Disclaimer: I don't own anything "Supernatural," although there's a painting in my house that certainly makes odd noises. This story includes the lyrics to some pretty traditional Christmas tunes, and I don't own those, either.
Spoilers: This story is set in Season 2, after "Bloodlust." Maybe a little spoiler-y about that episode. There's mention of the roadhouse.
A/N: This is my first-ever fan fiction, prompted by the holiday, by the awesomely talented writers I found on this site, and by a too-long hiatus from our boys. There's a little bit of language; it's not my intention to offend anyone. The story is un-beta'd (that's how new I am to this whole experience), so all mistakes are purely my own. I hope with trepidation that you enjoy this first part of my winter's tale.
A Creature Stirs
The sheep lay together on the bedding grounds, quiet and still under the clear Colorado night sky, the old herder watchful as he raised a cup of cooling java to his lips. The snow was late this year—not that he minded, not at all—but it was unusual that it had stayed at the higher elevations so far into December. Maybe it was that global warming he'd been hearing so much about recently, although it was still pretty damn cold. Funny how something like the climate of an entire planet might change, while some simple things—sheep-herding, for example—seemed almost eternal.
The herder shifted where he sat, back against a rock, settling into a more comfortable position so he might catnap while the flock slept. Suddenly, however, they were on their feet, bleating wildly, milling in panic. The herder was up in an instant, coffee cup dashed to the ground, rifle in hand as he peered through the darkness to discover the trouble. From the far side of the flock came an eerie, snarling cry that raised the hairs on the back of the herder's neck, and then the sheep were fleeing toward him, around him, over him in their haste to escape from—
Only his mad scramble to the top of that rock had saved him from serious trampling, and it took him until morning to sort things out, round up the scattered flock, now grazing peacefully in small bunches under the pines. He managed to find them all, all but one—and then he wished he hadn't found that last one. Its bloodied remains lay strewn across the bedding grounds, a haunch here, the head there, ripped apart by something with inhuman strength. The carnage sickened him, and he vomited suddenly as the realization struck that every piece of the maimed sheep lay on the ground before him. Whatever had done this had left every last, bloody piece.
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"Dean!" Sam's exasperation was evident from his tone, just as Dean's fractious stubbornness was evident from the tight set of his mouth. "Why can't we just go to the roadhouse and spend one Christmas with people we actually know?"
"You know me, Sam," Dean replied brusquely, his eyes never leaving the road ahead, and Sam knew that that particular conversation—if you could call it a conversation—was at an end.
The current hostility between them had begun the day before, rising quickly out of nothing more than too many hours spent together on the road, confined by bad weather to the car and to a rat-hole of a motel room just outside Denver. No blows had been exchanged, nothing sharper thrown than a few pointed glares and prickly remarks, but all bets were off if the friction lasted much longer.
Irritated, Sam threw himself into the corner of the Impala's seat and passenger door, arms folded across his chest, long legs arranged in the foot-well as comfortably as possible, which still meant cramped. When Dean was in a mood like this, Sam had learned that often the wisest course of action was just to wait it out, but Sam's own mood was also surly, and taking a rapid turn for even worse. Attitude steamed off the brothers in palpable curls, unspoken words heating the air around them.
Sam reached out and turned on the radio. The music was instant, perky and riddled with static. "…was a jolly happy soul, with a corn—" Dean snapped it off.
"Jerk!" Sam muttered, but the expected truculent response never came.
Sam sank back into the corner again and glowered out the window at the passing woods.
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Sonofabitch Christmas. Dean poked at the red-hot coals of his anger, daring them to flare, wanting them to ignite, craving anything to distract him from having to think about Christmas. He didn't know why the holiday bothered him so much—it had never meant much to him, given their family's history. But there had been times….
