Title: The Bandage Cuts Me Deeper
Summary: Majorly Edited. Sam and Dean travel to Wenatchee Washington to investigate a string of killings. But will the brothers be the next victims?
Chapter two; When Man Meets His Waterloo
"Dean!" Sam yelled, shaking his sleeping brother awake. Dean opened his eyes and groaned, hitting lazily at Sam.
"Leave me alone." He ordered and pulled a pillow over his face. Sam snatched the pillow and shoved a newspaper in Dean's face. Dean sat up angrily and seized the paper quickly, almost ripping it. "Dude, I got about two hours of sleep…" he stopped when Sam pointed to the headline. "Lockness" Dean asked skeptically. Sam sat on the other bed, pulled his legs up to sit crisscross applesauce, as the rhyme went.
"Read it." Sam said, his eyes wide. Dean skimmed through the article, mumbling as he went.
"Local girl, Marie Carson…" Dean looked up at Sam and he nodded. "Survives a grueling attack from what she and her grandfather can only describe as lizard-dog. She and friend Kyle Tanner, fifteen, were down by the river when they were attacked. The monster chased Tanner while Carson admits she was "frozen in fear". Minutes later she was attacked. Her grandfather came to her rescue and shot the monster twice with a shotgun before it took off into the woods in pursuit of his granddaughter. In young Marie's own words she "fell into the fire pit, where for some reason, the monster was unable to get me." She sat there all night, awaiting death while the monster circled her. When daylight broke it ran off and she found the courage to leave her haven, this is when she stumbled upon the skinless body who has been positively identified as Kyle Tanner." Dean set the paper down and they sat in silence for a minute.
"Do you have any idea what we could be dealing with here, Dean?" Sam asked quietly. Dean shook his head. "I mean, should we even try to deal with this? It's going to be a huge thing now, everyone is going to be trying to kill it." Dean stood up.
"That just means we have to do it first. The policemen, they don't have a clue as to what is out there. We do. If anyone is suited for this, it's us." Dean explained. Sam stood.
"I'm with you… but that man shot it twice Dean and didn't slow it down. I'm just saying maybe we shouldn't risk it." Dean sighed and looked at his little brother.
"Dude, it's going to keep killing. What would Dad do?" Dean asked. Sam gritted his teeth.
"Fine, if we do this, promise me we'll go to Sacramento." Sam held out his hand. Dean looked at it. "Fine, then we'll leave now…" Dean shook his hand grudgingly. "Okay, so we need to talk to that girl."
&&&
Sam knocked on the wooden door and waited for someone to answer. They had bought a bouquet of flowers, after all, what fifteen year old girl didn't love it when handsome men brought her flowers?
An elderly woman answered the door, opening it only enough so she could see who was at the door.
"Good evening, Ma'am." Sam said charmingly. "My name is Samuel Taylor, and this is my partner Dean Johnson. We're reporters with the Seattle Times, and we're interested in what happened here last night." Sam explained. "First, let me offer my condolences to your granddaughter." He nudged Dean and he lifted the bouquet into the old lady's sight line. "If we could, may we please come in and ask her a few questions?"
"Marie has answered enough questions. Can't you people just leave her alone?" She asked and started to slam the door.
"Grandma, wait." A gentle voice whispered. "It's really okay, I don't mind." The door opened and Sam and Dean looked at the girl standing there. She was not much taller than five foot three. She was petite, much like her grandmother. Her hair was a dirty blonde and it was pulled back into a ponytail. She was wearing jeans and a baggy gray sweatshirt. Her arm was in a sling and she had a few band-aides on her face. She smiled gently.
"Can we do this outside?" She asked shyly. "My grandfather has had it up to here with reporters." Sam smiled and nodded.
"Of course, whatever you want." He looked at her grandmother. "We should be done soon." She nodded hesitantly. Marie shut the door behind her. "We have a picnic table over here." She led them from the porch to the side of the house where there was a picnic table that had once been red, but most all of the paint had chipped off. She sat down on one side, with her legs underneath her and they sat across from her. "What exactly do you want to know?" She asked.
