This is my first Supernatural story, and it is my telling of the Winchesters with a sister. Her name is Kate, and she's Sam's younger twin. I plan to update this story around once a day until all eleven chapters are out. (The chapters definitely vary in length, by the way.)
Welcome to Everybody's Changing.
Prologue: Baby vs. The Vamps (It's Gonna Get Ugly)
Dean tightened the knot on the handkerchief around my ankle before giving me The Point. "Stay here."
Oh, please. "Dean, I rolled my ankle; I can still swing a machete."
His face was impassive. "Either way, we're not testing it. Let's go, Sam." He threw the car keys on me before turning to grab our brother by the shoulder. Sam gave me a sympathetic smile and followed after the oldest. Both headed out of the edge of the trees we had hidden the car in and towards the large, abandoned factory building.
With a groan, I flopped back onto the leather seat of the Impala. If it had been Dean with a rolled ankle, he would have scoffed and smacked anybody who suggested he stay behind. But because I was a girl and because I was technically the youngest (BUT ONLY BY TWO MINUTES, FOR GOD'S SAKE), I was expected to sit patiently in the car. It was insulting to my hunter training.
"Fine," I grumbled to myself as I pulled myself towards the front seat. "If I'm going to be sitting in the godforsaken car, I'm choosing the driving music." I knew Dean would fight me on it the second he got behind the wheel, but I could win the musical choices for a minute or two.
I plopped into the driver's seat and carefully lowered my feet in front of me. I popped open the glove box and started rifling through the tapes we kept stashed in there. Aw, yes. The teenager in me would always give in to the classic Radiohead. My brothers claimed that it was too "mellow-touchy-feely" for them, but they were just unrefined.
I pulled Dean's mixtape out and shoved mine in. As I did, I glanced up and noticed vampires trying to make it out the back entrance. God, there were at least five of them making a great escape, and my idiot brothers were nowhere in sight.
Stay here, or go after the vamps. Go after the vamps, or stay here. I took a moment to throw my options back and forth before I realized: I could go after the vampires while staying here. With a smirk, I shoved the keys into the ignition.
The engine would be an obvious giveaway, so I took the only choice I had—revved the engine and powerhoused towards those blood-chugging bastards. I flew across the empty grass and steamrolled over two of the vamps before they even knew what hit 'em.
I grabbed my machete from the backseat floor and flew open the car door, smacking one of them to the ground. I jumped out and gritted my teeth as I used my busted ankle. I brought the machete down hard on the vampire I'd smacked to the ground, cutting his head clean off.
Two vamps left. They hissed and sprang at once. I was ready for the one on the left, and I was able to chop off the head. The one on the right, however, got me. He threw me back into the driver's door, and my head smacked it hard. I heard the window crack as the machete fell from my hand. My vision spun as I thought both about the vampire attacking me and the fact that Dean was positively, absolutely going to kill me for using Baby as a weapon.
I grappled for the machete, but the vampire came towards me and stepped on my wrist.
"You got fire in you," the dead guy said in a raspy voice. "And you killed a lot of my men. I could use someone like you in my new family."
And, God, all I could do was blurt the one, obvious retort that you should never use on vampires. "Bite me."
He grinned, taking that as an invitation. "Maybe just a small one." Foot still on my wrist, he grabbed my pulsating head and sank his teeth into my neck.
I screamed as he tore through my flesh, but just as quickly as it started, it stopped. He was ripped off of me, and his head was rolling away in the next second. His body fell in a heap at the feet of a panting, bloodied Sam.
"You OK?" Sam asked, hurrying over to me. I nodded and put a hand to my bleeding neck. It wasn't that bad; nothing that wouldn't stop on its own. Sam helped me up, but I noticed how he winced when I leaned on him.
"Are you OK?" I asked back.
He gave a short nod. "Bruised my shoulder when one threw me down."
Sam and I were suddenly shoved down to the ground, and the two vampires I'd run over stood over us. As Sam and I scrambled for our dropped machetes, one of the vampire's heads toppled off its body. The other one was too stunned at the attack to prepare for its immediate death; headless, it fell lifelessly onto the other.
