Title: Now I Know My ABC's
Author: Disasteriffic Kaz
Info: A hurt/comfort romp through the alphabet, one letter at a time from A to Z. Each chapter is a stand-alone one shot. There is hurt, comfort, angst, humor, feels and all around fun.
Author's Note: This one is set after 1x15 "The Benders" This chapter is kind of a love letter to my hurt!Dean fans. I know I don't give you guys enough love but you know how much of a hurt!Sam fan I am. And don't worry everyone else, that's in here as well. I mean, it's me. Of COURSE I hurt Sam. Lol XD We're going really old school for this one. First season and a wendigo; it's like comfort food, this one. Lol
Beta'd by the always awesome JaniceC678 :D– Friend and Muse's co-conspirator.
**Follow me on Facebook as "Disasteriffic Kaz" for frequent fic updates or just to chat!
~Reviews are Love~
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W is for Wendigo -
Dean woke slowly. His head felt like he had been on one hell of a bender. As his brain made its sluggish way toward consciousness, he realized his whole body ached, and he wondered distantly if he'd been in a bar fight. He blinked once, eyes opening a mere slit and then sliding heavily closed again. He frowned in confusion. Leaves. Dean groaned softly and fought to open his eyes again and figure out why there were leaves over his head. He had expected to see the stained ceiling of the shitty motel of the week at best, or maybe the pocked tiles of a hospital ceiling at worst; not a forest. Waking up in the woods usually meant one thing - hunt gone bad. His eyes finally obeyed his commands and opened all the way once more. He lay on his back on the floor of a forest. Now that he was more alert, he could feel branches and leaves beneath him and what had to be the pointiest damn rock in five miles jabbing into his left shoulder blade like a hot drill of slowly growing pain.
"Crap," he groaned and scowled at the sound of his own, hoarse voice. "Sam?" He couldn't understand why his little brother wasn't planted next to him giving him that 'aneurism face' of his that screamed fear and those puppy-dog eyes begging him to move already so he could stop being afraid for him. "Sammy?"
Dean pulled his left hand up to rub the grit out of his eyes and yelped as pain at the back of his shoulder stabbed through his entire arm. He curled instinctively onto his right side, cradling his left arm against his chest and relearned how to breathe. "Holy… shit." He slammed his eyes closed, gritted his teeth together, and rode out the pain. He breathed in the scent of dirt and leaves through his nose until he could unclench his jaw without sobbing. His eyes fluttered open again, and he carefully eased himself up with his right arm. He twisted a little to see behind him and saw a small pool of cooling blood on the ground where his shoulder had been. He brought the fingers of his right hand up to feel at the back of his shoulder and winced.
"Not a rock," he muttered, feeling an open wound beneath his shirt. He cautiously ran his hand up and over his head and found his hair matted with what had to be more blood, finding the reason as his fingers skated painfully over an open gash on the back of his head. "Wha'?" Dean swallowed and opened his eyes again, not realizing they had slipped closed. He hunched over his knees and looked blearily around him. He startled badly as he looked to his right and saw dead, brown eyes staring back at him.
"Shit!" The zing of adrenaline at the sight woke Dean up a little more. He half crawled-half shuffled the six feet to the dead man. The only thought in Dean's head at that moment was 'thank God it's not Sam'. He knelt clumsily next to the man and closed his eyes again while pain and confusion hammered through his skull. The man's face wavered in his memory alongside his brother's.
"You know we could have let someone else grab this hunt."
Sam snorted and turned to look over his shoulder at his big brother. "Since when do you walk away from a job?"
Dean rolled his eyes as he trudged through the forest. He hitched his bag higher on his shoulder and shook his head. "Since it involves camping. You know how I feel about camping."
Sam chuckled and went back to watching the path in front of him. "Pretty sure anyone on the Appalachian trail between here and Virginia knows how you feel about camping by now thanks to the whining."
"I'm not whining," Dean said with a scowl. He jogged the few steps to catch up and slapped a hand hard up the back of his brother's head. "I don't whine, princess."
"Right." Sam laughed and rubbed the back of his head. He stopped and drew his gun when he heard something crash through the forest ahead of them.
