Triage (1/?, PG13, Dean, Sam, John)
Title: Triage
Disclaimer: I own neither Supernatural nor its characters.
Rating: PG13 so far. Might be R later, but I doubt it.
Pairings: None.
Characters: Dean, Sam, John, Pastor Jim, OCs.
Wordcount: 2200.
Spoilers: None.
Summary: Sometimes you think you made the right call only to realize you've made a really big mistake...
eeeeeeffffff
Chapter 1
They were running through the dark woods, ducking sharp branches, heavy boots splashing mud all over. The vapor of their breaths was visible in the cold night's air.
Dean winced as a sharp twig slashed his cheek. The cut wasn’t deep, but it stung. He tightened his hold on his machete, pushed his wet bangs out of his face and gritted his teeth.
Sam was running in front of him; the sawed-off shotgun in one hand, one of their Dad's rifle sights in the other. Sam was using the sight to see better in the dark. He was supposed to find this thing, and then back Dean up if Dean needed it.
Sam was wearing one of his hoodies, the hood pulled up over his head to help keep his long hair away from his face. Dean wished he'd thought of at least bringing a cap with him to keep his hair from sticking to his face in the rain. Having to continually push it out of his eyes was annoying as hell.
They had hoped that they'd all be safely back in the Impala by the time the rain started. It was stupid to hunt this thing out here in the dark, let alone in the pouring rain, but Dad had insisted.
The thing was getting more and more dangerous, he had said. Bad enough it was munching on hikers, but now this thing figured out its way to town, and that had pissed John off.
"How you doin' there, Sammy?" Dean asked, panting.
"C-cold," Sam stuttered.
Dean could totally relate. It was cold, it was dark, it was raining, and it was damn near impossible to see where they were going. Picking up this thing's trail wasn’t easy even on a sunny day, but now it was hard enough just to keep from slipping on the mud-coated gravel, not to mention tracking a monster in its own backyard.
Dean was actually on Sam's side this time around; he couldn’t understand why Dad had insisted on hunting in this weather.
"Don’t let the gun slip," Dean cautioned his brother. "Stay sharp."
He slowed down when he noticed Sam's footsteps slowing, and used the chance to catch his breath. Dean's fingers were numb around the machete handle, the gun tucked into the small of his back serving nicely to let the rain pour down his pants, and wasn’t that fun. "You okay there, Sammy?"
"No," Sam grunted and turned his head back to glare at his older brother, "I don’t get why we're doing this!" Oh, Christ. Not that again. Not now, Dean thought.
"You can't tell me we're still tracking this thing, Dean," Sam interrupted as Dean was about to speak, "There's no way to track it in this rain, so don’t tell me that's what we're doing!" He snapped.
Dean let out a breath, watched as it fogged the air around him until it dissipated. "What do you want me to say, Sam?" He asked exasperatedly.
"We should go back to the car. Come back another night," Sam suggested.
That sounded good. God, that sounded good. Back in the car, where it was dry and there was heating. Back to the apartment, where there was a hot shower, a hotter coffee and a dry, warm bed.
Dean shivered, pushing the hair out of his eyes. He was going to get sick, he could feel it. They should so get back to the car, come back some other time.
"We can't, Sam. Not with this thing still out here." Not while Dad's still out here.
Sam snorted. "You're really something, you know that?"
Dean glared at him. He was cold, tired, hungry and wet. He did not have the patience for this.
"I know you think I'm right about this," Sam pushed.
"Yeah, well," Dean ducked his head, trying to hide the little tremors going through his body. He blew a breath into his hands, hoping to get the feeling back in the one holding the machete. "More hunting, less talking, and we'll be outta here faster, alright?"
"I hate hunting like this. This is stupid," Sam said petulantly. Dean sighed, shoulders sagging.
"Yeah, I know. But hey, at least he agreed to wait for the weekend this time," Dean tried to placate his brother.
"Yeah, and the worst possible weather!" Sam accused as they both started moving again.
Dean bit his lower lip. They all knew it was going to rain tonight, they just hoped the hunt would be all over and done with by the time the rain started. Typical Winchester luck.
"Stay sharp, Sammy," Dean cautioned again, "You do good, and I'll let you have first shower."
"Hmph," was Sam's reply. But Dean knew Sam enough to read between the lines. Dad gets first shower. Dean shook his head, splashing water all around him.