Sam and Dean observed how gentle she seemed. Her voice was so soft and quiet it was almost inaudible. She never looked into their eyes when she spoke and she often looked at the ground or put a hand in front of her mouth. She was, in lack of a better word, wrecked.
"Marie, can you tell us, exactly, what you saw?" Dean asked. Marie sighed and looked up at the sky.
"It was a lot smaller than you probably think. Only about the size of a coyote. It had no fur though… more like scales. It had those webbed feet, you know like a frog kinda…" She stopped. "With huge claws." She added with a slight smile. "Um, it's teeth were fangs and it had red eyes."
"Like bat's eyes?" Dean asked. She nodded. "Did it make any noises?"
"Yeah, um, it… it hissed." She explained. "It when it got mad… it screeched, like an owl on helium." Sam and Dean looked at each other. "You don't… you don't know what it was, do you?" She asked curiously. They looked at her and shook their heads. She put her head in her one good hand. "It skins things… leaves no blood and the only mark they find is puncture holes on the neck… how the hell does it do that, and get every organ from a body without cutting it open?" She asked. "I mean, what the hell could do that?" Sam reached across the table and patted her hand.
"Marie, I promised that Dean and I will find whatever did this. And we will stop it." Sam whispered. Dean nudged him, but Sam ignored him. Marie looked at him, tears in her eyes.
"Who are you?" She asked. Sam smiled and shrugged.
"People who want to help."
&&&
"What the hell was that, Sam?" Dean whispered as they walked back to the car. Sam was waving to Marie who was standing in the doorway. Sam turned to his brother.
"Dean, she was scared out of her mind! She's fifteen and she's lost both her parents and last night she almost got killed! She needed someone to be nice to her!"
"Sorry Miss Sensitive." Dean said quietly. "I didn't realize you were so intuitive."
"I didn't realize you even knew that word." Sam snapped. Sam sighed as he got in the car. "I was thinking about the whole fire pit thing, it was a circle, you know, like a salt circle."
"But it was rock, not salt." Sam looked at him. "What?"
"Nothing, I'm just amazed at how dense you are." Sam said with a snort of disbelief. Dean smiled.
"Why thank you… hey, that's an insult, isn't it?" Dean asked angrily and punched Sam's shoulder. "So, what do you think it is?"
"The only thing I could think is a vampire." Sam admitted. "That would explain why if fled at dawn and how there is no blood, but it doesn't account for the skinning of the victims."
"Yeah, and if it is a werewolf… won't Marie become one? I mean, it scratched her." Dean reminded Sam, touching his cheek to signify where Marie had been scratched.
"Getting bitten turns you Dean, not being scratched… at least I think so." Sam shrugged. Dean slapped the steering wheel.
"I've got it!" He declared. "Dracula, a werewolf and a Wendigo got together, had a threesome and this is their love child."
&&&
"I know what it was!" Sam yelled, slamming his paper down on the card table the hotel used as a breakfast table. It was probably one of the smallest rooms they'd stayed in yet. The worst part was, there was only one bed, which of course Dean had called. Dean looked at his little brother.
"Care to share this theory of yours?" Dean asked with a raised eyebrow. Sam took a deep breath, a tell tale sign he was going to go into a long monologue.
"I think it's a chupacabra." Sam explained. Dean uncrossed his legs and leaned towards Sam.
"You're kidding…"
"No, I'm not." Sam showed him the paper. "I mean, Marie's description totally fits. The scales, the red eyes." He pointed to a picture, obviously photo shopped, but it was enough to go on. "According to this those red eyes can stun the victims and then the chupacabra can drink it's fill of blood, and it even says sometimes it takes the organs… all through two little holes in the neck." Sam hit the paper triumphantly. Dean smiled.