Dean stepped up beside his brother with his own weapon out and took another step forward, making sure he was just a little ahead. "You see anything?"
"No. Hear it, though."
"Yeah. Think we get lucky enough to find it in the first six hours?" Dean asked and inwardly groaned, because when did they ever get that lucky? He tensed as the sounds grew nearer and only just stopped himself from pulling the trigger when a man emerged from a screen of tall bushes and stared at the brothers while gasping for breath.
"Help!"
Dean opened his eyes again and looked down at the man before him. "The hell happened to you?" he asked the dead man. There was no mistaking the way the man's head had been twisted almost clean off his own neck. The sight of popped bones beneath the twisted skin was almost enough to make Dean throw up, but he fought the urge. He looked around the little clearing, trying to make sense of his fractured memory. And where the hell was his brother? "Sam!" Dean called and groaned as the sound of his own raised voice made his head pound harder. His backpack was a few feet away at the base of a tree and looked as though it had been torn apart, the contents scattered around and, in some cases, crushed as though something had stomped them into the dirt.
Dean looked about him for a weapon, for the gun he vaguely remembered holding, but didn't see it. He reached to the small of his back instead and heaved out a sigh of relief to feel it there. He closed his fingers around the grip and pulled the gun out. He looked down at the wide, black barrel and his frown deepened. "Why'm'I carryin' a flare gun?" Fresh memories cascaded through his mind and he moaned, dropping the flare gun in favor of slapping a hand to his head as though to hold it in one piece.
"Whoa! Take it easy!" Sam quickly tucked his flare gun away and caught the stranger as he stumbled clear of the bushes.
Dean watched his brother automatically checking the man for signs of injury, but he didn't see any. He lowered his own gun and stepped forward, catching the stranger's eyes. "What happened?"
"Oh, my God. It… it took him!"
"Ok, breathe." Sam tossed a soft glare at his brother and turned back to the stranger. "Let's start easy. I'm Sam. That's Dean. What's your name?"
Dean barely resisted a chuckle as his little brother succeeded in calming the panicked man. "That's my annoying little brother."
"Greg. I'm Greg. Greg Houston." Greg washed a hand over his face and looked between the two men.
"Alright, Greg. What are you doing out here?" Dean shrugged when Sam flicked another glance to him. "What? Sooner we know, sooner we can send him back down the mountain and find this thing!"
"No way!" Greg suddenly shook himself loose of Sam's hands and backed up a step. "I am NOT leaving! There's something out there and it took my friend! It just… I never even saw it coming! One minute we were arguing about who had to roll the next joint and the next he was gone!" Greg gripped his hands in his short hair and stared at the ground. "It was like a blur. Came out of the trees so fast and grabbed Sean…"
"Alright. It's alright." Sam got a hand back on the man and sighed.
"It's not safe for you up here" Dean met Greg's fearful eyes. "That thing is still out there, and we need you outta harm's way so we can go kill it and maybe find your friend."
"Maybe?"
Dean groaned at Greg's shout and knew he'd stepped wrong. He held up his hands and smiled. "I mean we will find him. We just…"
Sam rolled his eyes at his brother and moved to block Greg's view of him. "It's a wild animal, Greg. Sean may not be…" Sam broke off and squeezed Greg's shoulder. "We just want you to be prepared if we get to him too late."
"Wild animal, my ass!" Greg protested. "It was some kind of monster! I know what I saw!"
"Shit." Dean tapped his brother's shoulder in a silent order to let him handle it now, and Sam gave him a reluctant-but-accepting nod as he let Dean in. "You're right." He nodded when Greg's eyes shot to his and it felt so much like the last time they had hunted a wendigo that the sense of deja vu made his head hurt a little. "It's a wendigo. Nasty-ass piece of man-eating myth, and we don't have a whole lot of time. So we need you to tell us where you saw it, what direction it went in, and how long ago. That's the only hope your friend's got."
Dean coughed and opened his eyes to find he was slumped over on his side, resting beside Greg's body. "Wendigo." He pushed himself back up and swallowed back the bile trying to rise up his throat. "Ok." Dean fumbled to pick up the flare gun again. He shoved it into the pocket of his jacket and felt the other, relieved to find the extra charges still there. This wendigo hadn't done as thorough a job disarming them as the last one had on the other side of the country. The thought that Sam was out there somewhere with a wendigo got Dean to his feet. He swayed unsteadily and propped himself against a nearby tree until his wavering vision settled.
