The 12 'Saves' of Christmas
Save Number one – Decking Dean with Boughs of Holly
December 22nd 4.30pm
The forest was Christmas card perfect. Evergreen trees stretched frost covered fingers towards a midnight blue sky. The stars chased ancient gods and mythical beings through winter white puffs of cloud and the rising moon cast its silvery beams onto the crisp banks of pure, unsullied snow.
There was that soft silence that the frigid carpet of pure white bestows to the world. As the beasts of the forest cuddled up in their hidey holes, munching on a prudently stored acorn or some other unfortunate, smaller beast as they saw fit.
All was peace and icy perfection.
Apart, that was, from the steady moaning emanating from the patch of holly bushes at the foot of the cliff and which flared from time to time into brief bouts of heartfelt cussing.
"Freakin' Holly! I hadda fall into the scratchiest, sonofabitching bush known to man. I couldn't have landed in some sweet smelling, soft leaved, springy-boughed, cotton-wool covered trampoline bush?"
Dean grumbled as he stared with unfocussed eyes up towards Sammy, who was looming even more than usual, perched as he was on the top of the cliff his older sibling had so recently, and spectacularly, vacated.
"Consider yourself lucky, Dean."
Sam hollered, a wry smile of relief playing at the corner of his mouth as he looked down onto his brother's clearly somewhat still intact form.
"Lucky? Oh, yeah, that's my freakin' middle name, Sam! Just another shining example of Dean 'Lucky' Winchester and his amazing Yuletide Good Fortune!"
"At least the holly broke your fall which is pretty amazing when you think how hard the ghost threw you. I thought you'd have broken every bone in your body when you flew over the edge of the butte like that."
Dean grudgingly acknowledged Sam's point, though Sam was perched too far above his uncomfortable resting place to see his brother's reluctant nod, and the world spun more than a little as Dean craned his neck to look up into the night sky, in Sam's general direction.
"I think the Spirit of Christmas must be looking out for you."
Sam's voice echoed distantly in the frosty air as he carefully began the descent to his brother's aid.
"Sure... sure, Sammy. It's a different kinda Christmas Spirit that I could do with right now though."
Dean mumbled back peevishly, his eyebrows raised in an ironic curve, though his eyes were blinking slowly, closing in fatigue.
"Something spirit based that'd warm my sorry ass...now that'd be lucky."
How could Sam call this lucky? Dean was freezing his ass off. His teeth literally chattering in his head as he tried- again- to pry his trapped leg from beneath the fallen bough that held him pinned so securely to the floor.
He had lost his jacket, well maybe lost wasn't quite the right word, cause he could still see it lodged, fluttering in the steady breeze about eight feet above his head. Flapping away like some giant bird or a weird ass flag, staking his claim to the cliff face. Maybe the Sasquatch could reach it down for him.
The heavy tree limb that he was now so intimately intertwined with had been brought down in his spectacular fall from the cliff high above, and he was in no mood to humour Sam with his festive 'joy to the world' platitudes.
"Freaking Spirit of Christmas..."
Dean muttered under his breath as he thrashed about, inadvertently becoming further entangled in the prickly holly branches that had saved him from certain death. But still he could find no reason to rejoice in his unanticipated seasonal 'save'.
The absence of the warm, weathered leather was telling on his shivering form and the holly had exacted its price for his survival. As he had plummeted, the spiky yuletide vegetation had scratched and torn a myriad of softly stinging presents into his delicate hide and he was losing blood and precious heat as quickly as his patience.
"Stay put, bro, I'm on my way down."
Sam's forced cheeriness penetrated the increasingly fuzzy layers that were clouding Dean's awareness as he lay, helplessly succumbing to the hypothermic arms of long forgotten dreams and memories, utterly ungrateful for the miracle of the first 'save' of Christmas.
'Stay put, bro? Yeah, like I got a lot of damned choice in the matter? Don't worry, Sam, I'm not headed anywhere, anytime soon…'
"Be careful, Sammy. Watch yourself on those rocks; it's icy as hell up there. I got enough problems without Gigantor flying through the air and landing on top of me." Dean's words tailed off as his eyelids fluttered, lost their battle with gravity and slid gently closed, shielding his glazed and glassy eyes within the first layers of unconsciousness.
The unnatural quiet was broken only by the faint creaking of branches and the gentle patter of clumps of snow as they fell, dislodged from the recently disturbed boughs above. The occasional grunts and groans of pain had subsided into a softly, rasping snore. In the distance muffled crashes, the snapping of twigs, bursts of non-festive cursing and the tramp of fast approaching footsteps could be heard.
"Dean? Dean, where are you? Ouch! Sonofabitch!"
