First appeared in Things That Go Bump In the Night 1 (2007), Neon Rainbow Press

Blood & Water
K Hanna Korossy

"You sure this is the right exit?"

Sam Winchester, not for the first time, resisted rolling his eyes. He wasn't twelve anymore, after all, as he kept pointing out to his big brother, but somehow Dean could usually make him feel like it. "Yes, I'm sure this is the right exit. We wouldn't have taken the last one if you would've been a little clearer what you were looking for."

"Dude, I said the lake."

Sam lowered the map. "Okay, you do know there's more than one lake in Montana, right?"

Dean absently made a face as he scanned the road. "You know, I never got lost when Dad was playing navigator. Guess you didn't get the family sense-of-direction gene." He flashed a smile at Sam.

"Yeah, 'cause otherwise I've got everything in common with you two," Sam said dryly. He paused. "'Sense-of-direction gene'?"

"Sure. I always know where I'm goin'."

The map dropped into Sam's lap again. "Oh, right, like that time that banshee startled you and you took off and nearly ran off the cliff?"

"It was dark."

"Right. How 'bout the time–"

Dean shifted in the seat. "Hey, look. Lake Flathead."

Sam smiled at the map, took a final look, then folded it away. "So, tourists?"

"I was thinking maybe Park Service. You know, checking out the lake." Dean was casting around, looking for a good place for them to stop and ask some questions.

Sam glanced up his side of the street. Grocery store – maybe, post office – probably not, hair salon… Definitely not. Same with the police station. "There's no reason we can't be tourists. There's been a lot of news about the lake lately."

"Yeah, lot of news about the murders, too. Not exactly a place to take the kids."

"Do we have any kids along?"

"What, besides you?" That saccharine smile appeared again as Dean pulled into a parking spot in front of a small gift shop.

Sam gave his brother a withering look. "You know, it's really a shame you didn't get the good-sense-of-humor gene along with the sense-of-direction one," he said pleasantly, and climbed out of the car without waiting for a response.

Dean bounded up on the sidewalk to join him, giving him a slap on the back of the head before preceding him into the store.

Okay, maybe more like eight instead of twelve. With a longsuffering sigh, Sam followed him in.

The cashier was a woman in her late thirties – no wedding band – and while a little old for Dean, that never seemed to matter. He was already pulling out the charm. "Good afternoon, Miss–"

"It's Ms. Ms. Astor."

Sam hid a smile while Dean barely faltered.

"Ms. Astor. My name is Dean, this is Sam. We're–"

"Tourists," Sam found himself jumping in, effortlessly ignoring the dirty look Dean shot his way. "Just got in. We heard about your lake monster and, well, we're sorta amateur monster watchers ourselves." He could practically hear Dean's teeth grind at the word "amateur," but his brother wasn't the only one with charm, and Ms. Astor was listening to his every word. "Could you tell us anything about it?"

"Well…" she hedged, then seemed to make up her mind. "We've been pretty proud of our Flathead, but maybe you haven't heard, there have been some deaths near the lake recently and they're not sure what caused them. I'm sure it wasn't Flathead, but maybe you should come back some other time, after they've caught whatever's doing this."

Sam exchanged a glance with Dean. "Deaths?" he asked.

"Yes. All locals – I'm afraid the teens like to go out to the lake to have their parties and some wild animal has killed three of them. It's terrible."

"An animal?" Dean repeated. "What, like, bites? Maulings?"

"Exactly. So, I'm very sorry, usually we love getting tourists here, but maybe another time…"

Sam was already nodding. "Thank you for the warning--we hadn't heard - sounds dangerous."

"Oh, I'm sure they'll catch the bear or whatever it is soon. I hope you'll come back." And she certainly seemed to be speaking personally, bestowing a smile on Sam that had him blushing and Dean smirking.

"Yeah… thanks." Sam excused himself with a parting nod and gave his brother an unobtrusive shove toward the door.

Dean turned back to him on the sidewalk with a grin. "So, what now, Casanova?"

Sam ignored him, which often seemed the best policy where Dean was concerned. "Take a look at the lake?" he offered. Dean gave him a might as well shrug and climbed back into the car, Sam following. "You think you can find the lake from here?" he couldn't resist adding with a grin as his eyes fell on the map.

Dean didn't talk to him the rest of the way.

Ten minutes later, they were pulling onto a gravel lot by the side of the road, next to a sign that declared, simply, "Lake Flathead." Dean parked under a copse of trees, leaving the car half-hidden by habit. They got out, Sam shivering in the Montana cold. It was only late fall but already there was snow on the ground, and the sooner they checked out their creature and then got some warm food, the better.

They headed as one to the trunk, where Dean slipped a revolver into his pocket and grabbed the shotgun. Sam hefted a battle axe for closer quarters and a flare gun. Dean slammed the trunk shut after them, and they soon found the path that led from the lot down to the lake.

"You know, if this turns out to be another Ogopogo, this'll be the biggest thing we've ever hunted."

"I know," Dean said, "I've been thinking about that." Which Sam had guessed; for all his brother's casual nature, he was an expert at what he did and took it seriously. Everyone always talked about Sam being the smart one, but he'd known from a young age that if Dean had ever applied himself to books as he did to their "day job," he probably would have done even better at school than Sam.

"So, what do we do if we need to kill it?"

"May not have to—if it's really an Ogopogo, or Nessie, or whatever, it's probably harmless and Ms. Astor was right, it's just a bear or something eating the kids. We find it, sic the rangers on it, job done. Or," Dean canted his head, "it's not Ogopogo's second cousin, but something smaller and deadlier, and we shoot it or burn it or whatever—job done."

