Title: Reader's Special: Second Edition - One Shot Reward Fic Collection
Author: Disasteriffic Kaz
Info: A collection of 1 Shot Reward Fics for Prompters of my Reader's Special: Third Edition. Features many seasons, hurt/limp/awesome/caring!Sam/Dean/John/Bobby See each chapter for specific info for each 1 shot reward fic.
Author's Note: The Reader's Special: Third Edition was a smashing success! Prompters of the story were offered a One Shot Reward story of their choice. These are they. None of the chapters contained in this collection are connected. Each one is a stand-alone one shot per the Prompters request. Thank you to all of you who prompted the Reader's Special! You were fantastic as always!
Chapter Info: For threedays - a Supernatural version of the BTVS episode Hush. If you're not a fan, basically what that means is that Sam and Dean wake up one morning and realize their voices, and all the voices in town, are gone, stolen by a villain who can only be killed by a scream. They have to figure out how to work together without words (and without banter, and without bickering, and without Dean being able to utter a single pick-up line to the women in town!) to defeat the monster. I don't care what season it's in, but I would love if Bobby were still around.
A/N: One of my ALL TIME FAVE episodes of Buffy. :D I've been looking forward to this prompt since you sent it to me! LOL Could not wait! Now, hopefully I've done it justice adapting this to the Supernatural universe!
I think we'll set this in the first half of season 7 somewhere, just generally. If you haven't seen this iconic episode of Buffy…go. Find it. Watch it. This isn't a cross over really, just borrowing the awesome. :D
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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Sam walked back to the motel from the library with his head buried in his research. He looked up every so often to make sure he wasn't about to walk into a wall, but otherwise was engrossed. The ghost they were after had taken up residence in a massive old house just on the edge of town, and the home's history was proving to be engrossing reading. He glanced up again, sidestepping a light pole, and stopped. He turned his head and frowned. For a moment, he thought he'd seen a man in a black suit. Sam shook his head and kept walking. He thought he'd seen another guy wearing a black suit earlier in the day and decided it was his head screwing with him. That certainly wouldn't be unheard of, but he couldn't quite shake his couple of brief encounters with reapers out of his mind either. And if reapers were lurking around…well, that was never a good thing. He shook his head. Or maybe it was just a guy in a black suit.
The house had many owners over the last hundred and fifty years, and each had died a traumatic death of one sort or another. There were drownings, shootings, one who fell from the roof, and another who was dragged to death by his horse. He raised a brow finding two who were burnt as witches on the front lawn; that had promise. Sam looked up again and jerked back in surprise finding his brother a foot in front of him grinning like an idiot.
"Shit!" Sam rolled his eyes.
"Dude, two more steps and I was gonna send you sprawling." Dean chuckled and ducked away from the punch Sam threw at him as they turned into the motel parking lot. "You were completely oblivious."
"Not completely." Sam smiled over at him. "Smelled you in time, didn't I?"
"That one's gonna cost ya' later." Dean promised and pulled open the motel room door. He looked down the building, chuckling, and narrowed his eyes at the tall man in a black suit at the end of the block. He looked into the room at Sam and back out and the man was gone. Dean shrugged and went inside. "You find anything?"
"And then some." Sam held up the thick stack of papers and then dropped them on the table. "Not gonna be easy figuring out which one of these is haunting the house, but they are all buried on the property at least."
"We could just salt and burn the whole graveyard," Dean grinned. "Napalm."
Sam laughed and shook his head. "You're such a demolitions dork. No." He sat and started leafing through the pages. "Unless you feel like digging up upwards of twenty graves."
"Hell, no. Damn." Dean sighed. "My idea would have been more fun."
"Probably." Sam pushed the pile aside and rubbed at his eyes. Hours of staring at microfilm had given him a headache. "Nothing we can do until tonight really."
"Would you get some damn sleep already?" Dean rolled his eyes. He tugged Sam up out of the chair and pushed him toward the far bed until he stumbled into it and dropped. "You look like crap."
"Thanks," Sam groaned, face muffled in his pillow. He rolled his head away from the light from the window and let himself fall asleep.
Dean looked over at the pile of research and then his bed and shrugged. "Screw it," He said softly. Sam would have all that crap memorized by now anyway. He may as well not start a long night tired. Dean rolled onto his own bed, tossed an arm over his eyes and let sleep claim him as well.