"Just another half hour, okay?" He said, pushing his bangs out of his eyes again. He was so getting a buzz cut after this hunt. No more annoying bangs, even if the chicks seemed to like them. "Tell you what," Dean blinked rain out of his eyes as he watched his little brother shiver, "If the rain doesn’t let up by then, and if we don’t catch the thing by then, we'll go back, ok?"
"What about Dad?" Sam asked.
Dean felt his jacket pocket for the reassuring weight of his big, brick-like, new cell-phone. There was no signal. He didn’t even have to check to know that this far out in the woods, there'd be no signal. He was just about to answer Sam when he heard the younger boy's quick intake of air.
"Dean!"
"Holy shit!" That was all he managed before the thing they'd been hunting introduced Dean's forehead to a heavy branch.
Stars burst all around. Dean shook his head to try and clear it. The thing was big, but it was damn quick. Dean was backing away when the monster reached out its clawed arm, lightning quick, and swiped at his side.
Dean yelped in pain and tried to twist away from the sharp claws. He slipped on the mud-covered gravel, and was unlucky enough to find the only rock around sharp enough to crack his head on.
Dean heard Sam's gun going off before the monster used his chest as a stepping stone. Dean could practically hear something pop inside. He heard Sam yelling for him, a gun going off again and then everything went dark.
eeeeeeffffff
Dean's eyes snapped open at the sound of a gunshot. It took him a few seconds to figure out where he was, why he was soaking wet and couldn’t breathe. He grimaced as he slowly rolled over to his side and coughed a few times.
Sharp pain flared in his chest and he made a mental note not to try that again anytime soon. He slowly rolled back onto his back and kept lying there, trying to take shallow breaths. There was a flash of light, and soon after, another gunshot.
It took Dean's rattled brain a moment to figure out the gunshot was just a thunder, but his heart was already beating a mile a minute by then. He shook his head, trying to clear his vision, trying to figure out what the hell was going on.
He was shivering in the cold, his back screaming in pain where he fell on top of his gun. It seemed to have stopped raining for the time being though, so that was a plus. Another lightning followed by another thunder told him the rain was probably going to make a comeback pretty soon, but Dean felt too tired to care.
His head was pounding in rhythm with his heart, and his side felt like it was on fire. Moving his hand slowly, Dean gingerly touched his lower abdomen, hissing as the pain flared white hot. He felt something wet and sticky, but when he moved his hand closer to his face and managed to focus his eyes on it, he let out a sigh of relief. His hand was coated in mud. Mud washes off.
Pneumonia, not so much.
Dean let out a breathless curse and squeezed his eyes shut, momentarily blinded by another lightning that left him seeing nothing but an afterimage. Thunder followed not far behind. The storm was getting closer.
"Dean?"
Dean wasn’t a hundred percent sure if it was his imagination, or his brother calling.
"Dean?"
The breathless quality in his little brother's voice got Dean to push up from the mud. He hissed at the pain in his back. "Sam?" Dean swayed on his feet. He gagged a couple of times and took as deep a breath as he dared, waiting for the world to stop from spinning.
"Sammy, you okay?" Dean asked, ignoring the shakiness of his own voice. It took him a moment to recognize the lying figure as his brother and he rushed forward as fast as vertigo allowed him.
"Sam?" Dean's heart started pounding even faster when the younger boy failed to answer. "Sammy?" He tried to focus his eyes on the form of his baby brother lying in the mud, curled on his side, moaning in pain. "Sam!"
"Dean," It was more of a pant, less of a word when it came out of Sam's mouth, but it was a relief to hear either way. Dean was by Sam's side in a heartbeat.
"Sammy? What is it? What's wrong?" He asked, blinking hard to get his eyes to focus on his little brother, giving him a quick once over.
"Dean… God, it hurts…" Sam's hands were covering his stomach. Dean blinked again, shaking his head to get rid of the muddy water that flowed into his eyes. That was another mistake Dean made a mental note not to repeat.
Another lightning, and Dean could see the fear in his brother's eyes. The following thunder made him remember why they were there, made him remember the gunshots he had heard.
And the fact that he didn’t see a body. That thing might still be out there.
"Sam, d'you get it? 'S it dead?" Dean asked, his voice sounding a little slurred even to his own ears. Sam just squeezed his eyes shut and whimpered. "Hey! Hey, hey, look at me, d'you get it?" Dean insisted, making Sam look at him. "You gonna die on me if I make sure this thing isn't around first?" He asked.
Sam squeezed his eyes tight, biting his lip, and Dean pulled the gun from the back of his pants, hissing in pain. "Sam?" Dean asked through gritted teeth, making sure.
