musicalluna

Up close, it's evident that the house has been abandoned for years. The once white paint has been all but obliterated by time, left peeling and discolored where it still clings to the wood. Moss and other plant life has taken over all up the walls. One broken window to the left of the porch allows a few leafy branches to peek out.

 

Only one of the five broad steps that ascends to the porch is damaged, fortunately. Sam isn't optimistic that they're going to find much inside, but they have to try.

 

He grimaces, stopping at the base of the steps. Dean keeps going, straight up onto the porch without him. “Come on, Sam,” he calls back over his shoulder. “No way you're staying out here by yourself.”

 

There's no sympathy in his voice for the hell Sam is going to go through in the next few minutes, but Sam knows it's only because there's nothing he can do to make it easier. Pretending he doesn't care is just Dean's way of dealing.

 

“Yeah, yeah,” Sam mutters, grimaces again, and then starts the lurching, painful process of getting up the steps.

 

Dean is already inside the house when Sam makes it to the porch. His leg is throbbing mercilessly. He's still there, riding out the pain when Dean returns.

 

“Found a chair,” he says. The remains of said chair are in his hands, along with a black wrought iron poker.

 

“Wood's for my leg?” Sam guesses and Dean grins back humorlessly.

 

“You got it.”

 

“Awesome.”

 

Dean helps lower Sam down on the porch because here's as good as anywhere. After placing the wooden poles that had probably comprised the chair's back, Dean looks up at him, drawing a yellowed curtain Sam hadn't noticed out of his back pocket. “You ready for this?”

 

“Hell, no,” Sam says and lies down, putting both hands over his face. His heart is doing that anxious fluttering thing again, already anticipating the pain.

 

“All right then,” Dean says and gets to work. Sam can't help flinching at every touch, despite how careful Dean is. He's wound up tighter than a bowstring, knowing at any second Dean is going to start pulling the improvised ties tight and it's going to--

 

Sam stifles the noises as best he can, gritting his teeth and pressing his wrist into his mouth, but goddamnit it hurts.

 

When it's finally over, Dean smacks him on the sternum and snaps, “Breathe, you idiot!”

 

Sam sucks in a huge breath and it hitches in his chest. It hurts to breathe after holding it in for so long and he's helpless to stop the sob-like pants that result.

 

“Moron,” Dean mutters, checking over his handiwork. “You know better than to stop breathing like that.”

 

“God, I hate you,” Sam breathes, muffled, from beneath the palms pressed to his face.

 

Having his leg splinted does, eventually, make Sam feel better though. Immobilization keeps every little movement from causing shocks of rippling pain, which is a relief because they're not going to be sitting around anytime soon.

Dean keeps watch while he's recovering from the splinting. He's sitting on the floor between Sam and the door, his injured hand cradled in his lap. "You should wrap those wounds," Sam tells him at one point.

Dean snorts. "I'm not wrapping nasty-ass hundred-year-old curtains around my bloody wounds, Sam. That'd do way more harm than good." He pauses and then adds, "Besides, they're mostly clotted anyway."

Sam glances at the itchy dark brown trails crusted around his elbow and grants Dean that. The punctures sting and ache, but they're too small to bleed too much. And protecting them from infection is kind of pointless since they're bite wounds. So he lays there and waits for his leg to cope.

A couple of fireflies have ambled into the house and they're drifting in lazy loop-de-loops overhead. "Do you remember the last time we saw fireflies?" Sam asks.

"You mean in Iowa when that Kelpie tried to drown our asses?" Dean says, still focused intently outside.

Sam smiles ruefully. "Yeah, that time."

"What about it?"

 

Sam shrugs. "Nothing,” he says. “I like them."

Dean rolls his eyes. "God, you're such a damn girl. Are you sure you don't have a vagina?"

"Are you sure you don't have another asshole where your heart is supposed to be?" Sam shoots back.

"Bitch."

"Jerk."

Dean sighs and then drags himself to his feet, hanging onto the door frame, his knees trembling. "All right, Sasquatch. That's enough slacking. Let's get this show on the road," Dean says, reaching down and hooking an elbow under Sam's arm.

 

When they're upright, Dean hands his crutch over and Sam looks across the firefly dotted yard and asks, "What are we going to do now, Dean?"

His brother looks like he'd like to just lie down and pass out for a few hours, but he rubs a hand over his face and says, "Well, we got two options 's I see it. One, we head out find a road and hope we get picked up by a good Samaritan before mini-me catches up to us then come back and gank her--it--me--whatever--when we've got a plan or two, we gank mini-me and then go wait for our good Samaritan when she can't hunt us down and kill us like dogs."

"We don't even know what she is," Sam says. "How can we kill her if we don't even know where to start?"
 

Dean lifts the poker and lets it drop back onto his shoulder. “Give'r a little bit of everything we got.”

 

~ * ~

 

Sam considers all their options--it's his job as the sensible one--but the decision to stay, to hunt this thing down, is really no decision at all. It is wearing Dean's face after all.

 

"Okay, so we've got iron," he says, starting to compose a mental list of things-that-usually-kill-stuff.

"And fire," Dean adds, flicking open his lighter.

"Silver?" Sam suggests.

Dean tosses a thumb over his shoulder, indicating the depths of the house. "Found some silverware in there, but I don't think it's the real thing."

"So no silver," Sam sighs.

Dean shrugs, eyes focused on the front yard again. "Decapitation's always a good one."

"Taking out the heart works pretty well usually, too," Sam agrees thoughtfully.

Dean looks at the poker in his hand. "Okay, so, iron poker through the heart, hack the bitch's head off, and then light 'er up."

Sam imagines it going down. "Sounds good to me. If it gets any more complicated than that, we're screwed either way."

Dean snorts. "No shit."

A thought occurs to Sam. “What are we going to cut her head off with?”

“Should be an ax out back, long as it wasn't Abraham Lincoln's preferred vamp hunting tool or anything.”

“All right,” Sam says, “Let's go find us an ax.”