(Requested by a guest who identified themselves as 'Jensena')
To Kristen whose birthday is April 12th and who loves hurt, badass Dean. Though this was originally requested to be posted all at once on April 12th (your special day;) I'll be posting it over the next couple of days, the very last chapter going up on your birthday! So HAPPY BIRTHDAY and here goes nothing...
HURT BAMF DEAN
Chapter 1.
"Damn." Dean states, inhaling happily, a little winded from their hike up to their destination. "Now that's beautiful."
They were on a Wendigo hunt in Colorado, and were still in the low mountains but the air was clear and cool. Nature was beginning to pick its head up again after winter and greenery and white and pink flowers showed up every once and a while. Birds sang and squirrels watched them warily in the trees.
In front of them is a sort of hidden lake, the water smooth like glass the breeze causing small ripples here and there. There peaceful water disappears into a dark yawning mouth of a cave, small trickles of water running over the top and the opening and disturbing the water below.
"Looks like it belongs in the lord of the rings somewhere." Dean goes on marveling
"Hmph." Sam grunts out, dropping his backpack onto the ground, grabbing his water bottle and starts guzzling while slumping to sit on a nearby boulder. Dean looks at him quizzically, sensing something is afoot and joins him, grabbing his own water.
"Don't drown yourself." Dean says drily, "Pretty sure there's nothing I can do about water in your lungs all the way out here, no matter how awesome of a big brother I am."
Sam coughs through his next mouthful of water and sends Dean a sour look. Dean laughs and nudges him, "Cmon chatty Kathy, you know you wanna tell me what's got your thong all in a bunch."
"Eww Dean," Sam whines, finally breaking his silence. "I did not need that image, ever."
Dean mischievously laughs in triumph, "So c'mon tell me." He urges, and Sam suddenly starts giving off the embarrassed little brother vibe and Dean's delight only grows, though that little flutter of concern is still there. He watches Sam with a fond smile growing on his face.
Sam looks down to the ground making circles with his boot toe in the dirt, biting the inside of his mouth as if trying to physically stop himself from telling Dean. "I..." he starts, but then stops and looks off over the water, away from Dean.
"You what?" Dean asks, mocking seriousness, "Don't tell me?" He gasps horrified, "You lost your virginity?"
"Again?" Sam asks with a grin, "I don't think so. How is it you so delicately put it? That bell can't be unrung?"
Dean laughs, all too happy with himself and Sam sighs knowing his brother was like a dog with a bone...he would find out what was bothering Sam if it was the last thing he did...and it would, with all probability, be sooner rather than later.
He sighs heavily and crosses his arms, refusing to meet Dean's eyes. "I did this new detox and now...I'm dehydrated and exhausted and all I can taste is green tea, cucumbers and mint leaves and I think I'm going to be sick..." he breaks off indeed looking very green. But Dean's clear, boisterous peal of laughter is all worth it, Sam finds himself grinning.
"You're such a girl," Dean manages out between his laughs.
"This is why I didn't want to tell you," Sam whines with a reluctant smile on his face. "I knew you'd just laugh."
"Boy, you were right about that," Dean giggles, taking some deep breaths. He pants leaning, with his hands on his knees, "You sure you're good for this hunt though?"
"Of course," Sam answers, smiling watching Dean wipe tears of laughter from the corners of his eyes. "I'm fine," he laughs, "It's nice to know my pain brings someone some entertainment."
Dean's only response is to laugh some more and shove Sam away by the shoulder. Sam shoves him back and then turns his attention back to the scenery around them, pushing hair from his eyes.
"You're right, it is pretty stunning." He sighs, "One would never suspect there was something so sinister stalking the surrounding forest."
Dean shoots him an exasperated look. "Your wording actually exhausts me."
Sam laughs at that and pulls the paper map out of his back pocket and unfolds it, smoothing it across the boulder they had been leaning on. He studies it a few moments consorting with his phone for their coordinates, finally places a finger down confidently in the middle of a red circle he'd drawn earlier.
