TWO
In what distant deeps or skies burnt the fire of thine eyes?
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For all the excitement, for all the frenzy, power and downright ferocity of the winner of the fight, the victor is less than she appears. Roughly to the tune of eight feet. In fact, as she hops in a rather lithe manner over what was once a 'striga-like dude', it is completely and in every way obvious that she is no more than twenty-four inches from nose to tail.
"Whoa…" Dean manages. He lets his gun hand drop, his head tilting in outright befuddlement. His brother follows suit, staring down at the tiger as she comes within six feet of them.
"It's… like a kid's toy," Sam blinks, his voice highly pitched with confusion and incredulity.
"You think it could be… a possessed kid's toy?" Dean wonders.
"Dean."
"Well look at it, Sam!" he shrugs, in a way that conveys how ridiculous he thinks it all is. "I mean, what's it going to do, bite my kneecaps?"
"It just killed a striga thing," Sam points out. "And that's not kid's paint on its face."
"Good point," Dean allows. He turns and chucks his handgun at the bed, surprising his brother by crouching to the carpet. His hand goes down and his eyes go up. "Here, kitty."
"You have got to be kidding me," Sam marvels, as the petite feline ambles up to his brother, who is still dressed in just a single pair of black Calvin Klein trunks and assorted charmed accoutrements. She sniffs the hand, pausing over the silver ring, her tail out straight and a low warning hum emanating from her throat. Then, as if to cement Sam's tenuous grasp on reality, she stretches her bloodied whiskers against the backs of Dean's fingers, making sure to contact the ring via her fur's travels.
Dean doesn't move, except to watch her pull her head back and repeat the action, and then again. Then Dean cocks a sly grin at his brother before slowly moving his other hand round into the miniature tiger's line of sight. She sniffs at it, opens her mouth in a yawn to reveal huge, glistening teeth, and then turns her head to rub her chin against the newly proffered hand.
Dean sees his chance. He whisks the animal off the floor and has it by the scruff of the neck so fast Sam blinks in amazement. The tiger growls and spits at him, her forepaws coming up as if to box his nose. Dean holds her at arm's length, getting to his feet and looking at his brother.
"One dead maybe-striga, a scary creature captured, and we're done."
"Now what do we do?" Sam asks, watching the dangling cat. "We can't exactly just throw it out into the parking lot! We'll have to… put it down."
"Put it down? I just picked it up."
"No, shoot it!"
"Uhm… Well what about if we leave him--" He pauses to realise the anatomical make-up of the annoyed tiger now trying unsuccessfully to turn and bite his wrist. "--Her sealed inside some salt ring somewhere? She'll either get free or dissolve, right? She hasn't done us any harm."
"Dean!"
"What? Dude, it's like nearly four in the morning and I am in serious need of some proper sleep!"
"So shoot her with salt while we figure out what she is and if she has bones we can burn!"
"I am not shooting her with salt after she just killed a possible striga that would have sucked your whatever out of your ear! Let's just let her go and she can keep on saving people and hunting things."
"We can't just dump her outside!"
"Why not?"
As if on cue, rain begins to patter against the window. Both boys turn to regard the pane of glass under attack by precipitational forces and then they rather ineluctably share a glance. Sam's is hard and beats his brother over the head for his recklessness. Dean's is none too shabby either, weathering Sam's attempt to berate him and instead landing the younger Winchester with a granite condemnation of his ignorance of the facts.
"She just took out a striga-thing," Dean reminds him.
"Yeah, and what if we're next?" Sam replies. "We're going to have to put her down, Dean. You know it." He crosses the room to the crumpled example of tiger demolition. He crouches and looks it over. "Dude, this isn't a striga."
"Then what is it?" Dean asks, ignoring the clawing and spitting bundle of tiger fur in his fist. He approaches the fallen corpse. "Eeyiu, gross," he comments.
"She tore him up pretty good," Sam nods, wiping his forehead. "But I think… this was a wraith. Or something similar."
"So you mean she has silver teeth? Sweet," Dean grins, rather childishly. He ignores the look from his brother and instead raises the tiger to meet his eye level from a safe distance. "Hey there, sweetheart," he oozes, putting his other hand up to bring his index finger toward her nose. "Ain't you just a bundle of good luck, huh? Huh?"
The green glint to his eyes calms her fighting and she lets his finger touch softly at her nose. She ceases her struggling altogether and instead appears to be fixing her large green eyes directly on Dean's.
Sam turns to find his brother and a rather vicious yet absurdly tiny supernatural tiger, her Technicolor image flickering just slightly, sharing the rarest of looks. Sam blinks but as soon as he does, the moment is gone. He looks back down at the dead pile of fleshy chunks.
"I'll… uh… get rid of this," he says awkwardly. "It's going to stink up the place, and we have to work out what to do with her."
"We take her with us," Dean grins, his finger now smoothing through the blood-matted fur of her left cheek. Her eyes are closed and she is letting her head tilt, her throat warbling a low growl in enjoyment.
"Dude," Sam tuts. "A minute ago you wanted her sealed in salt so we could make our escape."
"And a minute before that she took out a wraith-thing with nothing but her teeth. And look at the size of her, man," he protests. "It's not like she'd take up much room in the Impala."
"You're serious?" Sam splutters.
"What's the big deal?" Dean manages defensively.
"One, she's not alive, two, she's wild, three, she kills things, and four, we're not even sure where she came from!" Sam cries, exasperated.