Sam frowned, concentrating on not slipping on a patch of ice. "What if it is a carnivorous Ogopogo?"

Dean gave him a smile that was just a tad too enthusiastic. "There's always dynamite."

Sam stared at him, but very deliberately didn't ask.

The path curved between trees, and after one last bend, the lake suddenly spread out before them. It was roughly rectangular and, to Sam's somewhat experienced eye, miles wide in width. And already half-frozen in preparation for winter, the edges white with ice, the middle still a liquid dark green. No breaks marred the ice on the edge nearest to them, and the only sign of life was a hardy flock of ducks floating in the distance, probably on their way south. Sam envied them.

Dean glanced at him with an unspoken Ready? Sam nodded and followed him down.

Proximity revealed what they hadn't seen from a distance: disturbed ground near the shore, bits of police tape and other crime scene debris, and, on just a few blades of grass, blood. Sam bent down for a closer look while he sensed Dean walking the edge of the lake behind him, studying the water and the shoreline.

Sam climbed back to his feet, brushing snow from his knees. "Anything?" he called.

Dean didn't look back, but he shook his head. "If something came out of the water, either it refroze already or it didn't come out here."

"How big did the map say the circumference of the lake was?"

Dean shot him a look as he always did when Sam used a word with more than three syllables, but he didn't hesitate to answer. "Something like eighty miles."

Sam blanched. "We're not going to…"

Dean grinned. "Yeah, right. We're not spending the winter here. Why, cold?"

"Now that you mention it, yes." Sam tucked his hands into the pockets of his coat and thought longingly of his packed gloves. "I've been living in California the last few years, remember?"

Dean's jaw shifted but he didn't answer, as he usually didn't when Sam's time at Stanford was the topic. "No point in walking around it," he just said, and walked back to Sam. "I don't see the kids hiking around to the far side just to party, so Pogo probably stays around here, too. Why leave feeding grounds?"

Such a nice image. "Speaking of feeding grounds," Sam pointed to the blood, "I think we're standing on it."

Dean looked around. "Any footprints?"

"Just sneakers and boots."

Dean nodded and patted him on the chest. "Let's head back. I don't think we're gonna find anything else here right now."

Sam followed him willingly enough, glancing back as they walked. The ducks had taken off, and the water was barely rippling from the cold breeze. The stillness sent a shiver down his back that had nothing to do with the temperature, and he hurried to catch up to Dean.

Who gave him a speculative look. "Where do you think 'pogo' comes from?"

Sam blinked. "What do you mean, like Canada?"

It wasn't quite a roll of the eyes, but the condescension was just as clear. "No, the name. Ogopogo comes from Okanagan Lake, and the Indians used to call it Natiaka. How'd it get to be an Ogopogo? You think it bounces?" He grinned at Sam.

"You," Sam said decisively, "are certifiable."

"Yeah, but I'm cute." One more grin, then back to business. "Too late to check out the bodies," Dean mused as they reached the car. "They've been buried by now."

Sam looked at him over the Impala's roof. "Police reports? No, wait, coroner's records."

Dean's mouth tugged into a half-smile. "Sounds like a plan." They climbed into the car, and Sam noticed Dean immediately turned on the heat. At Sam's pointed look, he frowned. "For you, bro. You look like a popsicle."

Sam shivered and didn't argue, even when Dean shrugged out of his jacket a few minutes later and tossed it over Sam.

They had dinner in a nice little cafe on the main strip that could have been any one of a thousand other nice little cafes, complete with Formica tables and vinyl seats that had seen better days, and a smiling waitress who called Sam "honey" and gave Dean a smile that said she knew his type. Sam had mentioned that once and Dean had looked at him like he was crazy, but Sam had seen him glance in the rearview mirror each time they went into a diner after that, and smiled carefully out of his big brother's sight.

Night had fallen by the time they finished, and a discreet question or two netted them their target. The one doctor in town apparently doubled as medical examiner, and all records were in his office. Which, thankfully, wasn't on the main strip, but on a conveniently shady side street. Ten minutes later, Sam was kneeling in front of the door, picking the lock, while Dean kept watch behind him.

He grunted at the soft click. "Got it."

Dean didn't answer, just pushed him in ahead and quietly closed the door behind them.

No alarm sounded, no blinking lights anywhere, which was par for the course for small towns. Still, Sam breathed a sigh of relief, then turned his flashlight on, Dean's beam joining his a moment later.

They went past the waiting room to the door beyond it, which opened into a small examination room. No filing cabinets in there, but Sam crossed the room to poke through the paperwork that littered the desk, while Dean backtracked out into the waiting room. Half-listening for his brother, Sam heard him open another door, then softly call a few seconds later, "Found it."

Which was good, because he had nothing. Sam gave up on the desk and went back out to find Dean.

The room wasn't more than a big walk-in closet, but the three filing cabinets that lined one wall made it a nice little records room. Dean was already paging through an open drawer, and Sam leaned in close to read the label on another. "What were the names of the victims?"

"Walker, Tunney, and Carpel." Dean reeled them off from memory as easily as his birthday, probably even easier, and Sam gave him an amused glance as he pulled out the "C" drawer. Why he kept being surprised by his brother, he didn't know. Dean never had been a slacker when it came to hunting, and the bulk of that time, there was nothing Sam didn't believe he could do. Years apart had done damage to that confidence… but it was far from gone completely. Which would have made Dean preen to hear, but Sam figured he already knew.

He was still searching for "Carpel" when Dean slid his drawer shut. "Nothing."