"Okay, here's where we are, right in the middle of this Wendigo's hunting ground."
"Whoop dee doo," Dean says flatly, "Lucky us."
Sam shoots him a look. They both hated the woods and Wendigos, they were both in their least favorite or confident environment, facing the worst of the worst supernatural creature, trumped only by hell hounds and occasionally demons. There was no end to Dean's grumbling or Sam's apprehension when they got a Wendigo case, they both turned shifty and edgy. And just to top it off they'd never had a Wendigo case where they came out unscathed.
Wendigos made for nasty wounds and woods even more so, infection being swift and help farther away than ever. So Sam and Dean had packed extensive first aide gear and started out on this venture with heavier hearts than usual, dreading and preparing themselves for the trials they knew where coming. The only question was, how severe a trial exactly?
Sam sighs sharing his brother's less than exuberant feelings. And looks up at the sky, "We better get set up, as soon as it's dark we're sitting ducks."
Dean grunts in response and shoulders his bag again, "Sounds good, if it gets too late we can always camp out in the cave, it'll be good to get a solid wall behind our backs and it'll be some protection from the elements."
Sam shivers, "I hate caves."
"Same here Sammy, same here. But you know the only thing I hate worse than caves?"
Sam rolls his eyes, "Woods." Of course.
"Bingo little bro."
They glance at each other and sigh with the distastefulness of the situation. "Here goes nothing."
...
Dusk is setting over the mountains and everything around the Winchesters has gone eerily silent, only adding to their growing agitation. They've chosen their stake out carefully, an open space floored with ferns in the middle of four huge trees. Sam has written Asagi protection sigils in the dirt all around and etched them into the tall, proud trunks of the trees.
He finds his brother kneeling beside a pile of sticks and brush, patiently attempting to light a fire.
"Dean! What are you doing?" He asks alarmed. "You're gonna scare it away and we'll be stuck out here a whole other twenty-four hours."
Dean waves him off smiling as flames flare to life and the older Winchester starts adding some bigger logs. "If we start a fire, the one thing that actually kill it, the Wendigo will absolutely come and check us out Sam."
Sam stops and cocks his head to one side watching Dean with an impressed expression, "Oh. Yeah, that makes sense."
Dean smirks.
Sam rolls his eyes and comes to join his brother by the growing flames. Holds his hands out to the warmth and Dean arches a brow at him, getting up and gathering their bags and weapons closer to the orange, flickering flames.
"Don't get too comfortable there, we still got a full night's work ahead of us."
"Looks like rain." Sam says softly, both of them reading the sky and wind like they'd both been brought up to.
Dean grunts in agreement, his eyes bright with the stinging of the wind and the firelight, Sam smiles at him through his hair blowing in his face.
Sam allows his eyes to shut and soak up the safe warmth of the flames before standing and grabbing his flare gun and placing his back against the trunk of one of the trees. Dean does the same opposite him and they share smiles that quickly turn determined and grim as the hunters in them take over.
There's a chilly wind the mountain is blowing down on them but they can't complain since it's sending their scent away from them instead of ahead or around. Dean is hard faced and scary across from Sam but he's not afraid, he's exhilarated, with each waiting moment his anticipation grows...the adrenaline building until the moment of the actual kill when it would explode in a massive rush that would more than likely make him fast enough to survive.
They both hold their breaths when a twig snaps close by, followed by a whirring sound...lightening fast footsteps rushing through the brush. The Winchester's eyes meet and Sam nods slowly, letting Dean know he's ready. The older Winchester steps away from his tree and plants himself beside the fire.
"Hey! Over here!" He taunts. "Come and get us you ugly son of a bitch, bet we taste good..." he hesitates and shrugs, "Well, maybe not Sam he probably tastes like mint leaves and cucumbers, but I know I taste good!"
