Disclaimer: Supernatural, the Winchesters, and any other characters and/or places which may appear do not belong to me.

Whumptober 2020

Day #2; Time: 11:32pm

Prompt(s): Collars; Kidnapped

Author's Note: Set in season 12, between 12x06 Celebrating the Life of Asa Fox and 12x07 Rock Never Dies

Maybe some references to other episodes of season 12, Mary!bashing, and language

Today's Whumpee: Dean Winchester

Everybody who met the Winchester brothers instantly saw Dean as the overprotective one. The big brother. He always seemed to stay unnecessarily close to Sam, always checking on him, glancing over to him if they were separated. But if people looked closer, they would see that Sam was just as protective of his big brother. He was more tense when they weren't together, and he always checked Dean up and down when they would regroup, making sure his elder brother wasn't hiding any injuries.

The fact was, they were both equally protective of each other; Sam was just better at concealing his worry or anxiousness behind a book or his computer.

There was nothing to conceal Sam's frantic worry right now however. Not now that Dean had been kidnapped by a vampire nest he and Sam had been tracking. Him, Sam, and Mary.

After Asa Fox's wake, Mary had thought she might tag along on a hunt or two if that was alright with Sam and Dean. Even though they didn't really feel like having their mom hunt with them right now, they had appreciated the gesture and that Mary was trying, so they had said yes.

They'd found signs of a vampire nest not far from the border between of Idaho and Montana so they'd started tracking it.

When they'd found a straggler vamp out in the daylight, Dean opted to go after it and track it down, see if he could figure out where the nest was while Sam and Mary collected Dead Man's Blood.

Sam had argued against Dean going alone, but Dean and Mary had just had a bit of an argument so he let his brother go on the basis of needing some alone time. As long as he promised he would be careful.

"Dude, I killed Hitler," Dean said before shrugging on his jacket and grasping his machete a little tighter. He tossed Sam the keys to the Impala. "I can handle a little vampire."

Sam just rolled his eyes and nodded. "Call if you need backup."

Now Sam and Mary were filling darts with Dead Man's Blood and waiting for Dean to either call or return to the motel with the location of the nest. But when nighttime rolled around, and they still hadn't heard anything, Sam started to pace.

"I'm sure he's alright, Sam," Mary tried to say comfortingly.

"He would've called to check in by now if he was alright," Sam said. "Or at least texted, he always does. He didn't used to, but…"

"But what?" Mary prompted, curious.

"He didn't used to but he does now," Sam snapped. "After everything we've been through, we don't take chances like this. We don't usually let each other go do things like this alone anymore. I only did this time because… well…" Sam trailed off, looking pointedly at the floor.

Mary knew what he was implying. Because her and Dean had argued. Mary had thought it was an innocent question when she had asked.

"What was your dad like after I… died?" she asked.

Sam and Dean both stiffened in the front seats. Mary sat in the middle of the back so she could see both her sons.

"He hunted," Sam said. "Pretty much non-stop."

"He was dead-set on catching Yellow Eyes," Dean added. "Wouldn't take more than a few days off for anything."

"But you two did go to school right?" Mary asked.

Dean nodded. "Yeah, most every town we stayed at, we'd be in school for a few days. Couple weeks if we were lucky. A lot of the time Dad would work cases all within a day or two's drive of each other so Sam and I could stay in the same school for that time. Then we'd move on."

"He raised you two well," Mary said. But she could see how those words affected Sam and Dean. Dean's jaw tightened and his grip tightened on the steering wheel. Sam's jaw tightened as well and he turned to look out of the window.

"What is it?" Mary asked after a second.

Sam shook his head. "Nothing, Mom, don't worry 'bout it."

Mary could tell in her son's voice that he really didn't want to say anything more on the matter. But she'd pressed on anyways.

Eventually, after much insisting on Mary's part and evading on Sam's, Dean had hit the steering wheel with his hands. "Dad asked me to kill Sam, does that sound like a good father to you! Putting that on me? Asking me to put a bullet in my kid?"

That had shut Mary up. She didn't miss how Dean had called Sam 'his kid'. She looked to Sam for his reaction to that but there wasn't one. Just another one of those shared looks. The rest of the drive to Idaho was pretty much silent except for Dean turning the radio up loud. Mary didn't bother commenting how much she liked the songs that played.

"I can't," Sam said after a few more moments. "I can't keep waiting around when something may have happened to him." He collected up the weapons on the bed, and grabbed the Impala's keys. "I'm going back to where we split up. You coming?"

