WARNING: this is canon-typical violence, but it does happen in a school, and there are fatalities involving teenagers.
Sam was in grade nine and Dean was back to redo the courses he'd failed the year before when it happened.
Dean was sitting in the smoking pit, standing near about ten other skippers, feeling sorry for himself for still being at school at his age. But he wasn't so desperate to graduate that he was actually attending classes, obviously.
That was when Jade walked up to him and, without a word, punched him, knocking him halfway across the alley. There was no way she was naturally that strong. She probably weighed a hundred pounds. He rubbed his jaw in a kind of dumb shock and looked at the girl.
Something about her smile made Dean pause. "Ruby?" he asked.
"Yeah, possessing a girl with a name like Jade was a little on the nose, I know, but luckily you were too dense to get it. I had to take her. Her skin is like porcelain. She's going to grow up to be beautiful."
"What the hell is going on?"
"I'm going to kill you, and while I do it, my friends are going to kill Sam," she said. "That way the last thought you get to have is that you failed him."
At that moment, Dean heard gunfire. "Sammy!" he said. He got up and ran into the school, ignoring Ruby. Of course, he was such a control-freak with Sam that he knew exactly what class he was in at that moment and ran directly there, Ruby close behind him. She'd gotten a combat knife from somewhere and held it like she knew how to use it.
"Get back here, Dean!" she screamed.
He ignored her and finally arrived at the classroom. Sam's teacher, Mrs. Lake, was bleeding and lying on the floor. Sam and the rest of his classmates were standing against the wall of the classroom, while two demons wearing school kids Dean didn't know held handguns on them.
"Ruby! We did what you said. Should we kill him?"
"No, I get to kill him. But first kill his stupid older brother," Ruby said.
She pushed Dean towards the two kids, and Dean shoved the gun the one kid pointed at him to the side. It went off and the sound was so loud and near his ear that it actually hurt, and the next moment he heard ringing, and then nothing. He reached into his coat and took out Ruby's knife—it was smaller than the angel blade—and stabbed the kid with it before he could react. It all happened so fast that the demon was dead before he even had time to look surprised.
Light flickered in his eyes and face, and then he went down. Dean shook his head and the ringing was back, and then he was hearing again, although his ears still hurt.
The other demon looked at Ruby. "You didn't tell me he had your knife!"
"What the hell is wrong with you? You can't kill a couple of high school kids? Just shoot Sam. I'll take care of Dean," she said.
"No way, he's going to kill me," the demon said. "This is not what I signed up for."
The demon tilted the kid's head up and smoke came out of his mouth, then the kid collapsed on the floor and Dean turned back to Ruby. "I'm not going to let you kill my brother," he said.
"I guess killing you will have to do, then," she said.
She took a swipe at Dean with her knife, which he dodged easily. He backed up, knocking over some desks in the process. She laughed and jabbed at him with her knife. "I want my knife back, Winchester."
"You're not going to win, Ruby. You might as well let the girl go," he said.
"But Dean, she's a nice girl. She's sweet and pretty and all of fourteen. You're going to have to kill her if you want to kill me," she said. She was still swinging her blade with wide but controlled strikes, and at least one hit its mark, leaving a deep gash in Dean's arm.
He couldn't really feel the cut yet, but he knew in a few minutes when the shock wore off he'd be in a lot of pain. He kicked back at the desks so he had more room and thought back to the Latin he knew. Dean knew he could probably save the girl by reciting an exorcism. He knew he should. But this demon was going to follow them wherever they went. She was going to be relentless. If she didn't kill him before he graduated high school, then Sam would go off to college one day, and she'd be after him still. Dean couldn't protect him then, but he could protect Sam right now.
He put up his left arm and let her cut him again, and then stabbed her in the gut with his right. Maybe Jade would be able to survive. Maybe not.
But Ruby would be dead.
The light flickered and died, and the girl who had been Ruby fell to the ground. Dean realized the police were going to be involved and he was going to be in a lot of trouble. At the very least they'd take Ruby's knife away from him. Well, he supposed it was worth it, to have Sam safe and sound.
He took off the plaid shirt he'd been wearing opened over a t-shirt and wrapped it around his wound, fastening the knot with his teeth.
"Someone should go tell the police there's nothing to worry about," Dean said.
"But they're still alive," someone said. "Those kids were trying to kill us! They killed our teacher."
"They're not dangerous anymore, trust me," Dean said. "In fact, we probably need a couple of ambulances."
The kid looked at him like he was a monster and ran out of the room. Dean sat down wearily on a plastic chair and looked at Sam. "You okay Sammy?"
He was crying. "Why does everyone want to kill me?" he asked. "What's wrong with me?"
Dean got up and embraced him with his good arm. "There's nothing wrong with you, Sammy. I'll explain everything. But for now, just know that anyone who wants to mess with you has to go through me."
Sam sunk into his embrace and sobbed, and Dean looked up at the police who entered the room. He was still holding the bloody knife, and the policeman raised his weapon.
"No, I told you the people who were attacking us are unconscious. Dean Winchester saved our lives," the kid who'd gone to get the police said.
The policeman appeared reluctant, but he lowered his weapon and held out his hand. "Let's have the knife, son," he said.
Dean handed it over, glad at least that he hadn't been carrying the angel blade so he still had it.
