Sam was startled awake by a loud static noise. He jumped and lifted his head.
Dean, who was sitting at the table on the laptop, picked up the police radio which he had stolen.
Sam blinked blearily as the radio started crackling again, and a voice filled the motel room.
"We got a body. Girl was killed in the forest, looks like some kind of wild animal attack."
Sam dropped his head back onto the pillow with a groan as the voice rattled off the exact location of the body and a bunch of other statistics which he ignored.
The radio fell silent again and Sam tiredly sat up, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. Every small movement seemed to take a phenomenal amount of energy as he stood, stumbling slightly.
"You okay Sammy?" Dean asked, looking at his brother with concern.
Sam nodded and ran his fingers through his hair.
Dean stood, pulling his big leather jacket on. "Go back to sleep Sammy, I got this one."
Sam looked at his watch. He had been asleep for just over half an hour. "No. I'll come." He said, doubting he could get back to sleep.
"Well then." Dean said after a small pause. "Lets get going. "
Sam and Dean got out of the impala and into the cold night air. A frigid wind carried the smell of fresh night air and something else, an unsettling smell that made Sam's stomach roll.
The red and blue flashes of the lights on the police cars filled the outskirts of the forest as they made their way to the tree line.
Following the sounds of talking and police radios, and the swinging light of torches through the trees, Sam and Dean found a small clearing. Police officers stared grimly down at the body in the centre of the clearing.
The brothers approached a couple of police officers who stood on the edge of the clearing.
"We're from the FBI." Dean said as they pulled out their fake badges, holding them up for the officers to see. "Could you tell us exactly what happened here?"
One of the police looked back to the body, pity clear in his features. "We're not entirely sure what happened. Poor girl seemed to be walking through the forest alone, god knows why. The body was identified, girl worked at the diner not ten minutes from here. She was a waitress, obviously just got off her shift."
Sam looked sharply to Dean, and they both looked to the body.
The girl's carcass was mangled, her stomach torn open with her insides spread out around her. He throat had been ripped out, but her face was turned towards them, illuminated by the flashes of the cameras and one torch beam, they could make out the features.
Her mouth was wide open, as if she had died mid-scream, but her jaw was slack. Her eyes were wide, and even in death were filled with an intense fear which sent chills down Sam's spine.
Her long blonde hair was spread around her face, the tips stained red from the blood which had slowly poured out of her throat.
It was the waitress from the diner.
The girl, who had been flirting happily with Dean not three hours ago, was now a cold, mangled corpse.
Dean cleared his throat. "How was she found?" He asked, his voice sounding off. To any normal person it would look like the sight of the body had just put him on edge, but Sam could see past that, and knew how badly this had affected his older brother.
"A couple campers stumbled 'cross her." He said, motioning towards the other side of the clearing, where two men, looking to both be about twenty five, were talking to another police officer. They looked pale and shocked, and one looked almost as if he was shaking.
Sam nodded to the officer. "Thank you." He said, and the cop left with a nod, sensing he was dismissed.
"So." Sam said after a seconds silence. "It's definitely the same wolf."
"How do you know?" Dean asked, shooting Sam a sideways look.
Sam shuddered before replying. "I recognise the clearing. It's the one from my dream."
"That doesn't necessarily mean it was the same wolf, Sam."
"I know what you mean, but... I just know that it's the same one." Sam replied, looking around the clearing. Save the people, it was exactly the same as the one in the dream down to every minute detail.
Dean gave a small nod. "Okay, if you're sure. But we need to kill this thing, and soon."
The library was closed (obviously) so they had to go back to the motel room. It was almost one in the morning by the time they returned and Sam was wiped. He was so tired that as Dean had opened the laptop, not quite feeling ready for sleep, he had collapsed onto the bed, actually managing to fall asleep the second his head hit the pillow.
The blueish glow of the laptop filled the dark motel room as Dean continued to surf the Internet, the dim light illuminating the night and casting odd shadows around the room.
Sam made a quiet noise in his sleep, rolling onto his side so that was facing Dean, who was sitting on his own bed with the laptop on his lap.
Dean sharply looked over to his little brother, ready to wake him up immediately if he was having a nightmare.
The light which the laptop was casting out illuminated Sam's face, casting half of it in shadow.
Dean relaxed slightly when Sam didn't move again, his face peaceful.
Dean gave a fond chuckle as he remembered how Sam slept. He could fall asleep pretty much anywhere, just like a cat, and Dean had by far lost count of the times his brother had fallen asleep in what looked to be an extremely uncomfortable position.
He remembered when Sam was in his teenage years, and would stay up reading a book by torchlight well into the night.
Countless times Dean had woken up to see Sam, fast asleep, hunched over a book, obviously having fallen asleep reading.
In his teenage years, Sam had been awful at getting out of bed. It wasn't that he was lazy: far from it. The kid just wouldn't want to wake up. Dean would have to spend about a minute shaking him until he actually got out of bed, and a couple of times Dean had just run out of patience, and just lifted Sam into a sitting position.
Dean gave a fond smile as he remembered how adorable Sam had been when he was younger, especially when he was sleepy.