Once he was standing, Dean got a clear look at the area surrounding him. The forest floor was a mess of disturbed earth and sprays of blood, even two patches of burnt scrub that said he or Sam or both had had enough time to fire at the wendigo and missed. He swallowed hard and hoped that all the blood he was seeing was from him and Greg and that his little brother hadn't donated any. He hoped Sam had simply gone to follow the creature back to its nest, maybe save Greg's friend. But inside, Dean knew damn well the creature had managed to carry Sam off. There was no way his little brother would leave him bleeding, unconscious, and helpless. No way. Dean shook his head and focused on the mess of tracks in the dirt around him.
"Alright." Dean took a few, shaky steps away from the tree and saw what he wanted. "Gotcha." There were tracks in the earth far too large even for his giant of a brother, and Dean started off after them. He looked up and swayed precariously as his head spun. "Crap." He caught himself on another tree and took a few deep breaths. The sky above him was still blue, but the sun was heading for the horizon. He was running out of daylight, and he'd already seen his flashlight in pieces beside his bag.
Dean forced his abused body to push forward when all he really wanted to do was collapse and never move again. "Gonna… gonna stab that bitch… right in the nads… before I roast it," he grumbled angrily as he walked. The words triggered another flash of memory and drove him to his knees.
Dean stomped over a small nest of brambles and shook his head as he listened to Greg's footsteps behind him and Sam's beyond that. He couldn't believe he had let himself be talked into bringing the man along. There was no way this would end well, he thought to himself. And yet, he'd still given in. He snorted and knew it had been the puppy-dog eyes his little brother had turned on him. "Keep up, you two!" he called just loud enough for Sam to hear. He had his flare gun held comfortably in his grip, though his hands were beginning to sweat with exertion as they climbed higher up the mountain. "Still think you should go back, Greg. Be a lot safer for you."
Greg gave a disbelieving snort. "I've got one knife left, and I'm gonna leave it where I left the last one if I get the chance."
Dean stumbled to a stop and spun to stare at the man. "You what?" He saw Sam move up and pull Greg's shoulder. "Tell me you didn't wound it."
"Greg, did you hurt it?" Sam demanded, even as his eyes began to roam worriedly around the heavy growth surrounding them.
Greg stared between the men in confusion. "Hell, yes, I did! Didn't slow it down, but I had to try something!" He threw his hands up in the air. "What's the big deal? I stabbed my knife into it when it grabbed Sean. I tried to stop it, but it just vanished on me."
"Shit." Dean saw the look of understanding in his brother's eyes and scrubbed a hand over his face. "Tighten up. Greg, you stay between us, you hear me?" Dean fixed the man with a firm glare. "I don't care what happens, you stay between us."
"Why?" Greg wrapped his arms around himself.
"Because these things get pissed off when you hurt them." Dean shook his head and turned back to the forest. "It'll want revenge."
"Oh, shit."
"Yeah," Dean said softly. "Sam, take…" He never got to finish as something landed on his shoulders hard enough to slam him into the ground. The world swirled away in a rush of black with Sam's voice in his ears, screaming his name before that too went away.
Dean came back to himself gasping and then hunched over as his stomach revolted. He gagged, spitting bile into the leaves and nearly collapsed when it finally stopped. "Shit. Shit." He shoved back with his right arm until he was sitting up again and blinked tears out of his eyes. "Concussion," he said to himself wearily. He snorted. "Blood loss. M'a mess, Sammy." He had no idea how bad the wound on the back of his left shoulder was, but the pain was still burning there and he could feel the occasional trail of blood slipping down the skin of his back in a trickling line.
"Get up, Dean," he ordered himself. He braced his arm on the ground and after two aborted attempts, made it back to his feet. He checked the ground and began following the inhumanly long stride of the wendigo once more. He was grateful for the fact it had kept to the ground with Sam rather than the trees, if nothing else. It made him smile grimly, wondering if the creature had walked away with his brother because of Sam's size. "Bit off more… than you could chew, huh?" Dean huffed softly.