The policeman spouted all sorts of numbers, police radio code, Dean assumed, over the radio, and then he and his partner started to perform first aid on the victims. After a few moments the paramedics came in and took over. One of the policemen got up and walked over to Dean.
"You again, huh? You always seem to be in trouble, son," the policeman said.
Dean didn't remember him, but it was possible that they'd met after Dean's confrontation with his father. He shrugged. "There's this woman, Ruby. She hates my dad—or she did. She tried to use his mental instability to get him to kill his own son, and she tried to get these poor teenagers to do her dirty-work, too."
"How the hell did she do that?"
"I don't know. How did Charles Manson do it? She's an evil bitch. Or she was. I heard she died. It just made her little followers even more eager to do crazy shit."
"And the teacher?"
"She was down when I got here," Dean said.
One of the kids from the class supplied what had happened in a halting voice, and a paramedic approached Dean. "What's wrong with your arm?"
Dean held up his arm, which was dripping blood through the plaid shirt. "She cut me. Pretty deep I think. It really hurts," he said.
The pain burned through him, but now the danger had passed and his heartrate had slowed, it didn't seem like anything much mattered.
"Sir, are you going to faint?"
Dean heard the words through a fog. His arm was still around Sammy, and his brother held him up when his legs stopped holding him.
When Dean woke up, he was in the hospital. He was happy to note that at least he hadn't been handcuffed to the hospital bed. He looked around and saw Bobby and Sammy sleeping beside the bed in uncomfortable-looking chairs, and then noticed that it was night judging by the darkness outside.
He noticed movement by the door and saw it was Benny.
"I heard you were hogging the town's blood supply, so I thought I'd come by and give you a talking to about that," Benny said, keeping his voice quiet to avoid waking the others.
"Believe me, I'd rather not have needed it," he said, keeping his voice just as low.
"Are you alright? Is there anything I can do to help?"
"It was Ruby. I killed her, and one of the other demons. I don't think the third will be back. So it's all good. I think it's over," Dean said.
"As much as this angel and demon fight is ever going to be over for you," Benny said.
Dean rolled his eyes. "Give me a moment of victory, will you?"
"Can you really call it a victory when the impala is a casualty?"
Dean stilled. "What the hell are you talking about?"
"They didn't tell you?"
"This is the first time I've woken up," he said.
"Shit, I'm sorry, man. I should let you get back to sleep. Or hell, let the doctors look you over," Benny said.
"No, you should tell me what the hell they did to my car!" Sam stirred and Dean lowered his voice. "Seriously, man. You're the only one who'll be straight with me. They'll just tell me not to worry about it when they wake up."
"I guess they didn't want you to be able to make a getaway or something. Or maybe they wanted a distraction—some confusion—"
"—out with it," Dean commanded.
"They broke one of your windows and threw a Molotov cocktail inside," Benny said.
"Oh my poor baby," Dean said morosely.
"Don't worry. She's got good bones. You and Bobby can fix her up easy," Benny said.
"So did you bring me anything?" Dean asked hopefully.
Benny came all the way into the room and held up the triangular container with a single piece of pie. "Coconut cream."
"Awesome," he said. He held up his hand for it.
"You sure you should eat this?"
"I'm sure that all that's wrong with me is blood loss. Hand it over," Dean said.
Benny handed it and a plastic fork over and left, and when Bobby woke up, Dean was finishing it up.
"Why didn't you wake me, ya idjit? You actually had time to sweet-talk your way into some pie before I even knew you were okay?"
"Benny dropped it off. I think he saw my name on a patient list for blood or something."
"Humph," Bobby grunted, but he was obviously too pleased to see Dean awake to make take issue with Benny showing up. "What did the doctor say?"
"I haven't called any doctors yet. Geez, it's just a little blood-loss."
"You could have died, Dean. It was a lot of blood-loss," Bobby said.
"I'm fine," Dean said.
Bobby said nothing for a few minutes, and then looked at Dean. "Is it over?"
"I think so," Dean said. "Ruby's dead. If Castiel was right about the agreement between the angels and the demons, then I think the rest of the demons will let us be. Or at least wait until we're actively involved in the war."
"So that means that other demons might come after you, but not Sam, because he's still a kid?"
"I think so. I hope so. I think he's like a non-combatant. Ruby broke the rules."
"And she's dead. And the demons who were with her are dead?"
"No, one got away. Well, ran away."
Bobby exhaled loudly. "You're almost nineteen years old and you've got demons running away from you. What are you going to be like when you're my age?"
Dean grinned, but he didn't say what he was thinking, which was that he'd never make it to Bobby's age. He'd be dead long before that. "He was mostly running from Ruby's knife. I was just happy not to have to gut another high school kid."
Bobby shook his head. "We should move away from this town. I can't imagine that you'll make it out of this one without getting in some kind of trouble. There are some folks who are never going to believe that the kids you killed had to be killed."
"So they died?" Dean asked. His heart sunk a little bit at this, but he had done what he had to do.
"The girl and the boy. The other one is going to make it, but the demon rode him hard. He's got about six broken bones they can't explain. And the teacher is dead, too."
"I can't let you leave. You've got your home, and your business. It wouldn't be right to ask you to pack up and leave it all."
Bobby grimaced. "We'll see."