"Brambles And Bones"
Title: Brambles And Bones
Rating/Warning: Mature (language)
Wordcount: 3,517
Spoilers: None
Fandom: SPN
By: kellifer_fic
Category: Gen - wing!fic (Sam/OFC implied)
Notes: Part of my gen wing!fic verse. Thanks to *superfox* for the superfast beta. Further author's notes at the bottom.
Disclaimer: Written for entertainment purposes only. No money, no sue.
Dean had his hand up to knock when Sam arrested its movement, gripping his wrist for a moment.
“Are you sure?”
“Sam,” Dean said, tone patient. “I’m starting to get a little worried about you. You see maybe me, Bobby and Melinda but that’s about it. The whole hermit thing has got to stop.”
Sam blew out a breath, his bangs flaring away from his forehead for a second and wearing a completely exasperated expression. “Wasn’t this the woman that felt you up?” Sam asked, raising his eyebrows and Dean smirked.
“That was because of the curse… thing. And the fact that I have a world-class ass.”
“You’re not supposed to say ass!” a voice piped up from behind them and Dean and Sam both spun around to see a small girl with wings made of coathangers, stockings and glitter standing behind them. Her eyes were wide and she was pointing an accusatory finger. It dropped though when her eyes shifted from Dean to Sam and her arms came up instead.
Sam looked from Dean to the little girl and back again before he realised what he was meant to do. He leaned down and scooped the girl aloft and she squealed, thrusting her arms over his shoulders so she could bury her hands in his feathers. At that moment Kelly Peters also appeared around the side of the house, looking a little frantic. When she spotted Sam and Dean with her daughter her whole demeanour relaxed and she smiled.
“Sorry, she got away from me,” she apologised, moving towards them, rubbing her hands off on a dish cloth that was slung over her shoulder. The smell of BBQ and the sound of voices carried to them on the evening breeze and Dean grinned when Kelly hooked a thumb over her shoulder. “Food’s that way.”
Dean clapped Sam on the shoulder that wasn’t occupied by Jeanie’s head and skirted the house, coming upon a couple of picnic tables fairly groaning with food and a backyard strewn with coloured lights. It was a neighbourhood party, but considering neither he nor Sam actually had a neighbourhood, Kelly had extended the invitation when Dean had been over to fix up some of the shelving in Jeanie’s room.
Dean was making a beeline for the loose grouping of men because he was pretty sure he would actually find the BBQ behind them but something soft yet unyielding moved into his path. Dean faltered, meaning to step around but a taloned hand grasped his arm just above the elbow and his nose was filled with an almost overpowering floral perfume.
“Are you one of the Winchester brothers I been hearing so much about?” a fairly diminutive but no less un-solid woman queried, flashing a wide smile at Dean that revealed two front teeth liberally smeared with red lipstick.
Dean knew that in a small way, he and Sam were at a disadvantage trying to come to terms with a normal place. Their nomadic lifestyle allowed little in the way of familial interaction so neither boy had been particularly schooled in the whys and wherefores of avoiding maiden-aunts and similar type horrors that were bent on pinching cheeks and getting you to try their potato salad that was a food group in and of itself.
“Uh, yes?” Dean tried because his fallback position was always the truth and no appropriate lie presented itself in his traitorous brain that would allow for escape. Dean cast about desperately for his brother who was completely missing. Considering Sam’s size and the presence of the wings, it was always easy to deflect attention from himself in Sam’s direction.
“Oh, good,” the woman practically crowed, beaming. “Now tell me, I heard you were both available?”
Dean opened and closed his mouth a few times, unsure how to proceed. Available for what, was the logical question but Dean wasn’t quite prepared for allowing the woman that kind of in. “Sam is!” he assured cheerfully, because really, no matter what it was Sam was more likely to cope better than him. Especially if the questioned availability was for some younger female who was in such dire straits that she needed an older relation to trap unsuspecting young men at BBQs into a date of some kind.
“Oh,” the woman said, faltering a little, but then she brightened again. “Now where would he be?” Dean saw glorious light at the end of the tunnel and over-cooked meat in his future.
“He was out front with Mrs Peters,” Dean said, waving a hand in Sam’s general direction. The woman gave him a small, final pat and took off, Dean watching her go with mounting relief.
000
Dean didn’t catch sight of Sam for a good hour. Sam wasn’t exactly inconspicuous so he was starting to get a little concerned when Melinda spotted him and made her way over. She had a plate piled high but was only managing to pick at it.
“Thank god, a normal person,” she said, hooking the hand not occupied with her plate in Dean’s elbow and he grinned down at her.
“Your definition of normal is a little skewed,” he commented.
“You looking for Sam?” Melinda guessed when she noticed Dean’s gaze skip away again.