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Sam woke and blinked up at the window. The last light of day was just fading away. He sighed and rolled out of bed. Dean lay sleeping in his own and Sam padded quietly into the bathroom and closed the door. He relieved himself, brushed his teeth, and decided it was time Dean got up too. It wasn't often he caught his big brother still sleeping, and Sam went back into the bedroom with a grin. He tiptoed over to the bed and bent over, putting his mouth beside his brother's ear. Sam took in a big breath, opened his mouth, and…nothing happened. He shot straight up in surprise and then fear as no sound at all would pass his lips. His first thought was that somehow he had lost his hearing, but then realized he could hear himself breathing heavily in panic as he tried over and over to shout Dean's name but there was nothing.
Sam bent and took Dean's shoulder, shaking him awake. Dean shot up and his eyes widened as he saw the naked fear on his brother's face. He opened his mouth to ask what was wrong and then grabbed his own throat as he failed to hear his own voice. He jumped to his feet, like Sam, assuming in an initial moment of panic that he could not hear. He moved his hand to his ear and mouthed the words, "I can't hear you," the meaning perfectly clear to Sam who shook his head and then clapped his hands together, the sudden sound making them both flinch slightly. Dean looked at him in shock, and for several moments, all he could hear in the room was his own panicked breathing and Sam's. He tried again, Sam easily reading his lips as they formed the silent words, "What the hell?"
Sam shook his head again and shrugged his shoulders, a sudden look of panic crossing his face as he looked around. Dean stared at his brother and heard the difference in his breaths. They hitched with fear, and Sam's eyes kept darting from him to the room and back as he dug his fingers into the palm of his left hand. Shit. Dean grabbed his little brother's face and gave it a shake, trying to reassure him with eye contact alone that he wasn't hallucinating this.
Sam felt cut adrift. This couldn't really be happening, which meant he was hallucinating, which meant he was damn well cracking up all over again and…his thoughts skittered to a stop when Dean grabbed his head and shook him, staring intensely into his eyes, while his own breaths wheezed in his ears. Dean's mouth opened and closed around words that wouldn't come but Sam understood enough to read 'slow down' on his lips.
Dean grabbed his brother's left hand and dug his thumb ruthlessly into the scar until Sam shuddered and his eyes closed. Dean listened for a few seconds and heard him working to slow his breathing down. That crisis averted…for now…he kept a grip on Sam's hand and dragged him around the bed and to the door of the room. He felt like an idiot holding his little brother's hand, but if he couldn't talk to him, he had to have some way of making sure the kid knew this wasn't his melon exploding all over the walls. Dean pulled the room door open…onto voiceless chaos.
The street outside was filled with people whose mouths and straining faces said they were screaming, yet no sound emerged. They could hear people running, car horns honking, alarms sounding, but not one voice. Panic was running the streets of the little town, and Dean took hold of his brother's arm and pushed him back into the room. He shut the door and shook his head at Sam; no way they were going out there until they had a plan.
Sam reluctantly pulled his hand free from Dean's and went to the window to look out between the curtains. If he accepted what Dean was trying to get across, that this was real and not in his head, then something seriously bad was going on and they needed to figure it out. He jumped at a crash behind him and turned to see Dean smiling sheepishly over a stack of books scattered on the floor. He mouthed 'just checking' and Sam rolled his eyes. He looked back out the window, and his eyes caught on something near the end of the street, just outside the glow of one of the streetlamps…a man in a black suit. As he watched, the man faded back out of sight.
Dean went to the window when Sam waved an arm at him and rolled his eyes as Sam took his arm and shoved him into it, pointing. Dean looked at him and shrugged; he didn't see anything to get excited about.
Sam slapped a hand over his face and went to his laptop, flipping it open and dropped into the chair. He could do this at least, research.
Dean pulled his cell phone out and dialed Bobby, put it to his ear and then banged his forehead into the window and closed it before it finished ringing. He jumped when something hit the back of his head and turned to see a balled-up piece of paper roll across the floor and Sam staring at him. Dean glared and Sam smirked.