Sam sends him a 'you're unbelievable' look and wraps his sweaty hands more carefully around the handhold of the flame thrower. They wait in the gathering silence until that whirring, whooshing sound is all around them and the hairs on the back of their necks are standing up. Sam stomach cramps with the waiting and thinking of all this beast of darkness was capable of, what it could do...what it had done.
And then its standing behind Dean and Sam's heart stops.
"Dean get down!" He yells as he raises the flare gun and presses the trigger.
His brother unerringly obeys him, drops like a log to the forest floor, but the flame thrower explodes into empty air flaming in the Wendigo's eyes where it stands just out of range watching them. Sam opens his mouth to warn Dean but it's too late, the creature wraps its clawed hand tight around his brother's ankle and their both gone into the murky night before Sam can blink.
"Dean!" Sam shouts desperately, needs some sort of sense of the direction they'd gone.
"Sam!" He brother yells back and Sam grabs their bags before sprinting off back the way they came towards the glassy lake and the cave there. From where Dean's voice had come. God, had they really been that stupid? Had that cave been the Wendigo's lair the whole time? They were lucky to still be alive.
When Sam arrives at the shore of the lake the water is disturbed. Ripples slowly waving out and the surface settling again. Sam holds his breath and listens. He can hear the water dripping in the cave, can hear it lapping at the rock walls where it's been disturbed and then a loud yell from Dean, choked out. And Sam can only imagine his panic at being drug through the icy water of the lake.
Be smart about this Sam, he tells himself. The Wendigo hadn't killed Dean, had just taken him which meant it was after someone to save for dinner at some later point in time. Sam needed to be quiet and careful stealing into the cave and retrieving his brother, didn't want to leave Dean helpless and vulnerable to the Wendigo while he tried to kill it single handedly; they would finish off the creature together.
He shoulders both their bags on one shoulder and takes carefully hold of another flare gun, holds it up close to his face as he edges around the lake and to the rock wall. There's a ledge and Sam carefully and quietly starts to edge his way towards the mouth of the cave.
The water is a smooth dark surface just below him and he shivers thinking of its freezing, dark depths. He's able to swing himself around the corner of the opening and inside, finds the cave is a lot bigger than he thought. On both sides of the water there is floor space littered with boulders and stick like shapes that crunch when he steps on them, Sam can only assume they are bones.
He drops the bags gently to the dry rock floor and stealthily begins to pad deeper into the cave. It's not entirely dark, moonlight getting in somewhere and reflecting on the water and all Sam's senses are heightened, his eyes and ears aching they strain so hard.
He is about twenty feet into the cave when the smell goes foul as death. No pun intended. Sam gags, his already sensitive stomach rebelling against the unnatural smell. He forces himself to be quiet with a fist in his mouth even as he steps on something that squelches wetly, a sweet rotting scent rising from under him soon after.
Sounds echo down to him from just a little further and he stops at the sight of Dean struggling to get away with Wendigo standing over him. His brother's ankle still held secure in its giant clawed hand now twisted at a strange angle. And Sam's heart jumps as the Wendigo back hands Dean across the face, spinning him completely around sending him crashing face first to the floor and splitting his cheek wide open.
Dean's eyes go hazy and when he doesn't get up Sam's inside burn with anger.
"Hey you bastard!" He shouts, majorly pissed off, "Pick on someone your own size!"
"Sam, no!" Dean calls out weakly struggling to pull himself up even as the Wendigo disappears from his side and in a breath is looking down on Sam, it's malevolent eyes boring into his and Sam doesn't flinch merely stabs his flare gun into the thing's emaciated stomach and shoots.
It screeches in anger and pain and pushes Sam away, sending him flying like a rag doll. His head snaps back against the rock ledge, the crack echoing through the whole cave as his limp body disappears under the murky depths of the lake with a splash.
"Sam!" Dean cries out, swaying as he gains his feet and throwing himself into the cold, black water where Sam had gone under.
Please let me find him.
...tbc
Confession time; fav supernatural baddie is Wendigos all the way. Idk why but those things fascinate me. Tell me what yours is, and if you think I should keep going with a REVIEW!?