“Yeah.” Dean nodded, leaning across to steal Melinda’s bread roll which had been teetering on the top of the food-mountain she had going and shoving the whole thing in his mouth. She untucked her hand long enough to flick him in the forehead for his trouble.
“I saw him around the side. I don’t think he’s actually made it in yet.”
“Was he by any chance bailed up by a little old lady?” Dean hazarded and Melinda nodded. “Oh man, he’s going to kill me.”
“I wouldn’t worry,” Melinda said, shrugging. “Gina’s back in town and her Aunt’s probably just trying to set them up. She’s bent on seeing Gina married because she thinks maybe then she’ll quit the jetsetting lifestyle.”
“Yeah, I’m a dead man,” Dean moaned, envisioning weeks of not being able to sit, eat or drink without checking thoroughly everything first. Sam was a vindictive bastard at the best of times but when he actually had a good reason…
“Honestly,” Melinda interjected. “I don’t think Sam’s going to mind much.”
“Wait,” Dean said, turning on her. “This Gina isn’t hot is she?”
“No,” Melinda said, but before Dean’s relieved grin could get too wide, she leaned in a bit closer and said through a mischievous smile, “She’s really, really hot.”
Dean just knew that if he’d volunteered for the hook-up, he would have been lumped for the rest of the evening with a monstrosity that was best kept in a faraway attic and never spoken of again. Because it was Sam though he’d put forward, karma had once again screwed him.
He finally spotted his wayward brother, who was instantly swamped with kids. He still had a hold of Jeanie because he was a giant sap and wouldn’t know how to put her down. Dean had watched Sam grimace and fidget but refuse to unseat Hell Hound if their mutt was sprawled across his lap and looked comfortable. Right behind Sam was the older lady that had first approached him and beside her was a young woman with blonde hair that was escaping a pony tail. She was wearing jeans and a short military-style jacket and her gaze was pretty much fixed on six foot five of winged Winchester.
Dammit.
000
“You’re the one who said I was becoming a monk,” Sam pointed out as they arrived back at the farm in the late evening. Dean was mostly annoyed because with Sam’s wings, he was pretty much designated driver wherever they went. The fact that Sam availed himself of the only single girl at the party along with liberal amounts of beer just added insult to injury.
“I said a hermit,” Dean grumbled, tripping over Hell Hound who was sprawled across the front doorway.
“Wow, usually you’re practically shoving me in the way of women. What’s that charming phrase you keep using? Use it or it’ll drop off?”
“I’m just…” Dean made a helpless gesture with his hand and frowned. “There’s just been a… drought lately.”
Sam wasn’t quick enough to catch his grin behind his hand and Dean scowled at him. “Man, you’ve had more flood than I think anyone else living. This is just the Universe’s way of restoring the balance for normal people,” Sam pointed out.
“Screw the Universe!” Dean snapped but a moment later he smiled. “Tell me I raised you right,” he prodded.
Sam rolled his eyes, but dug into his top pocket and pulled free a small, folded piece of paper. Dean chuckled and clapped Sam on the bicep, squeezing briefly. “That’s ma’ boy,” he crowed.
No one ever said Dean Winchester didn’t have an amazingly fast recovery time.
000
Gina Ozley was not the kind of girl to sit back and wait for a call, or at least that’s what Dean assumed when he opened the front door two days later and found her on their porch, holding a plate covered in foil and looking like she was contemplating making a run for it.
“Hi,” Dean greeted, leaning in the doorway and trying not to check her out too obviously. The patented up-down and eyebrow raise was fine for women he met in bars but not the potential anything of Sam’s.
Well, if he could help it.
“This is completely hokey, isn’t it?” Gina said, screwing up her face.
“I’m sorry, you’ve lost me,” Dean said, crossing his arms and shaking his head.
“Aunt Em said this was a good way… I have no idea why I thought this was… I’m completely mortified,” she finished and Dean was pretty sure a good deal of the chunks of conversation he’d missed had happened in Gina’s head.
“You have an Auntie Em?” he asked because it was the only small bit he’d caught that had made any sense. “That’s a little Wizard of Oz isn’t it?”
“Try saying Emmanuella when you’re three,” Gina said. “She’s pretty much been Em since then.”
“Are you…” Dean gestured at the plate, suddenly realising what was going on. “Are you bringing my brother cookies?” he asked.
He watched Gina flush red from her collarbone up, apparent because she was wearing a top with spaghetti straps. “Did I mention the mortification?” she asked and Dean had to laugh when she added, “How much to never tell him I was here?”
“C’mon,” Dean prompted instead, standing aside and holding the door open. “No one with food escapes the Winchester household.” Hell Hound though, seemed to have other ideas. He came barrelling around the side of the farm house and skidded to a halt between Gina and the doorway, hackles raised and a low growl in his throat. “Hey!” Dean snapped, reaching down for Hell Hound’s collar and snagging it. Gina had stepped backwards, the hand not holding the plate held up.