He'd be lying to himself if he said he remembered Christmas in Lawrence. He'd been too young, had no recollection of an ornamented tree in the living room, gaily wrapped presents lying beneath, Mommy kissing Santa Claus. But he remembered Sam's early Christmases, when their father had (abandoned them—he whisked the words from his head) left them in Wisconsin, in the gentle care of Jim Murphy, the young Winchesters cooed over by the warm, generous ladies of Jim's congregation, while John pursued whatever damned creature he was pursuing, oblivious to his sons' wants or needs, driven only by his obsession to destroy whatever it was that had taken his beloved wife from him.
Dean was a guarded seven and Sammy a guileless three the first time they had "boarded" with Pastor Jim. Of course there had been all the trappings, then—creches and Christmas carols and eggnog and presents. The parsonage was cozy, inviting and seemingly constantly filled with Jim's parishioners, who plied him and his two new charges with cookies, home-baked breads and steaming Thermoses of hot chocolate; colorful knit scarves, mittens and caps; hand-made cars and planes carved from blocks of wood; fresh-cut fir boughs to decorate windowsills and mantel.
The church was also intimate and warm, beautifully decorated for the holy season. While Pastor Jim oversaw choir practice in the last days before Christmas, the boys sat quietly in a back pew, Dean with his arm around Sammy's thin shoulders, each child alert, both watchful for quite different reasons. Between rehearsals of "The First Noel" and "O Little Town of Bethlehem," choir members sought to entertain the boys with spirited recitations of "Twas the Night Before Christmas." Sammy had eaten it all up, eyes wide with delight and wonder, tummy bulging with devoured gingerbread and gumdrops.
That first year, as part of an ill-advised attempt to stage a living Nativity scene, Pastor Jim had borrowed a burro from a local farmer. Catching his first glimpse of the long-eared equine, the three-year-old Winchester youngest had shrieked with incredulity at the animal he took to be a "waindeer," then run in excited circles until he fell down, gleefully exhausted. The church ladies who witnessed it were devoted to him ever after, happily repeating the story of the child's charming mistake until the entire congregation identified Sammy as "Waindeer Boy."
When their father heard the tale—John came for his sons just after the new year began—he said sternly, "Dean, don't let them fill your brother's head with that nonsense," and Dean had promised not to.
Sonofabitch Christmas.
Dean stomped down hard on the memory and on the accelerator, sending the Impala snarling even faster along the winding mountain road.
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"How far are we out of Stoner's Well?" Sam peered out the passenger window from under unkempt brown hair. It was the first time in an hour that either of them had spoken—between them, the Winchester brothers had raised ill-tempered brooding to an art form, and this morning was a classic example.
They were coming down out of the Sangre de Cristo range into the backcountry foothills of southern Colorado, leaving the snow behind as they descended, the Impala's heater warding off the chill nicely.
"Maybe forty miles," Dean grumbled, still moody. "We'll be there by 10:30. That where the mutilations are?"
"Well, rotational grazing requires a lot of acreage, but a dozen sheep have been found slaughtered, eight of them within a 30-mile radius of town."
"Great," Dean muttered. "This is just how I want to spend Christmas--playing freaking Bo-Peep on Humpback Mountain."
Sam rolled his eyes. "Brokeback."
"Huh?"
"It was 'Brokeback Mountain,' Dean, and Little Bo-Peep lost her sheep. You're such a cultural illiterate."
"Well, excuse me, Mother Goose."
"And you had at least one other option about where to spend Christmas, so don't bitch to me about coming here."
"Dude, enough!"
The next silence lasted ten minutes before Dean broke it, voice tight, jaw clenched for no apparent reason, and even that pissed Sam off.
"So we're thinking these sheep mutilations are—what, exactly? Werewolf?"
Sam sat up in his seat, working a kink out of his right shoulder. "No, the moon's wrong for that, although whatever's doing this seems to be nocturnal. Wendigo, maybe?"
"Or fangs. We've seen that before--vampires chowing down on cattle, anyway."