Sam held up his own cell and pointed to the keyboard, mouthing 'text'. They couldn't speak to Bobby, but that didn't mean they couldn't communicate with him.
Dean sneered at his little brother, not amused at being caught doing something so obviously pointless, and flipped his phone back open. He hated texting.
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An hour or so later, Sam leaned back from the laptop and glanced over at his brother who stood at the window still, drumming his fingers on the glass as he had been for the last fifteen minutes. Normally the sound would have driven Sam to shout at him but just then…it was almost comforting. Sam tossed another balled-up piece of paper at the back of his head and grinned when Dean spun with his middle finger up.
Sam pointed to the laptop. He'd found what he thought they were looking for. Bobby agreed with him, having done his own research while they texted back and forth.
Dean came over and bent to look at the screen. The page, an email from Bobby, showed a picture of a page in one of his old books. The paper was yellowed and frayed around the edges with age and in the center was a rough sketch of a man in a black suit. He looked more like some twisted undertaker than anything else and curled at his feet like an obedient dog was what appeared to be a partially skeletal human corpse wrapped in rags. Dean grinned and straightened. He held up one hand with three fingers up, dropped two and then grabbed his ear.
Sam's jaw dropped and he watched wide-eyed as his brother seemed to honestly be suggesting they communicate via Charades. Sam rolled his eyes and made a show of pulling out a legal pad and a pen. He scrawled the word 'idiot' across the top page and held it up.
Dean threw his arms up in the air and grabbed it. He hastily wrote 'you're no fun anymore' on the edge and gave it back with a smirk before flipping Sam off again. See? He could communicate just fine without a stupid pen and paper.
Sam took it back with a shake of his head, ripped off the top sheet and started writing furiously. Dean paced around the room, stopping periodically to look out the window. The furor had died down somewhat. Most people had left the streets; probably hiding in their homes waiting for…something. Dean had flipped the tv on a while back and rolled his eyes at an emergency broadcast from the next town over that said they had an outbreak of laryngitis. Really? He'd thought. That was the best they could come up with but for the moment it seemed to be keeping the insanity at bay. Dean rapped his knuckles on the nightstand and raised his brows when Sam glanced up. Sam waved a hand and went back to writing. Dean blew out a breath and went back to the window.
Dean missed the sound of his voice. Hell, he missed the sound of his brother's voice and THAT was something he'd never admit aloud. He smirked as he watched a lone police cruiser pass the down the street; the blue and red lights strobing through the silent night. He watched a man sprint out of a building across the street and turn down the alley beside it. Dean stiffened in surprise when he saw a man in a black suit emerge and follow him.
Dean ran to his brother and banged a fist on the table, making Sam jump, then grabbed his gun from the weapons bag and ran out the door. He sprinted across the parking lot and the street and heard Sam's feet pounding behind him as he reached the alley.
Sam clicked on his flashlight. He tapped a hand to Dean's elbow and made a quick gesture with his head and got a nod from his brother in response, so Sam peeled off taking the left side of the alley. In that moment, he was grateful for the lifetime of learning to intuit what they needed of each other in any given situation with nothing more than a glance or brief gesture; words weren't always needed. Indeed, this sort of silent communication, at least while in the middle of a hunt, was almost second nature to them. Sam stopped as Dean raised a fist and pointed to the corner ahead. Sam tilted his head to say he had his back and let his brother go ahead a few feet, making sure nothing came out behind them.
Dean took the corner and stopped, staring. The man he'd seen running lay on the pavement in a pool of his own blood, and he was alone. Dean waved a hand to bring Sam to his side and pointed. The man's chest had been torn open.
Sam swallowed at the scene and eased forward, kneeling beside the dead man while Dean stood over him. He looked into the open chest cavity and his eyes widened. He'd been expecting it but still, seeing it meant he and Bobby were right and they had a serious problem. Sam stood and pointed back down the alley.
They jogged back to the motel and Dean's eyes scanned the dark streets; alert for any sign of the suited men. Once in the room, Sam went to the table and grabbed the notepad then handed it to his brother.
