Chapter Four

Dean opened his eyes to clammy fingers on his face and someone peering down at him in the moonlight and for a moment he was back in the pool – back with the screeching frog monster, her sticky webbed hands sliding around his neck, sharp green teeth bared ready to bite a meaty chunk out of him. Lashing out wildly in the dark, he heard a grunt of pain, and a familiar voice swore at him.

"Dean, wake up. It's me... It's Sam."

Dean blinked up in the darkness as the Jenny disappeared, replaced by his little brother's face peering worriedly down at him. "Sammy? What the matter?"

"Nothing's the matter with me, Dean. You were the one who was crying."

Dean elbowed himself up, feeling his back protest at the sudden movement and he shut his eyes as a cold shiver went through him. "I wasn't crying." he told Sam, wiping a hand down his face and ignoring the wetness he felt there.

"Sure. Whatever." Sam replied, and pressed a hand against Dean's damp cheek, only to have it batted away. "You're really hot. And you stink."

"So do you." Dean snapped back, before sniffing his own arm with a grimace. Sam wasn't wrong, he stank to high heaven - both him and John too exhausted to shower, only having enough juice left to strip off and fall into bed.

"What happened tonight, Dee?"

Dean sighed and rubbed his eyes, they felt gritty and sore, and he reached for the glass of water that he always left beside his bed, only for Sam to hand it to him. Taking a few gulps, he handed the glass back to his brother and scooted over in the bed so that Sam could sit next to him.

"It was a mermaid, Sam. In an old hotel pool. I killed it with a flare."

Sam frowned. "A mermaid? Like Ariel?

Dean chuckled at the memory of a pudgy six-year-old Sam sitting on the floor with a bowl of Froot Loops, watching the copy of The Little Mermaid they'd found in lobby of the motel they'd been staying in, singing along happily to Under the Sea, and Dean had wondered at the time if he's ever been so carefree as a little kid. He didn't ever remember feeling like that.

"It definitely wasn't like Ariel, Sam. It looked more like a frog, or a gator… All these green teeth and sharp nails."

"Did it bite you? Is that where the blood is from?"

Dean frowned, what blood? And he winced as Sam leant over and switched on the bedside lamp.

"You're bleeding all over the sheets, Dee." Sam sighed, lifting up the sheets of Dean's bed that were now covered in a mixture of dirt and blood from the deep claw marks they could both clearly see in Dean's calf. "Didn't dad fix up your leg before you went to bed?"

Dean shrugged, feeling slightly sick at the sight of his gore slicked leg and he swallowed dryly. "Dad was tired, Sammy. He had a full-on fight with her, she was really strong."

"And I guess you just sat and watched, huh?"

Dean sighed and pulled the covers back over his leg. It seemed to have stopped bleeding now and the sheets couldn't really get any worse. They'd have to go straight to the wash in the morning with half a gallon of bleach and some wishful thinking. He was too tired to be having this conversation with Sam right now, it would only wind up with Sam bitching about their dad and he didn't really have the energy or inclination to have that conversation right now. He just wanted to bury himself under the covers and sleep away the aches and pains and shivers – except that every time he shut his eyes, he could see her – see her yellow frog eyes and webbed hand reaching for him…

"I'm tired, Sam. Can we talk about this in the morning?"

Sam was peering at him and shook his head. "I'm getting the first aid kit. You'll get an infection if those scratches aren't cleaned up."

Dean sighed. It was probably too late to worry about that. He was covered in whatever crap was in the pool, and it'd had plenty of time to get into every cut, scrape and hole the Jenny had clawed, bitten and punched into him. But there was no point arguing. Sam's expression was resolute, and he nodded and laid back on the pillow, pulling the covers up around his neck. It wasn't cold in the room, but he couldn't stop the shiver that shook through him, and he pressed his face into the covers as Sam disappeared, returning a few moments later with the gigantic bag of medical supplies that John always kept to hand.

"You should have a shower, Dean. That would help clean you up."

"Oh yeah, and wake dad? It's 3am, genius."