“Just a sec, I’ll get his crazy-ass mutt locked in my bedroom,” Dean promised and moved inside, dragging Hell Hound who was pulling against his collar and now whining. When Dean reached his room, he herded Hell Hound inside and then reached under his mattress, pulling his revolver free. He rubbed a hand over Hell Hound’s ruff and hunkered down. The dog was still trembling. “You better be right about this,” Dean grunted and Hell Hound gave a small, choked off yip.
There were a lot of little things Dean knew were pretty much infallible when it came to the hunt. One of which was a generally friendly dog who even rolled on his belly for the postman, did not freak out and just randomly decide to hate someone.
There was always a reason.
000
“There better be a really fucking brilliant explanation for this,” Sam growled through clenched teeth when he came home to find Gina tied to a chair in the living room and Dean sitting opposite with a gun on her. Gina had a bandana across her mouth and cast wide, terrified eyes on Sam the moment he appeared.
Dean hustled Sam through to the kitchen. He’d been hoping that Sam would’ve been out for an extra long jaunt so he could find out just what was up with Gina before he returned. He knew Sam had already been mostly convinced he was cursed when it came to the fairer sex and having to confirm it all over again was pretty much one of the top ten suckiest things Dean had ever done.
“Holy water doesn’t affect her but the EMF goes completely crazy if I get anywhere near her,” Dean explained. “Plus Hell Hound went fuckin’ nuts.”
Sam’s eyes fixed over Dean’s shoulder and everything in him seemed to deflate. It hit Dean hard to see Sam pull it together and switch into hunt-mode. “What are you thinking?”
“Not sure,” Dean said, pushing his own pain at seeing Sam’s hurt down deep. “She doesn’t really ping zombie for me.”
“She only just came back into town… maybe shapeshifter?”
“Nope. Snapped a picture of her with your girlie-ass digital camera and no flare.”
“Not a spirit, not a vampire because they don’t give off EMF,” Sam continued, ticking off on his fingers. “Maybe she just lives too close to a power plant?”
“Sam…”
“Yeah, I know,” Sam sighed, scrubbing a hand over his face. “I mean c’mon. She went for me. She’s gotta be heavy-duty evil or doomed right?”
“Sammy,” Dean repeated, at a loss.
“Just…” Sam flicked a hand through the air, a clean slice. “No more.”
Dean wasn’t lost for words very often, but he found that this time he really had nothing.
000
Sam turned the laptop around and drummed fingers on the top of the screen. “The good news is that Gina Ozley exists,” Sam said and when Dean raised an eyebrow, Sam’s fingers walked down to the photograph on the screen. Dean leaned forward a little and could see a group of five girls, the one in the middle definitely Gina.
“Party goers at Mantay celebrate the launch of a new artist named-”
“Dean!” Sam snapped, clicking his fingers impatiently. “The Mantay Gallery is in New York and that picture was taken last night.”
“Could we have a shapeshifter who doesn’t fit the usual MO?” Dean asked, rubbing at his chin.
“I have another idea,” Sam said, pulling a newish-looking journal towards himself. He’d been keeping his own, neither brother really willing to add to their father’s. The journal was already crammed with notes, clippings and pictures. Dean figured Sam had had a lot of time to kill when he’d been away and Sam wasn’t hunting. It looked like Sam had taken it upon himself to create the first Monsters Britannica. Sam finally found the page he’d been looking for and held the journal out to Dean.
“A golem?”
“Possibly. Unfortunately, there’s no real way to check except…”
“Breaking open her head and digging out the spell note?” Dean said with a grimace. He glanced back towards the living room where they were keeping Gina.
“I know… but…”
Dean scrubbed at the back of his head. “She won’t know what she is,” Dean finished for him. “Hell, Sammy.”
“If you’ve got a better idea I’d really like to hear it,” Sam said and even though his words were hard, his eyes were pleading. Give us a way out of this.
“Let’s give Bobby another try before we do anything drastic, yeah?” Dean proposed and Sam nodded.
000
“I’m sorry boys, but there’s only one thing you can do with a golem.”
“We know,” Dean said, looking at Sam who was sitting on his bed with his head in his hands. “We’re just not one hundred percent sure is all.”
“Sorry to say there’s no way to be one hundred percent until the damn thing gets triggered. Then you’re fighting somethin’ near unstoppable.”
“We appreciate that but-”
“Dean, where’s this hesitation coming from? It ain’t like you at all.”
