Thanks to readers who have suggested inclusions that they would like to see in the 12 Saves. Future chapters will have, as requested, lower back pain and a hand injury, Dean throwing up (ewh!) and also giggling (awh!) and some Chrsitmas fruitcake! Thanks to all those reviewing for your encouragement. Bird and Janger xx

The 12 Saves of Christmas

Save Seven – Icicles

December 23rd 10.00am

They had been walking for nearly two hours now but had only made it about a mile along the frozen track. The going would have been tough if they were in peak form but the last 24 hours had taken its toll on both the Winchesters. Dean was fairing worse and Sam glanced across at his brother through the swirling snow and knew instantly that he was tiring quickly. His sore foot just adding to his earlier injury toll. There was simply no way Dean was gonna be able to make it the further 5 or 6 miles back to the safe haven of the Impala.

Not that Dean would admit it, of course. Well, not unless he was a bit concussed like he was last night. However, the rest under their 'saviour' spruce had done them both good. Enough so that Sam had been convinced, against his better judgement, to abandon their temporary shelter and set off walking for the Impala, despite the blizzard.

Sam had been nervous; knowing that Dean's knee probably was in bad shape and that his concussion was only rested rather than resolved. He had really wanted his brother to sit tight and wait in the relative comfort of their arboreal hidey-hole whilst he hiked out and found some help, but Dean would have none of it.

"No, not gonna happen. Ma knee's just fine now, Sammy. Just needed a little rest is all. You're not going wandering off on your own in a whiteout, especially not with 'Floaty the hiker boy' still on the prowl. It's just not happening, dude!"

Dean had then flexed his knee to show Sam that the few hours of sleep they had managed had miraculously cured his injuries. It was a convincing demonstration which he knew would reassure Sam, and if it were not for the sensation of a myriad glass shards in his knee capsule and the sudden unexpected flow of warm blood from the gash to his thigh, he, too, would have been convinced. However, he was practised enough at hiding pain that his smile was unbroken, even as his knee throbbed steadily.

That effectively ended any argument Sam had and so it was that they had put out the remains of their fire, packed their meagre remaining provisions and set of out into the near white-out to walk to the welcome familiarity of the Impala.

wWw

"Sam?"

Dean didn't look at his brother as he mouthed the question in a puff of breath that disappeared into the swirling snow. His eyes remained resolutely on the few inches of ground that he could see before him, and that he dare not look up from for fear of falling.

His knee was sore beyond words, each step grinding with a musical crepitus that set his teeth on edge but at least the pressure bandage to his thigh was still stemming the flow of blood. Add to that, his broken toes throbbed like a toothache and he was generally unhappy on his exhausted legs.

Sam looked to his left at Dean's snow bedecked form and swatted at the coating of white that clung to his own long bangs.

"What is it, Dean?"

"Do you remember the black dog that nearly had me for dinner that time in Minnesota?"

Sam smiled and shook his head, sending little avalanches of cold, wet white stuff down the upturned collar of his inadequate jacket, shivering as he replied.

"Random, Dean!"

Icy green eyes briefly met warmer hazel ones before plunging back to the track as they plodded on.

"Yeah, I know, but do ya?"

Sam nodded.

"Yeah... yeah, I do. Well, I remember Dad telling me about it after he virtually carried you back to the car where you'd left me."

Sam looked in mock irritation at his stumbling sibling and Dean smiled tiredly.

"Was for your own safety, bro. You were too little then to be much help."

Sam conceded the point and pressed on.

"It was a big, vicious sonofabitch, I remember Dad saying, and it damn near turned you into puppy chow. What made you mention it now?"

Dean stopped and leaned heavily on the rough hewn crutch Sam had fashioned for him. His breath, though he tried to disguise it, came in gasps and even though it was mighty cold, Sam could see the sweat running from his bruised temple.

"You know that sorta...well...howling we been hearing all over the place?"

Sam nodded, his eyes involuntarily scanning the surrounding foliage as he waited for Dean to have enough breath to continue.

"Well, I know it's not, but that howling kinda puts me in mind of that black dog."

