam looked sick. He rubbed his unshaved cheeks with his hand and looked away, then back at Marla and his brother. "And as I go through these trials?"

"You'll become more angel than human."

Sam rose from his seat and began to pace. "This isn't happening."

Dean just stared for a moment, like he was preparing his body to go into shock, then it turned to anger. "So you mean to tell me, that he and I save the world AGAIN from evil, and demons, and Crowley, and this is what he would get in return? To go full-out douchebag and never have a normal life? Never have a wife, and kids? And grandkids?! This is wrong."

Sam sat back in a chair, apart from both, covered his face and began to weep.

That's when Dean officially lost it. He overturned the heavy wooden table between them without care for where it went or what it smashed. Paper and splinters of wood exploded in the room. He grabbed a nearby oak file cabinet and tipped it over with ease. His face was flushed and he was shaking, and it didn't quell the need for more. He smashed weapons and threw books against the wall. He picked up threw a glass so violently against the bedroom door that, when it shattered, shards flew in the opposite direction and against the opposite wall. All the time he was screaming.

"MOTHER FUCKER! SONOFABITCH! WHY HIM?! WHY NOT ME?! I'M THE ASSHOLE OF THE TWO OF US! I'D FIT RIGHT FUCKING IN! ALL THESE YEARS ALL HE'S WANTED WAS OUTTA THIS! HE DESERVES BETTER THAN THIS SHIT! MOTHER FUCKER! MOTHER FUCKER! MOTHER FUCKER!"

Marla watched quietly as the brothers imploded, and stayed out of Dean's way. To say that he was on the warpath would have been the colossal understatement of the millennia. His rage was palpable. If someone could have torn his heart out and ripped it into a million pieces to say that his brother would be fine, he'd take it. He didn't stop until, in a moment of silence between crashes and smashes, he heard Sam's broken sobs. His anger subsided, and then changed again into grief. His shoulders visibly sunk and his brow curled up. His rage-filled lungs began to hitch at the sight of his little brother so lost and without hope and there wasn't anything he knew he could do about it.

That's when the dam broke for Dean Winchester. He started to weep as well before he even made it to Sam and knelt in front of him on the floor, and scooped him up in the tightest grip he could manage.

The only other time Marla had witnessed a moment like this was when a young mother was protecting her child in the midst of a tornado demolishing their house around them.

She could hear Dean's whispers of love between chokes into his brother's ear. Sam clung to his big brother like he could slip underwater at anytime and Dean was the only life raft he had. To be honest, Marla could feel herself welling up, too, but someone had to be the one under control to stop this whole thing from going to the meat grinder and not working out in anyone's favor.

She walked softly over to the two and placed her hand on Dean's shoulder. He lifted his head, and upon focusing on her, his face hardened again, and he almost pushed her away. He disentangled himself from his brother and stood up. His face menacingly staring her down, jaw clenched and ready to go…

Sam didn't even look up, his eyes remained fixed on the floor. Tears were still sliding from the tip of his nose and onto his jeans. He had one hand wrapped around his mouth and the other was still grasping Dean's hand.

"Unless you have some kind of an escape plan, you need to leave," the older Winchester growled through his teeth. "I don't give a fuck who you are. I'll take care of my brother like I always have. He didn't need a guardian angel. Ever. He needs me. Now get out."

Marla turned to leave. Honestly, she understood. The heavenly host had not been kind to these two. They had been lied to, deceived, left alone to die, cursed, physically sickened, and turned against each other, all at the hands of various seraph. Sure, some of them had been helpful, but there was always an ulterior motive, always another avenue to take, and always using the brothers as means to an end instead of good old-fashioned altruism that humans are so easily duped into believing. She couldn't say that her mission was any different, though. She didn't want to be locked away from humanity for eternity. She honestly loved these beings with all their imperfections and moods and rejections when things didn't go their way. In many ways, they were the more perfect creation of God. At least, when they were mad, they were mad…they didn't have to play a political game with every moment. They could sleep. They could regenerate. They could re-create themselves with a move to a new city. They could love again and again and again, despite being crushed with disappointment and abandonment. She couldn't help every day just watching them and admiring God's creativity…

Sam spoke up, so quietly at first that Dean didn't even hear him, and he didn't even lift this head in an attempt to be heard. "Is there a way out?"

Marla turned around, again amazed at the emergence of hope.

"I don't know. But if there is, we can find it. If you let me, I'll be part of Team Winchester. I can't see this happen to either of you."

Dean, still gripping his brother's hand, remained resistant to the angel's offer. "Sorry, girlie, you're gonna have to earn this one."

Sam didn't argue.