"You're dead meat," Dean vowed, pointing at me with one hand and holding a bloody machete in the other.
Sam and I pushed ourselves up, and my tall brother let me lean my weight onto him rather than my ankle.
"Technically, I did stay in the car," I couldn't help but add. Dean's deadly look told me that the logic was not helping my case. Wordlessly, I hobbled to the backseat of the still-running Impala.
"Aw, Baby," Dean whined, taking in the sight of his busted window. As Sam went into the passenger's side, he gave me an are-you-suicidal look. As Dean circled the car to inspect for more damage, I was beginning to think that I was.
"Do you think two vampires chipped the paint?" I whispered desperately to Sam. We watched as Dean crouched in front of the car with a look of agony.
"Based on Dean's birthing face out there," Sam said, "I'd venture yeah; they did."
"If I tuck and roll now, he won't find me for at least a day. That's enough cool-off time, right?"
Sam turned to give me a sympathetic look. "For the Impala?" He shook his head and turned back around.
Fuming, Dean got back into the car. He slammed the door shut, and the cracked window gave; it shattered completely and fell in shards down the side of the car and into Dean's lap. If my chest wasn't choking me with adrenaline-fueled panic, I would have pointed out that my head caused that and, yes, it did hurt.
"Dean…" Sam tried.
Dean held up a finger, telling him to zip it. He remained otherwise motionless, staring out the windshield and trying to control his furious breathing.
Oh, God. I couldn't take this. "Dean, I'm so sorr—"
"Don't." After another minute of silence, Dean pushed the gear into drive and drove back towards the highway.
A few minutes into the drive, Dean pushed the radio on, and more panic filled me. Radiohead's song High and Dry crooned through the car. With a sharp jerk, Dean slapped the music off. His knuckles were tight on the steering wheel, and he was breathing pretty hard.
We spent the next ten minutes in a tense silence; the only sound was the rushing, cold night wind that hit us through the gaping window.
I tried again. "Dean, I really didn't mean to hurt—"
"Kate." His eyes met mine through the rearview mirror. He was not ready to forgive. I pressed my lips together and sank into the leather seat.
About twenty minutes later, Dean grumbled over the wind, "Is everyone OK?"
"Yeah," Sam said, and I echoed him.
It was about another five minutes of wind-swirling silence before Sam ventured the question, "Where are we going?"
"Bobby's," Dean said. "I have to get this busted window fixed." His warning eyes met mine in the mirror again, and I shrank further into the seat so I would be out of his line of sight.
When I woke up late the following morning in Bobby's guest bed, I did so with dread. When we got here last night, Dean didn't even say anything to us. He told Bobby that we'd be around for a few days, threw his keys onto the counter, and stomped up to a spare bedroom. Bobby helped me and Sam to put together ice packs—one for Sam's shoulder and two for my ankle and head—before we all went to bed.
With trepidation, I got out of bed and instantly cringed. My ankle was throbbing, ginormous, and purple. I grimaced as I turned it over, and my head pulsed to remind me that it, too, was sore. I sighed and went off in search of ice and meds.
When I hobbled to the bottom of the stairs, I noticed that Dean was in the kitchen. Panicked, I looked around, but the other two male buffers were nowhere to be seen. Quietly, I inched a foot back up a stair in the hopes of silent retreat.
"You know you've never been able to sneak past me, and nothin's changed," Dean said, pouring his coffee with his back to me.
I gritted my teeth and gingerly went back down the bottom stair. "I had hopes."
Dean turned towards me, and leaned against the counter with his mug in hand. His left eye sported a nasty purple bruise. "How's the ankle?"
I shrugged to play it off since he couldn't see it under my pajama bottoms. I didn't want to go straight for the ice to tip him off either. Some part of me didn't want to appear weak to my oldest brother. Maybe I didn't want to confirm his belief that I was the youngest and therefore the weakest.
Instead, I went for the box of Lucky Charms on top of the fridge. I grabbed the milk, a bowl, and a spoon before taking my goods over to the kitchen table. I did all I could to walk as evenly on my feet as possible.