"I wondered if it was just me hearing it."

Sam's earnest gaze held his brother's, as Dean shook his head detaching the little plumes of ice crystals from his long lashes.

"Nope. Me too. Heard it a few times now. First when ya pulled me outta the holly and we were starting back up the butte."

Sam nodded and added.

"After the damned robin pecked me half to death..."

He touched the little wounds on his forehead.

"Yup! And again just before we found the big spruce to shelter under."

Dean finished, looking up at Sam's serious face.

"I wasn't sure you'd heard it, too. You were pretty out of it last night, Dean."

"I know but I heard it."

The elder Winchester raised his chin to the near impossible to discern pathway as he spoke, indicating that they should keep moving. Sam reluctantly took the lead, walking at a pace far slower than he normally would and knowing that even that was currently way too fast for Dean.

They walked on for a few minutes in silence, each lost in their own thoughts before Sam spoke again.

"So, you think it's a black dog?"

"No...no, I don't think it is. I was just saying it put me in mind of the sounds the dog made."

As he replied, the crutch slipped a little on the icy ground and Dean's knee twisted as he struggled for balance. He hiccupped in pain and Sam made a grab for his shoulder to prevent him slipping further.

"God damn..."

Dean leaned his head briefly against Sam's shoulder, waiting for the bright sparks of agony that danced on the inside of his closed eyes to fade.

"You never really did tell me about the black dog."

Sam hoped the reminiscence would distract his suffering brother from his pain, and Dean knew exactly what he was doing but played along. He pushed himself upright and they lurched forward again, shoulder to shoulder through the driving snow.

"Well. You remember that Dad had been after the dog for weeks? It had taken 4 victims before we arrived and had another two whilst he was trying to hunt it down. That last one tore Dad up real bad. The kid was just about your age and, damn, if we were only yards from the emergency room when the poor kid died."

Sam watched Dean's throat work against the lump in it and remembered how the pair of them had come back in from the Impala, covered in blood and stunned into silence. Sam knew something bad had happened but also knew enough not to ask questions. His Dad had busied himself making dinner; his demeanour too upbeat to be believable, and Dean had disappeared into the shower to emerge a long while later, his eyes red-rimmed from crying. Again, Sam had held his tongue, even when Dean said he wasn't hungry and had gone to sit quietly on the old sofa as he'd dutifully joined his Dad at the table.

Sam remembered he had lasted about 3 minutes before slipping softly from the table and padding over to the sofa. He'd wormed his way in against Dean's side, lifting his brother's lifeless arm and snuggling it around him. And there he'd sat as Dean had laid his head against the top of Sam's. He couldn't remember any words being said, but he knew that Dean's hot tears had trickled through his long hair as his strong arms had finally wrapped around Sam and held him desperately close.

Sam shook himself from his reverie as he realised that Dean was speaking again.

"So, we went back out, shotguns primed with consecrated iron rounds. You came along 'cause neither of us wanted to leave you on your own at the motel but you really were too little to manage the snow."

Dean looked at his positively ginormous baby brother and smirked.

"Too little. Go figure!"

Sam smiled down in return.

"We stalked the damn thing for hours. It was freezing..."

The plumes of breath from Dean's mouth emphasised his words.

"Snow was maybe even worse than this and we kept hearing the damn thing howl but we just couldn't find it!"

Sam noted that Dean was getting slower and slower in his pace as he talked and every sentence was interspersed with either a hastily pulled in breath or a gasp of pain. He knew Dean was gonna have to rest soon but, as yet, he had seen nothing to really offer them much shelter from the blizzarding snow.

"And it wasn't just a howl, Sammy. Not like a normal dog does, or even a wolf."

He paused, searching deeply for the right words.

"There was something...unworldly about that noise, Sam. It was eerie. Like the howling we heard last night, you knew something 'not of this world' was speaking."

Dean swayed to a stop and looked into his brother's eyes, seeking to see if Sam understood what he was trying to say.

"Yeah, I remember the noise the black dog made that night. I locked all the doors and hunkered down on the back seat under those old blankets and prayed for you and Dad to come back in one piece. I knew it was something born of evil and it scared the crap outta me."