Dean rolled his eyes and sat. Sam had written a damn novel on the page. As he read though, cold seeped into his stomach and then fear because this…this was bad. The suited men were creatures of ancient Faerie lore. Their name only translated loosely as the Gentlemen but they were anything but gentle. Dean glanced up at his brother with a cock-eyed look for his lousy handwriting, and Sam just shrugged and smiled. Dean shook his head and went back to reading. Every hundred years the Gentlemen would show up in a town and steal the voices of all the townsfolk to protect themselves while they harvested a hundred hearts. He looked up again, tapping his chest and Sam nodded; the victim in the alley had been missing his heart. Dean's face darkened as he went back to reading.
Sam went to the window to look out at the street. They seemed even darker now he knew what was waiting out there. The Gentlemen would take a hundred hearts from men, women and children throughout the night and then vanish. Their minions were animated corpses of those they had killed in the past and they were vicious. Sam knew what they needed to do. They needed to find the Gentlemen just after a kill and follow them. Somewhere in the town was the box. It would be small and carved and inside were the voices of the townsfolk, trapped. They kept them while they worked because the only thing that could kill the Gentlemen, according to lore, was the scream of a human girl. He shook his head and sincerely hated that they were likely going to have to put a woman in harm's way to end this.
Dean set the notepad aside and would have groaned if he could give voice to it. He looked up at his little brother and could tell from the tense line of his shoulders that he'd come to the same conclusion. They were gonna have to find a woman to scream for them once they destroyed the box. He stood and pulled the weapons bag over. They couldn't kill any of them but they could wound them, slow them down; only a woman's scream could kill them. Dean pulled out a shotgun and handed it to Sam then took out his own sawed-off.
Sam slid the sawed-off shotgun under his jacket, watching Dean do the same and went for the door. Dean stepped out first, eyes scanning the street and went for the car. They'd just have to drive around until they spotted one of the Gentlemen or their minions.
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They'd had to ditch the car and go on foot after nearly being caught up in a curfew round-up. Dean stood now beside a low stone wall with Sam at his side and rolled his eyes. It had taken them three hours to find and follow a Gentleman after a kill, and where does the twisted bastard lead them but right to the haunted house he and Sam had been researching in the first place. It made perfect sense, really. It was on the edge of town, isolated on its own property, and the locals were already well trained to steer clear of it.
Sam tapped Dean's shoulder and handed him his shotgun then jumped, gripped the edge of the stone wall and pulled himself up. He reached down and the barrel of his gun slapped into his palm. Sam pulled it up, then Dean's, and dropped inside the wall, keeping watch until Dean landed next to him. He handed his big brother his gun and they set across the lawn at a run. It was two in the morning, and the moon, thankfully, was hidden behind the clouds and shadows covered them as they ran the open space to the side of the house.
It rose up four stories, looking as though it had been brought over from the English countryside and dropped there. The house had gone too many decades without people living in it. It was run down, with drooping shutters, cracked and flaking paint, and black windows long bereft of glass. The once manicured lawn was an overgrown prairie.
Dean nodded to a set of French doors on a patio and moved once he felt Sam's answering tap on his back. He'd never quite understood when people said 'silence was deafening' but throughout the course of the night, Dean had come to miss all the background noise of people's voices that was usually there at any given time of day. Every other noise seemed magnified, even just the sound of his boots cutting softly through the tall grass.
Sam went wide around his brother and pushed one of the halves of the doors open. It creaked once and went silent; making both men jump at the unseemly loudness of the sound. They eased into the house and a parlor coated in dust. Sam arched a brow at the floor and the clear footprints and drag marks through the heavy layer of dust.
Dean nodded and went for the door. He wished the bad guys had picked a smaller damn house; searching it without being caught was going to be near impossible. He stepped into the hall and glared at his brother when Sam motioned to himself going one way and Dean the other. It was a pitched, silent battle with both men glaring, shaking heads and gesturing until finally Dean decided to make a point and landed a solid punch in his little brother's stomach.
Air whooshed out of Sam's mouth without the shout that should have accompanied it. Dean raised a brow and smiled, the look clearly saying 'what happens if you get jumped? You can't call for help. I win.'
Sam glared at him as he straightened and rubbed his stomach, then took out his cell phone and held it up. He quickly fired off a text, smiling when Dean's phone vibrated in his pocket.
Dean pulled it out and looked. The message said 'I can take care of myself'. Dean gave him the look that comment deserved and sent his own message.
