For bhoney: Thank you for taking part in the Kazcon auction in memory of Kim Manners. I do hope you enjoy this.
And thank you, Red Hardy, for the beta
Disclaimer: Don't own them, don't make money from them.
Warnings: Adult language, violence, innuendo. Story is set in Season Two so there might be spoilers for anything up to and including the end of that season.
Snap
Chapter 1
"What the hell is that for?" Dean Winchester glanced across at the small, empty plastic jar his brother was holding in his hands. A corpse from that morning's breakfast of burnt toast and peanut butter Sam must have washed the container and stashed it in an inside pocket of his jacket until now. Or at least Dean really hoped the kid had washed it first…
"A swear jar," Sam smiled his most sweet and innocent little brother smile. Dean wanted to smack it off his face but Sam got lucky. The older hunter needed both hands on the wheel as the narrow road snaked around a tight turn so he'd have to beat the kid senseless, later. "For you."
"For me?" The older man opened his mouth to further protest but Sam continued smiling sweetly and talking.
"And before you start giving me grief about it, it's your own fault that things have come down to this," he gave the jar a pointed shake. "Yeah, it was Bobby who made some dumb-ass comment about how English has become your second language, but it was you who bet him that not only could you give up swearing for a week, but that you'd also throw in not taking the Lord's name in vain just 'cause you like him. And all for what? Bragging rights? Geez, Dean… So I, being the totally beyond awesome brother that I am, am going to help you."
Oh yeah, Dean couldn't help but smirk, he remembered… Same as he bet Bobby that Bobby couldn't go a week without wearing a cap and the week would start once this hunt was done and the boys took a much needed break at the older man's yard. He chuckled, man, the crap he got into over a couple of glasses of whiskey. Sobering, Dean quirked an eyebrow at the jar in disbelief. "And that's supposed to help?" he didn't bother to try to hide the skepticism in his voice as he turned his attention back out the front window. And people thought he couldn't multi-task. "How?"
"Well, every time you curse it'll cost you a buck-"
"A buck!"
"And two for any and all uses of Lord, God, Jesus, Christ, savior-"
"Savior? Jes- I mean jeez, Sam, that's mean."
"That's the only way you have any chance of making it through the first day of the week."
Dean scowled.
"Hey, trust me, this isn't going to be any fun for me either." Sam paused and then grinned widely. "Okay, that's crap. This is going to be a lot fun but hey, who's the guy with the big mouth and hates to lose? I'm doing this to help, bro, 'cause I love you…"
"Shut up, Sam."
"I'll let that one go."
"Shut up is not cursing."
"It is when you say it like that."
Dean cast a glare in Sam's direction. He smirked.
"What's so funny?" his brother was immediately wary.
"Nothing." He returned to watching the road.
"Dean? I'm serious, what?"
"I was just thinking-"
"That's never a good thing."
"-You can't fine thoughts and that's a good thing, bro, 'cause right now the stuff I'm thinking about you, would cost me a small fortune!" He waggled his finger playfully.
Sam just rolled his eyes and shoved the jar back into his pocket.
Dean turned up the music and continued to think nasty thoughts.
Twenty minutes later the black car was pulling into a small roadside motel that bragged about cheap hourly rates and cockroach free suites.
"Classy," Sam snorted and Dean had to agree but cheap worked, especially as he held no delusions about not falling victim to his brother's new game; this co-conspiracy with Bobby was definitely going to cost him. But Sam was also right, Dean hated to lose so if this could help get an edge up on the older man for the coming week, then he'd give it the good old college try. Too bad, he couldn't help but muse as he parked and watched his brother head inside to get a room for them, he never went to college.
When Sam finally returned, he had a sour look on his face.
"What's wrong?" Dean asked when his brother slid into the passenger seat next to him and indicated for them to drive around back. "Didn't they have a bra in your size?"
The younger man shot him a daggered look, and lied. "Nothing."
Dean parked outside room 12, turned off the engine and shoved his door open. Stretching his 6'1 frame, he rolled his eyes at his sibling. "You suck at lying."
"I do not," came the expected indignant reply as Sam waited by the trunk for Dean to unlock it. Which he did.
"Okay. You suck at lying to me."