"Nice job, Hailey Joel." Dean whispered, taking a low shot at Sam's 'abilities'. Sam glared at him. "Okay, but how do you explain the skin missing?" Sam smiled.
"Skin is an organ isn't it?" Sam asked slyly. Dean nodded, also a smirk on his face.
"Silver bullet to the heart?" Dean asked. Sam nodded and Dean got to his feet. "Awesome, let's go kill this chuperacbra… or whatever the hell it is and get out asses on the road!"
"Okay, if you're going to kill it, at least be able to say its name." Sam said a smile.
"We're going to kill it Sammy, what's the flipping difference if I know its name or not?"
"It's respectful." Sam explained. Dean looked at him.
"Dude, college messed up your brain." Dean insisted and grabbed his bag to root through and find their box of silver bullets.
"I beg to differ. I think the way I was raised messed up my mind." Sam corrected.
"We were raised the same way, brother. My mind is fine…"
"I rest my case." Sam said with a snide smirk. Dean threw the bag at him, not particularly gently either.
"Grab your crap and let's go."
&&&
"What did those reporters want?" Ann asked slowly as she raised her forkful of green beans to her mouth. She had picked them herself and froze them so they could have some vegetables during the cold winter. Marie didn't answer. "Marie." She said sternly. Marie looked at her.
"Oh, what? Oh the reporters? They just asked the same questions everyone else did." She explained softly. Ann nodded, but Gordon wasn't convinced.
"You were out there an awful long time with them." She said suspiciously. Marie smiled as her brain thought up a perfect excuse. She set her fork down and looked at her grandfather.
"Grandpa, did you see them?" She asked with her eyes wide. "Duh, I'm fifteen… they were so hot!" Her grandparents cleared their throats and all was silent again. Marie stifled a grin at her ability to cause such tension. There was a knock at the door. Marie looked towards it. "I'll get it." She got up and started towards the door.
"Marie…" Her grandmother called.
"Yes, Grandma?" Marie yelled as she walked down the hall.
"Please button your sweater." She yelled. Marie rolled her eyes and opened the door. Sam and Dean were standing there. Sam put a finger to his lips. "Uh, Grandma, Lindsey is here… we're going to go check on Tempest." She lied and grabbed a coat from the coat rack by the door.
"So did you decide you want that colt?" Gordon yelled. "Marie?" He asked with a frown. He looked across the table and his wife and shrugged. "She is so into horses."
Yeah, because it was totally the horses that she was infatuated with.
&&&
"It was right around down here." Marie explained and pulled her jacket tighter. She couldn't help but let her eyes wander to the cross that signified where Kyle's body had been found. Sam traced her sightline and looked at Dean. Dean nodded and walked off into the woods to explore.
Marie took a deep breath and walked closer to the cross, stopping in front of it as if there were an invisible barrier stopping her from touching it. Sam stood next to her and looked at the tears on her rosy cheeks.
"I barely knew him." She whispered, her breath showing in the air in front of her. She sniffled and smiled slightly. "He kissed me right before it happened… I didn't even know he knew who I was." She laughed as memories of butterflies having smack-down wrestling matches in her stomach whenever he was near came flooding back into her mind. "Have you ever lost someone?" Marie asked, turning to the older not-a-boy-but-not-quite-yet-a-man. Sam nodded.
"Yes, I have." He said and looked at her. "I promised you, it gets better with time." Marie nodded and suddenly Sam felt stupid. Of course she knew that. This was the orphan girl he was talking to. Sam looked at the teenager as she unhooked the necklace from around her neck and dropped to her knees in front of the cross.
"I'm so sorry." She whispered, kissed the locket hanging from her silver chain, and hung it from Kyle's wooden death symbol.
Why did she get dealt such a bad hand? What had she done that made her deserve such heartbreak? Why wasn't she living in a big blue house with a white picket fence, gossiping with her mother or playing with her siblings, or watching her father interview her first boyfriend? Why did she had to be kneeling there, saying goodbye to the third person she'd ever cared for? Sam didn't understand how she… or how he and Dean had been chosen to live a life like this. It wasn't fair.
