Prologue
Something was licking his face. In his dream, it was a sexy nurse, all in spandex and naughty things. Dean let out a sigh of delight, allowed a shiver of pleasure to ripple up and down his spine. Dreaming was good; he wished he could do it more. As he began to regain more consciousness, he thought to himself, had the bed always been this uncomfortable? It was horribly knobbly, Motel beds always were, but this was backacheingly ridged and pock marked. Though the hunt last night had been a late one, he and Sammy hadn't crashed until four in the morning, at that time and with ten dead demons on your hands the comfort of a bed wasn't at the fore front of your mind. He dream faded completely, his nurse left and… something was still licking him.
Far too suddenly for his liking, Dean Winchester snapped his eyes open meeting the gaze of…
"Uh, Sammy. Could use a little help, maybe?" the thing licking him looked like a skinny lemur, with impossibly big green eyes and impossibly big ears, like a bat and lemur had somehow had a baby.
It seemed unmoved by Dean being awake and gave only a slight chirp before continuing to lick the bridge of his nose. It was only really then, looking past the strange thing on his face that Dean realized he was outside, not in his sleazy motel. It explained the knobbly bed and his monkey friend explained the dream.
"Uh, really Sammy, rise and shine buddy. Heat of the moment and all that". He still wasn't quite sure if the lemur bat was safe or not, carefully and every so slowly, he looked to the right hand 'bed' to try and rouse his brother.
What he saw to his right was jaw droppingly shocking, not something dean Winchester often was (usually it took a trip to Carver Edlunds 'Supernatural' forums to do that). Sam Winchester was there, giving Dean his pained expression of "sorry dude, even I don't know". He was wrapped in the arms of a giant, fluffy, white, six legged monster. Fortunately it was asleep, led on its back, cradling Sam to its stomach and snoring like a fluffy white mountain.
Dean's eyes widened half in terror, half because it looked hilarious.
"what!?" he mouthed at his brother
"HELP ME!" the silent scream came back, the great white mountain groaned and rolled it's back to Dean, hiding his brother, as he went over Dean heard a faint squeak from the belly of the beast. It was both terrifying and brilliantly funny at the same time. As slowly as before Dean turned his head back up to stare at the monkey on his head, green eyes met green eyes, Dean took a deep breath in and whispered
"Okay, weird bat-monkey thing. We've had a very special time, but I'm gonna have to haul ass over there and save my nerdy little brother. If you could be very quiet whilst I get up, I'll find you a nice place to 'move it move it'"
The lemur looked at him, chirped and tilted his head to one side
"Yeah, I expected about as much. Okay, so on the count of three, I'm gonna get up and you're gonna stay quiet, okay? He might be a douche sometimes, but he's still my little brother, I'd rather he wasn't mushed by the great white hill over there"
The lemur licked his face again, Dean crumpled his face up, this was starting to get old.
"Oh, okay little… thing. One" head tilt, chirrup "two… threeee" Slowly, ever so slowly, like he was creeping through a Vamp nest, Dean levered his arms under him and gently began to raise himself up off of the ground. It was painstakingly slow, but it had to be done. Sam was a tough son of a bitch, but Dean doubted whether even Cas would stand up to Sam's new snuggle buddy.
Dean was on all fours now, staring the lemur straight in to the face. It was very odd how it had yet to move, maybe too odd.
"Shoo, go away" Dean waved a hand at it and, to his and the lemurs surprise, a small rock shot after Deans hand and nailed the lemur between the eyes.
Dean was torn, his face contorted itself, somehow, in to a simultaneous expression of awe and horror, when the scream came seeping out of the lemurs mouth however, that expression became pure horror.
The beast woke, and stumbled to its feet, Dean could feel the earth shaking as it began to thrash around he could also feel, wind, strong wind. He was blown face first in to the ground. That was odd. He didn't have time to dwell on it, he scrabbled and stumbled to his feet and turned around. The monster was flapping a wide, platypus tail at Dean which was creating just the most tremendous wind, it should have knocked him off his feet, but somehow he felt them dig down and hold him steady. Using an arm to shield his face, frantically he scanned the area where the monster was rampaging
"Sammy!?" he yelled, but the wind was deafening
"SAM!?" There clinging to a reign tied between the horns of the monster… which was getting… closer. Oh balls. Dean hadn't even noticed the monster had started charging at him, he tried to dig his heels out and run but somehow they'd been buried to the ankles in the hard ground, he wasn't going anywhere. This was it he realized, that thing could take down an archangel, and here it was rushing at him, helpless stranded Dean Winchester, no gun, no escape, just a bloody and violent death. It was odd that he wasn't scared. He'd died so many times, and each time come back with slightly less of himself, maybe this time in this land it would be permanent. At least he thought, with Dean gone, Sam might be left alone. Just before the moment of impact, as a knee jerk reaction, Dean threw his arms up in front of his face. "I'm coming mom" he managed to whisper.