The world began to blur in Dean's vision as he shuffled through the forest. At first he thought he was in danger of passing out and then realized it was just the daylight fading. He squinted as the forest darkened around him and cursed softly, afraid of losing the trail without a light to see it by. Dean picked up his pace. The path of the wendigo had left the uphill path at some point without Dean even realizing. He was leaning toward the upward slope as he moved along a steep incline. A break in the canopy above him let in a last soft streamer of daylight, and his eyes caught on a dark opening a hundred yards ahead. It was half hidden by bushes and vines among the trees, but there was no mistaking it for anything other than a cave entrance.
Dean drew his flare gun and took a deep breath to find his last reserves of strength. "M'comin', Sammy." He briefly toyed with the idea of digging his phone out and calling their dad. Dean snorted a disgusted breath because he knew exactly how useful that would be, even if he could get a signal. It made him feel alone to know that Dad didn't have his back anymore. He had Sam, and that was enough, except for when some supernatural asshole took off with him. Or worse, some twisted human assholes who wanted to hunt him. Dean grimaced at the memory of the Benders and what they had nearly done to his little brother. It was still too soon after that, and his chest tightened painfully with the memory of being tied to that chair, hearing gunshots, and spending a desperate few minutes thinking he had lost his little brother forever.
"Nope," Dean whispered to himself and moved faster. "Not on my watch. Not… not gonna happen." He winced in pain when he stumbled, jarring his left shoulder, but kept moving. "Gonna put… put a damn tracker… on your ass, Sammy."
The mouth of the cave yawned before him suddenly, and Dean stopped just outside. "Shit." It dawned on him that he couldn't just stumble in without some way to see. "Ok." He tucked the flare gun back into his jeans and began the process of worming his left arm out of his jacket. He was sweating freely by the time he had his flannel off and his jacket back on. He swallowed several times to avoid throwing up yet again and found a sturdy stick lying nearby. He wrapped the flannel around one end as a makeshift torch and smiled with relief to find his Zippo still in his pocket. Dean lit the cloth and then forced his stiff left arm to hold the weight of the torch so he could take his gun back out.
Dean ducked slightly to get inside and was able to straighten up again when the ceiling rose several feet inside. He debated staying silent for a moment, not wanting to give away his presence and then changed his mind. "Screw it. Sammy!" he called. He would rather the wendigo came after him than continue doing whatever it was doing to his brother. "Sam!"
His left arm kept wanting to drop the torch, weak as it was with the injury pulling at his shoulder with little drips of pain that felt like liquid fire scalding down his nerve endings. He gritted his teeth together and fought it as he moved. "Hey! Jackass!" Dean shouted. He staggered and had to hold himself up on the right-hand wall as he went further into the tunnel. "Come get some! Come on!"
Each moment the silence dragged on drew Dean's nerves tighter. "Sammy! Answer me, dammit!" The dark part of his mind where every fear lived started trying to tell him he was too late; that Sam was already dead and he was only going to recover a corpse. Dean snarled and shook his head in denial. He hadn't accepted that voice a week ago when his little brother had gone missing, and he damn sure wasn't going to accept it now.
Dean stopped when the tunnel he was in split and glared down each dark opening. "Son of a bitch!" He looked down at stone and dirt floor of the tunnel and saw tracks from the wendigo in both directions, giving him no help. He held the torch out ahead of him to look down the left hand tunnel and saw nothing but blackness. Dean turned and did the same for the right tunnel. He narrowed his eyes as the wavering light outlined something further in. Dean staggered forward and stopped. He looked down and a smile spread across his face; it was his brother's shoe. It must have slipped from Sam's foot when the creature had dragged him against the wall, and it was all the direction Dean needed.
"Sam?" Dean lifted his flare gun up from his side in preparation. He couldn't believe the wendigo hadn't come for him yet. It should have tried to paste him to the floor by now, unless it was out hunting for someone else. He heard the sound of his steps begin to echo ahead of him. He slowed as his wall came to end and curved quickly away into a much larger chamber. His makeshift torch was beginning to gutter worrisomely, and then he spotted a collection of hiker's gear tossed loosely in a pile near the mouth of the cave. Dean staggered across to it, still alert for any sign of the wendigo, and went to his knees. He set his torch down on the stone and started tearing into the backpacks. He grinned as the second one he opened and upended yielded him a heavy duty flashlight with a barrel as thick as his wrist.
