Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural.
Author's Note: This was written for the January Prompt Challenge on Reddit's r/fanfiction. I chose to do the three random word challenge and received the words kick, drench, and audience. Enjoy!
"What about this hunt makes sense, Dean?" Sam asked. "A hellhound going rogue, but allowing some human to tame him? They're the most obedient creatures I've ever seen. Always at a crossroad demon's beck and call. The last time anything supernatural acted up that much, I didn't have a soul and Eve was busted out of Purgatory."
"What if," Dean started, "the hellhound isn't going rogue at all? Maybe this guy made a deal to own one for ten years so that he could make it into an attraction for thrill seekers. 'Come and Face Hell: Fight a Real Hellhound!' That'd sell to some crowds."
"Okay, let's say that's the case. You want to what? Walk in and kill the thing? It's always being put in front of a crowd of crazies cheering for it to kill some dumbass thrill seeker. You walk in and kill it, and you have that entire audience pissed off. They'd probably label it as animal cruelty or something," Sam said.
"Or they'd label me as the victor," Dean said. He grinned and stood up, tossing the paper with the hellhound article across the table to Sam. "Looks like we get to go to Vegas twice this year."
Sam rolled his eyes and followed Dean to the Impala. "How is it that you always find the hunts that are weird even for us?" he asked.
Dean started up the car and set them on their way to Vegas. "Because all the non-weird hunts look boring. Besides, it takes real professionals to hunt a hellhound. We know how to see and kill the bastards. So, would you rather have us go and take care of it or a novice who's gonna get himself killed?"
The novelty of Vegas wore off after the first few Vegas weeks, but it was never novelty they sought on their trips. It was a way for them to take a break in a place where everything was fake. Where they could pretend the creatures they killed were fake for a little bit, too.
"So, get our shit together tonight, and then tomorrow we hunt a hellhound and hit some strip clubs. Sound good, Sammy?" Dean asked, pulling into the motel they always stayed at for their Vegas weeks.
"You know, when you explained the plan, it sounds like you're going to be doing this hunt pretty much by yourself."
Sam didn't miss the way that Dean glanced over at him.
"You're there for back up," Dean said.
Sam rolled his eyes, something this hunt already had him doing far too often. "Which is the same as saying that you're doing it by yourself."
"Well, the last time you were drenched in hellhound blood, you tried shutting the gates of Hell and almost died," Dean said. "I don't want you deciding to call that 'unfinished business' and using this to start off trying again."
Sam was left speechless long enough that Dean looked over at him with an eyebrow raised, and Sam couldn't believe how calmed he looked for having just called out his own brother as being, in essence, suicidal.
"You seriously think I'm going to try closing the gates of Hell again?" Sam asked. "I don't even remember the incantation, and Kevin isn't exactly around to write it down for me again."
"Bullshit, you still remember it."
"Okay, I do remember it," Sam said. "But I'm still not gonna try going through The Trials again. I learned my lesson the first time, and feeling like hell while closing Hell wasn't exactly fun."
"Yeah, well," Dean said, "watching you go through it wasn't very fun, either. And you can say what you want, but I'm not taking the chance. Me? I don't remember a single piece of the incantation, and you would never tell me it, so I figure we'll all be good then."
"Yeah, we'll all be good until you get yourself torn apart by a hellhound," Sam said.
"Look, you can bitch about this all you want, Sammy, but I'm not changing my mind." Dean gave him a shit-eating grin. "Besides, only one person is allowed in the ring with the hellhound anyway. Now grab the holy oil and give me a hand making hellhound glasses."
Sam watched in the audience, waiting for something bad to happen. It turned out that there were a few rules about fighting the hellhound that weren't mentioned in any articles or web pages.
Such as no weapons allowed, which led to Dean's angel blade and Ruby's knife being taken away from him after a pat down.
Which left Dean fairly defenseless against the same kind of creature that killed him in the past, while Sam had been an unwilling audience and unable to move to help his brother in the least. And now he was damned to being part of the audience for 'Dean Versus Hellhound' once again. He could only hope that the ending was different this time around.
If he had to, he could intervene. They wouldn't be favorites to the bloodthirsty Vegas crowd, but they'd both be alive.
Dean still had one advantage that none of the previous daredevils had: glasses bathed in holy fire that let him see the hellhound. He tucked and rolled away from what must have been a charge from the hellhound.
Sam prayed that Dean would step out of the ring and disqualify himself. Without any weapons, he couldn't kill the hellhound. They'd just have to find another way, preferably with less people watching them. Way less people.
Sam dug out his own pair of glasses from his jacket's pocket. Dean brought only one with the intention of keeping Sam as far on the sidelines as he could for the hunt, but Sam snuck out to buy a cheap pair and bathe them in holy fire in the motel parking lot while Dean slept. He slipped them on in time to see the claws of the hellhound graze Dean's arm.
The crowd cheered at the trickles of blood that seemed to magically appear. Sam cringed.