Dean risked another glance at Sam and then sighed heavily. He let a hand drop onto the top of Sam’s head and rubbed briefly. It was a sign that Sam was really feeling at an all time low that he didn’t protest. Dean let his hand wander to the tip of one of Sam’s wings and waggled it until Sam looked up. He was all for protecting Sam, shouldering most of the burden but he also knew that Sam would beat himself up after if he wasn’t involved.
“Everyone thinks it’s this local girl who’s realised the error of her wandering ways and has finally come home,” Dean said and the side of Sam’s mouth quirked up in a grateful smile.
“Most of that’s the magic in the thing which’ll be dispelled when you break the binding. Golem’s are a work of art, I can agree to that but they’re not perfect. It’s clay and branches playacting at life. Anyone who knew the person well would be able to tell after a time if it didn’t have a glamour attached.”
“Are you saying most of the town’s people will think she’s just gone back to New York?”
“I’m saying most of your townspeople won’t remember it was ever there,” Bobby corrected. “That’s the evil beauty of the damn things. Once it’s fulfilled its purpose, it would crumble to nothing anyway. Usually a golem’s created to put a body in the ground but good. No one really remembers what happened after.”
000
“Maybe we should tell her.” Sam had a restraining hand on Dean’s chest, who was looking determined and had a hold of a crowbar that he was jostling from one hand to the other. Dean looked up at Sam and raised an eyebrow.
“I’m sorry?” he grunted. “We just tell her that she’s a magical creature made up of mud and twigs and we’re going to have to crack open her skull?”
“Well, when you say it like that it sounds stupid,” Sam snapped, frowning.
“Am I supposed to try it with an accent?” When Sam’s scowl deepened, Dean sighed and rolled his shoulders. “Look, no matter how we try to explain a thing like that, it’s just not going to be reassuring in the least. If there was nothing I could do to avoid it, I’d rather someone didn’t warn me about an impending skull-cracking.”
“We’re still not sure.”
“Dude, we’re pretty damn sure,” Dean said, sounding pained.
“I’m not-”
“Sam, you can sit this one out. I don’t mind, really,” Dean assured, bringing up his hand and patting Sam’s where it still had a death-grip on his shirt, before prying it loose.
“There’s all this stuff I don’t remember that I wish to hell I did,” Sam said. “Then there’s the stuff I really wish I could forget.”
000
Dean knew if he were in a movie, then right before he would be forced to smash in the pretty girl’s head, she would become the monster.
Real life didn’t work that way.
000
“The good news is, we were right,” Dean said, tone dry. He was hunkered in front of a pile of brambles and roses, powdered clay scattered across the floor. Strips of cloth were woven in between and as Sam looked on, Dean was able to pry loose a small leather pouch from where the Gina-golem’s head would’ve approximately been.
Dean opened the little pouch and teased out the small scrap of paper inside. Along with this was a flattened flower that he didn’t recognise and two photos sewn together, back to back, with green thread. One of the photos was Gina herself and the other was an old year book picture of Sam.
Dean pried the two photos apart, putting Gina’s back in the pouch and tucking Sam’s into his top pocket. There was also a fragment of what Dean though might have been a tooth and some brown and blonde hair knotted together. Dean didn’t waste any time with this, running his lighter under the hair until it caught.
“You could’ve waited until we got this stuff outside,” Sam protested, making a face at the smell but Dean grunted and shook his head.
“Not taking any chances.”
Sam laid down a split open garbage bag on the floor and they both swept the remains onto it, along with the pouch. Dean wasn’t sure you needed to burn golem bits once the spell paper was removed, but again, he wasn’t taking any chances. They made a small fire out the back of the house and Hell Hound whined low as they watched everything burn.
The only thing they didn’t burn was the actual spell paper, Dean rubbing his fingers over it as the heat from the fire made his face warm. He’d heard a few times that it was possible to trace back a golem’s creator if you had a hold of the original spell and he intended to.
There was going to be hell to pay.
~~
Further author's notes: Firstly, the characters of Kelly Peters and her daughter belong to poisontaster and I'm hoping she doesn't mind me continuing to fold them into my 'verse because they fit so neatly.
So, I did mean to write a schmoopier Sam/OFC fic as per PT's request that would sit outside the normal canon... but then there was this way to actually fit it into the ongoing arc of the story and well... this happened.
This part is me mostly hanging a lantern on the fact that I have been keeping the boys fairly isolated. Dean would have gotten his fair share of booty while away from Sam, but stuck in a small town, there's not that much opportunity. You can't really avoid the one night stand when you're liable to run into her in the cereal isle of the local market.
It is also a bridging piece, a kind of boot in the pants for the boys to realise that while they do want to settle down, they can't really do that yet. There are still forces at work against them, and Sanctuary isn't as safe as they thought. The next piece will be longer and dealing with the whole Guardian thing, showing the boys that they do indeed have enemies and also just what brought them to Sanctuary... what made them feel like they should stay.