"Yahtzee." Dean grabbed it, said a quick prayer for luck, and pushed the button. His smile became a grin as the strong, white beam snapped into life. He realized then that his nose had started to run and that the cave was heavy with the smell of rotting flesh and roasted, burnt meat. Dean frowned and struggled back to his feet. He shined the light around the cave and grimaced. Several corpses in various states of decay hung from the roof. One was missing the arm and leg on the right side; another was nothing but desiccated flesh barely clinging to brown bones. He searched each of them with the light but didn't see Sam. It drove his heart into his throat in fear. Dean slowly played the light along the other side of the cavern and then the floor and stopped when it flashed across one brown boot and one red sock. Dean's breath caught in his throat. He knew that sock. He'd seen Sam tug them on that morning with a disgusted look on his face while Dean had grinned and told his little brother it was hard to find fashionable socks in 'sasquatch size'.
"Sammy." Dean rushed across the cavern. He stumbled on the uneven ground but kept his feet long enough to reach Sam and drop to his knees beside him. "Hey. Hey." Sam lay on his stomach, but curled slightly on his left side. His left arm was wrapped around his chest and his right arm was stretched out ahead of him and still holding a flare gun. Dean followed the line of the muzzle, and his jaw dropped a little in surprise. A few feet away was a pile of slowly smoldering ashes that he knew belonged to the wendigo.
"Damn, kiddo," Dean said, awed. He shook his head at his tough-as-nails little brother and bent over him again, sliding his own gun back into his pocket now that he knew he wouldn't need it. He brushed Sam's ridiculous, floppy bangs out of his eyes, tucking them behind his ear and tried to get a look at him. "Sammy?" He frowned, noticing the glint of blood on the side of Sam's cheek pressing to the floor. Dean slid his fingers carefully under his brother's head and lifted it just enough to get a look. He hissed between his teeth in sympathy. "Looks like I'm not gonna be the only one with the concussion this time." He brushed his fingers over the long gash above his brother's left eye and the bruising that was even then starting to swell that eye closed.
Dean gently settled Sam's head back to the hard stone and tried to think. There was no way he was carrying Sam out of there and down off the mountain on his own and certainly not at night. He couldn't call for rescue as they were well out of cell phone range. "Ok. First thing's first," Dean said as he shivered. He rested the backs of his fingers against his brother's neck and felt the same chill in his skin. "We need to get warm." He rested a hand briefly on the back of Sam's shoulder. "Don't go anywhere."
Getting back to his feet seemed like more energy than he had for a moment, but Dean convinced his exhausted, wounded body and his pounding head to do it. He shuffled back to the pile of discarded gear. Dean looked up toward where the wendigo's victims were hung and nodded his head in silent apology for disturbing their belongings and thanks for giving him something to work with. He looked around the cave with the light and realized he didn't want to hole up in there with dead bodies and a dead creature and that smell that he was sure was going to be clinging to his clothes for weeks.
"Shit." Dean shook his head. He went through packs and bags, pulling the one he had emptied over and used it to collect the things he was pulling from the others - bottles of water, a small first-aid kit, another flashlight, shirts, and even a fleece blanket. He found matches and pocketed those as well, and then stuffed a collection of shirts into the top of the bag to use as kindling for a fire. He pulled the drawstrings closed and swung the strap over his good shoulder, then got laboriously to his feet again.
Dean groaned. "M'gonna sleep for a damn month… someday." He started back to Sam and then stopped. His gut told him to grab his brother and get the hell out, that nothing else mattered, but Greg had died trying to save his friend. Dean owed the man's memory. He turned back to the victims and went to them with the light. The bodies were even more gruesome up close. "Ugh," Dean groaned as the smell of rotting flesh intensified. He wrinkled his nose and moved so he could see them all with the light. He found Greg's friend, Sean, hanging at the back and very dead. He figured it had to be Sean as he was the only body that looked fresh. The wendigo had opened his stomach and the man's intestines were spilled out and down to the floor below him in a macabre pile.