Sam glanced over his shoulder. "Maybe he keeps the M.E. stuff somewhere else?"

Dean went back to the far cabinet and started reading drawers. "Like under 'M.E.'?"

Sam's head dropped. "Did you even look at these before you started opening drawers?" He shut "C" and went to join Dean. It didn't take long to find what he was looking for, and he was soon flipping through, "Carpel, Andrew."

Dean was reading through a file of his own. "Bites to the torso and legs… broken bones… missing parts… drowning?" Dean glanced up from his own find. "Kid's lungs were full of water."

Sam shook his head at the term "kids," being only a few years older than the victim he was reading about, but remarking on it would just give Dean an opening to comment on how young he still was. He read on. "It looks like Carpel was just chewed up. He was killed around midnight, body discovered in the morning."

"Walker was killed at night, too. Survivors said around eleven o'clock. Autopsy confirmed it."

"How about Tunney?"

Dean dug the file out, glanced over the first page. "Between midnight and two a.m."

"So," Sam closed the file he held and slid it back into place, "carnivorous and nocturnal."

"Means it hunts at night, right?" Dean asked with faint humor.

"You taught me that, Dean," Sam shot back, suddenly tired of the well-worn jibes.

Dean ignored him. "Tunney also had water in his lungs. Carnivorous, nocturnal, and water-dweller."

"Or amphibious," Sam corrected. "I don't think the victims went swimming in October."

Dean nodded, put the file back, and closed the drawer. "Stakeout?"

Sam sighed, already cold. "Stakeout," he agreed reluctantly.

Dean gave him a brilliant smile and, for a moment, he looked twelve. "Sweet!"

00000

"I don't see what you like about this. It's freezing, the food's lousy, and there's nothing to see."

Dean took another sip of tepid coffee. "It's not about what we do, it's about what it is—we're on a stakeout, like Riggs and Murtaugh, or Starsky and Hutch. It's cool."

"It's cold," Sam corrected, shivering theatrically.

Dean knew he was only half-acting, though, and with a resigned twitch of the mouth, leaned forward to inch the heating higher, again. California had completely ruined his brother's constitution, yet another thing to hold against Stanford. "And what do you mean it's boring? They're practically having an orgy down there." He nodded out the front window, where through the branches of the trees they could just see the flicker of firelight.

"You can't see anything from here! Uh," Sam suddenly caught himself as Dean started to grin, "not that we'd want to see anything. At least, I wouldn't."

"Hey, I'm all for privacy in your room, but if you're gonna dance naked outside, who am I to complain?"

Sam was shaking his head. "You're hopeless."

"If you're bored, we can always play some music. I got plenty to choose from—I'll even let you pick."

Sam opened his mouth to answer.

The scream from somewhere down below them killed whatever he was about to say.

They glanced at each other, then they were both scrambling out the door.

The path was harder to see in the dark, but Dean did have a good sense of direction no matter what Sam said, and he led the way down with no more than a few slaps from branches. They dashed out of the trees into the open, and complete chaos.

The fire had been disturbed, filling the air with cinders and smoke. Through it and the darkness, Dean could just make out the shapes of fleeing teens, only one of them breaking for the path the two of them had just come down. Beyond the smoke was the sound of more screams and heavy splashing.

"Get them to safety; I'll check out the water," he hollered to Sam, and felt more than heard his brother's acknowledgement. Dean took a breath, pulled his jacket up around his nose and mouth, and plowed into the smoke just to one side of the still-burning fire.

His eyes immediately started to water, but Dean kept going. He ran into someone who immediately began to shriek in his ear—female—and shoved her in Sam's direction, then kept going. Another few steps, and the smoke thinned enough that he didn't feel like he was choking on it. Eyes streaming, he stumbled on, and then over something solid that lay in the dirt and snow.

The breeze off the lake started to clear the smoke and, as Dean reached down and felt for what he'd tripped over, his eyes confirmed what his hands were already telling him: it was a body, a boy, half his face and neck ripped off.

Dean grimaced and looked up, scanning the area around him for whatever had done this. But the water was too far to see, and there was nothing in the immediate vicinity. Nothing except prints in the snow that looked like none he'd ever seen, clawed and padded, but long and toed. And heading away from the water, back toward the path.

He pushed himself up from the body and tried to see past the fire. "Sam!"

No answer. The screaming had faded to occasional cries and a babble of voices.

Dean skirted the fire and smoke this time, taking longer but unable to risk the blindness again. The knot of kids on the other side seemed to be waiting for him, and more than one tear-stained face turned his way as he appeared, fear changing to hope.

But no Sam.

"Is everybody here?" Dean asked urgently.

"Everybody except Steve," one answered, voice catching—a girl who would've been pretty if her face weren't covered in soot and mascara.

Well, he knew where Steve was. "Was somebody else with you? Guy a little taller than me? Dark hair?"

"Yeah," the girl answered. "He told us to stay together, but he went back for Steve."

Dean cursed under his breath. "Okay, the path's right there—get out of here, go home, then call the police and tell them what happened. Get going!"

They didn't need to be told twice, which was a small favor. The five teens turned and hurried with stumbling steps away from the lake, back to the gravel lot where Dean had seen at least two other cars parked. Normally, he would have gone with them to make sure they got through the tree line okay, but Sam had gone back for a dead man and hadn't returned.

Dean whirled to face the fire. The breeze had blown most of the smoke away, and the fire was back to a small, controlled size. He peered past it, just able to make out Steve lying on the ground, and nothing else.

