DISCLAIMER: I most definitely and unfortunately do not own Supernatural or those wonderful Winchesters; it is all the property of Eric Kripke and his merry band of geniuses. If anything, Supernatural owns me!
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My Strongest Weakness
SUMMARY: Anyone who knew Dean Winchester could see his one vulnerability was Sam. Anyone who knew better could see Sam was so much more than that. When an evil from Dean's past returns to threaten his brother, both sides of this same coin will be revealed.
Chapter 1
---Late March 1994, Northeast Montana---"Stay low, Dean," John Winchester ordered his eldest son as they crept through a patch of shrubs toward a pair of abandoned houses. "The last thing we wanna do is let these things know we're coming."
"Yes, sir," the boy quietly but deftly responded. Dean Winchester had turned fifteen about a month ago, but he knew better than to question his father's orders when it came to a hunt. He knew it could mean the difference between life and death…he and his father weren't ordinary hunters. Nothing, in fact, had been ordinary for the Winchesters since the night Dean's mother had been murdered by a demon, bursting into flame on the ceiling above his six-month-old brother's crib. Dean had been four at the time; his innocence had been shattered. Now, he and his father fought to protect the innocence of others. They hunted the supernatural.
The latest big game was a group of familiars, but not just the average lot. Unlike the ordinary familiars that were animal servants of witches, those in this clan were humanoid, supposedly having had their beginning under a powerful ancient coven that had been ruled over by Hecate, the Greek goddess of sorcery, darkness, and witchcraft. Having started out with scant abilities, the familiars had been able to hone and expand them over the centuries, ultimately allowing the beings to evolve from birds and mammals into human form, gaining them their own impressive array of spells and supernatural powers along the way – spells and powers that even rivaled those of their former masters, whom they were no longer bound to. From the ancient lands, the beings had expanded their territory and had managed to stay unnoticed in their human guises for a considerable amount of time, but once they had been discovered by hunters of old, many had been killed. The ones that had been able to escape were quick to bring about the next generation, but by the time the twentieth century had arrived, the humanoid familiars had nearly been driven to extinction. The Winchester patriarch and his eldest son now sought to remove 'nearly' from the equation.
"Hey, Dad…you see that?" Dean asked suddenly, narrowing his eyes at the house. "I think somethin's goin' on around back."
John looked for himself and was able to make out what had drawn his son's attention – a faint orange glow and wisps of black smoke coming from behind the houses. "Good. If they're focused on the fun they're having with their little bonfire, we can take them by surprise."
"You…you don't think it's a victim they're burning, do you?" came the wary response.
"No, son," John assured. "Remember, they only take their sacrifices on the night of the Vernal Equinox, every ten years…no sooner, no later. And this decade's sacrifice has…already been taken." John shuddered as he thought about how they had been too late to save the latest victim, an eight year-old girl who had had her whole life ahead of her, as all victims of the humanoid familiars did. Their choice of sacrifice was the primary reason he wanted to destroy the remaining familiars so badly – they only sacrificed children who were ten and under, drinking their young blood to hinder the process of aging. The thought would strike a nerve in any adult with a heart, but for John, it struck to the core. His other son, Sam, was ten years old. The thought of his sweet baby boy being consumed by those damn creatures sickened him to no end, and it spurred him on to make sure that thought never became a reality. Naturally, he hadn't dared bring Sam on this hunt, or anywhere even close to it. His youngest was safe, two states away in Blue Earth, Minnesota, under the care of a good and trusted friend of John's – Pastor Jim Murphy. John turned to his eldest son, noticing his footsteps had slowed. "Dean…? You okay, kiddo?"
Dean nodded mutedly, plagued with horrific thoughts of his own. He had heard and read the gruesome details of the state the girl was found in, seen the innocent, smiling face in the newspaper – a face that would never smile again. Twinkling, ocean-blue eyes, long blonde hair that fell to her shoulders in tight ringlets, a bright smile…until, before his eyes, the picture had morphed into that of a barely older boy. Green and flecks of light brown had joined the blue in the eyes, which had somehow gotten a little bigger. The hair had turned much darker, into chestnut-brown, and the ringlets had slackened into the loose waves of a shaggy mop. The smile was the same, except that this one brought out dimples. And Dean had thrown the newspaper down after that, because the victim had become his baby brother. His Sammy. Of course his fears had been playing tricks on him, but there had been good reason. The three Winchesters, through eerie coincidence, had been dangerously close to the area that the girl had disappeared from, and had dumb luck not been with them, the victim easily could have been Sam instead of the girl. Well, maybe not so easily since Dad and I would've killed the freaks before they laid a finger on Sammy… Still, the possibility had been enough to put the familiars at the top of Dean Winchester's hit list, right underneath that damn Shtriga who had escaped after nearly sucking the life out of Sam when he was six, and the Yellow-Eyed Demon who had ruined all their lives in the first place. "I'm fine, Dad," Dean said more confidently. "Or at least I will be as soon as we nail all of those bastards."
"That's Daddy's little soldier!" John smiled, waiting for the inevitable reprimand.
"Dad! Puh-leeze, I'm freakin' fifteen! Sammy's the little one!"
"Fine then…that's Daddy's big soldier!"