The last time Sam had ridden a bucking bronco was with Jess, back at Stanford. It was unfair really; all that hunter training had honed his body to peak condition. Even in his civilian life, Sam still had a body that looked like it was hewn from granite. That night, Jess had taken him home taken his shirt off and spent hours just tracing the outline of his body until she fell asleep on him, it was an odd night, but one Sam never forgot.
That was just a cheap fairground ride on campus though, this was a gargantuan six legged beast of immeasurable power, so say Sam Winchester clung on to that leather leash around his horns like it was a life line out of hell, would be an understatement. He could be flung fifty foot in to the air; he could be trampled by those six angry feet or be battered in to a tree by the abnormal turbulence it was giving off. He managed to squeak his eyes open against the breeze long enough to see Dean, about fifty yards away, somehow standing his ground in this gale. A sudden lurch snapped Sam's eyes shut once more and nearly threw him from his hand hold, whatever this thing was it was charging, and it was charging straight towards Dean. Sam tried to open his eyes again, but the wind was too much "DEAN!" Sam screamed, barely able to hear himself "DEEEAAAANNN!" He screamed so loudly that his voice cracked like a teenagers. This time the lurch did throw Sam from his hand hold. He tumbled in the air, he couldn't count how many times spinning out of control has that disconcerting affect, and landed hard on the ground. Sam arched his back in pain and let out a soft gasp of anguish, he must have flown at least twenty feet forwards, if it hadn't gone so quiet, he would have expected that thing to come after him whilst he was vulnerable but it had gone quite, for whatever horrible reason, the beast had reached where Sam guessed Dean was and stopped…
Against every fibre in his body, against everything his soul was screaming at him Sam got slowly to his feet to look for his brother, he was expecting something bad, blood, discarded limbs, a satisfied looking fluff monster with a leather coat hanging from its teeth. Any of those he could probably have worked around, what he saw, what confronted him when he stood up was a whole different, much more confusing scene.
"Uh, Dean?" Sam asked in that soft, unsure way he does, crinkling his eye brows, looking like he's passing a 10lb burger out of a 5lb ass (as Dean once put it). Dean cocked his head slightly "…mom?"
"Why would I be mom?"
Dean stood up, too quickly and cracked his head on the rock tepee that was now enclosing him
"Son of a… was that always here?" he emerged in to the baking sun, covered in dust from head to foot and rubbing his head
"That, that was not there when Moby Whateveritis decided he wanted me for brunch" Dean turned around to look at the new structure as he sauntered carefully to Sam, he bashed his head hard and was feeling, woozy at best.
"No, it, wasn't" Sam was scared, his voice was breaking in to fits and starts, which is what it did when he didn't know what to do.
"So then how did-"
"I don't know Dean. One minute, you were gonna be a red smear in the dust, now… I don't know what now!"
"Okay, okay, take it easy Kirk. A few rocks appeared to save me, big whoop. Let's be honest, that is pretty normal for us" Dean rubbed the back of his head, some blood came away on his hand, not a lot nothing to worry about, but Winchesters always worry. To keep Sam calm, he carefully slipped his hand in to his pocket without him noticing
"I dunno Dean, I went to sleep in a motel room, with my phone. This morning, I'm being snuggled by a cartoon animal, outside, and no phone. Then out of nowhere, you bend some rocks to protect yourself" Sam looked intently at Dean, something was wrong, he didn't quite know what, but he implored Dean with his puppy dog stare to understand. He didn't, he casually looked around, hands on hips, bottom lip jutted out like a child
"Well, just lucky I guess. Come on, I don't wanna be around when ugly gets up" He slapped Sam on the arm and strolled past him. Sam sighed "and, you're bleeding".
Exasperated, Dean turned to his taller sibling "What? The love bite on my head? I got up, bumped my head, move on. In case you forget, I was savaged by a hell hound and walked away, which is what I'm doing now" Dean walked away, as he said. No Heading, no idea where he was. He marched towards a series of mountains.
"Sammy, you comin'?".
One last look at the unconscious beast, the rock tepee, and the strange bat lemur soring over the trees and Sam fell in after his brother.