Dean turned away before his stomach could revolt again, but it was close as he moved quickly back to his brother. "Ok, Sammy." He lowered himself back down to his knees in more of a controlled fall, grunting as his knees hit the floor and the impact jarred his shoulder and head. "Shit. Ok." He took hold of his brother's shoulder and gave Sam a tentative shake. "Sammy. Wake up, buddy." He wanted to roll Sam over, but he was wary of moving him until his brother could wake up and let him know just how badly he was hurt. He closed his eyes for a moment, in deference to his pounding head, and leaned more heavily onto his brother's shoulder. Dean felt it then, a shudder that rippled softly through his brother's body, and he snapped his eyes back open. "Sammy? That's it. Come on. Come back."
Dean watched Sam's arms and legs shift in little twitches and held the light close enough to Sam's face to see him. He saw his brother's eyes flutter open as Sam gave a low groan, and Dean grinned when they rolled up to meet his. "Hey, Tiger." Dean had expected a lot of things once Sam woke up - anything from confusion to "who am I?" to angry yelling - but he hadn't prepared for the tears that suddenly filled Sam's eyes or the way he surged up from the ground and wrapped his arms around Dean's chest and buried his face against his neck with what sounded suspiciously like a sob. "Sammy?"
"Dean." Sam held on to his brother fiercely. He let his head slide down so he could hear Dean's heart thumping under his ear and didn't have the strength to stop the relieved sob. "Thought you were dead."
"What?" Dean set the flashlight down and settled his arms around Sam. He buried one hand in the kid's hair and held on. "I'm fine, dude. I'm here. Breathe. Just got my bell rung but good."
Sam gave his head a small shake and tried to stop the tears. "You didn't… when it dropped on you." Sam's breath choked off as he remembered seeing his brother crushed beneath the creature without a sound, the lifeless way his body had lain there, and he simply held on, breathing the smells of leather and sweat and gun oil. "Shit, Dean."
"Take it easy. I gotcha." Dean let Sam have a minute. He knew the panic that had slowly been eating him since he'd woken up in that clearing alone, and Sam had seen the wendigo slam him into the ground like a sack of potatoes. He rubbed a hand up and down his brother's back while Sam's breathing slowly evened out and smiled. "You think we can move this party? Wanna get us to the mouth of the cave. The smell in here's gonna make me hurl."
Sam gave another nod and slowly convinced his fingers to unclench from his brother's jacket. He leaned back, and only then did the aches and pains of his abused body register. He closed his eyes and pulled one arm from his brother to wrap around his own chest. "Shit. Ow." He looked up at Dean when he heard his brother's hiss of pain, and his eyes went wide. The side of Dean's face was painted in blood. "Oh, my God."
"Hey. Hey. Knock it off!" Dean batted his brother's hand away from his head. "Yeah, I'm concussed." He chuckled. "Pretty sure you are too. But how about we save the triage for outside with a fire? You walk?"
Sam sighed and nodded. "Think so." He pulled his long legs in and grimaced, feeling his left sock drag along the stone. "Lost my shoe."
"It's back in the tunnel." Dean chuckled. "You can grab it on the way out. Come on. I'll help you up if you help me up."
Sam smiled at that, so relieved to have Dean with him and alive that it made his head spin. "Wh… whoa," he groaned and clamped a hand around his head.
"No puking in here," Dean ordered. He slid a hand under his brother's left shoulder. "You gotta do most of the work, man. No way I'm pickin' you up. Left shoulder's outta commission."
"How bad?" Sam asked a little breathlessly. He let go of his head and concentrated on getting to his knees.
"Don't know." Dean snorted a laugh and stopped Sam from swaying sideways into him. "You can poke at me once I get a fire going."
"Holding you to that." Sam gasped in pain as his ribs pulled, but he made it to his feet. He reached back down and took Dean's forearm, pulling his brother up with him. They held on to each other, staggering drunkenly for a moment and Sam chuckled. "Usually there's…. s'bottle of whiskey 'volved in… in this."