Mary only hesitated a second before grabbing her jacket and machete from the bed and following Sam out the door.

Dean stirred slightly, then jolted as he realized that he was bound to a chair by the wrists and ankles. He also felt something uncomfortable and tight around his throat. He looked up and glanced around. He was sitting in the middle of an abandoned barn or farmhouse by the looks of it.

And about a dozen vamps were surrounding him. Some were sharpening knives, some were drinking, as well as a couple of them making out in a corner. Not awkward at all. Dean tried to keep his eyes off them.

"Oh, look, the little puppy's awake," one said, her voice high and lilted. She held a bottle of whiskey in one hand that was almost empty. She stood up, walked over to Dean, and tugged on the thing around his neck. "This isn't too tight for the little puppy, is it?" she taunted again. She tugged on the collar again. It was sharp and rough, and there seemed to be metal coming at his neck from the inside of the collar and when she jerked it, he could feel the metal prods dig into his skin and make it bleed. He couldn't help but wince, no matter how hard he tried to keep his face impassive.

"Oh, sorry about that, puppy," she said, feigning a pitying look when she caught sight of his wince. "You want a drink?" She held the bottle up in front of his eyes. Dean just stared into her face, his own a mask of coldness and hatred.

"Hmm," the vamp hummed. "Guess I'll take that as a yes." And with that, she turned the bottle upside down, upending the remaining alcohol onto Dean's face. Dean blinked profusely and looked down, trying to keep it from dripping into his eyes. The intense burning a few seconds later told him that he'd failed at that.

"Marie, that's enough," another female vamp chided. She was dozing in and out of sleep a few feet away. "Leave it alone."

Marie scowled at him, barring her fangs at him before dragging a long nail across his neck and wiping at the blood from the collar. She licked her finger with a venomous smile that didn't reach her eyes, before turning away. Nobody talked to Dean for a good twenty minutes until the two vamps who had been kissing viciously in the corner split apart and the male one came over, tugging a shirt over his head.

Dean kept his eyes straight ahead, not really looking at anything. When the vamp reached him, he stretched out a hand and jerked Dean's chin upwards, jerking the collar so that the metal jammed into the back of his neck. Dean tried so hard to not make a sound but a gasp escaped him and he felt tears pricking at his eyes.

"Do you know why you're here?" the vamp asked, his voice menacing but soft.

"Lemme guess," Dean mused. "Strip poker?" he suggested with a smirk.

The vampire backhanded him hard across the face, the long nails catching his skin and leaving deep gashes. Dean could feel the blood drip and he clenched his jaw. He closed his eyes and clenched his jaw even tighter when the vampire leaned down and wiped his tongue across Dean's cheek where the blood was dripping.

"You're here," the vampire began, "to be our lifeline. Feedings have been stale lately. It'll be nice to have fresh human blood every now and then. The scavenging, the settling for cattle, it all gets very tiresome, you know?"

"Yeah, I'll bet," Dean said. His voice was no longer smirking or taunting, but dark and cold. They wanted him to be like Alex had been for her pack before they'd saved her. Something to fall back on when the going got tough. And there was no way in hell he'd let that happen. But at this moment, Dean wasn't positive how to get out of this scrape.

So he waited. He dealt with Marie's taunting. Most of the others ignored him, although he did occasionally catch sight of some of them eyeing him hungrily. He got the idea that a lot of them would've been happy to feast on him right there and then but that they were under orders from the leader to wait.

His eyes still burned from the whiskey Marie had poured onto his face, and every which way he moved or turned his head shoved a different metal poker into his neck at some odd angel. He could feel the blood dripping down his neck and around his collarbone. Dean would be lying if he said that he wasn't surprised at the fact that the vampires weren't attacking him for the scent of his blood. But maybe they'd been holding off of meat so long, the scent didn't affect them as bad anymore. Dean wasn't sure. He was too preoccupied with the pain in his neck and the aching of his wrists and ankles at being bound for so long. He could feel pinpricks in his fingers, telling him that blood wasn't reaching them. Same with his feet.

After a few hours, or at least that's what it felt like to Dean, one of the male vampires who'd been sulking in the corner came over to him. Dean looked up at him. His face was still a mask. Impassive. Cold.

Dean wasn't expecting the hard fist that slammed into his jaw a second later. As his head twisted from the impact, his neck was yet again attacked by the crude collar, and he felt blood fill his mouth from the split lip he now bore. He spat out the blood at the feet of the vamp.