Sam read it and sighed. 'How r u gontext if youre out cold?' He smirked at Dean's lack of texting skills and shook his head. He tucked his phone back in his pocket and put his hands up in surrender. Dean did have a point, even if Sam's way the search would go more quickly.
Dean gave a satisfied, knowing smirk and tugged him down the hall toward the center of the first floor. They both flattened themselves to the wall at the sound of something hissing near the end of the hall. Sam pulled back into the shadows as one of the Gentlemen's minions crawled into sight and headed up a flight of stairs. It was a decaying body wrapped in soiled bandages with part of its skull exposed, and its hand it carried what could only be a human heart.
Dean let anger wash through him with the sight. He used it to focus him and knew Sam was doing the same; he could feel the anger radiating from him. Sam never took it well when innocents were hurt, and the knowledge that there were a hundred potential victims…they were definitely driven to put an end to this tonight. Dean moved out of the shadows and toward the stairs, anxious to follow the creature and find the damn box.
They reached the third floor, following the hissing thing above them on the stairs, before their luck ran out. Two of the skeletal things erupted from a door ahead of them with snarling hisses. Dean fired. The blast from his shotgun was deafening in the hall and knocked one of the creatures back to the floor. The second made an inhuman leap through the air, jerking as Sam's shotgun went off into its head, and then it bowled into Dean, knocking him into Sam and taking the three of them to the floor in a pile.
Sam saw stars as the breath was knocked out of him. Still, he dragged the barrel of the shotgun up and fired point blank into the minion's face. It tumbled back, and Dean rolled off Sam's stomach, allowing him to wheeze in a grateful breath.
Dean spared Sam a glance and then turned back to the creatures. He fired the other barrel of his shotgun, knocking the minion back a few feet, but the first skittered along the floor like it had joints in all the wrong places. Dean ducked out of its path, aiming a kick at the thing's head, but it had its gaze set on Sam. Dean would have shouted a warning, wanted to scream it, as the thing launched from the floor and took his brother in the chest. They both rolled onto the landing of the stairs, and Dean was forced to deal with the other as it came for him.
Sam's mouth opened in a silent scream of agony as the minion's clawed hand dug into his stomach while its other grappled with Sam's shoulder and dug into the meat of his arm. He drove his knee up into the thing's stomach, grabbed hold of the minion's bony, fleshless arms, and threw it backwards over the banister to drop down to the first floor with a crash. Dean was there a moment later, pulling him to his feet with wide eyes. Sam nodded to say he was alright, though he wasn't exactly, and they moved, now in a race to reach the box before an army of the creatures descended on them.
Dean pulled Sam along knowing they didn't have time for him to check his brother's wounds. It would just have to wait. Now he wished he'd won the argument about bringing a woman along to scream for them once the box was destroyed. Sam's morals had won out.
Sam made heavy use of the banister to pull himself up the stairs behind Dean. The sound of their footsteps echoed in his ears along with his labored breathing. His stomach felt like nails had been driven into it, and his left shoulder was a burning agony. He sucked in a breath and tried to control his breathing. He had to hold it together better than this or Dean could be distracted at a critical moment worrying about him instead.
Dean appreciated the effort he heard Sam making behind him as they pounded up the stairs. There was little point in being stealthy after the shotgun blasts. He reached the fourth floor landing and checked the hall while Sam came up beside him. He glanced at his little brother and the first thread of fear worked its way into him when he got a good look at the far too copious amount of blood covering him. He put a hand on Sam's good shoulder and raised his brows at him.
Sam shook his head and nodded down the hall; they didn't have time. He'd be fine. Sam hefted his shotgun and made to take the lead. He smiled wearily when Dean predictably glared and stepped ahead of him. He missed being able to hear his brother snarl angrily at him, he found. Sam put one hand out to the wall as they crept quickly down the hall. His head was beginning to spin with blood loss.
Dean motioned Sam back against the wall as they neared a door in the center of hall. He flattened himself to the wall and peered around the side of the door. His eyes widened in surprise. The room was large, dominated by a wide, floor-to-ceiling window that looked out on the front lawn. In the center of the room, a man and woman lay on the floor, held down by several of the Gentlemen's skeletal minions. A Gentleman leaned over the man with a small knife and slid it almost gracefully into his chest while the man's back arched off the floor in a silent scream of agony. Beyond that macabre tableaux sat a small, ornate wooden box on the floor in front of the window. It surprised him that something so small could hold the voices of an entire town.