I hope you're enjoying this journey with me.
Rating/Warning: Mature (language)
Wordcount: 3,517
Spoilers: None
Fandom: SPN
By: kellifer_fic
Category: Gen - wing!fic (Sam/OFC implied)
Notes: Part of my gen wing!fic verse. Thanks to *superfox* for the superfast beta. Further author's notes at the bottom.
Disclaimer: Written for entertainment purposes only. No money, no sue.
Dean had his hand up to knock when Sam arrested its movement, gripping his wrist for a moment.
“Are you sure?”
“Sam,” Dean said, tone patient. “I’m starting to get a little worried about you. You see maybe me, Bobby and Melinda but that’s about it. The whole hermit thing has got to stop.”
Sam blew out a breath, his bangs flaring away from his forehead for a second and wearing a completely exasperated expression. “Wasn’t this the woman that felt you up?” Sam asked, raising his eyebrows and Dean smirked.
“That was because of the curse… thing. And the fact that I have a world-class ass.”
“You’re not supposed to say ass!” a voice piped up from behind them and Dean and Sam both spun around to see a small girl with wings made of coathangers, stockings and glitter standing behind them. Her eyes were wide and she was pointing an accusatory finger. It dropped though when her eyes shifted from Dean to Sam and her arms came up instead.
Sam looked from Dean to the little girl and back again before he realised what he was meant to do. He leaned down and scooped the girl aloft and she squealed, thrusting her arms over his shoulders so she could bury her hands in his feathers. At that moment Kelly Peters also appeared around the side of the house, looking a little frantic. When she spotted Sam and Dean with her daughter her whole demeanour relaxed and she smiled.
“Sorry, she got away from me,” she apologised, moving towards them, rubbing her hands off on a dish cloth that was slung over her shoulder. The smell of BBQ and the sound of voices carried to them on the evening breeze and Dean grinned when Kelly hooked a thumb over her shoulder. “Food’s that way.”
Dean clapped Sam on the shoulder that wasn’t occupied by Jeanie’s head and skirted the house, coming upon a couple of picnic tables fairly groaning with food and a backyard strewn with coloured lights. It was a neighbourhood party, but considering neither he nor Sam actually had a neighbourhood, Kelly had extended the invitation when Dean had been over to fix up some of the shelving in Jeanie’s room.
Dean was making a beeline for the loose grouping of men because he was pretty sure he would actually find the BBQ behind them but something soft yet unyielding moved into his path. Dean faltered, meaning to step around but a taloned hand grasped his arm just above the elbow and his nose was filled with an almost overpowering floral perfume.
“Are you one of the Winchester brothers I been hearing so much about?” a fairly diminutive but no less un-solid woman queried, flashing a wide smile at Dean that revealed two front teeth liberally smeared with red lipstick.
Dean knew that in a small way, he and Sam were at a disadvantage trying to come to terms with a normal place. Their nomadic lifestyle allowed little in the way of familial interaction so neither boy had been particularly schooled in the whys and wherefores of avoiding maiden-aunts and similar type horrors that were bent on pinching cheeks and getting you to try their potato salad that was a food group in and of itself.
“Uh, yes?” Dean tried because his fallback position was always the truth and no appropriate lie presented itself in his traitorous brain that would allow for escape. Dean cast about desperately for his brother who was completely missing. Considering Sam’s size and the presence of the wings, it was always easy to deflect attention from himself in Sam’s direction.
“Oh, good,” the woman practically crowed, beaming. “Now tell me, I heard you were both available?”
Dean opened and closed his mouth a few times, unsure how to proceed. Available for what, was the logical question but Dean wasn’t quite prepared for allowing the woman that kind of in. “Sam is!” he assured cheerfully, because really, no matter what it was Sam was more likely to cope better than him. Especially if the questioned availability was for some younger female who was in such dire straits that she needed an older relation to trap unsuspecting young men at BBQs into a date of some kind.
“Oh,” the woman said, faltering a little, but then she brightened again. “Now where would he be?” Dean saw glorious light at the end of the tunnel and over-cooked meat in his future.
“He was out front with Mrs Peters,” Dean said, waving a hand in Sam’s general direction. The woman gave him a small, final pat and took off, Dean watching her go with mounting relief.
000
Dean didn’t catch sight of Sam for a good hour. Sam wasn’t exactly inconspicuous so he was starting to get a little concerned when Melinda spotted him and made her way over. She had a plate piled high but was only managing to pick at it.
“Thank god, a normal person,” she said, hooking the hand not occupied with her plate in Dean’s elbow and he grinned down at her.
“Your definition of normal is a little skewed,” he commented.
“You looking for Sam?” Melinda guessed when she noticed Dean’s gaze skip away again.