"Yeah, but I don't think it's vampires, either. Dean, these sheep are torn apart—something just rips them to pieces. Sometimes their throats are torn, but there's no sign that the killer is drinking their blood or even eating them. Which is why your garden-variety wolves also don't seem likely."
Sam grabbed a sheaf of papers off the dashboard, glancing cursorily through them. "The feds are keeping tabs on the Colorado wolf population as part of a recovery program, and there's evidence that for every confirmed head of livestock killed by wolves, maybe half a dozen more animals just go missing. But the thing is, the carcasses are either found, or the cattle and sheep go missing entirely, probably eaten by the wolves and other carnivores. But recently, these sheep—they're slaughtered and then just left there. The local papers are saying that these are like no animal attacks ever seen."
Dean thumped his thumbs against the steering wheel, beating out a little rhythm that Sam couldn't identify. "Wendigo wouldn't leave carcasses," the older Winchester mused, then cut his eyes at his brother. "And even if it isn't fangs, we still might run into Gordon, you know, if he's checking things out."
"So what if we do, Dean? Since when do we worry about Gordon?" Sam didn't know and for the moment didn't care why Dean's comment made him angry. He tossed the papers back onto the dash, and Dean glared at their untidy spill.
"Since maybe he thinks you're a vampire-loving freak, Sam!" he shot back. "Last time he saw us, you were all touchy-feely with Lenore, and I've got to tell you, the dude's not the type to ask questions first, shoot later."
"So now it's my fault that Gordon's a vigilante with a hard-on for vampires?"
Dean smacked the steering wheel hard with the flat of his hand, the air thick again with tension. "Sam, we are vigilantes! Or we were, until—" He paused, clearing his throat, looking suddenly uncomfortable. "Anyway, we're not the freaking Humane Society. What, we've got to protect herds of sheep now?"
"Flocks," Sam responded tightly.
"Well, fuck you, too!"
"Dean, I said fl—"
There was a wailing sound from the back-seat, rising and falling like a muted siren, and the brothers looked at one another in surprise.
"What the…?" Dean glanced back over his shoulder, then thought better of it as the S-curves of the mountain road demanded all his attention.
Sam turned in his seat and rummaged in the duffel bag, rooting around until he withdrew the source of the discordant sound. The needle on the EMF meter was swinging sharply into the red. Sam tapped the little indicator against his palm, but it continued to wail.
"Pull over, Dean. We should check this out."
There wasn't much of a shoulder on the road, and they had to drive another half-mile or so before finding a turn-out. By then, the signal had faded. Dean popped the trunk, withdrawing a flare gun, sawed-off shotgun and several cartridges of rock-salt, while Sam extracted the duffel bag from the back seat.
"You want anything out of here?" Dean asked, and Sam pulled out his heavy jacket, shrugging into it quickly. Dean followed suit, slipping more cartridges and a few silver-dipped rounds for his handgun into his pocket, then slammed the trunk shut. "Let's go."
They jogged back up the road until the EMF meter came to life once again, this time the signal weak and failing. There was nothing—fresh roadkill, blood painting the asphalt; a bird calling somewhere nearby; air still biting despite the morning sun. Just to be sure, Sam waved the meter over the remains of the opossum, caught Dean looking at him in disgust, moved away quickly. Three steps closer to the uphill side of the road, and the signal wheezed faintly to life again, leading them up the mountainside into the stands of aspen and pine before fading away entirely.
Baffled, a little breathless from their climb, Sam cast about for any sign of something supernatural. "What kind of werewolf or wendigo registers on an EMF meter, Dean?"
"None I ever heard of." Dean pursed his lips, absently tapping the shotgun barrel against his leg while he thought. "All right," he said finally. "It's a big mountain with a lot of ground to cover, so we split up. What've you got in the duffel? You carrying any silver-tips? Rock salt?"
"Dean, I'm covered, but I think it's a bad idea—"
"You got a signal on your cell?" The older Winchester fumbled in a jacket pocket, withdrawing his own phone. "I got one bar."