Sam tapped his brother's shoulder and frowned when Dean turned back to him with wide, concerned eyes. Dean held up two fingers to him and tapped his heart. Sam nodded miserably. There were two victims inside. He sucked in a breath when Dean then held up five fingers – five bad guys, and he was already playing hurt. Sam outlined a box with his hand and Dean nodded. So, they had no choice. They were going to have to fight their way through. Sam nodded to say he was ready.
Dean knew his little brother was anything but ready. He'd left a trail of blood spots that glistened darkly down the hall behind them, but there was no other choice. Dean also knew he couldn't do it alone. Dean spat a soundless curse. He drew an outline of the box in the air and pointed firmly to Sam, waiting for his nod and then turned back to the door. Dean took a deep breath to steady himself and spun into the room. He fired instantly into the face of the Gentleman where it knelt above the now still man. Its face was pale white with wide, black eyes and a mouth that looked to be sealed shut. The Gentleman fell back on the floor while the two minions who had been holding the man turned on Dean instead.
Sam staggered in behind his brother. He took the scene in quickly, agonizing that he couldn't take the time to help the woman still pinned to the floor. She was young and blonde and her mouth opened wide as she tried to scream while thrashing in the grip of the minions who still held her. Sam shot a round of rock salt into the undead creature reaching for his brother's legs and then ran for the far side of the room and the window.
Dean stumbled back into the wall and rammed the butt of his shotgun into a half-rotting face. He kicked it away from him and fired again at the other creature as it leaped for him. The rock salt blasted chunks from its chest, but didn't stop it crashing into him. The air was punched out of Dean's lungs as he was taken to the floor. His shotgun spun off across the floor and he grappled with the minion's clawed hands, keeping them from his throat. Dean strained his neck to look over and saw Sam drop to his knees beside the box. He wanted to scream at him to hurry up, and then opened his mouth, agonizing at being unable to tell his brother to watch his back as the Gentleman rose up behind him.
Sam brought the butt of the shotgun up and slammed it down onto the box. The wood cracked beneath the force and there was a chorus of angry hissing behind him. He ignored it and brought the butt up again. Sam gritted his teeth against the pain in his shoulder and crashed it down into the box again. The box split under the impact as the top shattered. There was a blinding flash of light, and Sam watched as an army of small lights shot up out of the box and raced out through the window, shattering the glass outward with a crash.
Dean felt the creature above him jerk as Sam shattered the box. He rolled, taking it beneath him and drove his fist into the thing's face, sending teeth skittering across the floor. He reared back in surprise at a sudden, ear-piercing scream from beside him. The woman's voice rose up into the silence, her scream echoing in the room. The Gentleman and the minions let loose an unearthly howl, and Dean watched the creature beneath him shake violently and turn to dust. Dean looked over, and the dark-suited figure still stood above Sam's unprotected back.
"Keep screaming!" Dean shouted and the sound of his own voice surprised him, sounding too loud in his ears. "SCREAM!"
The woman's eyes widened, but she drew in a deep breath as she scrambled away from the piles of dust that had been minions. She opened her mouth wide and screamed loud and long, her face reddening with the effort as she looked up at the Gentleman. The thing's body rocked with the force of the sound. Its limbs shook, giving it the look of being electrocuted, and then it burst apart in a shower of red.
Dean sagged onto his hands in relief, listening to the woman's heavy breathing and whimpers. He heard a ragged groan from the other side of the room and jerked. "Sammy." Dean was up before he'd finished the thought, never so happy to hear his little brother in pain in his life. He knelt beside Sam's prone form. "Hey, buddy. Come on." He rolled Sam up so he was sitting and pulled him over to the wall, propping him against it.
"Girl." Sam raised a weary, blood-stained hand. His voice sounded too loud after so much silence as he pointed to her.