"Sam!" he yelled again, and did a 180 where he stood, straining to see into the darkness.

Still nothing. Except…

"Dean."

The voice was so faint he could barely hear it, and Dean jerked around, trying to locate its source. "Sam! Where are you?"

But even though he strained, this time he couldn't hear a thing.

Dean turned to stare at the water, then set his jaw and took off in that direction.

The lake was quiet, but where the surface had been unbroken ice earlier that day, there were cracks and holes near where he was standing. Dean got up all the way up to the edge of the shore and anxiously scanned the dark water. "Sam!"

Like a wraith, two shapes suddenly bobbed up from the depths, one dark, the other a dirty white. They struggled in near silence in the patch of water, only faint splashes telling Dean his eyes weren't playing tricks on him.

The gun was in his hand a second later, and without hesitation he aimed at the white figure and pulled the trigger.

There was a cry of pain and rage, if not death, and the white thing sank into invisibility beneath the water, leaving only the dark form floating limply in its wake.

Sam. Dean knew it without the smallest shred of doubt. His brother was floating in the frigid water, unmoving.

Dean jammed the gun back in his pocket and shed his jacket, then crept out with agonizing slowness onto the ice. Sam was only about ten feet away, but there was no telling how deep the water was there. If he sank back under the water, under the ice…

Dean stretched out, trying to distribute his body weight, holding his breath with each creak, but the ice was stronger than it looked. A few more seconds and his hand brushed his brother's jacket collar.

"Sam!"

Sam jerked, starting to sluggishly flail, and Dean flinched but kept going, raising his voice to be heard over his brother's struggles as he hooked one of Sam's arms.

"Sammy, it's me, it's Dean. Quit flopping around and let me pull you up."

There wasn't any answer, but Sam's motions slowed. Either he was listening to Dean or he was succumbing to the cold, and Dean had a feeling he wouldn't like the answer.

One arm secure, he pulled at Sam's jacket with the other. "Okay, I've got you. Just… try to push up, Sam. Sam? Try to push."

Sam made some feeble attempts to obey, which was encouraging but not too helpful. Dean clamped his teeth together and pulled with all his might.

Sam's torso came up out of the water, followed by his legs. There was no blood that Dean could see, but that could have easily been washed away by the water, or staunched by the cold. First thing was to get them both to safety, though, and he tugged carefully, listening to the ice, trying not to hear Sam's faint groans at cold that must have felt like pure pain.

And then they were on the shore, Sam coughing wetly against his shoulder as Dean flopped them onto solid ground. "Dude, we are so laying off the donuts," he gasped, then rolled Sam off him and climbed to his knees to bend over his brother, chafing pale and cold cheeks.

A hard shiver suddenly wracked Sam's body, followed by another.

"Way to go, Sammy," Dean murmured tiredly, managing a grin as he reached back for his jacket and wrapped it around Sam. Not nearly enough, but it was a start. "Think we can get you walking?"

"Dean?" It came out thick and slurred, accompanied by a confused look, but at least he was reacting. With any luck, a little warming up and he'd be fine, but not if they stayed there much longer.

"Come on, little brother," Dean groaned, ducking under Sam's arm and straining to lift them both. He was starting to feel the cold now, too, cutting easily through his two shirts, especially as the water dripping off Sam started soaking him. Dean's teeth were chattering by the time he got them both upright, and if he was cold, he could only imagine how Sam felt.

Sam tried, he really did, Dean had to give him that. But the shuffling attempts at walking were only slowing them down, his shaking was rattling him out Dean's grasp, and Sam's knees kept buckling, threatening to drop them both to the ground. Dean finally gave his cheek a pat. "Sorry, Sammy," he said, and turned his brother so that Sam slumped neatly over his shoulder in a fireman's carry. It hadn't been the way he'd wanted to go, not without being sure how or where Sam was hurt, but if he didn't get them someplace warm soon, none of that would matter.

Dean set off again for the car at a limping trot.

The black Impala wasn't visible until he'd almost reached it, and Dean leaned against the solid hood with relief as he made his way around to the side. Thank God. The cold was starting to seep into his bones, making his own steps wobbly, and Sam's occasional moans weren't making him feel any better. Dean jerked the passenger-side door open and leaned forward to dump Sam inside, curving a hand around the nape of his neck to ease impact. There were two blankets in the back, one of them ripe for laundry, but he tucked them both around Sam and slammed the door shut, racing around to his side of the car. He slipped in quickly and turned the engine over so he could put the heat on full blast.

Next to him, Sam mumbled something and lifted his head fractionally, only to let it thunk back down on the seat.

"Yeah, we'll get you nice and warm in a couple of minutes, just hang in there." Dean smiled humorlessly as he spun back out onto the deserted road. "I guess the stakeout doesn't seem so cold now, huh?"

"Jess," Sam chattered next to him, squinting at the dashboard. "J-Jess?"

Dean sighed. He rubbed at the exposed skin of Sam's neck and jaw, trying to coax some warmth into the icy skin. "She's not here right now, Sam."

"Dean." He dropped to the seat, exhausted.

Dean's lips compressed as he pulled the top blanket up to his brother's chin. "Try to stay awake, Sammy." He kept rousing a little at each use of his name, so Dean kept repeating it. "Remember the motel room, Sam? Nice and warm, and we're almost there."

They'd gotten the room after dinner, figuring they'd be exhausted after a night of stakeout and ready to fall into bed. This wasn't quite what he'd had in mind, Dean thought as he manhandled the deadweight of his brother out of the car and inside. He skipped the bed, not wanting to get it wet, and laid Sam out on the floor next to it instead, immediately starting to strip him of wet clothes.

