A/N: Advent Day Eleven. Scopulus want in on the festivities and wanted to send you all his love by inspiring this chapter.
Snowflakes and Icicles
Chapter Eleven
From Scopulus with Love
Something akin to fear was starting to pound in time with the pain radiating out from the wound in his side. Dean stared at his brother as the full import of those words really worked their way into his brain. A hot spot. It made sense, in fact, they had been talking about a similar idea several weeks before when they had been chasing a series of spirits in a small valley in southern Arizona. He'd never really thought about this cabin even though they had been coming there hunting for years.
"It would explain a lot," he said, watching Sam.
"Yeah, it would," his brother said.
"Do you think it's just one thing at a time, or we've just been lucky all these years?"
"Lucky?" Sam squinched at him, probably remembering the list of injuries and near-death experiences they could chock up to the area.
"That we are usually only hunting one thing and that we have never met the mixed army of the underworld or something?" Dean sighed. "I just jinxed us, didn't I?"
"Probably."
"At least the seal with flippers of death was a hallucination."
"The polar bear wasn't."
"We won't have anything like..." Dean stopped before Sam could tell him to, because if it was something like a hot spot, thought forms might be more likely as well. "I'll shut up now."
"Good idea. How does your side feel?"
"Oh, I am down to a solid four."
"So a twelve?"
"Five."
"Fourteen?"
"Eight?"
"Thirteen?" Sam frowned at him.
"Two."
Seventeen?"
"One point three five two."
"Dean."
"Sam."
"I need to know so I can treat it," Sam said and pulled out the secret weapon. The "please, don't you trust me, Dean?" look. The little brother look that got him every time, and Sam knew it.
"That's just mean," Dean grumbled. "Fine. It hurts."
"How?"
Dean thought about it. A lot of people would think it was a stupid question, but he knew it wasn't. They had no diagnostic equipment and had to rely on what they knew and observed. "It feels hot, and it's throbbing."
"Deep?"
"Yeah, it's infected." He frowned.
"What?"
"There's something else."
"What do you mean?"
"Now that I am all thawed, it feels like, weird."
"Weird?" Sam lifted the blankets off, pulled up his shirt and removed the bandages. "Weird how?"
"Weird weird."
Sam was prodding at the wound. He reached for a clean bandage. "Sorry, this is going to hurt."
"It's okay."
Sam swiped at the wound, gently at first, then pressing harder, to the point it was sheer agony for Dean. All he could do was clamp his teeth together and try and keep the groans he couldn't stop from becoming screams. Even over all that he heard Sam's sharp intake of breath. Dean forced his eyes open. His brother was motionless, his face as white as Dean had ever seen it. Oh, that is so not good. "Sammy?"
"Oh god, Dean."
"What?"
"I think one of its fingernails broke off inside you."
To Be Continued