Dean grinned. "Yeah. Later. Move." He slid his right arm around his brother's waist and used it to steer him toward the tunnel.
Sam held onto the pack on his brother's back, rather than his shoulders. He didn't want to hurt him. The glare of the flashlight as it cut through the gloom made spots dance in front of his eyes, and he slapped a hand out to the stone wall to his right when he felt as though the floor was spinning beneath him. "Shit."
"You good?" Dean looked over at Sam's pale face. He knew he probably didn't look much better.
"Uh, yeah. Think so." Sam swallowed around the nausea and started walking again. "Time's it?"
Dean shook his head. "I dunno. Night." He huffed out a breath as they reached Sam's shoe. "Had to burn my favorite flannel for a torch."
That made Sam laugh. "Sorry." He knelt carefully and managed to hook his missing shoe on his fingers. Rather than put it on, he climbed back to his feet.
Dean's hold on his brother's jacket kept Sam from tipping into the wall. "Easy." He tugged Sam back in against his side and started them walking again. "Almost there. I don't think it was too far when I came in."
Sam nodded. "Smells better."
Dean took in a deep breath and smiled, smelling the fresh air of the forest rather than the dead air from the cavern behind them. "We'll camp at the mouth. Hike out in the morning."
Sam shivered as a cool breeze blew in at them and smiled, seeing moonlit trees through the mouth of the cave ahead of them. "We fall down now?"
Dean chuckled. He nodded and leaned Sam against the wall. "Yeah, slide down here. Go on." He leaned against the wall himself and took a few deep breaths. "Gotta find, uh, firewood."
"I'll help." Sam stopped his slide to the floor, tipped sideways, and somehow managed to end up back on his feet with Dean laughing behind him. "Shuddup."
Dean shook his head fondly. He let the borrowed backpack slide off his arm to the tunnel floor with a thump and followed Sam's unsteady steps outside. "Don't go far."
"Won't." Sam managed a whole twenty paces outside the cave, figured he was far enough, then dropped to his knees and gave in to what he knew had been coming.
"Shit." Dean cursed with the sound of Sam puking filling the air. He shook his head and reluctantly left him to it while he collected firewood. He tossed each piece back toward the cave rather than carry it. When he decided he had enough to warm them up, he went over to Sam who was sitting back on his heels, slumped over, and spitting into the leaves. "You get back up?"
Sam nodded wearily. "Yeah." He pushed up slowly, grateful for the hand that slid beneath his shoulder and steadied him. "Didn't wanna do that in there."
"Good idea." Dean held on to his brother as his own vision wavered.
"Dean?" Sam fisted a hand in the front of Dean's leather jacket and pulled him toward the cave. "Almost there. Hang on."
"M'good," Dean protested, but his eyes didn't want to open just then.
"Here. Sit down." Sam eased his big brother down to the ground, letting him lean against the wall of the tunnel. "I'll build the fire."
Dean waved an arm. "Backpack. Got stuff in there."
"Stay put." Sam collected the pack, kicking it over to Dean, and then used the same method to kick the respectable collection of branches his brother had thrown over by him as well. He knelt back down only once he had everything where he wanted it. Sam wasn't sure he'd be able to get back up again.
Dean groaned tiredly and got his eyes open again. He pulled up the pack Sam had left leaning against his thigh and opened it. "Here." He tugged out a couple t-shirts and tossed them over. "Use these to get it started."
Sam nodded and had a respectable fire going in no time. He held his cold fingers up to the flames for a moment and then scooted back to sit beside Dean against the wall. "Gimme the flashlight. Gotta check that shoulder."
Dean sighed. He leaned forward enough to let Sam gently pull his jacket off his left arm. "How'd you roast that thing anyway?"
Sam bit his lip as he got a good look at the blood saturating his brother's t-shirt and wondered how in hell the man had been up and walking at all. "Uh, I found Greg's knife."
"Where?" Dean frowned and handed the small first aid kit to his brother.