“Yeah.” Dean nodded, leaning across to steal Melinda’s bread roll which had been teetering on the top of the food-mountain she had going and shoving the whole thing in his mouth. She untucked her hand long enough to flick him in the forehead for his trouble.
“I saw him around the side. I don’t think he’s actually made it in yet.”
“Was he by any chance bailed up by a little old lady?” Dean hazarded and Melinda nodded. “Oh man, he’s going to kill me.”
“I wouldn’t worry,” Melinda said, shrugging. “Gina’s back in town and her Aunt’s probably just trying to set them up. She’s bent on seeing Gina married because she thinks maybe then she’ll quit the jetsetting lifestyle.”
“Yeah, I’m a dead man,” Dean moaned, envisioning weeks of not being able to sit, eat or drink without checking thoroughly everything first. Sam was a vindictive bastard at the best of times but when he actually had a good reason…
“Honestly,” Melinda interjected. “I don’t think Sam’s going to mind much.”
“Wait,” Dean said, turning on her. “This Gina isn’t hot is she?”
“No,” Melinda said, but before Dean’s relieved grin could get too wide, she leaned in a bit closer and said through a mischievous smile, “She’s really, really hot.”
Dean just knew that if he’d volunteered for the hook-up, he would have been lumped for the rest of the evening with a monstrosity that was best kept in a faraway attic and never spoken of again. Because it was Sam though he’d put forward, karma had once again screwed him.
He finally spotted his wayward brother, who was instantly swamped with kids. He still had a hold of Jeanie because he was a giant sap and wouldn’t know how to put her down. Dean had watched Sam grimace and fidget but refuse to unseat Hell Hound if their mutt was sprawled across his lap and looked comfortable. Right behind Sam was the older lady that had first approached him and beside her was a young woman with blonde hair that was escaping a pony tail. She was wearing jeans and a short military-style jacket and her gaze was pretty much fixed on six foot five of winged Winchester.
Dammit.
000
“You’re the one who said I was becoming a monk,” Sam pointed out as they arrived back at the farm in the late evening. Dean was mostly annoyed because with Sam’s wings, he was pretty much designated driver wherever they went. The fact that Sam availed himself of the only single girl at the party along with liberal amounts of beer just added insult to injury.
“I said a hermit,” Dean grumbled, tripping over Hell Hound who was sprawled across the front doorway.
“Wow, usually you’re practically shoving me in the way of women. What’s that charming phrase you keep using? Use it or it’ll drop off?”
“I’m just…” Dean made a helpless gesture with his hand and frowned. “There’s just been a… drought lately.”
Sam wasn’t quick enough to catch his grin behind his hand and Dean scowled at him. “Man, you’ve had more flood than I think anyone else living. This is just the Universe’s way of restoring the balance for normal people,” Sam pointed out.
“Screw the Universe!” Dean snapped but a moment later he smiled. “Tell me I raised you right,” he prodded.
Sam rolled his eyes, but dug into his top pocket and pulled free a small, folded piece of paper. Dean chuckled and clapped Sam on the bicep, squeezing briefly. “That’s ma’ boy,” he crowed.
No one ever said Dean Winchester didn’t have an amazingly fast recovery time.
000
Gina Ozley was not the kind of girl to sit back and wait for a call, or at least that’s what Dean assumed when he opened the front door two days later and found her on their porch, holding a plate covered in foil and looking like she was contemplating making a run for it.
“Hi,” Dean greeted, leaning in the doorway and trying not to check her out too obviously. The patented up-down and eyebrow raise was fine for women he met in bars but not the potential anything of Sam’s.
Well, if he could help it.
“This is completely hokey, isn’t it?” Gina said, screwing up her face.
“I’m sorry, you’ve lost me,” Dean said, crossing his arms and shaking his head.
“Aunt Em said this was a good way… I have no idea why I thought this was… I’m completely mortified,” she finished and Dean was pretty sure a good deal of the chunks of conversation he’d missed had happened in Gina’s head.
“You have an Auntie Em?” he asked because it was the only small bit he’d caught that had made any sense. “That’s a little Wizard of Oz isn’t it?”
“Try saying Emmanuella when you’re three,” Gina said. “She’s pretty much been Em since then.”
“Are you…” Dean gestured at the plate, suddenly realising what was going on. “Are you bringing my brother cookies?” he asked.
He watched Gina flush red from her collarbone up, apparent because she was wearing a top with spaghetti straps. “Did I mention the mortification?” she asked and Dean had to laugh when she added, “How much to never tell him I was here?”
“C’mon,” Dean prompted instead, standing aside and holding the door open. “No one with food escapes the Winchester household.” Hell Hound though, seemed to have other ideas. He came barrelling around the side of the farm house and skidded to a halt between Gina and the doorway, hackles raised and a low growl in his throat. “Hey!” Dean snapped, reaching down for Hell Hound’s collar and snagging it. Gina had stepped backwards, the hand not holding the plate held up.