"Real funny, old man…" Dean spat back before quickly adding a 'sir' to the end. He was about to speak again when his father held up a silencing hand. "What?" he whispered. "You see 'em?"
"Yeah…yeah, I can see 'em…there's four of 'em, two males and two females." John replied quietly.
"You got the spear?"
John looked down at the sharp wooden weapon he held in his hand. "Yeah, I got it." And John knew just how privileged he was to have it. The specially crafted spear was the only thing that could kill the humanoid familiars, carved from top to bottom with the ancient Greek symbol that represented Helios – an eye with a halo over top of it. As Helios was the god of sunlight and Hecate was the goddess of darkness, the two clashed with each other and therefore the familiars that had once served under Hecate's coven were vulnerable to Helios' symbol – burned by it, in fact. But as the familiars' numbers dwindled, so did the spears', until there were only two left known to the hunting world. And the eldest Winchester was holding one of them now thanks to Caleb Reaves, a fellow hunter and friend who had trusted the rare weapon to John among the many others he had provided for the older hunter. While it was true that John had wondered at the time why Caleb didn't want to keep the spear, he had graciously accepted it nonetheless…and now he was definitely ready to make good use of it. "Let's go, Dean…you stay back, though. You cover me just in case our little method of protection doesn't work."
"Yes, sir."
Both men crept toward the unsuspecting familiars, staying low to the ground and hidden behind the bushes and small trees that lined the edge of the property. John motioned for Dean to stop moving, a smile lighting his face as he took in the clear shot he had at one of the males who had strayed from the other three. The male appeared to be more advanced in age than the others – any average person would simply see him as a man in his late forties. But John Winchester was a hunter, and he knew the creature was a lot older than that thanks to its ritual consumption of children's blood. Time for you to bleed instead, you son of a bitch… John took careful aim, and then launched the weapon.
A scream pierced the night as the creature's stomach sizzled and melted, the spear impaling it. The familiar collapsed dead to the ground within seconds, and a second scream pierced the night as a female familiar rushed to see what had happened to her companion.
"HARLETON!" The female froze when she saw the spear sticking out of the male's stomach. But before she could call out a warning over the roar of the fire, a white-hot pain shot through her chest as the eldest hunter jerked the spear out of Harleton and plunged it in and out of her heart in one fluid motion.
John, spear in hand, quickly leapt back behind the bushes. Her dying scream had definitely not gone unheard.
"IVUNA! HARLETON!" The remaining male and female ran to their comrades' aid and balked at the sight. Their friends were dead. Dead. "HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?!" the male roared.
The female knelt to take a closer look at the bodies, even though she already knew the answer. "How do you think, Pribram?! Someone has one of those accursed spears! DAMN IT, FIND THEM!"
"LOOK NO FURTHER, BITCH!" John shouted, bursting out of the bushes and ramming the spear into an unsuspecting Pribram.
"NOOO! PRIBRAM!" the female wailed as her mate slumped lifeless to the ground. Stifling her grief quickly, she crouched to run a gentle hand over his face, shutting his unseeing eyes before standing up and turning a furious glare on John. "YOU killed him and you will PAY!"
Before John knew what was happening, he was flung several feet away by an invisible force and lay helplessly pinned to the ground as the wrathful female approached him. Even so, he looked into her icy blue eyes with no fear. "Sorry 'bout your friends, bitch." He smirked as a feral snarl escaped from the female's lips, and he knew that if he hadn't been marked with the protective symbol of Helios weeks before, he'd be a dead man in mere seconds. But even more important than the symbol, he had Dean…who was stealthily approaching the creature from behind.
The last familiar standing heard the telltale rustling of grass just a second too late. As she spun around, blinding pain shot through her side and she shrieked into the night before turning to face her attacker…a kid. A damn teenager! She lashed out and grabbed his arm with every intention to break it, but as soon as his skin met hers, an excruciating burning feeling flared through her hand and caused her to recoil. She stood, hunched over in pain, and stared into the teenager's eyes with contempt, letting out one last hiss before she finally fell to the ground and went still.
Just like that, it was over. "Nice job, Dean-o, let's chalk that one up as a Winchester win," John said, standing up and clapping his son heartily on the back. "Whaddya say we go get the salt 'n gasoline and toast these bastards?"
"Sounds good to me, Dad," Dean replied with a grin.
They walked in comfortable silence back to the edge of the property to retrieve the necessary items, gathered the four bodies into a pile, and started the blaze. "Let's get back to Sammy," John said as they left the scene behind.
"That definitely sounds good to me, Dad," Dean smiled. "Don't go tellin' the squirt, but I've kinda been missin' my kid brother a bit, ya know?"
"I know, Dean-o," John chuckled. "And my lips are sealed."
As the two Winchester men walked away, laughing and celebrating an easy victory, they would've noticed that one of the four bodies was suffering no effect whatsoever from the fire, hearing all that they said, vowing revenge…had they bothered to look back.
TBC…
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A/N: Hi, everyone! This is my first fanfic and I'm so excited to finally have it posted! It is an already completed work, so I plan to put only a two-day wait in between each chapter to give people time to read and review, provided nothing comes up that would make the wait longer. Thank you so much for reading, and comments are always appreciated. A special thanks to my LLS (long-lost sister), a.k.a. psiChic, for the quick beta. Be sure to check out her stories as well. Till next chapter, friends:-)