"Yeah, all right, uh…me, too. But Dean—"
"You've got the EMF meter, you've got weapons and ammo, you've got a freakish interest in sheep." He ticked the points off on his fingers, pointedly ignoring his brother's concern. "I'll go east, and you head west. See you at the cuckoo's nest."
"What? Dean, I don't think we should—"
Dean snorted, shaking his head. "And I'm the one who doesn't get cultural references. We stay in touch by cell, and we meet back at the car in no later than three hours."
"Dude!"
"Try not to fall into any rabbit holes, Sammy." With that, Dean shouldered the shotgun and set off, leaving an exasperated Sam speechless again.
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At the spot where Dean began following it upstream, the river was fairly wide, so the water appeared calm. Keeping low and quiet, Dean kept his eyes peeled for spoor, and he'd found plenty—mostly deer or elk, and once a raccoon track—leading to and away from the water's edge.
The loose ground was strewn with pine needles and so doubly treacherous; he'd lost his footing once and gone down hard, slicing open the palm of his left hand on a sharp rock. Although it wasn't bad, the wound had bled profusely, and it hurt like a sonofabitch. He'd held it firm against his thigh until the bleeding slowed, leaving a patch of dark red on the denim of his jeans.
He'd hunted for just over an hour, the river narrowing considerably, water rushing loudly around granite boulders, when he spotted the anomaly: a track in the mud halfway down the steep bank, too big to be a coyote or wolf, and the wrong shape entirely to be a bear or cougar. He and Sam had just spoken, maybe ten minutes ago—call his brother again? Dean decided against it, until he knew what he was looking at.
Dean side-stepped cautiously down the slope, picking his way carefully, eyes everywhere—the rocks beneath his feet, the swift current, the bank on the far side, back up to where he had started. Still, the thing was on him, bigger than man-size, upright but lupine, hurtling down the bank and barreling straight into him, faster than he could shout out or raise his weapon. Somehow he registered that it was not a werewolf, since daylight still danced on the turbulent water nearby, and it was too hairy to be a wendigo. Dean felt the ground and his right knee give way (son of a bitch!) beneath the creature's weight, and the shotgun flew from his hand, clattering somewhere, as they crashed down the slope and into the frigid water. They rolled together in the rocky shallows until the bottom dropped away suddenly. The current took them as they fought each other and then the river, limbs thrashing, punching, clawing, choking. They slammed into a boulder mid-stream and were pinned there until the current tore them loose again and repeatedly tumbled them underwater and up, man and beast frantically grasping at whatever handhold might make one victorious in their battle. Dean struggled to keep the thing's jagged claws and snapping teeth at bay, tried to force its head beneath the river's surface, force its body to follow, but his strength was ebbing fast, and he was gulping water as often as air. Again they smashed into moss-slick rock, and this time it tore them apart from one another, the current snatching the creature downstream, leaving Dean momentarily pinioned against a trio of boulders. He twisted until he was able to throw both arms around the most-manageable rock and haul himself up just enough to see the—what the hell was it?--reach calmer water and labor to the far shore. There, it hauled itself out and looked back at him, letting out an eerie, challenging cry before disappearing into dense thicket.
"Son of a bitch!" he sputtered, teeth chattering, half-drowned in the icy water. He was rapidly losing the strength in his arms, and he frantically cast about for options. The near shore beckoned, maybe thirty feet to his right, but the river in that direction was chaos…. Dean stopped thinking and launched himself from the boulder, angling downstream toward the bank, clawing his way through water until he was being pulled along the sharp rocks of the shallows on his belly. Digging in with hands and toes, he scrabbled desperately for purchase, at last finding it and with his last bit of strength crawling from the river's grasp. Pain in his right knee flared brightly as he collapsed face-down in the sand and gravel, lungs heaving, coughing up water, shuddering with cold and hurt and the aftermath of the massive adrenalin rush.
"Sam," he thought, before the world went dark.