Even the brief trip from the car to the motel room had increased Sam's shivering to a violence that had Dean seriously wondering if he'd end up hurting himself. The damp, exposed skin wasn't helping, and Dean worked as fast as he could, crooning something stupid but hopefully soothing as he worked. The wet stuff off, he dashed into the bathroom for towels, and to the thermostat to push it up as high as it would go. Then he went back to getting Sam dry, toweling him off, rubbing his hair, and finally rolling him into bed under the weight of all the blankets off both beds.

Sam lay shivering, shaking and small under the pile.

Dean made a face. Yeah, he'd kind of figured that wouldn't do it. Blankets only helped trap heat that was already present; they didn't generate more. He'd have to find other ways to do that. Rubbing his head distractedly, Dean glanced around the room, then grabbed his keys and ran out to the car for the electric blanket and water bottle in the trunk. In the bathroom, he ran the water in the sink until it steamed, and dug out the jar of instant coffee they had for emergencies. Not exactly this kind, but it was just what they needed. When the water was hot, Dean filled the water bottle, mixed a cup of coffee with lots of sugar, and, grabbing a washcloth, went back to the bed.

"Okay, let's give this another shot," he said, and wrapped the water bottle in the washcloth before slipping it under Sam's neck. Sam flinched away from it, too cold still to tell one extreme of temperature from another, but Dean put a hand against his cheek to keep him from rolling his head away. "Leave it there, Sam. It'll feel better in a minute." The electric blanket went on top of the blanket nearest to Sam's skin, and Dean turned it up to high.

The coffee would have been good to get in him, but Sam would have just choked on it right now. He needed to get warmer first, and Dean began to strip matter-of-factly, leaving on only his dry underclothes, and slid under the covers next to his freezing brother. He pulled Sam close, cringing as Sam's freezing exposed skin brushed his, but that was kind of the point. Then he started rubbing Sam's arms and back, stopping sometimes to chafe stiff and cramped fingers between his own.

God, he was cold. If he weren't shivering, it would have been worse, Dean knew, but that didn't make the massive tremors or Sam's pale skin any less alarming. Dean's eyes darted up to the drying hair and, cursing his forgetfulness, he pulled one of the blankets up over the top of Sam's head, too. Then he went back to rubbing.

"Sorry, bro, I know you'd rather have Jessica Simpson doing this, but you're stuck with me. We'll just get you warmed a little, then you can go to sleep."

"Dean?" It was still said through clattering teeth, but it was more recognizable this time.

Dean looked up into baffled half-open eyes.

"I'm c-cold."

Dean laughed. "No kidding? Here I thought you were just being shy. You want some coffee?"

"Don't we have to go? Dad's expecting…" Sam seemed to lose his train of thought for a while. Then finally, "Dean?"

"Sammy, trust me on this: you're not thinking straight right now. Everything's fine and we'll talk about it in the morning, okay?"

"I'm not twelve," came the petulant mutter.

Dean shook his head, amused. "Riight. You wanna try that coffee now?" He shivered as he sat up, but the heat had gone to a good cause, Sam's cheeks finally faintly touched with pink. Dean pulled him up with an arm around his shoulders and coaxed half the cup of hot coffee into him before letting him lie down again. Sam was still trembling, but it was fainter now, no longer the whiplash spasms of before, and his color was improving even as Dean watched. He was already starting to slip into sleep as frozen muscles finally began to relax. The coffee and electric blanket and sweltering room would do the rest.

Dean dragged a hand over his face and shook his head. He kept forgetting how much work little brothers were. And he wasn't done for the night, because there was no way what he'd seen out at the lake was an Ogopogo wannabe.

Dean shuffled over to his duffel bag and took out a change of clothes, shrugging into them wearily. His gaze kept straying over to where Sam slept, but every look confirmed his little brother was improving. Still, as he picked up the laptop case, he dragged a chair over with one foot to the best view of Sam's bed. Dean dropped down into it and propped his feet up on the edge of the bed before pulling out the computer. Observation, the hospital would call it. Watching Sam's back, Dean thought of it. And Sam would call it being a big brother.

Dean turned the laptop on with a faint smile. Yeah, he could live with that.

00000

It had been a long night, full of weird dreams.

He'd drifted in and out of sleep, sometimes so cold that he forgot what warmth felt like, other times fretfully pushing off the smothering blankets. They were just pulled right back over him, and he'd open glassy eyes to see Dean watching him. And sometimes he only half left dreams of ice and black water, shaking as he burrowed deeper into the blankets, and Dean would talk to him then, sitting close enough that Sam curled against his warmth. He couldn't understand the words, but he listened until he fell asleep. Each time he woke, there were fewer blankets piled on him and he felt a little warmer, until he fell asleep and woke feeling almost normal.

And alone.

Sam blinked at the empty chair next to his bed and glanced over the room. Dean's bed was untouched, which made sense considering where he'd spent the night, and light streamed in around the edges of the curtains. Probably on a breakfast run, then, even if the clock said nearly 11.

Sam pushed himself up on watery arms, yawning widely and taking stock. His body ached vaguely, as if it knew it should be unhappy but couldn't figure out where to register a complaint, and he felt weak and tired. On the whole, not bad considering what shape he'd been in last night, as much as he could remember of it. He was fairly sure Dean had had to do the whole raising-body-heat drill, and maybe it was just as well he couldn't remember most of it. Dean would be sure to let him know if he'd embarrassed himself.