“Just a sec, I’ll get his crazy-ass mutt locked in my bedroom,” Dean promised and moved inside, dragging Hell Hound who was pulling against his collar and now whining. When Dean reached his room, he herded Hell Hound inside and then reached under his mattress, pulling his revolver free. He rubbed a hand over Hell Hound’s ruff and hunkered down. The dog was still trembling. “You better be right about this,” Dean grunted and Hell Hound gave a small, choked off yip.
There were a lot of little things Dean knew were pretty much infallible when it came to the hunt. One of which was a generally friendly dog who even rolled on his belly for the postman, did not freak out and just randomly decide to hate someone.
There was always a reason.
000
“There better be a really fucking brilliant explanation for this,” Sam growled through clenched teeth when he came home to find Gina tied to a chair in the living room and Dean sitting opposite with a gun on her. Gina had a bandana across her mouth and cast wide, terrified eyes on Sam the moment he appeared.
Dean hustled Sam through to the kitchen. He’d been hoping that Sam would’ve been out for an extra long jaunt so he could find out just what was up with Gina before he returned. He knew Sam had already been mostly convinced he was cursed when it came to the fairer sex and having to confirm it all over again was pretty much one of the top ten suckiest things Dean had ever done.
“Holy water doesn’t affect her but the EMF goes completely crazy if I get anywhere near her,” Dean explained. “Plus Hell Hound went fuckin’ nuts.”
Sam’s eyes fixed over Dean’s shoulder and everything in him seemed to deflate. It hit Dean hard to see Sam pull it together and switch into hunt-mode. “What are you thinking?”
“Not sure,” Dean said, pushing his own pain at seeing Sam’s hurt down deep. “She doesn’t really ping zombie for me.”
“She only just came back into town… maybe shapeshifter?”
“Nope. Snapped a picture of her with your girlie-ass digital camera and no flare.”
“Not a spirit, not a vampire because they don’t give off EMF,” Sam continued, ticking off on his fingers. “Maybe she just lives too close to a power plant?”
“Sam…”
“Yeah, I know,” Sam sighed, scrubbing a hand over his face. “I mean c’mon. She went for me. She’s gotta be heavy-duty evil or doomed right?”
“Sammy,” Dean repeated, at a loss.
“Just…” Sam flicked a hand through the air, a clean slice. “No more.”
Dean wasn’t lost for words very often, but he found that this time he really had nothing.
000
Sam turned the laptop around and drummed fingers on the top of the screen. “The good news is that Gina Ozley exists,” Sam said and when Dean raised an eyebrow, Sam’s fingers walked down to the photograph on the screen. Dean leaned forward a little and could see a group of five girls, the one in the middle definitely Gina.
“Party goers at Mantay celebrate the launch of a new artist named-”
“Dean!” Sam snapped, clicking his fingers impatiently. “The Mantay Gallery is in New York and that picture was taken last night.”
“Could we have a shapeshifter who doesn’t fit the usual MO?” Dean asked, rubbing at his chin.
“I have another idea,” Sam said, pulling a newish-looking journal towards himself. He’d been keeping his own, neither brother really willing to add to their father’s. The journal was already crammed with notes, clippings and pictures. Dean figured Sam had had a lot of time to kill when he’d been away and Sam wasn’t hunting. It looked like Sam had taken it upon himself to create the first Monsters Britannica. Sam finally found the page he’d been looking for and held the journal out to Dean.
“A golem?”
“Possibly. Unfortunately, there’s no real way to check except…”
“Breaking open her head and digging out the spell note?” Dean said with a grimace. He glanced back towards the living room where they were keeping Gina.
“I know… but…”
Dean scrubbed at the back of his head. “She won’t know what she is,” Dean finished for him. “Hell, Sammy.”
“If you’ve got a better idea I’d really like to hear it,” Sam said and even though his words were hard, his eyes were pleading. Give us a way out of this.
“Let’s give Bobby another try before we do anything drastic, yeah?” Dean proposed and Sam nodded.
000
“I’m sorry boys, but there’s only one thing you can do with a golem.”
“We know,” Dean said, looking at Sam who was sitting on his bed with his head in his hands. “We’re just not one hundred percent sure is all.”
“Sorry to say there’s no way to be one hundred percent until the damn thing gets triggered. Then you’re fighting somethin’ near unstoppable.”
“We appreciate that but-”
“Dean, where’s this hesitation coming from? It ain’t like you at all.”
Dean risked another glance at Sam and then sighed heavily. He let a hand drop onto the top of Sam’s head and rubbed briefly. It was a sign that Sam was really feeling at an all time low that he didn’t protest. Dean let his hand wander to the tip of one of Sam’s wings and waggled it until Sam looked up. He was all for protecting Sam, shouldering most of the burden but he also knew that Sam would beat himself up after if he wasn’t involved.
