AN/ This story takes place sometime after Houses of the Holy, but before Born Under A Bad Sign. A little hurt!SamandDean, SamandDean!Angst, and a touch of Impala!angst :) It also makes a few references to my other story Double Edged Sword. You don't need to have read that to understand this, but it is only short if you want to give it a hit.
They were an army ready to take on Hell, and this was their first mission. Eight men under the command of 'Hannibal'. No names had ever been used in the unit, only codenames. Hannibal. Nero. Artemis. Falcon. Harlequin. Dryad. Freud. Merlin. They didn't officially exist, and that was they way they liked things.
Falcon was neither the youngest, nor the oldest member of the team, but he was easily the best marksman. Formerly the best in Delta Force, which meant he was one of the best snipers in the world. Through the crosshairs of his high-powered rifle, a beautiful example of classic car manufacture churned up dust on the lonely Arizona road before slowly pulling to a stop in the centre of the quiet town. Raising his fingers to the whisper mike at his neck, the soldier gave his report. "Flacon here. The last pieces are in play. Awaiting green light."
When Dean and Sam Winchester climbed from their car and stretched against the miles of stiffness in their limbs, they had no idea they had just become the key players in the single biggest supernatural bounty hunt ever to grace American soil.
"I'm telling you, man. We must have taken a wrong turn somewhere." The town they had found themselves in was not the quaint backwater, apple pie town the papers had made it out to be. It was deserted, dead, and already the hairs were standing up on the back of Sam's neck.
Leaning against the driver's door of the Impala, Dean had the map spread out on the roof. "That's impossible. This is the only turning off the main route for thirty miles." He complained, meeting Sam's gaze with a challenging one of his own. The sun was bright and stinging his eyes despite the sunglasses, he wore, though he suspected that was more due to lack of sleep than anything else. Aggravated, he tapped the map so hard on their location that Sam could hear the ring of his brother's finger on the metal. "Admiralty, Arizona. I'm looking at the map, and I'm looking at a huge fricking road sign. Dude, we're in the right place."
"Right." How man times had Sam heard that before? They could be in a different state, and Dean would adamantly protest the contrary.
"Right." Dean echoed impatiently.
Silence, then, "That still fails to explain this." Sam let his arm sweep out to encompass the silent town laid out behind them like the set of an old western ghost town. "You made a wrong turn." Not that there had been many turn offs to miss. Dean was right, Sam hadn't noticed another byroad for miles. There had been an IHOP they hadn't visited before, and Dean had added it to the list they had started as children. To the best of his knowledge, there weren't all that many they hadn't visited at some point in their lives.
Dean was a pancake freak. Unabashed and unreservedly so.
Unfortunately for Sam, the sugar rush of triple chocolate chip pancake stacks had faded, leaving a petulant Dean, who huffed angrily. "Alright Sacagawea, you tell me where we're supposed to be." And he thrust the map across the roof as if to add 'I dare you.' Sam refrained from rolling his eyes, and didn't snatch the map from his brother's hands. If Dean wanted to be childish, that was fine. Sam didn't have to follow him down the slippery slope of immaturity.
The scowl on Dean's face slowly morphed to a sardonic smirk as the minutes ticked by, and Sam studied the map intently. He refused to look up- refused to admit defeat. Damnit, why was everything a battle with Dean? Win or loose, no middle ground. He nearly got a paper cut when the map was pulled sharply from his fingers and thrown unceremoniously onto the back seat. Dean didn't jump up and down and yell 'I win,' but he might as well have done. It was like they were teenagers again, he'd just had a monstrous growth spurt and Dean felt the need to be particularly competitive in order to compensate.
Smirking that god-awful 'smack-it-off-me' smirk of his, Dean all but sprawled across the hood of the car, arrogant and smug, and Goddamnit, Sam just wanted to kill him sometimes…
"So, we're in agreement. My map reading skills are at their Ordinance Surveying best. We didn't take a wrong turn, and you are a prissy bitch." It wasn't that Sam was glad his brother had slowly regained some of his old spark- he'd take a juvenile Dean over the bundle of neurosis he had shared a car with for the past few months.
But he wasn't imaging things. Dean really was trying to drive him mad. He'd stepped up the irritating big brother act into a completely new gear, and was driving on full throttle. This thing with the demon, with Sam's destiny, had Dean more freaked than Sam had ever seen him.
So naturally, Dean did what he did best… and pretend nothing was wrong. That the problem didn't exist. That Sam wasn't going to go Anakin Skywalker on them both and-
"Come on Sammy, I won't tell anyone. Three little words- You. Were. Right."
There was no choice but to concede the point. Dean was right, unfortunately, and Sam had the mother of all migraine conventions gathering behind his eyes.
"You were right, Dean." Sam repeated in a flat monotone, enjoying the confusion that tightened Dean's jaw. His brother had obviously been expecting a fight.
The things he did for an easy life.
That didn't stop him from kicking Dean in the shin as the older hunter passed him, nor did it fully suppress a small smile when Dean yelped indignantly.
"Dude, what the fuck? Are you five?" He ran his other foot over the injured ankle and frowned at the playground tactics. Apparently, Sam couldn't escape his brother's immaturity; it was contagious.