Sam waited out the dizziness as he got to his feet, momentarily surprised at the nearly sweltering heat of the room. Dean, he shook his head with a smile; no wonder his brother had been anxious to get out for a while. Sam stumbled into the bathroom to take a long, hot shower and at least fake presentability by the time Dean came back with food.

He dressed slowly in the warm and humid bathroom, lungs straining against the memory of water. They'd have to return to the lake, of course, to find that thing that definitely wasn't an Ogopogo, but he wasn't looking forward to it. The cold and ice and water from the day before would last him for a while. Maybe he could talk Dean into looking for their next job in northern California, drop in on a few of his friends while he was there. Yeah, Dean would love that, he thought wryly. Still, if Sam framed it as a desire to rest up someplace warmer…

Smiling again, he walked back out into the room, the question on the tip of his tongue. But the room was as silent and deserted as he'd left it. He frowned; how long did getting breakfast take?

The water had revived him a little, irony aside, and Sam's gaze was sharper as it took in the room once more. Dean's bag sat on his bed, contents spilling out as they usually were. Dad's journal was on the table next to the laptop. No weapons in sight, but Dean didn't leave them lying out without a good reason. Nothing suspicious, but something was setting off Sam's spidey sense, and it wasn't the broiling room. Speaking of which, he detoured to the thermostat and set it fifteen degrees lower, then looked around the room again.

The laptop was open, and he seemed to have a vague memory of Dean using it during the night. Sam circled the table and sat down in front of the computer, tapping the keyboard to get it to wake up.

It came up on a website, one of the reference sites they used. Apparently, Dean had been doing research, too, trying to figure out what they'd run up against at the lake the night before. Sam leaned closer to read. Dobhar-Chu? He'd never heard of it.

Vicious, unprovoked attacks on people, he read silently, lips tracing the words. Females black with slimy skin, and males have white fur, with black ear tips and a black swatch across the back… Relative of the otter family, also described as wolf, hound, fish. Mostly aquatic… Well, that sounded right.

Sam clicked on the "Back" button, scrolling through pages of information on similar creatures, backtracking through Dean's research. It looked like he'd been searching for a long time before stopping on the Dobhar-Chu, and for all his griping, Dean was as good a researcher as Sam. He'd gotten a better look at that thing last night than Sam did, and if he thought there was an "Irish Crocodile" in a Montana lake, he was probably right. Sam flipped back to the Dobhar-Chu's page and read through it from beginning to end.

…hound, fish. Mostly aquatic, but like the otter, will… Sam straightened. …will drown if it stays too long in the water and its fur becomes waterlogged.

Which meant everybody who'd been looking for the thing in the water was probably looking in the wrong place, at least most of the time. And Dean knew it. The question was, was he driven enough to go out looking for the thing alone?

Yeah, because it nearly having killed Sam the night before wouldn't faze Dean at all.

"Stubborn, stupid…" Sam rose and went to get his boots on. He ignored the fact he nearly fell forward onto his face as he bent down to tie the laces. If Dean could ignore common sense, he could, too. In fact, the Winchesters as a whole were pretty good at that.

Sam had at least his battle axe and the gun Dean made him keep ever since they'd hit the road again, and Sam tucked both out of sight. Then he pulled on his coat, paused, shucked it and put another shirt on first over the ones he wore. Hypothermia made you hypersensitive to cold for a while afterward, and God only knew what Dean had gotten himself into and what it would take to get him out of it.

Taking a breath—and steadying himself against the doorjamb—Sam opened the door and walked out.

It was cold. He pulled his gloves out and shoved his hands into them, and yanked up his hood. The car would be warmer…

…but of course, there was no car. Sam gave the empty parking spot an exasperated look. What had he been thinking? Dean never went anywhere without that car. Sam wasn't going to get far without it, either. He could hotwire something, but that wasn't a habit he wanted to get into, not unless he was sure this was an emergency. Right now, it was just unease, but it was growing, and his strength was waning.

He gave a nearby pickup a longing look, then turned and went into the motel main office.

The town didn't have any taxis, but it did have a mechanic's shop with a few loaners, and it only took a little bit more money to find someone willing to drive him out to the lake. Sam watched half-heartedly for the Impala on the way out of town, just in case Dean really was just on a prolonged breakfast run, but he didn't see it, not until they pulled in behind it on an icy shoulder down the road from the gravel lot they'd done their stakeout in the night before. The mechanic gave him a skeptical look as Sam climbed out, but pocketed the money and drove off with a wave.

Right. He was on his own now, at least until he found his mule-headed brother.

One of the first websites Dean had looked up the night before had been a map of the area, zeroed in on some rougher terrain to the west of the lake. A good natural shelter for an amphibious creature, Sam figured, and Dean had probably thought the same. He doubted it was coincidence the Impala was parked as close as possible to the western corner, but as Sam crept down the hill toward the trees edging the lake, he saw another reason Dean might have chosen that spot. Through the trees to the east, he could see the flash of police lights at the edge of the lake where they'd been the night before. Had there been another casualty? The teens had been looking for one of their friends, but after Sam had turned back to find him, all he remembered was pain and cold. Dean would know, and if he ever tracked down his brother, he would ask him. After he chewed him out.

Ice made the ground slick, and his balance already wasn't great, so progress was slow. Sam made it through the trees… to the sight of a vast field of crags and boulders, and suddenly felt his energy level plummet. Dean could be anywhere among the rocks, or under them, out of sight, possibly injured and needing help. But even if he'd have been running at a hundred percent, there was no way Sam would have been able to check out the whole area in a day, let alone quickly. He sagged into a crouch, pulling icy air into his abused lungs and trying to formulate another plan.