Sam grunted, curling in on himself. He took a deep, shaky breath and fought to keep his eyes open, looking at his brother. "Shot it. Barely clipped it," he rasped, "But it went away."
Dean nodded and squeezed Sam's shoulder, then slowly, painfully, got to his feet, weapon in hand. He did his best to focus - to see, hear and smell anything out of the ordinary. To sense the threat without actually leaving his brother alone.
But it was no use. The woods were far too dark and provided too much cover for someone or something that knew how to use that as an advantage. There were tracks in the mud, but they went every which way.
"Well, I don’t see it," Dean said, "Not that it means it's not still out there watching us, but, you know…" he shrugged. Dean had to close his eyes and take a couple of deep breaths when he knelt back down, vertigo hitting him again. He fought the urge to gag again and shivered so hard his teeth were clattering.
"Sammy, how you doin'? Talk to me, man," Dean asked, his attention once again on his little brother.
"It hurts, Dean," Sam panted, and Dean could hear his kid brother's teeth clattering too.
"What does?" Dean asked, "C'mon, let me see," he pushed, and tried to get Sam to move his hands from his stomach. Sam whined, panting.
"Stomach," Sam gasped, coughing and curling into himself. "God, Dean, I think… I think my insides are out." There was a hint of panic in Sam's voice, and it was more than enough for Dean's heart to skip a beat or two. He cursed.
"Lemme see. Sam, lemme see," Dean demanded. He did his best not to flinch or gag at the sight of his brother's slashed abdomen. "Jesus, Sam!"
"Is it bad? It's bad isn't it? How bad is it?" Sam pushed.
"Damn it, Sammy, you just keep pressure on it, okay?" Dean said and looked around for anything remotely clean he could use to stem the flow of blood.
A lightning lit up the sky, followed closely by thunder - the storm was getting closer by the second - and then the rain started up again. Little drops at first, but Dean wasn’t kidding himself thinking that was the worst that would come.
"It's okay, Sammy. You'll be okay. I'll just… we'll get you in the car, rub some dirt on it, it'll be okay," he said, mostly for Sam's sake.
And that's when he heard it. And his heart skipped another beat. A breaking twig. Branches being moved around. Something was coming.
TBC
Disclaimer: I own neither Supernatural nor its characters.
Rating: PG13 so far. Might be R later, but I doubt it.
Pairings: None.
Characters: Dean, Sam, John, Pastor Jim, OCs.
Wordcount: 2200.
Spoilers: None.
Summary: Sometimes you think you made the right call only to realize you've made a really big mistake...
eeeeeeffffff
Chapter 1
They were running through the dark woods, ducking sharp branches, heavy boots splashing mud all over. The vapor of their breaths was visible in the cold night's air.
Dean winced as a sharp twig slashed his cheek. The cut wasn’t deep, but it stung. He tightened his hold on his machete, pushed his wet bangs out of his face and gritted his teeth.
Sam was running in front of him; the sawed-off shotgun in one hand, one of their Dad's rifle sights in the other. Sam was using the sight to see better in the dark. He was supposed to find this thing, and then back Dean up if Dean needed it.
Sam was wearing one of his hoodies, the hood pulled up over his head to help keep his long hair away from his face. Dean wished he'd thought of at least bringing a cap with him to keep his hair from sticking to his face in the rain. Having to continually push it out of his eyes was annoying as hell.
They had hoped that they'd all be safely back in the Impala by the time the rain started. It was stupid to hunt this thing out here in the dark, let alone in the pouring rain, but Dad had insisted.
The thing was getting more and more dangerous, he had said. Bad enough it was munching on hikers, but now this thing figured out its way to town, and that had pissed John off.
"How you doin' there, Sammy?" Dean asked, panting.
"C-cold," Sam stuttered.
Dean could totally relate. It was cold, it was dark, it was raining, and it was damn near impossible to see where they were going. Picking up this thing's trail wasn’t easy even on a sunny day, but now it was hard enough just to keep from slipping on the mud-coated gravel, not to mention tracking a monster in its own backyard.
Dean was actually on Sam's side this time around; he couldn’t understand why Dad had insisted on hunting in this weather.
"Don’t let the gun slip," Dean cautioned his brother. "Stay sharp."
He slowed down when he noticed Sam's footsteps slowing, and used the chance to catch his breath. Dean's fingers were numb around the machete handle, the gun tucked into the small of his back serving nicely to let the rain pour down his pants, and wasn’t that fun. "You okay there, Sammy?"