"That the best you got?" he growled.

The vampire growled back. A half second later, Dean regretted ever saying that.

Sam and Mary had found the farmhouse. They'd counted eleven vamps, maybe more. Sam had enough Dead Man's Blood to take them all down, but the problem was how to get it to them. Two hunters against at least eleven vamps was a big feat, but Sam had to get Dean back. Who knows what they'd done to him.

Dean was in a daze. The vamp hadn't gone easy on him. And for all the orders against not feeding on Dean, the leader obviously didn't feel the need to have Dean in premium condition. He didn't say a word against the numerous punches thrown the elder Winchester's way, or the way the cuts in his neck bled more and more with every twist and turn of his head.

The taunting didn't help either. Ozzy, the vamp who'd been using Dean's face as a punching bag, leered at him through crooked teeth and bloodshot eyes.

"No one's gonna come for you," he said.

"Oh really?" Dean spat back. "You think so?" Dean believed Sam was looking for him. He had to believe it.

"Wouldn't they have found you by now?" Ozzy teased. "Maybe they're just happy to be rid of you. Maybe you slowed them down, maybe you aren't as good as you think you are."

Dean spat out more blood. "Listen here, you arrogant dick," he said. "You don't know me. And you don't know my brother. He's gonna come in here, and he's gonna slaughter you all."

Dean's words were rewarded with another punch. And another. And then another. Dean's neck was burning with a searing intensity, every inch of his face felt like it was blistering, and he couldn't feel his hands any longer. Ozzy had also landed some hits on Dean's chest and stomach, so that now Dean felt like he couldn't catch his breath. He was pretty sure a rib was cracked, but he wasn't sure.

One last hit to his ribs, and Dean was seeing spots and falling into darkness.

Sam stood in the middle of the farmhouse. He held a blood-soaked machete in one hand and a severed vampire head in the other. He threw both aside when he refocused on his big brother. Tied up in a chair, beaten and bloody, his face swollen and blood dripping down past the collar of his shirt.

Sam skidded on his knees in front of Dean.

"Dean? Hey Dean, c'mon, wake up for me, buddy."

Mary killed the last vampire a few feet behind him but he wasn't really paying attention to her anymore. All he could think about was getting Dean out of here and how he should've gotten to him sooner.

"Dean, c'mon brother," Sammy begged. "I'm gonna get you outta here, but you gotta wake up for me."

"S'mmy," the slurred mumble came. Sam breathed a sigh of relief at just hearing the voice.

"Dean, hey, I got you, I got you," Sam quickly but carefully started untying the robes from around Dean's wrists and ankles. Then he moved to the crude collar around his brother's neck.

"S'mmy," Dean mumbled. "Damn bloodsuckers got me, Sammy."

"That's alright, Dee, we took care of 'em. You're alright now."

Without the ropes binding Dean to the chair, his body was limp and weak, and he fell forward. Sam pulled Dean out of the chair and onto the floor in front of him so that he could get the thing off Dean's neck.

He cringed as he carefully pulled the collar away. Dean's neck was red and bloody, and some of the metal prods on the inside of the collar had gotten buried in Dean's skin. Sam winced as he heard his brother gasp in pain at the sensation of the metal leaving his skin.

"Fuck," Dean mumbled. "Fuck, fuck, fuck."

"Shh, shh, I gotcha," Sam said, trying to sound soothing and not concerned. The metal hadn't looked clean, and if Dean's neck got infected… that wouldn't be pretty. Sam pulled a relatively clean bandana out of his pocket and wrapped it around his brother's neck to stem the bleeding.

After some groans and grunts on both brothers' part, Sam was able to get Dean's arm around his shoulders and help him through the dilapidated building and vampire bodies. It was a rough ride back to the motel with Mary driving and Sam in the backseat taking care of his brother who was slipping in and out of consciousness.

When they finally reached the motel, Dean had woken up enough to keep his feet under him, but that exhausted what little strength he had left and he fell into a fitful sleep as soon as Sam got him down on the bed.

Sam had Mary clean the weapons and other things that him and Dean always did after hunts. He could tell his mother was annoyed with him, that she wanted to help, but he needed her to understand that, despite being his and Dean's mom, she wasn't the one who'd taken care of them. Him and Dean had done that for each other.