"I guess life isn't really fair, is it?" Marie asked gently. Sam shook his head, his uncombed, brown hair barely moving. She stood up, watching the cross. "He wanted to save me, but I couldn't move. I just stood there and it went after him. I was going to let it kill me, why didn't it just take me? He wanted to live…"
"Look Marie, I'm not exactly the most religious person… doing what I do it's hard to just think of something as an act of God. But I really think there was a reason you didn't die that night." Sam explained. Marie looked at him.
"You're not a reporter, are you?" She asked curiously. Sam laughed and shook his head.
"Dean and I are… well, we're hunters." He explained. For some reason he felt he could talk to this girl, something about her eyes were so kind and trusting. He knew she wouldn't judge him.
He knew she could understand him in a way Dean could never.
"Sam!" The yell was followed by a gunshot. "Get your ass over here!" Dean yelled from deep within the woods. His tone was urgent. Sam looked at Marie.
"Stay here." He ordered and then took off, leaving Marie alone with the cross.
But she wasn't exactly alone.
&&&
"What is it, what did you find?" Sam asked as he ran over to his brother who was knelt down next to a dead tree. Dean looked at him.
"Dude…" he whispered and pointed to what looked like a dead dog. Sam stopped.
"Dean, you shot a dog?" Sam asked incredulously. Dean glared at him.
"Does this look like any dog you've ever seen before?" Dean asked, lifting the back leg of the dog to show its raised spinal column. "I bet you its got razor sharp fangs and red eyes too." Dean explained.
"Well then this is good right? You killed it." Sam said with a smile. "We can go home and Marie doesn't have to worry anymore." But Dean's silence was all too loud. "What, what is it?"
"Sam, I really doubt there is only one." Dean whispered. "These things don't need that much food to survive, there have been twelve…" Sam interrupted.
"Kyle was thirteen." He said instantly. Dean nodded, but gave his brother a strange look.
"Yeah, thirteen kills. Sam, I bet there is a whole pack." Then they heard Marie scream. "You left her alone?" Dean yelled before running towards the noise. Sam wished silently that he could kick his own ass and then ran off after his brother.
&&&
Marie heard the branch snap and she turned around. She hadn't even considered it could come again. She didn't figure lightning would strike her twice. She stared at the thick group of trees from which the noise had come. She saw a blur of movement and even though she tried to stifle the scream in her throat, it charged into the stale air at full gallop.
In an instant the two "reporters" were at her side, Dean's gun aimed and at the ready. Sam grabbed her and stepped in front of her to protect her from however many chupacabras were ready to attack and suck her organs through her neck.
"Where are they?" Dean asked, eyes darting wildly across the scenery, looking from something small and ugly.
"Sorry… I just thought I saw something." Marie said in her small voice. Dean sighed and turned to her, lowering his gun. She looked at him and smiled innocently. "I really am sorry." She said again. Dean had been about to scold her and bring up the whole "boy who cried wolf" shtick, but she was obviously really sorry, and something about those big sad eyes made her impossible to scold. Dean could see a lot of familiarity in those eyes. They reminded him of Sam's, even a little of his own. They were full of abandon… full of self worth issues and full of pain. They were big windows to her big, broken soul.
But Sam wasn't convinced she hadn't seen something. Maybe it was his "shining" maybe it was just common sense, but he had a feeling Marie wasn't the type to scare easily. If she screamed, there was a reason for it. Even if she didn't know it. Sam heard a hiss and he nudged Dean.
"You hear that?" Sam whispered. Dean turned and shook his head. The three scanned their surroundings, but saw nothing. "You didn't hear it?" Sam asked again.