Dean had been treating him like a kid, after all. All's fair in love and war- he kicked Dean again for good measure.
"Sadistic fuck." Dean muttered, smacking Sam around the back of the head. "Just for that, you're buying dinner."
"Whatever you say, princess." Sam had caught Jo calling his brother that during their ill-fated collaboration. Dean had sworn off women for a whole three hours as a result, and vowed never again to work with another hunter- because, dude, we have the worst frickin luck with them. They're all psychotic. Or they have a mother who is. Still, the nickname stuck, much to Dean's disgust. Another example of all being fair. Sam had two decades of crappy nicknames to avenge. Francis, Samantha, and the latest, Sacagawea. If he hadn't known Dean possessed a downright spectacular memory, Sam would have thought that his brother had difficulty remembering names; he seemed to hand out epithets within minutes of meeting someone. It made him seem incompetent, which was probably why he did it. Dean was never as dumb, drunk, laid back or fickle as he pretended.
"Bite me, bitch."
"One of these days you are going to say that to the wrong person."
Dean shrugged and tapped his sunglasses against his thigh. "So long as she's hot." He grinned at his brother. "Now what do you say we eat, check into a motel, and see of we can't find this Ryan Bowyer guy?"
Sounded perfect.
"Take the shot." Hannibal ordered.
The ring of a bullet leaving the barrel of the high-powered rifle was all the 'yes, sir' the captain needed.
His training saved him, as usual. His training and Dean. The flicker of a bright light- a small star against the blue sky- caught his eyes, forced his gaze up to the roof of the dinner. Dean, of course, saw it too, and the shot rang out a millisecond after Dean shoved him roughly behind the relative cover of a banged up Audi. Sam hadn't even hit the ground before his mind clued him in as to what was happening- it was a frighteningly frequent occurrence, and it was true that familiarity bred contempt.
The bullet hit Dean in the left shoulder just as Sam's legs tangled with his brother's, bringing the older hunter crashing down on Sam in a tangle of heavy limbs. The younger man omphed as one of Dean's elbows collided with his stomach, but he didn't waste time. Dean grunted and swore as Sam unceremoniously rolled out from under him and took his face firmly between his hands.
Dean's eyes were bright with pain, but alert, pissed, and coherent enough for Sam to prop him up against the car door and turn his attention back to the sniper.
Silence stretched across the street. If they had needed any further cues as to the town's populous, then the shot had provided them all. No possible way people could have been working in the high street and not heard the crack of gunfire. Not a single person appeared on the street, kicking Sam's adrenaline into overtime.
Dean's breathing was abnormally loud in his ear and somewhere between that and his own heartbeat thrumming in his chest; Sam distinctly heard his brother moan-
"Mind my frickin car!"
-and beat down the temptation to throttle him. The older hunter was bleeding- shot for christsake, and he was more worried about the damn car.
Dean's presence loomed behind him as the older hunter shifted himself into a kneeling position, one hand clasped over his bleeding shoulder. He looked pissed. Sam could deal with that. A pissed Dean was better than a bleeding-to-death-depressed Dean, and shared several similarities with francium; highly unstable and prone to explosion. "That's it," he growled, peering over Sam's shoulder to get a better look at the street beyond "The next person who shots, stabs, tortures or maims me-" he pulled his hand back from the wound, frowning at the blood in supreme distaste -"I will kill them. Slowly."
A second shot rang out. Both brothers ducked instinctively, though they were well shielded from the sniper. "Painfully." The older hunter added with a dark glare. "Oh god," he said, moaning when Sam slapped his hand impatiently away in order to study the injury. "I fucking hate being shot."
Sam's long fingers probed gently at the burning flesh with the skills of a man experienced in combat triage. The entry wound was only small, tiny really, and Sam immediately began searching his mental catalogues for the type of riffled which could fire such low calibre rounds. His biggest concern was the lack of exit wound. "Wiggle your fingers." Sam instructed.
Dean flipped him the bird.
"You'll live. Unfortunately."
Dean had already slipped from his grasp as Sam delivered his prognosis, and the younger hunter wondered why he even bothered. Dean could have had the entire limb blown off, and he'd still be gunning for payback.
"Good. I want a piece of the Leon wannabe."
Sam scoffed, his knees cramping. "What do you plan to do? Bleed on him?"
The safety clicked off Dean's gun. The older hunter's eyes had blacked over like a great white going in for the kill. "Something like that." He muttered with a nod. "I'm thinking we need to pull an Amherst."
Sam frowned. "Amherst?" They'd only been there once. Poltergeist gig. Clean hunt-hell, they'd had more trouble with the living than the dead on that job.
Understanding crept up and kicked him in the face.
"No! No Dean. No way in hell."
"Aw come on, it wasn't that bad."
"Yes. Yes it was." Sam nodded stubbornly. Worse. A nightmare. Hell on earth.
His brother signed exasperatedly, but it was the wince he couldn't hide that completed the job of backing Sam into a proverbial corner. "You got a better idea Osceola?"
"I think I'd rather get shot." Sam replied bluntly. Then knowing Dean might just grant him his wish, he closed his eyes in weary acceptance. "Fine."
Dean didn't need to say anything else. His smirk said it all.
"Jerk."
TBC