Dean blinked slowly and something akin to relief played across his face. Sam honoured the silence, letting his brother remember that night. It wasn't often that Dean shared his past experiences with Sam and he found himself wanting to hear about this event that had shaped Dean's life.

"Anyway, finally the dog found us. Knocked dad down and out for the count and then stalked me back up against the rock wall of the valley we were in. I lost my sawn-off and my best silver knife in the scuffle, though I did slice its hind paw before it ripped it outta my hands."

Dean smiled at his minor triumph, blinking as the snowflakes blew into his wide, green eyes. Sam angled his body round, subtly trying to shield his brother from the worst of the weather as he continued.

"What happened next, Dean?"

The elder Winchester closed his eyes briefly, accessing the memories.

"I remember it had me down on my back in the snow and it had bitten me up real good."

Dean winced unconsciously, his hand gliding down his denim clad thigh to his stiff and swollen knee.

"I'd tried to crawl under a bit of a rim of overhanging rocks but really it wasn't a big enough space and the black dog had me by the arm, dragging me out. I was screaming for dad, and kicking and punching at it as best I could but it just kept snarling and slavering as it tugged me further out into the open. It let go my sleeve and I remember lying there, holding my arm as it dripped blood onto the churned up snow and staring into eyes so dark..."

Dean's voice trailed off, his words lost to the terrifying memories and Sam waited quietly, shivering with both cold and the return of the terror he had felt as that child in the Impala, hearing that distant, unearthly howling. After a few moments Sam prompted softly.

"And?"

Dean offered no response.

"Dean?"

Sam reached out and took his brother's arm gently, only to have Dean start violently, jarring his various injuries, his wide eyes briefly showing his fear to the world. Composure quickly returned though and he hiccupped the pain softly into place as he returned back to the present.

"Sorry."

Sam squeezed his arm.

"'S'okay."

Dean steadied himself, recovering his brittle air of control.

"So, there I am on my back, black dog stood over me, its foul breath in my face, teeth inches from my throat and I hear dad's voice shouting my name and he's up running toward me, my sawn off in his hands.

"'Dean! Curl up!' he yelled."

Sam raised his eyebrows quizzically and Dean rushed on.

"'Curl up in a ball son!' and I did. And he raised the shotgun high above the black dog and blasted the icicle covered rock wall above me. The icicles were huge and they scythed down stabbing through the body of the black dog and pinning it to the ground. It howled like a sonofabitch, Sammy..."

Sam nodded, remembering that sound even as he shivered under his covers on the back seat of the Impala.

"And then dad was pulling me out from under it and he blasted it with the iron rounds. It took three or four rounds to finally kill it but I guess the icicles ensured it stayed put long enough for him to finish it off."

Sam could hear the relief in Dean's words even now many years after the events of that snowy night, and as he watched he could see Dean's body shaking at the memories.

"After that I remember dad wrapping me up in his jacket, got blood all over it, while he torched the dog's body and then him carrying me back to the car."

Sam sucked in his breath before he picked up the thread.

"Yeah, I can see him now, emerging from the snowstorm, you clutched to his chest and blood spattering the snow as I fumbled the door open. I was so scared you were dead. Dad said, 'No, Kiddo, he's just a bit bitten up', settled you in my lap and drove like a maniac through the snow to the emergency room."

Dean smiled.

"Sorry I scared you, Sammy."

His voice was hoarse and Sam shook his head.

"Its fine, Dean. All the way there dad kept saying 'Don't worry Sammy, the icicles saved him'. I never understood it till now."

"Weird huh?"

Dean grinned.

"Yeah, yeah it is."

"Hey!"

Dean teetered precariously on his wobbly legs as a note of excited energy flared briefly in his voice.

"I'll be damned! That was another bizarre 'Christmas Save'!"

Sam shook his head in disbelief.

"Saved by Icicles?"

Dean snickered.

"Yeah, Sam. Hey, it could have been worse; it could have been Frosty the freakin' snowman!"

Ends

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