Taking care of Dean was his job. It always had been. Mary had only been back in their lives a couple months, and while Sam was ecstatic that his mother was alive and well again, he wouldn't let her take back the role that him and Dean had played for each other nearly their whole lives.

Sam cleaned and bandaged the holes in Dean's neck and the gash on his face, put some ice over his eye and cheek to help the swelling and then checked for any broken or cracked ribs. It seemed that one was cracked, but Sam didn't want to wrap it until his brother was awake and could tell him how tight was tight enough. The swelling on Dean's face soon grew less, and it seemed that his brother's breathing evened out slightly. But that didn't stop Sam from staying awake and barely leaving Dean's side for the next few hours. At some point, Sam forgot Mary was even there.

Dean stirred, instantly becoming away of the numbing cold on his face. He sat up, but regretted it instantly as he felt his ribs and bruised stomach protest.

"Hey, hey, you're alright," a voice at his side said softly.

"Sam," Dean muttered. He forced his eyes open, but roughly closed them again when the lamp on the nightstand tried to blind him. Sam caught on quick though and clicked it off.

"That better?" his little brother asked.

Dean opened his eyes again and nodded. "Jesus," he muttered. The ice pack that had been on his face had fallen to his knee and he scooped it up again and pressed it to his face.

"How you feelin'?" Sam asked.

Dean looked at him with one eye, the other swollen and covered by the ice pack. "Bloody fantastic," he said. "Pun intended."

"Idiot," Sam said with a light laugh. "Listen, I found some pain pills in the Impala. They're not as good as the stuff we got at home, but they should help at least some." Sam dropped a couple tablets into his brother's palm. Dean knocked them back and then took the glass of water Sam offered and swallowed them down. He groaned as the movement stretched his wrist and chest.

"I know what you're thinking," he said, lowering the ice pack and holding a hand up as Sam opened his mouth. "I shouldn't have gone tracking that thing alone. I was just in a mood and I needed to clear my head."

Sam nodded. "Well, next time you need to clear your head, why don't you go drive around in your Baby, not get kidnapped and beaten up by some punk-ass vampires."

Dean laughed with a wince. He wrapped an arm protectively around his side. "Deal," he muttered.

Sam took a hand and pushed his brother back down on the mattress.

"So you took out a dozen vamps all by yourself, eh?" Dean said, letting go of his stubbornness and letting his brother take care of him. "Nice job, little bro."

"Well, Mom ganked a few herself. She came on this hunt with us, remember?" Concern was etched into Sam's tone as he wondered if Dean had a concussion. It certainly wouldn't be a surprise. He'd have to do a concussion check in a bit when he brother was more awake and alert.

"Oh, yeah, right," Dean muttered. He pressed the ice against his face again. "Thanks for getting me outta there, Sammy," he said after a moment, closing his eyes.

"Always," Sam replied easily, pulling some blankets off the other bed and onto his brother. "Rest up, okay? I want you to eat something and do a concussion test for me next time you wake up."

"Okay, mom," Dean replied, his voice tired but sarcastic.

Sam smiled. "Jerk."

But Dean was already asleep again.

As Mary watched her sons from corner of the motel room, she found herself feeling like an outsider. Taking care of each other, no matter which was older or younger, it came so easily to them. And the teasing, the little jibes and comebacks they threw at each other, they never took offense because they could somehow understand the real meaning behind them. They weren't insults or teasing remarks like they might be to other people. To Sam and Dean, they were signs of their bond, their love for one another. The thing that kept them together even when the universe wanted them to fight each other.

And when Dean called Sam 'mom', even though it was meant as a joke, Mary couldn't help but feel her heart crack. Because it was true. She might be their mother, the one who'd brought them into this world, but she wasn't the one who had taken care of them and raised them. And according to Sam and Dean, John hadn't done much of that either. It had just been Sam and Dean for so long.

Mary watched them for a bit longer, but when Dean woke up next and Sam busied himself with testing his brother for a concussion, she excused herself. Sam only hummed in response when she said she was going out.

They'd taken care of each other for so long that it was second nature to them. It seemed so easy for Sam to fall into a rhythm of checking Dean's pupils, or giving him antibiotics at regular intervals, or even just making sure he was feeling okay.

And from what she'd seen, it was even easier for Dean to fall into that rhythm. Always taking care of his little brother, making sure he was alright and safe. She'd never seen anything like the bond her two sons had. It wasn't a normal brotherly relationship. But it was their normal. And that was more than good enough for them.