Dean rolled his eyes and patted Sam's shoulder. "Stay." He rose and went to the woman. She sat against the wall with her knees pulled up and her arms around them, her eyes still too wide. "Hey. You alright?" Dean watched her blue eyes rise up to meet his, and then she looked over to the man. Dean glanced back at him and sighed. The guy was definitely dead, his own heart lying still upon his chest next to a gaping hole in a puddle of his own blood. "It's alright. You're gonna be fine." He waited until she nodded and then went back to his brother.
"Hey." Sam looked up at Dean and smiled.
Dean chuckled. "Hey. Never thought I'd miss your whining, princess."
"Bite me," Sam said with a smile and closed his eyes. He groaned when Dean pulled his good arm and tugged him to his feet. Sam's eyes shot open in surprise when he felt a second set of hands on him. He looked down and found the blonde woman sliding under his left side, trying to steady him without hurting his obviously wounded shoulder. "Thanks."
She nodded jerkily. "Don't mention it." Her voice was hoarse and soft.
"I'm Sam." He smiled at her and nodded to his brother. "This is Dean. Ignore him if he flirts with you."
"Dude." Dean glared at him. "My brother's an ass by the way."
She gave a short, strained laugh but smiled. "I'm Summer." She looked briefly down at the man as they passed him and closed her eyes. "I don't even know who he was."
"It's alright." Sam clenched his teeth and got his left arm up over her shoulders.
"What…what even happened? I mean…" Summer shook her head. "I don't understand."
"You got away from a serial killer," Dean said and leaned around his brother to meet her eyes. "That's what you tell the cops 'cause if you try and tell 'em what you really saw…"
"They'd put me in a padded room. Yeah." Summer nodded her head. "I get that." She rubbed a hand over her face. "I think I'd lock me up too."
Dean snorted softly and hefted Sam's arm higher on his shoulder as he grew heavier. "Hey, sasquatch. No passing out 'til we get to the car. I ain't carryin' your heavy ass down four flights of stairs."
Sam smirked and breathed deeply, smiling. He'd missed his brother's voice, even if he was being irritating. He gritted his teeth down all four flights of stairs with his big brother's voice comfortingly in his ear, urging him on. They reached the car, and Sam leaned heavily against it with a groan of relief. "Hey…Dean?"
"Yeah, Sammy?" Dean pulled open the passenger door and gestured at Summer to get in the back.
"You said…til we get…to the c-car." Sam's head fell to the roof with a thump.
"Shit!" Dean caught his little brother as he slid down the side of the car, grunting under his weight.
Summer laughed softly. "Well, you did tell him to wait until we got to the car."
Dean lifted Sam into the passenger seat, propping him in place with the seatbelt and eased the door shut. He shook his head. "The one time the idiot actually listens to me." He smiled at the girl and headed around to the driver's side. "Get in. We'll take you home first." Dean climbed behind the wheel, turned the car on and stretched his arm out to keep a hand on Sam's neck so he could feel his brother's heart beating. It was a little bit fast and not quite as strong as usual, but within a range Dean found acceptable. He glanced again at Summer in the rearview mirror. "Where to?"
"Sunnydale Drive." Summer leaned back in the seat and watched the old house as they slid away from the curb. "Shouldn't you get him to a hospital?"
Dean shook his head and glanced at his unconscious brother. "Trust me, honey. You wanna stay the hell out of hospitals for a while unless you're dying."
"Why?" Summer leaned on the seat in front of her with a worried glance for Sam's bloodied appearance.
"You don't wanna know," Dean assured her and visions of hungry leviathans passed through his mind. "You really don't. He'll be fine." He snorted and rolled his eyes when Sam's head rolled over to rest on his forearm above the grip Dean had on the back of his neck.
"Thank you, by the way." Summer met Dean's eyes in the rearview mirror. "For saving my life and stuff."
Dean smiled. "That's what we do, sweetheart." He put his eyes back on the road and started humming, needing to hear his own voice.
"Z'at s'posed to be…'tallica?" Sam's slurred voice made Dean jump and Summer laugh.
"What do you mean 'supposed to be'?" Dean glared over at him though Sam had yet to open his eyes, he was smirking. "I sounded awesome."
Sam snorted, still not entirely conscious. "Dyin' water…water buff'lo."
"Shut up." Dean growled and glared at Summer in the mirror until she subsided to muffling her laughter and he gave his brother's head a little shake. "Everybody's a critic."
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The End.
Next Up: cruisingbug
