Sam burst through a row of corn without slowing to consider what he was doing. He suddenly found himself in the midst of complete chaos – most of which was caused by him. In retrospect, if a dark creature hadn't been trying to slit his brother's throat, the whole situation would have seemed a little comical.
The younger Winchester saw his brother on the ground in front of him, and, because of his speed, knew he wouldn't be able to stop before stepping on Dean. He tried to leap over, and ended up crashing headfirst into the thing that was getting ready to kill his brother. It was surprisingly corporeal and somewhat bony, and he tried to get out of the way but still couldn't slow himself down, especially since he was in mid-air. The two of them hit the ground hard, Sam landing on top of the supernatural killer and rolling away as quickly as possible. The hood had come away, leaving the skeleton painfully obvious in the dark night. Dean was trying to get to his feet, and carelessly rolled to his knees, his feet coming out and colliding with something solid. He later discovered that it was Sam, who tripped over the offending feet and fell to the ground again. Apologetically, Dean pulled himself out of the way and continued trying to get up. Sam, meanwhile, had rolled out of the way again and was halfway to his feet when the skeleton creature attacked him. He flew backwards . . . into his finally-standing brother and all three crashed to the ground again.
"Get off me," Dean growled, now angry.
"You think I'm not trying?" Sam snapped back.
Dean shoved his brother hard, not with malice, but hoping he could at least free himself enough to pull out his gun.
Sam took their enemy back with him, hitting the ground a fourth time, and managed to get out of the way while Dean began shooting.
"What good is a gun going to do against a skeleton?" Sam grumbled aloud, watching as the skeleton didn't even move at the bullets. He finally managed to climb to his feet without getting pounded back into the ground.
"Then how do we kill it, Sherlock?" Dean returned, no longer wasting his ammunition but standing warily as the creature eyed him.
"I haven't figured that part out yet," the younger brother admitted.
"Then how do we get away?"
"I, uh, haven't figured that part out yet, either."
"Sam, I suggest you try using that geeky brain of yours before we both die," Dean said, watching the skeleton slowly approaching them. The two hunters were slowly backing away.
Just at the last possible moment, when Dean was surely about to be murdered, another figure came between him and his killer. He looked in surprise at Jamie, who faced the creature but was trembling from fear.
"Jamie?" he asked softly.
"Don't hurt him," she said with a cracking voice to the skeleton, ignoring Dean. "Leave them both alone."
"She's being remarkably calm about all of this," Sam said from the side.
"In case you hadn't noticed, Sammy, she's the only reason we're not dead yet."
"I didn't say she wasn't."
"She's still standing here," Jamie muttered quietly, silencing both brothers. The skeleton was now backing away from Jamie, clearly disturbed.
"Why is it leaving?" Dean whispered.
"I have no idea," Sam said.
"I know you don't. I was talking to her," he said, indicating Jamie.
"Why would I know if you don't?" she asked, starting to relax now that the creature had backed into the corn and disappeared.
"Your guess is as good as ours," Dean replied.
"I thought you two knew what you were doing," she said, turning around to look at them.
Sam snorted in amusement as Dean sputtered, "Of course we do. We were just caught a bit off guard."
"What exactly do you mean when you say you know what you're doing?" Jamie asked with an eyebrow raised.
"We actually don't," Sam put in. "At least, not this time. Generally we have some idea."
"What is it you do, then?"
Dean looked around the corn field, and, in spite of having dealt with ghosts and demons and poltergeists for most of his life, felt a chill run up and down his spine. "We'd love to tell you, but can we please continue this conversation somewhere else?"
"You seem to be pretty safe when you're with me," Jamie said. "You don't have to be scared."
"I'm not scared; I'm nervous. There's a difference," Dean snapped defensively.
"Look, we love the safe feeling we get when we're with you," Sam said, mostly sarcastically, "But we'd really just like to get away from this field. We don't enjoy hanging around where things are or have been trying to kill us."