Dean and the hellhound fell into a pattern that felt like it stretched on too long with Sam left to watch and wait for the moment he was forced to join in to keep Dean from killing himself by being too stubborn to step away.
Sam held his breath as the hellhound took another swipe at Dean, but he wasn't so sure that even the reflexes of a veteran hunter could save him from taking a nasty hit.
Somehow, Dean maneuvered himself out of the way and avoided the brunt of the damage, but he was left with another gash to join the previous graze. The way he twisted combined with the force of the swipe sent him rolling across the ring.
And right across the line acting as its boundary.
The blare of a whistle signaled the end of Dean's round against the hellhound, and only then did Sam feel safe enough to resume breathing in relief. He pushed through the crowd and helped Dean up, despite his protests.
"That's bullshit!" Dean yelled. "Most of me was still in the ring!"
The hellhound's owner shrugged with a grin at yet another victory. "'Most' being the keyword there, son. Rules say that all of you has to stay in the ring. You get kicked out, well, you get kicked out."
"Fine," Dean said through clenched teeth. "Then return my knives to me so I can go."
The man handed over the weapons, and then turned to leave.
"Better read the rules next time, gentlemen, so you know ahead of time that your little pokers aren't allowed in the ring," he said.
Dean shot the man a glare over his shoulder. Sam knew that glare well. It was the one that said if the man didn't shut up, he'd be at the mercy of those pokers next.
Sam wasn't surprised that the owner paled, stood stiffly with his hellhound beside him, and didn't say another word to them.
"Dean, it's fine," Sam said. "We'll sneak in tomorrow morning after he closes up shop and kill the hellhound without anyone around to see us."
With how tight Dean's grip on the glasses was, Sam was surprised they hadn't shattered yet.
Dean didn't respond, so Sam said, "C'mon, sit down. We should take care of your cuts."
Dean shook his head.
Sam rolled his eyes.
Always the same routine.
"Stop being an idiot, Dean. Leaving wounds untreated doesn't help anyone."
Dean looked ready to refuse again, but instead gave a small nod. "Make it quick. We'll go in the morning and kill that ugly bastard."
Most of the cuts looked worse than they were (which Sam was thankful for), but a few of them required a handful of stitches.
"Do you think that the owner can see the hellhound?" Sam asked as he stitched. "I mean, that would have to be part of the deal so that he could keep track of it, but then he'd see that it looks like it came straight out of a nightmare. He looked way too calm around it for that."
"He might not care. He's probably more interested in the money it brings him than the details like its appearance," Dean said.
Sam finished the last stitch and wiped away the blood from Dean's arm. "Maybe, but who the hell would wish to have a pet hellhound for ten years?"
Dean shrugged. "People are crazy, Sam."
It was easy to track down the hellhound's cage. There was minimum security around it, and the owner didn't try to hide it in the slightest. Since it appeared invisible to the average human, Sam figured that security wasn't a big issue. No one would try to steal something that looked like it didn't exist.
Unfortunately, the glasses that Sam and Dean wore let them see the hellhound in all its hideous glory.
"Hey, remember me?" Dean asked.
"Don't taunt him, Dean."
"What's he going to do? He's in a cage, Sammy."
"Just get this over with, or I'll do it."
"Fine. Fine," Dean said.
A call to Cas after cleaning Dean's wounds left them assured that an angel blade would be sufficient in killing the hellhound.
With one stab through the neck, hellhound blood started to spurt out. It tried to fight, but Dean pulled the blade back out and it lost too much blood too quickly to do much more than stumble around its cage until it finally collapsed.
Sam looked down at his shoes, now drenched in hellhound blood. "We're gonna have to wash off before we do anything else."
Dean looked down at his own clothes covered with fresh bloodstains. "Maybe," he said.
"'Maybe'? Dude, we're gonna get kicked out of everywhere if we walk around looking like this," Sam said. "Also, why didn't we just do this first? Why go through the trouble of trying to kill it in the ring?"
Dean didn't answer as they climbed into the Impala.
"You wanted to kill it in the ring, didn't you? It wasn't that you thought we needed to, you just wanted an audience," Sam said.
"What? No," Dean said. "I just… thought it would be easier."
"You thought it would be easier than going up and stabbing the thing while it was in a cage and couldn't move away or attack us?" Sam asked. "Right."
"That's exactly right," Dean said.
Sam shook his head. "I can't believe you, Dean. No one sees us hunt most of the time, so you jump on the first chance to have a crowd that you nearly get yourself killed."
"Shut up, Sam."
Dean looked genuinely upset that he didn't get to kill the hellhound in front of an audience. The same way a child looks upset leaving a store when their parents told them they couldn't have the toy that caught their eye.
The expression looked ridiculous on the face of a grown man, and Sam couldn't hold back his laughter.
"Don't make me kick you out of the car, Sam."
Sam stifled his laughed, but couldn't believe how the hunt turned out. A hellhound, nothing they haven't dealt with before, but Dean purposely made it more difficult than necessary.
All so he could have an audience.