"No Sam, I didn't hear anything." Dean said angrily. "What the hell was I supposed to…" There was another low hissing noise, much like a threatened cat would make. "I heard it." Dean whispered and raised his gun again. Marie grabbed Sam's arm tightly when they heard it a third time. He wrapped an arm around her protectively and held her close to his side. She grabbed his shirt and covered her face with the loose material. He wasn't so much her cute-little Sammy-Bear, but more like her protect-me-from-the-evil-monster Samuel. At the moment, a crush on these fine older men was the last thing she was thinking about… okay not the last, but it was very low on her list.
"Get her back to the house." Dean ordered. Sam stared at him with a "yeah right am I going to leave you alone with a pack of blood suckers" look. Dean sighed. "Well we have to get her somewhere safe!" Dean said angrily. "It's close." Marie was breathing heavily, and she was close to tears.
"Marie, I need to have my hands free… but I promise Dean and I won't let anything happen to you." Sam whispered and he pried himself free from her clammy hands. He pointed to a rock on the edge of the river bank. "Stand on that and scream really loud if one gets close to you."
"Saaammm…" Dean said warningly. "Look at the bushes." They could see several pairs of red eyes staring at then.
"Don't look at their eyes!" Sam yelled, Dean immediately averted his gaze. Sam walked closer so they were standing back to back as more and more eyes appeared in the bushes.
"If they stun you, you're alive when they kill you…" Sam explained. Dean grimaced.
"So you feel them skin you and slowly drink your blood?" Dean asked. Sam nodded and they heard Marie squeak. She had just realized how terribly Kyle had died… but he hadn't died, he'd been massacred by things that weren't even animals. Sam and Dean both looked at her. Marie screamed and pointed.
"Look out!" Sam and Dean turned back quickly as about eleven chubacabras jumped from the bushes and charged. Dean shot one in the face and it fell. The others froze, taking in the sight of one of their own, decimated in a mess of blood and brains. Dean grinned.
"Looks like dinner, does it fellas?" He asked. Sam couldn't help but smile a little at the cocky tone to his brother's unfaltering voice. They began to screech. Marie clapped her hands over her ears and the brothers winced at the ear shattering noise. It was a tone deaf owl choir. Dean cocked the shot gun, empty shells clattering to the rocky ground, and fired on another lizard-dog. Sam followed suit. Seven were blown to pieces before they even got close. The four remaining ran full speed.
"Sam!" Dean yelled when a particularly feisty "goat-sucker" grabbed hold of the youngest Winchester's leg and tore at the flesh. Sam let out a yell of pain. Dean turned the gun to the evil critter, but before he could pull the trigger a large rock fell from no where and broke the thing's prominent spine. With a fading screech it released Sam's calf and died. Dean turned and Marie was standing there, a look of defiance on her tear stained face. "Nice." Dean said admiringly. Marie shrugged.
"Thanks." But she never took her eyes off her kill. Sam on the other hand, limped over to the rock she had previously been sitting on and sat heavily, looking at his leg. Marie hurried over to him. "Are you okay?" She asked. Sam nodded, his jaw clenched tightly.
Dean grabbed his brother's arm, pulling him to his feet. "Lean on me, but we have to get the hell out of here. I was right, there's a pack, and it's big." Dean explained. He gave Marie Sam's gun. "You know how to work one of these?" He asked. She shook her head. Dean flipped off the safety. "Aim and shoot. Stay close, we have to make a run for it." Marie turned to look at the woods she had one considered a second home, even more eyes were staring at them through the bushes. She got a sick feeling in her stomach. How many nights had she spent alone with these things watching her? How many bumps in the night weren't just the wind?
Marie's subconscious went back to first semester World History and her project on Napoleon Bonaparte. She had a sinking feeling this was their Waterloo.
&&&
Once she knew they were inside, Marie slammed the barn door closed, and bone shattering thuds against it gave a shocking realization to exactly how fast those monsters had been closing in. She leaned all of her weight against the door, but each time a chupacabra slammed against it her feet slid a little farther and it opened a little wider.