Sam mimicked him and Dean paused in mid-reach for his duffle. He looked at his brother surprised. "Seriously, dude, what crawled up your God-"
Instantly the swear jar was in his face and Sam was saying sweetly. "Two dollars please."
"Oh for fuck's-"
"Three."
Dean just stared at his brother in disbelief but when Sam gave the jar a meaningful shake, the older man begrudgingly pulled out his wallet and fished out three ones. Shoving them into the jar he scowled, "Happy?"
Sam twisted the lid closed and put the jar back inside his jacket. "Deliriously so." He reached pass Dean and grabbed his own bag.
"Fine," Dean already hated that little bit of plastic. "But now you really have to tell me what crawled up your butt and died."
Maybe the other man felt some pity for him, Dean didn't know and didn't really care but the kid finally mumbled something and quickly headed towards the motel room door.
"What? I didn't quite get that." Dean slammed the trunk closed and stalked after him.
"I said, the guy at the front desk was, ah, interested in me. Okay? Satisfied?"
Dean blinked in shock. "C'mon again? I don't think I heard you right."
Sam unlocked the door and shoved it open with his shoulder. "You heard me just fine."
"Interested in what sort of way? The 'hey, you look like you've got stories to tell' or the 'hey, I'm desperate and you're breathing' kinda way?"
"Would you just shut up?" Sam's cheeks were flaming red and for that alone, the older hunter couldn't help but burst out laughing as he tossed his stuff on the bed closest to the door.
"You have got to be kidding me? Man, I can't take you anywhere. Did you at least bat your eyes at him and get us a discount?"
If possible, Sam's face turned even more red. "You are sick, you know that? Sick. Sick. Sick."
Dean shrugged out of his jacket and tossed it over one of the chairs in front of a small round table under the window. "Hey, weirdos need loving too."
Sam ignored him as he opened the laptop bag and set the machine up on the same table. "Can we move on to more important things? Like the hunt?"
"Oh, I dunno," Dean couldn't let this go without one final barb, after all Sam's 'help' had already cost him three dollars. "I'm pretty sure that man's love life is pretty important to him too."
"Are you saying you seriously think I should-"
"You are an idiot," Dean cut in with a fond chuckle. He tipped his head towards the laptop, "We in business yet?"
Visibly relieved for the change of subject, Sam started talking animatedly as he waited for the computer to boot up. "Just give it another minute or so, but I was thinking, based on what little info Bobby had, this could be just about anything… or nothing. Hikers missing in the woods – man, that's pretty vague."
Dean had to agree. If it wasn't for the fact that the daughter of an old friend of Bobby's had gone missing a week ago, the disappearances wouldn't have even registered on anyone's hunting radar yet. But the man had been desperate and insistent that Beth was too experienced to just get lost and would have called him by now, if she could. And although Carl Smyth wasn't privy to hunting, he somehow knew of Bobby's unique talents and connections and had driven out to the junkyard to personally ask his friend to see if Bobby could help.
Bobby wanted to go himself but a sprained ankle hobbled him and made him useless for more than research so, instead, he'd sent the 'boys' into North Dakota in his place.
"What bothers me is why the search was called off so quickly," Dean admitted, grabbing the second chair and plunking it down next to the one Sam was now sitting on. "Three days and they were done? That's hardly standard operating procedure."
"Yeah, I know," the younger man admitted as the machine finally finished loading and he opened up a internet screen and started to type in search parameters, "weird."
"Good thing we specialize in weird," Dean quipped as he leaned forward and watched the information his brother was bringing up. Bobby didn't have much to give them except a rough idea of the area Beth was supposed to be hiking in, and as he watched Sam pull up maps of the region and start cross referencing them for any local legends or other anomalies, he felt the start of a headache and knew this was going to be a long day. Vague was not a good way to start a hunt.
Oh well, they'd hunted on a lot less.
----
Twenty-three year old Beth Smyth pounded her fists against the damp walls of her dirt prison. "Help!" she tried to yell but her throat, raw from screaming, strangled her voice. "Someone… please… help me! Please…" The sound was muffled, inhaled by the dark earth trapping her, and no one answered.
But she was being watched.
She knew it.
Felt it.
Deep in her bones.
The feeling crept over her skin –
And then something scuffed across the ceiling above her.
TBC