“Everyone thinks it’s this local girl who’s realised the error of her wandering ways and has finally come home,” Dean said and the side of Sam’s mouth quirked up in a grateful smile.
“Most of that’s the magic in the thing which’ll be dispelled when you break the binding. Golem’s are a work of art, I can agree to that but they’re not perfect. It’s clay and branches playacting at life. Anyone who knew the person well would be able to tell after a time if it didn’t have a glamour attached.”
“Are you saying most of the town’s people will think she’s just gone back to New York?”
“I’m saying most of your townspeople won’t remember it was ever there,” Bobby corrected. “That’s the evil beauty of the damn things. Once it’s fulfilled its purpose, it would crumble to nothing anyway. Usually a golem’s created to put a body in the ground but good. No one really remembers what happened after.”
000
“Maybe we should tell her.” Sam had a restraining hand on Dean’s chest, who was looking determined and had a hold of a crowbar that he was jostling from one hand to the other. Dean looked up at Sam and raised an eyebrow.
“I’m sorry?” he grunted. “We just tell her that she’s a magical creature made up of mud and twigs and we’re going to have to crack open her skull?”
“Well, when you say it like that it sounds stupid,” Sam snapped, frowning.
“Am I supposed to try it with an accent?” When Sam’s scowl deepened, Dean sighed and rolled his shoulders. “Look, no matter how we try to explain a thing like that, it’s just not going to be reassuring in the least. If there was nothing I could do to avoid it, I’d rather someone didn’t warn me about an impending skull-cracking.”
“We’re still not sure.”
“Dude, we’re pretty damn sure,” Dean said, sounding pained.
“I’m not-”
“Sam, you can sit this one out. I don’t mind, really,” Dean assured, bringing up his hand and patting Sam’s where it still had a death-grip on his shirt, before prying it loose.
“There’s all this stuff I don’t remember that I wish to hell I did,” Sam said. “Then there’s the stuff I really wish I could forget.”
000
Dean knew if he were in a movie, then right before he would be forced to smash in the pretty girl’s head, she would become the monster.
Real life didn’t work that way.
000
“The good news is, we were right,” Dean said, tone dry. He was hunkered in front of a pile of brambles and roses, powdered clay scattered across the floor. Strips of cloth were woven in between and as Sam looked on, Dean was able to pry loose a small leather pouch from where the Gina-golem’s head would’ve approximately been.
Dean opened the little pouch and teased out the small scrap of paper inside. Along with this was a flattened flower that he didn’t recognise and two photos sewn together, back to back, with green thread. One of the photos was Gina herself and the other was an old year book picture of Sam.
Dean pried the two photos apart, putting Gina’s back in the pouch and tucking Sam’s into his top pocket. There was also a fragment of what Dean though might have been a tooth and some brown and blonde hair knotted together. Dean didn’t waste any time with this, running his lighter under the hair until it caught.
“You could’ve waited until we got this stuff outside,” Sam protested, making a face at the smell but Dean grunted and shook his head.
“Not taking any chances.”
Sam laid down a split open garbage bag on the floor and they both swept the remains onto it, along with the pouch. Dean wasn’t sure you needed to burn golem bits once the spell paper was removed, but again, he wasn’t taking any chances. They made a small fire out the back of the house and Hell Hound whined low as they watched everything burn.
The only thing they didn’t burn was the actual spell paper, Dean rubbing his fingers over it as the heat from the fire made his face warm. He’d heard a few times that it was possible to trace back a golem’s creator if you had a hold of the original spell and he intended to.
There was going to be hell to pay.
~~
Further author's notes: Firstly, the characters of Kelly Peters and her daughter belong to poisontaster and I'm hoping she doesn't mind me continuing to fold them into my 'verse because they fit so neatly.
So, I did mean to write a schmoopier Sam/OFC fic as per PT's request that would sit outside the normal canon... but then there was this way to actually fit it into the ongoing arc of the story and well... this happened.
This part is me mostly hanging a lantern on the fact that I have been keeping the boys fairly isolated. Dean would have gotten his fair share of booty while away from Sam, but stuck in a small town, there's not that much opportunity. You can't really avoid the one night stand when you're liable to run into her in the cereal isle of the local market.
It is also a bridging piece, a kind of boot in the pants for the boys to realise that while they do want to settle down, they can't really do that yet. There are still forces at work against them, and Sanctuary isn't as safe as they thought. The next piece will be longer and dealing with the whole Guardian thing, showing the boys that they do indeed have enemies and also just what brought them to Sanctuary... what made them feel like they should stay.
I hope you're enjoying this journey with me.