"I can't hold this!" She yelled. Dean was currently inspecting the injury on his brother's leg.
"Can you walk?" Dean whispered and looked at his brother. Sam looked at him. "Don't be a tough guy and lie to me, Sammy." Dean said sternly. Sam sighed.
"No, probably not." He admitted. Dean nodded, looked around the barn and grabbed a shovel. He pushed Marie away from the door and put the shovel through the two door handles, a makeshift lock, but it would have to do for now.
"Is there any of way in?" Dean asked Marie. She shook her head. "You sure?" Marie shrugged.
"Unless they use the loft window upstairs, I don't think so." She explained. "But… this is a barn, none of the windows have glass on them."
"Let's just hope they're stupid." Dean whispered. Sam snorted.
"When are they ever stupid?" He asked his brother. Dean paced back and forth, trying to figure out what to do. If only he could get his hands on an AK-47 with silver bullets. Wait… that rock had killed it. Maybe they didn't have to be killed with silver bullets. Dean walked to the wall of farming tools and grabbed a pitchfork and headed towards the door.
"What are you doing?" Sam asked suspiciously. Dean looked at his brother and grinned.
"Sammy, would I ever put you in danger?" Dean asked honestly. Sam looked at him with narrow eyes.
"Not intentionally…" Sam agreed.
"So then trust me." He leaned against the barn door and pulled the shovel from it and handed the shovel to Marie. "Hit them with it as hard as you can." Dean explained and then stepped away from the door and waited for them to charge inside.
The door swung open. Dean took a breath, prepared to go out in a Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid fashion… but when he looked to his right Robert Redford was not next to him. Instead he heard screams coming from Marie's house, and a shovel falling to the ground. From the corner of his eye he saw Marie running towards the house.
"Marie! Stop!" Dean ordered. But she didn't. Dean ran to his brother, but Sam waved him off.
"Go get her! I'll be fine." Sam assured Dean. He hesitated. "Now Dean, go!" In a voice that mirrored their fathers', Dean ran off, grumbling something about a stupid teenage girl.
&&&
"Grandma! Grandpa!" Marie yelled when she opened the door. There was no answer and she ran down the hall to their bedroom. She should have known as soon she saw that the door was broken in that something was wrong. Nothing ever went right, what made her think this time it was going to be different? Part of her knew, knew that she wouldn't like what she would see. But another part, a much bigger part, the part she thought had up and left with Kyle's death, the young innocent part of her wanted to believe that her grandparents would be sleeping in their bed, the lamp still on and her grandmother's Jane Austin book lying on the floor just as it always was.
Ever since her mother died she knew there was no such thing has happy endings. But that didn't stop her from charging into the lions den and alerting them of her presence with a blood curdling scream.
&&&
Sam clutched his injured appendage distastefully. He hated feeling helpless, especially now. He had promised Marie nothing would happen to her. Sam didn't like lying. As much as he hated lying, he hated dying even more. But he had a feeling both were crawling towards him… that or those red eyes wanted to be his friend. He doubted that as much as he believed his promise to Marie was going to be kept tonight.
If the pain hadn't been clouding his mind so, he would have remembered to avert his eyes… but his mind was on overcast and soon he found he couldn't move. He slowly slid from the barrel of hay he was on and went limp on the ground. He also began to realize while he was paralyzed from movement, he was not paralyzed from feeling… that became painfully obvious when the owner of those stunning, literally, red eyes clamped down on his arm and began to drag him from the barn with shocking strength.
Words built up in Sam's throat, but his lips wouldn't move. When he'd been stunned his jaw was closed tightly in pain, and so closed tightly it remained. No words were getting out of that mouth.
So no one would hear him.
&&&
Marie froze in the doorway. She couldn't tear her eyes from the sight. Four chupacabras were feasting on her grandparents… their bloody corpses still lying peacefully in their bed. Marie screamed. Even when the creatures turned to her, licking blood off their long teeth, blood dripping from the wiry hairs on their snout, she didn't stop screaming.