Even after all these years, Dean could still remember how Sam looked perfectly, with his long, and often messy, ruffled brown hair which had hung in front of his eyes, and he remembered the huge puppy eyes that Sam used to give Dean whenever he wanted something badly. Dean had never been able to resist Sam's wide puppy eyes, the innocent eyes, which, even now, Sam still made, if he really wanted something. Dean didn't think that Sam did it on purpose, just that over the years he had become less aware of it, that it had become a subconscious act.
Sam quietly murmured something in his sleep again, but Dean wasn't worried.
Throughout his childhood and even now Sam was an extremely active sleeper. He would constantly move positions and was always sleep talking. Sam had been woken abruptly as he fell off the bed numerous times, and once, when he was 16, he managed to really badly sprain his shoulder. Dean smiled at the memory, remembering how that injured shoulder had put him out of action for almost a month.
As Sam muttered something again, Dean thought about whether yanking him out of Stanford had been a good idea or not. Sam had so almost gotten out of the hunter life, he had had a long term girlfriend and everything, and Dean had pulled him out of it.
Dean just felt better with his little brother by his side, where he could protect him.
Dean had worried about Sam for years while the kid had been at Stanford, but had refrained from contacting him. If he wanted out, so be it. Dean didn't want to call and remind Sam of what he had left behind, of the harsh life which he had grown into.
Dean was worried about Sam. After Jessica's death, Sam wasn't the same. He was withdrawn, quiet, and only half-heartedly joined in with Dean's banter.
Dean knew Sam was plagued with nightmares, or at least he was when he managed to sleep at all, and he wanted to help his brother. But Sam kept denying the obvious bad state he was in, trying to brush it all off.
Dean had never known Jess, but he knew how hard her death had hit Sam, knew that Sam blamed himself. Sam must have been in deep for her death to affect him this badly. Dean had never seen the kid so depressed. Ever.
Dean turned back to the laptop, rubbing his eyes with a quiet sigh as a car rumbled past the motel.
He shut the laptop, suddenly deciding that he had had enough, and stood, carefully carrying it to the table and setting it down.
Now Dean had to navigate back through the pitch black motel room, and he slowly shuffled forward, and was guided in the right direction by Sam's intelligible sleep talking.
He flopped onto the bed, lying back on the hard mattress and eventually drifted to sleep to the sound of Sam's quiet, relaxed breathing.
The next day they were in the town library, scouring the mythology books for an explanation to what kind of freaky wolf was killing these people.
Sam shut the book he had been reading, putting it back on the shelf with a sigh. So far he hadn't found anything on giant wolves with piercing red eyes which mauled innocent people for no apparent reason.
He ran a hand through his hair and walked through the library, searching for Dean.
A cough echoed through the otherwise deadly silent library, just as Sam spotted Dean leafing through a book on mythical creatures.
"Found anything?" Sam whispered.
Dean looked up, startled by Sam's sudden appearance. "Where the hell did you come from?" he asked.
Sam smirked. "A land far far away."
Dean rolled his eyes as he shut the book and put it back on the shelf. "I got nothing. You?"
Sam shook his head. "Nothing. There just isn't really anything in mythology which fits."
Dean nodded. "Maybe it is a hellhound. Maybe some people have been making deals here."
Sam shrugged. "I don't think it is. I just... in my dream, it felt like something different, which we hadn't seen before."
Dean looked at Sam. "Have you had any more visions about it?" He asked, worry creeping into his voice ever so slightly.
Sam shook his head, looking down. Last night he had just had the usual nightmare, the one which he hated the most.
He'd lost count of how many times he'd had to watch Jessica die.
"Well, that's a good thing. Maybe it was just a one off." Dean said, a small frown on his face as he thought about it.
Sam shrugged again. "Maybe." He said, sounding doubtful.
A little while later Sam yawned, leaning forward on the desk and rubbing his tired eyes.
He sat in front of a computer, his legs stretched out under the desk as he searched.
He rested his chin in his hand as he used the other hand to type and use the mouse. He thought for a moment, and then typed in: "Giant wolves with red eyes."
He waded through the first few results, clicking on one at random.
He couldn't help but snort when he saw that it was a lord of the rings fan site, earning him a disapproving look from the librarian.
He heard footsteps behind him and Dean crouched down next to Sam's chair. "So this is what you search when I'm not looking." He whispered with a small grin.
Sam straightened up in his chair, rolling his eyes playfully. "I clicked the first link I saw and this came up." He said, his eyes lazily scanning the computer screen. "Apparently a lot of people put a lot of effort into getting this onto the first page."
Dean smirked as he looked over the computer screen. "That's what I call dedication." he said as he saw a animation on the side of the page with a giant wolf running, its teeth bared. "What's that?" He asked, pointing to it. "You're the nerd here, you should know."
Sam rolled his eyes and looked at it. "That's a warg. They're what orcs would ride into battle, they're like wolf soldiers."
Sam exited the window, shutting the computer down. "Can we go eat? I'm starving. "
Dean nodded, standing up. He didn't show it but he was secretly relieved that Sam had asked to eat, over the past couple of weeks Dean had had to pretty much force him to.
Maybe his little brother was getting better.
Yeah, so that was the second chapter. I hope you guys liked it and please please review, I'll love you forever if you do.