"I can tell the time, idiot." Sam snapped back, and he shook the bag out on Dean's bed until he found what he was looking for – half a dozen gauze pads, a bandage and a bottle of hydrogen peroxide which he held up for Dean to see.

"You're not pouring that shit on my leg, Sam. No goddamn way."

"Do you want to get tetanus, Dean. Or that flesh eating bacteria?" Sam replied, and pulling the covers back, he gently lifted his brother's foot up so he could slide one of the motel's thin towel under it, trying to ignore Dean's gasp of pain.

Sitting up properly so he could oversee Sam's ministrations, Dean bit his lip in anticipation of what was to come and tried his hardest not to scream as Sam opened the bottle of peroxide and dumped all over the wounds in his calf.

"I'm sorry, Dean." Sam cried, looking almost as pained as his brother, and grabbing the tube of Neosporin, he smeared it all over the gauze and slapped it over the worst of the freshly bleeding, fizzing wounds.

"Sammy!" Dean groaned through gritted teeth, winding his fists into the bedcovers and Sam winced at the fresh tears spilling down Dean's cheeks.

He hardly ever saw Dean cry. He heard him sometimes, late in the night when Dean thought he was asleep. He could hear his brother sobbing into his pillow, trying to make as little noise as possible, and he wanted nothing more to hug him, to try to make whatever was hurting Dean so bad stop hurting, but he never did – he knew better. Dean liked to lick his wounds on his own, and no matter how much he wanted to help, he knew Dean wanted to be alone more.

"I'm nearly done, Dean. It'll feel better in a minute."

Dean began taking some slow, deep breaths, trying to breathe through the pain, and after a minute or two, the fierce stinging began to subside, leaving only a weird hotness inside his skin.

"Are you okay?" Sam asked quietly. Dean looked anything but okay and he knew full well that his brother was a frequent and accomplished liar – especially when it came to stuff like this. "Feeling better?"

Dean cracked open a sore and gritty feeling eye to glare at his little brother. "A bit."

Sam gave him a small, relieved smile and began packing away the medical supplies. There were pills in there too, painkillers and things that could help Dean, he could hear them rattling around as he stuffed the unused gauze back where he found it, but John had given them strict instructions never to touch them.

Too strong for kids…

"Dad should have done this before you went to bed, Dean."

Dean sighed. He was too tired for was about to start and he let himself fall back onto his thin pillow.

"He should have cleaned up your leg and he shouldn't have made you go on that hunt."

Dean snorted. "He didn't make me, Sam. I wanted to go – I asked dad to let me go with him. I'm 15 now, it's time I started hunting."

Sam got off the bed and hoisted the bag onto his shoulder and looking down at Dean, he shook his head. "Dad used you, Dean. You were the bait."

At his brother's words, Dean's blood ran to ice water, knowing what was going to come next out of his brother's too smart mouth but not wanting to hear it. The sudden truth of his birthday gift feeling like a punch to the gut.

"Shut up, Sammy." Dean snapped, but the words were nothing but a strangled whisper.

"I heard you talking, Dean. In the car. Dad told you about the kids that had died. He needed a kid to draw the monster out."

Dean opened his mouth to deny it, to defend his dad, but they both knew the truth of what Sam had just said. There was nothing he could say, and he felt tears prick his eyes again. It all made sense. Of course it did.

Rolling over to face the wall, ignoring the stinging of his torn-up leg and the protest of his pulled muscles, Dean wrapped his arms around his head and closed his eyes. "Go back to bed, Sam."

He could feel his little brother standing behind him for a minute or more, could feel the weight of everything Sam desperately wanted to say to him, but he just couldn't deal. Not now. He was too tired, too hurt and it was way too much for him to think about. He just wanted to go to sleep and pretend this night had never happened.

He heard Sam take the first aid kit back to the kitchen and when he came back, Sam switched the light off and got back into his bed, and they lay in heavy silence for a while until he'd almost drifted off to sleep once more. Then Sam's little voice drifted across the room.

"You're a hunter now, Dean. Welcome to the family business."