"In the wendigo's back." Sam laughed softly and opened the kit. He found a small bottle of rubbing alcohol and pulled over one of the shirts Dean had given him to use as a rag. "I yanked it out and stabbed it in the face. Think that's when it slammed me into the floor. That hurt. Stay still." He kept Dean from whipping around to look at him and poured the alcohol over the two, long gashes in the back of his shoulder. "Grabbed my spare flare gun out of my pocket and, uh, couldn't see a damn thing in there so I aimed for the angry screaming."
Dean had to laugh at that. It ended in a pained groan while Sam cleaned his wounds. He reached over and patted his brother's knee. "Got lucky, little brother."
Sam nodded. "I know." And he had. Pure luck had allowed him to hit the wendigo's heart on the first try and kill it. "Then I guess I passed out." He used the few bandages in the kit to tape up Dean's shoulder, then leaned back and looked down at his own chest. He tugged his jacket away and grimaced at all the blood. "Got its claws into me when it was carrying me."
"Dammit." Dean thumped his brother's knee. "Move over here where I can see it." He tugged on Sam's jeans and glared as his brother chuckled and then awkward climbed over his legs to settle on his right side. "Get this off." He frowned at the blood coating Sam's face and neck and pulled one of the water bottles out of the pack, tossing it in Sam's lap. "Clean your face off while I do this."
Sam unbuttoned his flannel for his brother and then leaned back against the stone, closing his eyes. He opened them suddenly and grabbed hold of Dean's arm. "Sean! Greg's friend! I forgot! And Greg!"
"Whoa! Whoa! Stop!" Dean planted a firm hand on his brother's chest to keep him from trying to get back up. "They're gone, Sammy. Looked like the wendigo killed Sean before it came back for us. And Greg… it got its revenge. Damn near twisted his head off."
Sam slumped and stared down sadly. "Shit."
"Can't save everyone, little brother," Dean whispered. He tugged up his brother's shirt and aimed the flashlight at his chest. Dean inwardly seethed at the sight of four long claw marks torn across Sam's side from his sternum around to his back. He wished he could have been the one to kill the wendigo. "Jesus."
"Not that bad," Sam protested weakly. He moaned and tried to turn away when Dean poured the rest of the rubbing alcohol over his wounds.
"Easy." Dean kept Sam from wriggling away from him until he was done. They didn't have nearly enough disinfectant for the wounds between them and it worried him. He was definitely going to dump them both in the nearest emergency room once they got down off the mountain for a round of high-octane antibiotics… and, ideally, some really good painkillers as well.
Sam opened his eyes again and looked down at the bared wounds. "Whoa," he breathed. Seeing them seemed to break whatever had allowed him to not truly feel them until then, and burning pain washed through is body, sapping his strength. "Kay… hurts now."
Dean chuckled. "Yeah. Tell me about it." He ripped another of the shirts up and managed to wrap it around his brother's chest and give the wounds some protection. "Bleeding's mostly stopped for now, so stay put. Don't need it starting up again." He tugged his brother's shirt back down, shoved the first aid kit off his lap to the ground, and pulled over another bottle of water for himself. "Drink that, idiot."
Sam smirked and felt his brother's weight rest heavily against his left shoulder. He thirstily drank down half the bottle and blew out a breath. It was going to be a long, painful night, but at least he had the comfort of his big brother alive beside him. "Hey, Dean?"
"Hmm?" Dean poked one of the logs on the bonfire with his toe, sending up a small shower of sparks and causing a wave of warmth to roll over them both.
"Thought you said if I vanished like that again, you wouldn't look for me."
Dean's eyes rolled, sending a new wave of pain crashing through his skull, but he had no trouble hearing his little brother snickering beside him. "Shut up, Sammy." He shook his head and thumped his fist into Sam's thigh. "Never can listen to me, can ya'?"
"Nope." Sam slowly listed to his left and ended up with his head resting on his brother's shoulder. Later, he'd take the time to be mortified about it, but for now, he needed the reassurance. The fact that Dean slid an arm over his shoulders rather than shoving him off told Sam he wasn't the only one who needed to be close just then. "Thanks."
"Again. Shut up, Sammy." Dean smiled fondly and let his eyes close finally in relief as he pulled Sam against his shoulder a little more securely.
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The End.
Next Chapter: X is for … oh boy. Lol Deciding whether to go silly or serious. Got a few options.