"No," Sam grunted and turned his head back to glare at his older brother, "I don’t get why we're doing this!" Oh, Christ. Not that again. Not now, Dean thought.
"You can't tell me we're still tracking this thing, Dean," Sam interrupted as Dean was about to speak, "There's no way to track it in this rain, so don’t tell me that's what we're doing!" He snapped.
Dean let out a breath, watched as it fogged the air around him until it dissipated. "What do you want me to say, Sam?" He asked exasperatedly.
"We should go back to the car. Come back another night," Sam suggested.
That sounded good. God, that sounded good. Back in the car, where it was dry and there was heating. Back to the apartment, where there was a hot shower, a hotter coffee and a dry, warm bed.
Dean shivered, pushing the hair out of his eyes. He was going to get sick, he could feel it. They should so get back to the car, come back some other time.
"We can't, Sam. Not with this thing still out here." Not while Dad's still out here.
Sam snorted. "You're really something, you know that?"
Dean glared at him. He was cold, tired, hungry and wet. He did not have the patience for this.
"I know you think I'm right about this," Sam pushed.
"Yeah, well," Dean ducked his head, trying to hide the little tremors going through his body. He blew a breath into his hands, hoping to get the feeling back in the one holding the machete. "More hunting, less talking, and we'll be outta here faster, alright?"
"I hate hunting like this. This is stupid," Sam said petulantly. Dean sighed, shoulders sagging.
"Yeah, I know. But hey, at least he agreed to wait for the weekend this time," Dean tried to placate his brother.
"Yeah, and the worst possible weather!" Sam accused as they both started moving again.
Dean bit his lower lip. They all knew it was going to rain tonight, they just hoped the hunt would be all over and done with by the time the rain started. Typical Winchester luck.
"Stay sharp, Sammy," Dean cautioned again, "You do good, and I'll let you have first shower."
"Hmph," was Sam's reply. But Dean knew Sam enough to read between the lines. Dad gets first shower. Dean shook his head, splashing water all around him.
"Just another half hour, okay?" He said, pushing his bangs out of his eyes again. He was so getting a buzz cut after this hunt. No more annoying bangs, even if the chicks seemed to like them. "Tell you what," Dean blinked rain out of his eyes as he watched his little brother shiver, "If the rain doesn’t let up by then, and if we don’t catch the thing by then, we'll go back, ok?"
"What about Dad?" Sam asked.
Dean felt his jacket pocket for the reassuring weight of his big, brick-like, new cell-phone. There was no signal. He didn’t even have to check to know that this far out in the woods, there'd be no signal. He was just about to answer Sam when he heard the younger boy's quick intake of air.
"Dean!"
"Holy shit!" That was all he managed before the thing they'd been hunting introduced Dean's forehead to a heavy branch.
Stars burst all around. Dean shook his head to try and clear it. The thing was big, but it was damn quick. Dean was backing away when the monster reached out its clawed arm, lightning quick, and swiped at his side.
Dean yelped in pain and tried to twist away from the sharp claws. He slipped on the mud-covered gravel, and was unlucky enough to find the only rock around sharp enough to crack his head on.
Dean heard Sam's gun going off before the monster used his chest as a stepping stone. Dean could practically hear something pop inside. He heard Sam yelling for him, a gun going off again and then everything went dark.
eeeeeeffffff
Dean's eyes snapped open at the sound of a gunshot. It took him a few seconds to figure out where he was, why he was soaking wet and couldn’t breathe. He grimaced as he slowly rolled over to his side and coughed a few times.
Sharp pain flared in his chest and he made a mental note not to try that again anytime soon. He slowly rolled back onto his back and kept lying there, trying to take shallow breaths. There was a flash of light, and soon after, another gunshot.
It took Dean's rattled brain a moment to figure out the gunshot was just a thunder, but his heart was already beating a mile a minute by then. He shook his head, trying to clear his vision, trying to figure out what the hell was going on.
He was shivering in the cold, his back screaming in pain where he fell on top of his gun. It seemed to have stopped raining for the time being though, so that was a plus. Another lightning followed by another thunder told him the rain was probably going to make a comeback pretty soon, but Dean felt too tired to care.
His head was pounding in rhythm with his heart, and his side felt like it was on fire. Moving his hand slowly, Dean gingerly touched his lower abdomen, hissing as the pain flared white hot. He felt something wet and sticky, but when he moved his hand closer to his face and managed to focus his eyes on it, he let out a sigh of relief. His hand was coated in mud. Mud washes off.