But Dean saw through it. With a sigh, he joined me at the kitchen table and lifted my hurt ankle into his lap. He swiftly and carefully rolled the pant leg up. "Jesus Christ, Katie. Did you even ice this thing?"
"Last night," I answered around a mouthful of Lucky Charms.
Dean put my foot back down and leaned against the kitchen table with his hands on his neck.
I was just about to comfort him when Bobby strutted in. "Mornin'. How's your head?" His attention was on me, making Dean's attention return to me.
I tried to shrug it off and continue eating my cereal. "Fine."
"You hit your head?" Dean questioned. I could see mixed feelings brewing under his nonchalant demeanor.
I shrugged again. "It wasn't too bad."
Sam walked in with a scoff. "Her head went sailing through the car window." I glared at him, and he gave me an I'm-the-innocent-messenger look. He swiped the Lucky Charms from me and started filling his own bowl.
"I'mma go start workin' on the car," Bobby announced, backing out the front door. Part of me was grateful for intuitively seeing that this was a conversation siblings needed to have; the other part of me wanted to latch onto his flannel shirt and never let me stay alone with Dean's brewing anger.
The front door slammed, and the three of us were left in a tense silence. Sam and I exchanged looks over our Lucky Charms while Dean stared at the table. After about a minute, I decided that I wasn't all that hungry anymore. I grabbed my bowl and stood up.
"Sit." Dean had this voice that usually parents had. Maybe it was because Dean was the closest thing I felt I had to parent growing up, but I obeyed him instinctively.
Dean got up and fished around in the freezer for some ice packs. He threw one to Sam and one to me. He then took the last one and started wrapping it around my ankle with a spare kitchen towel.
"Dean, I'm really sorry about the Impala," I rushed to apologize. "I saw those vampires escaping, and I was in the car already, and I just didn't think. I really didn't mean—"
"I'm not mad about the Impala." He tied off the knot on the towel.
"Y-you're not?" This was beyond my wildest dreams.
He looked back up at me with a bitch face. "Well, hell yeah I'm pissed about the Impala. I mean, what kind of idiot—" He stopped himself with a harsh breath and started again. "I'm a little mad about the car, but I'm more pissed at myself."
Sam and I looked at each other in wonder. We had no idea where this was going.
Dean got back onto his chair and leaned on his knees. "We got home, and your ankle was busted, your head flew through a window, and Sammy's shoulder is black and blue, and all I cared about was the car. I didn't even…" He stopped and ran a hand down his face. "I'm sorry. I overreacted."
He was blaming himself for… not taking care of us?
"Dean, we're twenty-four," Sam chimed in. "It's not your job to ice our bruises anymore."
"Besides, I kind of gave you a good reason to be pissed at us," I added hesitantly.
Dean scoffed and leaned back into his chair. "It'll always be my job to look out for you two knuckleheads. But you two just try to make my job a hell of a lot harder by being so frickin' accident-prone."
I smirked and hugged my worrywart of a brother. "Thanks for looking out for me, Dean."
He hugged me back and grumbled, "Yeah, yeah, whatever. Just stop being an idiot around danger, alright?" He got up and grabbed the keys off of the counter before whirling back on me. "And you're not allowed to touch Baby anymore!"
"For how long?!" While his demand was warranted, I was insulted nonetheless.
"Indefinitely," he said with a wave of his hands.
Sam gave me a pitying grimace and turned to our brother. "How long we stayin' here for?"
Dean shrugged. "Maybe a week. I'll fix up Baby while you two bozos heal up."
Sam gave a nod. "I heard some rumors about weird deaths happening in some small town in Ohio. I'll keep tabs on it, and we can check it out in a few days if it turns into anything." Dean gave an approving nod.
I shook a victorious fist. "Weird deaths!"
Both of my brothers gave me concerned, odd looks.
"OK, I'm not celebrating the fact that people have died," I defended. "Just that it isn't the overdone werewolf or vampire attacks."
"OK, sadist," Sam said, mussing up my brunette hair as he passed me to bring his bowl to the sink.
Dean was already walking out the door. "Katie, stop being creepy! Sam, stop using college words!" The front door slammed behind him.
Here we go, kids. :)