A particularly loud thud was followed by a string of expletives and a rustling of undergrowth before a heavily jacketed arm forced its way through the low lying branches making way for a sweating, dishevelled head of hair.
"Aah, come on, you gotta be freakin' kidding me here. How many goddamn holly trees can there be? Dammit, Dean, answer me. I know you're round here somewhere."
Sam paused again, trying to get his bearings now he had reached the base of the cliff and flicking his long, snow damp bangs back from his forehead. Hot breath puffed from his partially open lips in quickly dissipating clouds as he peered frantically through the heavily mottled gloom of the sub canopy area.
Glancing upwards, his attention was caught by a large flapping object to his right, squinting into the wavering light his expression changed to one of concern as he recognised his brother's leather coat suspended high above him.
"Why the hell did you take your jacket off, Dean?"
Sam wondered out loud as he pushed a little further into the deep, prickly undergrowth, only to jump as freezing cold fingers took a firm hold of his ankle.
"I didn't take it off..."
Dean's look of disgust purveyed his sentiment of 'what a dumb-ass comment' far better than actual words did and Sam felt a slow blush flood his cold, pale cheeks.
"It was torn from my superbly toned and much sought after body by Mother Nature, Sammy."
The explanation was chattered out through lips blued with the cold as Sam carefully detached the worst of the prickly debris from his shivering brother's torn skin.
"See, it happens to me all the time..."
Sam looked into Dean's slightly unfocussed gaze and raised his eyebrows in question as he checked him over, cataloguing his injuries.
"What happens all the time, Dean?"
Dean huffed the air from his lungs out in disgust at his baby brother's lack of understanding of a simple, but irrefutable truth.
"Women, Sammy..."
Dean accepted Sam's arm, finally free enough of the tangling holly to be able to at least sit up. He groaned as he slowly rose, the cold air stinging his lacerated back.
"What about women?"
Sam mumbled as he assessed the damage to Dean's back, his brother having effectively been lying on a bed of thorns. On the snow beneath, the ruby red 'shadow' of the hunter tattooed the virginal white.
"Sammy! Have you forgotten that talk we had about women?"
Dean's finest shit-eater grin warmed his pale face, and the younger Winchester rolled his eyes but held his tongue.
"What, in particular, about women?"
Sam clarified in his clearest 'I'm talking to a moron' voice.
"Women..."
Dean replied wincing softly as Sam pulled up his crimson frosted T-shirt to reveal his torn back.
"Women always want to remove my clothes, Sammy."
It was Sam's turn to huff in amusement.
"Oh, you can laugh..."
Dean retorted.
"But it's just a simple matter of fact, bro. They find me hard to resist and Mother Nature..."
Dean inclined his head, and blinked in a quod erat demonstrandum gesture.
"Well, she's a woman too, so naturally she'd want a piece of this fine ass too.
Sam nodded distractedly as he surveyed the worst of the tears in his brother's hide.
"You're back's all torn up, Dean..."
"Yup. They do that, too."
Dean interrupted and, seeing lack of understanding in Sam's hazel eyes, he clarified.
"Women, Sam. Tear your back up when they're..."
"Enough, Dean!"
Sam shouted abruptly, jolting Dean from his random, fuzzy lecture. The sudden movement tore at the wounds, some of which were reasonably deep, and fresh rivulets of blood dripped to birth new crimson blooms in the brittle snow.
"Ouch!"
Dean muttered softly.
"I'm sorry."
Sam moved round on his knees.
"Let's get you out of here, Dean."
He made to rise, reaching out to take hold of Dean's arm and help him up.
"Can't... Stuck!"
Dean's words were a little slurry and Sam looked worriedly into green eyes that were gently succumbing to shock and the cold.
"Stay with me here, Dean."
Sam shook his brother's shoulder and the vibration from the movement called down, from the over-hanging trees, a further drifting of snow upon the yuletide hunters.
"That's what I'm trying to tell ya...I ain't going nowhere."
The sudden sprinkle of cold and wet upon Dean revived him a little and he growled.
"Can't just 'get me out', ya festive fool. I'm stuck, really stuck!"
He gestured angrily at his trapped leg and Sam peered through the gloom to focus on his brother's bough ensnared limb. Recognition and realisation flooded Sam's face as his huge hands made contact with the fallen branch.
"You're stuck!"
Dean rolled his eyes.
"No shit, Sherlock!"
Sam ignored the sarcastic remark and rose slowly to his feet; straddling his brother's recumbent form and planting his huge boots in the deep snow as he strained to lift the large wooden barrier.
"Try... and pull...your leg free."