Pneumonia, not so much.
Dean let out a breathless curse and squeezed his eyes shut, momentarily blinded by another lightning that left him seeing nothing but an afterimage. Thunder followed not far behind. The storm was getting closer.
"Dean?"
Dean wasn’t a hundred percent sure if it was his imagination, or his brother calling.
"Dean?"
The breathless quality in his little brother's voice got Dean to push up from the mud. He hissed at the pain in his back. "Sam?" Dean swayed on his feet. He gagged a couple of times and took as deep a breath as he dared, waiting for the world to stop from spinning.
"Sammy, you okay?" Dean asked, ignoring the shakiness of his own voice. It took him a moment to recognize the lying figure as his brother and he rushed forward as fast as vertigo allowed him.
"Sam?" Dean's heart started pounding even faster when the younger boy failed to answer. "Sammy?" He tried to focus his eyes on the form of his baby brother lying in the mud, curled on his side, moaning in pain. "Sam!"
"Dean," It was more of a pant, less of a word when it came out of Sam's mouth, but it was a relief to hear either way. Dean was by Sam's side in a heartbeat.
"Sammy? What is it? What's wrong?" He asked, blinking hard to get his eyes to focus on his little brother, giving him a quick once over.
"Dean… God, it hurts…" Sam's hands were covering his stomach. Dean blinked again, shaking his head to get rid of the muddy water that flowed into his eyes. That was another mistake Dean made a mental note not to repeat.
Another lightning, and Dean could see the fear in his brother's eyes. The following thunder made him remember why they were there, made him remember the gunshots he had heard.
And the fact that he didn’t see a body. That thing might still be out there.
"Sam, d'you get it? 'S it dead?" Dean asked, his voice sounding a little slurred even to his own ears. Sam just squeezed his eyes shut and whimpered. "Hey! Hey, hey, look at me, d'you get it?" Dean insisted, making Sam look at him. "You gonna die on me if I make sure this thing isn't around first?" He asked.
Sam squeezed his eyes tight, biting his lip, and Dean pulled the gun from the back of his pants, hissing in pain. "Sam?" Dean asked through gritted teeth, making sure.
Sam grunted, curling in on himself. He took a deep, shaky breath and fought to keep his eyes open, looking at his brother. "Shot it. Barely clipped it," he rasped, "But it went away."
Dean nodded and squeezed Sam's shoulder, then slowly, painfully, got to his feet, weapon in hand. He did his best to focus - to see, hear and smell anything out of the ordinary. To sense the threat without actually leaving his brother alone.
But it was no use. The woods were far too dark and provided too much cover for someone or something that knew how to use that as an advantage. There were tracks in the mud, but they went every which way.
"Well, I don’t see it," Dean said, "Not that it means it's not still out there watching us, but, you know…" he shrugged. Dean had to close his eyes and take a couple of deep breaths when he knelt back down, vertigo hitting him again. He fought the urge to gag again and shivered so hard his teeth were clattering.
"Sammy, how you doin'? Talk to me, man," Dean asked, his attention once again on his little brother.
"It hurts, Dean," Sam panted, and Dean could hear his kid brother's teeth clattering too.
"What does?" Dean asked, "C'mon, let me see," he pushed, and tried to get Sam to move his hands from his stomach. Sam whined, panting.
"Stomach," Sam gasped, coughing and curling into himself. "God, Dean, I think… I think my insides are out." There was a hint of panic in Sam's voice, and it was more than enough for Dean's heart to skip a beat or two. He cursed.
"Lemme see. Sam, lemme see," Dean demanded. He did his best not to flinch or gag at the sight of his brother's slashed abdomen. "Jesus, Sam!"
"Is it bad? It's bad isn't it? How bad is it?" Sam pushed.
"Damn it, Sammy, you just keep pressure on it, okay?" Dean said and looked around for anything remotely clean he could use to stem the flow of blood.
A lightning lit up the sky, followed closely by thunder - the storm was getting closer by the second - and then the rain started up again. Little drops at first, but Dean wasn’t kidding himself thinking that was the worst that would come.
"It's okay, Sammy. You'll be okay. I'll just… we'll get you in the car, rub some dirt on it, it'll be okay," he said, mostly for Sam's sake.
And that's when he heard it. And his heart skipped another beat. A breaking twig. Branches being moved around. Something was coming.
TBC