Jamie said nothing, trying to decide if Sam had been insulting her with the first half of his comment. Finally, giving up, she turned and walked toward the cars, her arms folded around her body as though she were cold.
"Great, now you've upset her, Sammy," Dean grumbled behind her retreating form. "We may have lost the only connection we had to finding out how to kill this thing. No wonder you have terrible luck with women." Dean thought he may have taken that comment too far, when Jessica suddenly popped into his head, but Sam didn't even blink twice at it.
"Look who's talking," the younger Winchester griped back. "You haven't had a date in a while, yourself."
Sam thought he heard a snicker from Jamie in front of them, but she didn't slow down or say anything, so he couldn't be sure.
There was silence the rest of the way to the cars. When they arrived at the road, Jamie turned to them and, without actually looking at them, snapped, "Call me in the morning." Then she turned, got in her car, and drove away without another word.
Sam licked his lips, grateful she at least wasn't telling them to get out of the town. Dean glanced at his watch. "Technically, it's morning now," he said, a futile attempt at joking.
Glaring at his brother, Sam collapsed into the car. His adrenalin had now worn off, and his body was now reminding him of the number of times he had been pounded into the ground. He shut his eyes and leaned against the window of the car as Dean started driving back to their hotel.
"Sam?" Dean asked softly, pulling his brother from the restless slumber he was in.
"Let me sleep until we get to the room," Sam grumbled.
"We're here," the elder Winchester replied. Sam suddenly realised that the voice was coming from his right, not his left, where Dean was supposed to be. Eyes snapping open, he saw Dean crouching down next to him, passenger door wide open.
"Oh," Sam said, not finding anything more intelligent to say. He pulled himself out of the car and followed Dean into the room, dropping onto his bed.
"You can have first shower since you saved my life," Dean offered in nearly a whisper. It was the closest thing to a thanks that he would extend, and his brother knew it.
Sam smiled but didn't move. "Not a chance in the world that I'm getting off this bed before morning," he mumbled in return.
Sam felt much better in the morning. He dragged himself up early to shower and get to work on researching the skeleton that had been attacking last night. By the time Dean woke up, the younger brother was ready to answer all questions except for one.
"I know what it is," he said brightly as Dean groggily sat up in his bed.
"What?" Dean asked, shaking his head to clear it.
"It was a Tzitzimeme," Sam said.
"Gesundheit," Dean offered, his mind still unable to process what his brother was saying to him.
"It's a minion of a Mesoamerican goddess," Sam continued with a smile. "Apparently, this goddess likes to protect women from he evils of men. She is a skeleton and wears human hearts around her neck. She comes around every eclipse and sometimes other random periods just to torment humanity."
"Oooookaaaaay," Dean said slowly, finally understanding some of what he was hearing. "So how do we kill it?"
That was the one question Sam had yet to figure out. "Well, generally it doesn't stay in one place and focus its efforts so much."
"Sam –"
"I mean, it's a goddess of Mesoamerica. By all logic, it shouldn't even be here!"
"Sam –"
"It's actually only supposed to come out every 52 years, anyway."
"SAM!" Dean shouted.
The younger Winchester innocently looked over. "Yes?"
"How do we kill it?" Dean repeated slowly and patiently.
"I haven't got a clue," Sam answered. "Maybe if we just tell everyone to stay out of the corn fields at night or without a female escort, it will just go away."
"Maybe?"
"Look, Dean, I've been doing research for a few hours now, and I haven't got the slightest idea how to kill it. Iron bullets, wooden stakes, burning remains . . . it could be anything!"
"Well, you're the smart one. You'll figure it out. I'm going to go get breakfast." Dean crawled out of bed and went into the bathroom before leaving the room to get food.
Sam sighed. He had no idea how to kill this thing. "How do you kill a god?" he asked aloud.
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Note: I know, there's no cliffhanger here. I actually wanted to try my hand at something a little lighter than my usual repertoire. Comments are welcome and encouraged, in fact. Thanks for reading!