The movement was just a flicker out of the corner of his eye, but he turned his head to trace it. In the distance, a figure shambled roughly in his direction, too far yet to see in detail, at least to Sam's weary eyes. As he watched, it crashed to the ground, then struggled back to its feet and took another few steps, only to stumble again.

The Dobhar-Chu? But it wasn't white, and it moved on two legs. Sam pushed himself to his feet, narrowing his gaze to see better, to confirm the suspicion that teased his thought, inseparable from wishful thinking.

It was the fierce determination that sold him, before he started jogging toward the figure, before he could make out the leather jacket or jeans or mussed hair. Every time it sagged sideways into a boulder or fell to its knees, it would find its feet again and keep going. Who else was that stubborn besides his big brother?

"Dean!" Sam called as he got close, and for the first time the figure stopped and squinted up at him. Sam skidded to a halt a few feet away and stared back, dismayed by the blood and torn clothes. "Are you okay?"

Dean scowled at him. "What're you doing out of bed?"

He laughed disbelievingly. "You go out hunting this thing alone and come back looking like that, and that's all you've got to say, what am I doing out of bed?"

"I'm fine." Dean waved him off, just as his legs began to give way again. Sam flew to catch him this time; the knees of Dean's jeans were already in red tatters. But he'd barely been able to stay on his own feet, and Dean's weight on top of his sank them both to the ground in a more or less controlled collapse. Dean sighed deeply from next to him, and Sam's mouth thinned.

"When I don't feel like I just ran a marathon anymore, you are so getting a lecture about going out hunting on your own."

"Oh, yeah?" Dean sounded even more breathless than he did. "Who got themselves thrown in a freezing lake yesterday by a friggin' otter?"

"An otter that eats people," Sam corrected, looking for where the blood was coming from. "And as I recall, you were there, too, and it still got me." The gash was half-buried in Dean's hair, but it looked like it was only seeping now. Sam pulled off one of his gloves and pressed it against the wound, earning a hiss from Dean and a fruitless bat at his hand. "Is it dead?"

"Of course it's dead." Dean sounded affronted that it was even a question. "Hey, it didn't even know what hit it."

"Yeah, I can see that," Sam said wryly, checking the wound again. It had stopped bleeding, and he started to put the glove back on until he realized it was soaked through with blood. Sam balled it up and stuffed it into his pocket instead. "So, what hit you?" He poked at Dean's ribs, and got a wince.

"Otter." Dean sketched an invisible two feet with his hand. "Tail." The gap widened to nearly twice as long.

Sam's mouth twitched. "I thought beavers were the ones with the big tails."

Dean shrugged, winced again. "Whatever. C'mon, you're gonna freeze here." He made an attempt to rise and failed.

Sam rolled his eyes and pushed himself unsteadily to his feet, then reached out a hand. Getting Dean to his feet nearly toppled them again, but they made it more or less upright, leaning on each other.

He didn't know how they made it back to the car, but their routine probably would have trumped any pair of drunks on the street, and Dean was barely talking by the time they reached the Impala. Sam didn't even ask, just dug the keys out of his brother's pocket with fumbling fingers and wrestled Dean into the passenger seat. Sam slapped him gently on the cheek, until irritation focused Dean's eyes on him.

"Cut it out."

"Just wake up long enough to tell me, are we going to the hospital or back to the motel?"

A tired shake of the head. "Motel. I'm fine."

"Pay attention, Dean," he said sharply, irritable himself with fatigue. "I need an honest answer. How bad are you hurt?"

Dean met his glare, and blinked first. "I'm okay. Just threw me around a little, nothing I can't handle." He patted Sam's hand that was grasping the front of his jacket, then frowned at him. "Jeez, Sam, you feel like ice. Get in. Where're my keys?"

"Here." He held them up, just out of reach. "I'm driving. At least I can still see straight." He shut the door on Dean's protest, and leaned on the car as he went around to the driver's side.

Dean glowered at him all the way back, which only served to keep Sam's grip steady on the wheel and his eyes on the road. Which was maybe the point, Sam realized with chagrin once he got Dean settled in bed, his brother unconscious almost as soon as he hit the pillow. He'd had to have been fighting sleep the whole way back, but again, Dean and stubbornness were pretty synonymous. Sam made himself stay up long enough to shed his boots and extra layers of clothing, then crawled back into the warm bed with a sigh.

Considering everything, they'd been pretty lucky: neither of them were badly injured—tired like Sam wouldn't have believed possible, but not badly injured—and they'd killed the Dobhar-Chu or giant otter or whatever it was, so no more deaths. And Dean was right, killing those things, saving people, helping the innocents, they did make Sam feel better, even if they hadn't found Dad yet.

But Dean was still getting that lecture.

And then Sam stopped thinking and started dreaming, about cold and ice, and Jess.

00000

Fingers carded through his hair, and Dean smiled, half-asleep, and snuggled a little closer to their source.

Then they pressed hard, pain shooting through his skull, and he woke rudely, lurching away from whatever it was attacking him. Pretty safe to say it wasn't the blonde he'd been dreaming about, and his hand slid under the pillow for his knife.

"Dean," came the weary and unworried admonishment, and he blinked up at the person sitting next to him on the bed. Sam.

Dean deflated with a sigh and buried his face in the pillow again. "Get your own bed."

"Wake up. I want to take a look at your eyes."

He opened one, but only to give his brother a baleful look. "Go away or I'm gonna shoot you."

Sam just glowered at him, utterly unimpressed.