"Maybe not. But we know where the wraith-monster-dude came from," Dean says smugly, gesturing to said form with his head. "I'm guessing from his uniform that he was the guy workin' the pump when we filled up with gas a few hours back. The one you pissed off with your college-boy remarks and nose in the air."
"So?"
"So nothing. All I'm saying is, she must have been stalking him cos she's like this amazing ninja übertracker of monsters, and happened to gank him before he could get to us. That puts her more on our team than his," Dean shrugs.
He receives a look from his brother which speaks volumes on the wisdom of opening your mouth when you really should engage your brain first. Dean shakes this off as he always does, by turning away from his brother.
"Dean… You know this is nuts. We're going to have to kill her--"
"Is that really fair, Sammy? All she does is go round killing stuff like we do, and you want to put her down for that? How 'bout I put you down for killing demons with your brain? Maybe she doesn't even realise she's dead and she's Bruce Willising her way through her afterlife, killing monsters!"
Sam blinks. It is enough to assure Dean that his younger brother considers him the dumbest dumbass of dumbness. Dean shrugs helplessly. For extra effect he adds an innocently bemused smile that hikes up to his left.
Sam shakes his head and goes to the bed. He pulls off the blanket and advances on the pair of them.
"Come on, Dean. Let's make this easy on her."
Dean's shoulders sag. He doesn't look at his brother. "You ain't killing her. We leave her in salt and get going when the sun comes up."
Sam huffs. "Seriously?"
"Seriously!"
"Fine," Sam grumps.
Dean gives her one final stroke, being careful not to reveal his resulting smile to anyone else but her, and then stretches his arm out toward Sam. He cradles her in the blanket before wrapping it round her slowly. She struggles for a second, but then seems either too tired, too warm or too trusting of the green eyes that aren't hers to care.
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It is a bright sunny morning. The boys leave the motel room and squeak their way into the car. Sam does his best to block his brother's view of the side of the reception room, where a blanket is keeping the miniature tiger inside a ring of salt as she apparently sleeps off the night's excitement.
He doesn't want to make fun of his older brother for apparently being drawn to a small supernatural feline with vicious fighting skills. But it's the only way he can make Dean snap out of it and put the damn car in gear.
They head off down the open road, Sam politely ignoring how many times Dean's eyes flick at the rear view mirror. To take his mind off the entire bizarre night, he fishes out his Blackberry and downloads his mail. A frown forms before it completely reverses itself into a wry grin. He lets out a small bark of a laugh.
"What?" Dean asks, still ready to take umbrage if the wrong word is spoken.
"Dude, it's February fourteenth," Sam says, shaking his head.
"So?"
"So it's Chinese New Year today. I just got one of those dancing e-cards in my e-mail."
"So why you grinning? What's so special about it?"
"Have a wild stab in the dark which animal of the zodiac it is?"
"No idea. Wait -- no!"
"Yeah. The tiger."
Dean checks his mirrors before slamming the Impala to a stop. He puts her into Reverse and rests his right arm on the seat to see behind him. The car whines backwards in a hurry as he whips the wheel round with his palm. He turns around and finishes the three-point-turn using the side of the road for extra room as Sam just watches, confused. Before he can speak, they are heading back toward the motel.
"Dude?" Sam asks.
"Year of the Tiger? Her just turning up like that? It's gotta be good luck, right?"
"So?"
"So we go back for her. She's coming with us."
"Dean," he fumes. "I am not driving around with a ghost tiger just because you're starved for affection."
Dean turns a look on his brother that he is pretty sure would have given a demon heatstroke.
Sam swallows. "I mean - uhm--"
"Shut up, Sam. Or I'll let her sleep on your bed tonight."
"She is so not sleeping on my bed!"
"You're damn right!"
"You're a moron!"
"You'd look a gift tiger in the mouth!"
"I--. What?"
"Just shut up, Sammy. She's coming with us."
Silence. At last, Sam pockets his Blackberry and rests his elbow on the window block.
"Ok," he allows, his voice light and airy. "But if you wake up dead with her teeth in your throat, don't come all 'I totally knew this would happen' on me."
Dean risks a glance at him, suppressing a smile. He leans forward to turn on the radio. For a moment he can't place the tune. Then it comes to him, even as Sam's face begins to register horror.
'Face to face, out in the heat. Hangin' tough, stayin' hungry. They stack the odds till we take to the street, for we kill with the skill to survive~~!'
Dean slaps the back of his hand into his brother's knee, already drawing in a deep breath. Sam cringes, knowing what comes next. It is, as he has feared, Dean's loudest, devil-may-care singing voice:
"It's the eye of the tiger, it's the thrill of the fight! Risin' up to the challenge of our rival! And the last known survivor stalks his prey in the night - and he's watchin' us all with the eeeeeye of the tiger!"
"Gimme my gun!" Sam calls over the raucous singing, but Dean is already into the next verse and no power, supernatural or otherwise, can stop him.
The Impala rumbles back toward the motel as the sun shines so very strongly. A certain tiny tiger in a deliciously warm blanket is enjoying her snooze. She dreams of a set of green eyes, so used to covering up real feelings, so used to being the only one who knows, the only one who can do anything to help. The eyes that see evil and kill things. The eyes that are so sharp and so bright.
Just like hers.
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FIN
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新年快樂! Happy New Year!
身體健康! Wishing you good health!
萬事勝意! Everything sorted as you wish!
心想事城! Hope your wishes come true!
如意吉祥! Hope everything you do prospers!
笑口常開! A smile every day!
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