Sam gasped with the effort and Dean with the discomfort of the manoeuvre, but slowly Sam raised the heavy bough enough for Dean to wriggle and tug his nerve-dead leg from its entrapment.
"Clear, Sam!"
Dean called triumphantly as he rolled away from the fallen bough, allowing Sam the relief of letting it crash back to the floor. Flurries of snow blizzarded around the brothers as Sam reached towards Dean's newly released leg. His jeans were stained with lichen from the tree and frozen to his limb and Dean winced as Sam's firm fingers probed the cramped muscles and bruised flesh.
"Can you feel anything?"
Sam asked and was rewarded with a glower as Dean knocked his searching hand away.
"Yeah, your great mitts all over me! Mind the merchandise, dude."
Sam smiled carefully, so as not to incur further wrath, and leaned in to help Dean rise from his frosty resting place. Frozen blood made icy, cherry-red popsicles of his jeans as he rose; and Sam could feel wholesale tremors of both cold and discomfort as he held Dean steady whilst he found his footing, testing the leg gingerly to see if it would support his weight.
"S'okay, Sammy..."
Dean pushed him gently away and swayed carefully in the softly drifting snow.
"I don't think it's busted."
He took a faltering step and a groan emanated from his bluish lips as his bodyweight made the re-awakening limb buzz with pins and needles.
"Well, good..."
Sam smiled.
"'Cause I don't wanna have to carry your heavy old ass outta here!"
Dean raised an eyebrow as he looked up into his brother grinning face.
"A little less of the heavy and the old, if it's all the same to you. Anyway Sasquatch, I doubt you'll have to."
He stuttered.
"'Cause I think I'll d...d...die of hypothermia long before we g...get back to the car."
Sam's face changed instantly; humour being replaced by concern as he noticed Dean violently shaking.
"One minute, Dean."
He was moving as he spoke, his long legs giving him good purchase on the tree as he climbed towards the leather 'big-bird' caught in the branches.
"Thought you'd never take the hint there, bro."
Dean smiled up as he watched his baby brother scale the sturdy limbs, sending tiny avalanches cascading down with his every movement.
"Catch!"
The heavy jacket flapped with poor aerodynamic grace to the ground; landing unceremoniously on Dean's head, the weight of the descending garment knocking him back on his ass in the snow.
Sam scrambled from the tree and helped Dean to his unstable feet for the second time in 60 seconds, brushing the snow from his grumbling brother as he helped him don the slightly damp coat. Wet as it was it felt good as Dean shrugged the familiar leather around his frozen body and he smiled despite his aches and pains.
"So..."
Sam craned his long neck to regard the top of the butte.
"You ready for a climb? The Impala's somewhere up there, along with one rather pissed off ghost."
Dean tipped his head back to follow Sam's line of sight, swaying precariously as he did.
"Did you find my shotgun up there? I musta dropped it when that crazy mother gotta hold of me."
Sam gestured towards his backpack "Don't worry. I got it right here. Getting a little sloppy there, bro!" He teased gently.
"Ah, bite me! You know, it's strange it didn't follow us, Sam?"
Dean continued distractedly as they looked up into the clear, star filled sky. Sam unobtrusively took his brother's elbow to steady him as he answered.
"Don't think it can, Dean. Seems locked into the patch of land at the cliff top for some reason."
"Ummm..."
Dean nodded in acceptance.
"Well, better get going if we're gonna stand any chance of finding the body so we can salt and burn that sucker. It sure as hell wasn't anywhere we looked yet."
Sam nodded in agreement as they slowly started back. They clambered through the cluttered undergrowth for a while, the only sounds their footsteps in the crisp, crunching snow, the snapping of twigs and the odd muttered curse, then suddenly Dean's curious voice cut through the winter silence.
"Sam?"
"Uh huh?"
Sam looked back worriedly at his brother as he replied.
"You okay, Dean? Leg hurting?"
Dean shook his head. The lie springing readily to his lips
"Nah, s'okay."
Sam let go the breath he had been holding in.
"What's up then?"
"It's just that, I was thinking...it was sorta 'lucky' that I hit the holly. It prickled like a sonofabitch but it slowed me right down as I fell, I guess it did save me."
Sam nodded at his brother's thoughtful contemplations.
"As I said, you were lucky, dude. Very lucky."
wWw
High on the butte the wind howled around the spirit of the Christmas Hiker as he stared down on the rescue scene below him with eerily opaque eyes.
His anger roiled within him but he had no capacity to escape the confines of his cliff-top prison and the seemingly endless frustration tore from him, his shrieks of torment joining the song of the gale.
He would bide his time.
They would come back; they had to come back to his hill-top domain as the only way back to their car was the path he guarded, and he would be waiting for them.
Ends.