He had to be losing his touch. Dean sighed, rolled over, and opened his eyes to stare into Sam's. "Happy?"

His brother leaned in, checking his pupils, then gave him a wan smile. "You have no idea. Concussion?"

Dean shook his head, and wished he hadn't. But he'd had enough concussions to know the signs. "No, Dad. Can I go back to sleep now?" He rolled over again, stifling a groan.

"Are you sure the Dobhar-Chu's dead?"

Apparently, Sam had something against sleep just then. Dean would've stared daggers at him if it hadn't been too much trouble to open his eyes. "Yes, Sam, it's dead. I would've checked for a pulse, but considering its head was gone, I figured it was a no-brainer." He snorted. "Literally."

"It just… It got you good, Dean." Sam's voice had softened, and he lifted the corner of Dean's blanket before Dean could stop him, exposing large bruises and a swollen wrist. And Dean wondered just how deeply he'd been sleeping to miss Sam's checking him over.

Dean pulled his arm back under the blanket and pushed himself up against the headboard to give Sam a long look, relenting under that puppy-dog gaze he never had been able to resist, even as an otherwise hard-bitten teen. "There were three of them: Dad, Mom, and Junior. That's probably why Dad started attacking people, bringing the bacon home. They're all dead, okay? It's over."

"You went into a nest of those things by yourself?"

"Well, you weren't exactly up for the fight." Dean gave him a searching look. "You okay? Still lookin' kinda flushed there, bro."

Sam stood tautly. "Oh, no way, this is not about me," he snapped. "You dragged me back to this life, remember? That means you're not fighting by yourself anymore, Dean, and you are not leaving me behind while you go off and do your martyr hero act."

Dean was about to fire back about how he hadn't exactly dragged Sam back into hunting, and he'd been doing just fine solo until Sam had come back into his life. But Sam didn't just mean Dean leaving him behind at the motel, and he knew fear talking when he saw it, at least in his little brother. Indignation faded into uncomfortable humility. "Fine," Dean agreed, nodding. "Next time I'll drag you out of bed to watch my back. Feel better?"

Sam stared at him a moment, then shook his head in resignation and turned away, into the bathroom. Dean watched him uneasily until he saw what Sam had gone to get: the water bottle. Sam strode back to his bed and wrapped it carefully around his wrist, coloring faintly when he saw the affectionate grin Dean tossed him.

"Thanks. And sorry."

Sam impassively shrugged off both gratitude and apology, although Dean knew they were important to him. At least he didn't look so guarded as he sank on the edge of his own bed, facing Dean. "A Dobhar-Chu? Have you ever heard of them before?"

"Nope. But there's a lot of things out there we've never heard of. Makes the job interesting."

He finally got a faint smile for that. "Interesting? You do know you're insane, right?"

Dean grinned back. "So what does that make you?"

Sam took the question more seriously than he expected, giving it a moment of consideration before he answered. "Family."

And not for the first time since they'd gone back on the road, Dean wondered if Sam really would return to Stanford after they found their dad. And didn't know if he was relieved or grieved by the thought.

Sam sighed as if wondering the same thing, and lay back on the bed, lacing his fingers behind his head. Dean glanced up at the ceiling, back at Sam.

"So," his brother asked after a minute, conversational again, "how do you kill a Dobhar-Chu? We should write it up in Dad's journal."

Dean huffed a laugh. "Same way you kill any giant carnivorous beaver: bullets and blades."

"Otter."

"Oughta what?"

And even Sam laughed at that.

Dean fell back to sleep soon after.

He woke immediately when his brother called. Sam's face was strained in the dusky light: dawn or twilight, Dean couldn't tell. "What?" he asked.

"Cops, asking around. I think the guy who drove me out to the lake must've told them something."

He had no idea what Sam was talking about, but rolled out of bed and dressed awkwardly with one hand, noticing now the flash of red and blue reflected in the mirror from a police car in the parking lot. Sam had already packed them both up and loaded the car, and he helped Dean shrug into his jacket and zipped it up for him. Their retreat to the Impala was a study in nonchalance, overlying tension as Dean saw the two officers at the motel front office. Not that they'd done anything wrong, but unexplained deaths, strangers showing up at the scene, and the records a few police departments around the country had on them was not a good combination. No wonder Sam, Mr. Wannabe Lawyer, looked pale.

Dean plucked the keys out of his hand as Sam made to go around to the driver's side, and got a suspicious look. "Dean–"

"I'm driving," he said evenly. "You navigate."

Sam's mouth pulled up, easing some of the tension in his face.

The officers didn't even give them a glance as they drove by, and maybe they weren't even there because of the Dobhar-Chu or the two of them, but Dean agreed with erring on the side of caution.

He cast sideways glances at Sam as they drove, noting the mix of pale and blush, leftovers from his dip in the lake, and the hands that had practically carried him to the car the other day but still trembled minutely from exhaustion as he pushed hair out of his eyes. Sam had been right about the hunting solo, wrong about the reason why. It hadn't been old habits Dean had fallen back into. It had been rage, pure and simple, at how close he'd come to losing Sam on that job. Sam wasn't the only one who worried about being left behind.

Dean cleared his throat, waited until Sam's gaze swung around. There was a lot he wanted to say, but what he settled for was, "Wanna pick the music?"

Sam's eyebrows rose. "Can we stop at a music store somewhere?"

Dean gave him a withering look, and Sam laughed as he dipped down under the seat for the box of tapes. It was a good sound for him.

Enjoying the moment while it lasted, Dean tapped a rhythm on the steering wheel with his good hand, and kept driving.

The End