"Marie!" Dean ran into the house and grabbed her. He paused long enough to look into the room. "Oh God…" He whispered. "Marie, come on…" She shook her head, frozen in place again. Just like last time. Now she knew why. Those red eyes, they had stunned her last time… but the monster hadn't killed her. She looked at Dean.
"Don't move." She whispered. Dean looked at her like she was insane.
"I'm going to carry you then." He started to fling her on his shoulder, but she hit his arms away.
"Dean, last time I stood in place and it chased Kyle! It chased him because he was moving! If we don't move it won't want us!" She screamed and then held her breath and stood as still as she could. Dean rolled his eyes.
"If they take one step closer I'm running away with you over my shoulder." Dean muttered and then froze in place. Marie closed her eyes, but Dean watched as those monsters drank every last ounce of blood from Marie's grandparents. It was like watching 9/11 again. Dean could remember sitting on a grimy hotel bed, watching the planes crash over and over again on CNN. You couldn't watch, but you couldn't very well look away either.
Dean hadn't noticed before, but Marie was sobbing, not moving or making any noise, but huge tears were rolling down her cheeks. She opened her eyes and they made eye contact.
"I'm so sorry." He mouthed. She nodded and then closed her eyes again.
&&&
Sam groaned as he was dragged over yet another sharp rock. He was sure his back hadn't an inch of skin left. Maybe this was how they skinned their victims. Sam twiddled his left pointer finger. Whatever it had done to him wasn't permanent, it was wearing off, slowly, but it was wearing off.
It was a great reflection period, that was for sure. In between excruciating run ins with sharp rocks, Sam's life flashed before his eyes, in a movie like fashion. He remembered that night he had admitted to his father that he was afraid of the dark. His father sat him down, put his hand on his son's shoulder, and produced a .45 from his belt.
"You hold on to this Sammy. If you ever feel like you're threatened by something dangerous, don't hesitate." John Winchester had advised. Even now it was ludicrous… to hand a young child a gun… of course it had taught Sam an important lesson; Daddy was crazy.
Another important moment that played slowly in his mess of a subconscious was the time John brought his work home with him. He'd been trying to destroy a poltergeist, but instead of haunting the house, it'd been haunting an old fourteenth century vase the family had had. It was worth a lot and the family hadn't had any money so they had given the vase to John, he had put it in Dean's room because Dean had needed a container to put his shotgun shell collection in. "I can reuse these…" Dean had insisted. Of course then Sam thought he was being retarded, but those rock salt bullets he'd come up with were nothing less of Dean Genius.
But that vase had nearly killed the oldest Winchester. That ghost was angry, his home being filled with old shotgun shells, which of course, Dean never bothered to wash. So the dirt is what drove the ghost to madness… well it was certainly a factor in Sam's twisted version of the events that unfolded the day John had returned with the antique prize.
Sam had been sleeping soundlessly when he was woken by Dean's screams of panic. Sam heard John run down the hall, yelling his son's name. Sam had crawled out of bed, walking slowly down the hall, hearing his father yell in Latin and weird noises and lights coming from Dean's room. Nothing had ever scared Sam so badly before, and never again after. He thought he had lost his brother than night. When Sam had finally gotten the courage up to rush into the room, John had run out, Dean's limp body in his arms and run into the kitchen, setting Dean on the kitchen table. The ghost had attempted to slit the older brother's throat, but instead had barely broken the skin. But during the entire mess Dean had been thrown against a wall hard enough to break his arm.
The three Winchesters had slept in the same room for weeks after that. John was too scared to take his eyes off his boys and Sam was too scared he was going to loose Dean for real.
And now, sharp rocks digging into his bloodied back, a lizard-dog dragging him deeper into hell on earth, Sam would give anything to be squeezed into a little bed, personal space way over-invaded, with his family again.
