Hunter's Lullaby chapter two
Chapter 2
It took less than twenty minutes to vacate the room. Sam couldn’t leave Hannah McPherson’s body lying there, so he wrapped her in one of the motel’s comforters and put her in the Impala’s trunk. He kept a sharp look out for eyewitnesses, but it was still early, and the only spectator was a stray cat hunting a dead leaf on the other side of the street.
He then took care of his brother. Dean, who had seemed awake and alert minutes before, was drifting in and out of sleep, and Sam couldn’t figure out if it was his cold or the curse that was affecting him so severely. Probably a combination of both. Still, he couldn’t stand on his own, his eyes were rolling and he was gripping his stomach and moaning when he wasn’t coughing harshly. Sam had to practically carry him to the car and lay him on the back seat. Back in the motel room, Sam packed everything they had before carefully removing the bed sheets with Dean’s blood on them. He put them in a plastic bag and took them with him, closing the motel door after hanging the Do Not Disturb sign on the knob. If they were lucky, it would give them time to get clear of town before someone discovered the mess.
There goes our deposit, said Dean’s voice in his head, and Sam was shaken by a hysterical laugh he could only stop by biting his lips hard enough to draw blood.
He dropped the bags in the trunk next to the body, then got Dean more comfortable, putting a motel pillow under his head and covering him with the old blanket they kept in the trunk. Dean’s skin didn’t feel too hot, but he was shaking and mumbling incoherent things about some tingling in his belly and being punished by Sam.
Half-crazy with worry, Sam started the car and got on the road. Only when he saw a roadside sign announcing “You are now leaving Crow’s Corner” did he started to feel more at ease. He talked to Dean almost constantly to try and keep him awake. After a couple miles, Dean seemed to be less confused and told Sam to leave him the fuck alone because he was tired. He still looked and sounded like he was close to unconsciousness, but it was better.
Sam drove for an hour before stopping the car at a small gas station somewhere near Columbus, careful to park the Impala around back to avoid attracting attention.
He got the first aid kit from the trunk, some bottled water, and climbed awkwardly into the backseat, hitting his head on the roof and cursing.
“Dean?”
“‘me alone, m’sleeping,” moaned his brother, covering his face with the blanket.
“I have to take care of your wound now. I’m gonna give you some codeine to ease the pain.”
Dean grunted and whined but eventually, Sam got him to swallow the pills and even drink half of a bottle of water. He was more awake then, but still in a very unpleasant mood.
“OW! Be careful, damn it! “
Sam was half-scrunched on himself, trying to work the sewing needle on Dean’s quivering stomach. He took a deep breath and raised his head towards Dean, who was now giving him the glare he usually reserved for the most nasty vengeful spirits.
“I’m sorry, but we’re in the car and my movements are restricted. Just try to stay still. I only have four stitches to do. “
“I hate witches.”
“I know you do,” Sam said while tying the knot in the first stich.
“What did you do with the body?”
“It’s in the trunk.”
“Great,” answered Dean in the most sarcastic tone he could muster. “Jesus, Sam! It freaking hurts!”
“Stop whining. The codeine will kick in soon.”
“You know you’re supposed to give it time to work before you start the stitching.”
As relieved as he was to see Dean acting like his good old self, Sam hoped the medication would knock him out very soon, because he had the sudden urge to do it himself the Winchester way.
“Not an option, Dean. We’re running, if you haven’t notice, and there’s a body in the trunk, and I want to cross the state border before someone starts looking for us.”
“Got it. Sam. Hold on. Gonna sneeze.”
Sam barely had time to get the needle all the way through the reddened skin before his brother snapped forward and sneezed painfully. He groaned.
“This is like the suckiest situation ever.”
“‘M with you there.”
Sam got back to work and Dean kept still. By the time the wound was cleaned and covered with fresh gauze, he had already started to drift off. Good.
Sam climbed back into the driver seat and maneuvered the Impala back onto the road.
::: :::
Three hours and a state border later, Sam found an abandoned field on a lonely road. He burned Hannah McPherson’s body there, careful to put some distance between them and the road and to find a spot far away from the trees to avoid setting the woods on fire.
When he was sure the body would burn down to the bones, he made his way back to the car. Dean had slept the whole way there and showed no sign of waking up anytime soon, but he looked somewhat peaceful in his sleep and Sam wasn’t too worried. For now. He took another look at his brother’s stomach. The cut had stopped bleeding and there were no signs that the symbols drawn earlier had ever been there.
::: :::
Sam drove until late that afternoon. He finally decided to stop because he was afraid of falling asleep at the wheel. By then, they were near the Iowa border. It would have to be good enough. Dean was still drifting in and out, but his fever was almost gone and he had complained more than a few times that he was hungry, which was definitely a sign of him getting better.
Finally, Sam thought, helping his swaying brother into the motel room. He would have time to decipher the symbols and get his head together.
Hanging onto Sam’s shoulder, Dean coughed so hard his face turned a pale shade of green and he puked all over Sam’s shoes.
Okay. Maybe the deciphering would have to wait a little longer. Dean was right: this was the suckiest situation ever.
::: :::
Greenvalley, outside of Bloomington, Minnesota, November 10
The room was dark and cold. Wind was howling against the windows. Biting the nail of his thumb, Sam stared one more time at the symbols carefully drawn on a piece of paper. He could make out some of them: they were a derivative form of the Futhark Runic alphabet, but they were mixed with other symbols and so intricately interwoven that it would take Sam weeks to sort them out.
Sam didn’t like mysteries. He wasn’t a man who could get satisfied unless he had all the answers he could get. He needed to know. He couldn’t get Hannah McPherson’s wicked smile and the look of complete evil in her eyes as she was straddling Dean out of his head.
Less than six months ago, Sam had seen his brother die. He would never, ever forget it.
Sam sighed and looked at his watch. Dean had been gone for twenty minutes now. Plenty of time to get food and be back by now. Sam can’t help the worry gnawing at his gut.
“Sam,” Dean had said earlier. “You can’t keep me prisoner in this room forever. I’m fine. My cold is better, the stiches are holding up. If I don’t get out like, right now…I’m gonna go mad. And I’m not asking for your permission, by the way. “
Dean was right, he was better, but for forty-eight hours following Hannah McPherson’s attack, he had been weak and had spent most of his time sleeping and nursing a low-grade fever. Sam had asked questions, about what he remembered of his encounter with the witch, but Dean didn’t seem to recall anything at all from the moment he woke up with the witch straddling him until Sam was shaking him. “I don’t know, man… She must’ve done something to knock me out but… it’s all blurry and… I really don’t remember. “
Besides, the cut was healing well and there had been no reappearance of the symbols on his stomach. Maybe Dean had been right. Maybe he’d just had trouble shaking off his cold. On the third day following the curse, he had woken up feeling better. His eyes had been clear, he’d had no trouble breathing and the fever had finally broken.
Sam thought about all of that and wondered if he was missing something. He looked at his watch again and got back to his deciphering, still biting his nails.
When Dean stormed inside the room, wind blowing through his short hair, a brown paper bag in one hand, a bunch of newspapers stuck under his arm, he looked fine. And healthy. He closed the door behind him with his foot and dropped his things on the table, all over Sam’s notes.
“Geez, Dean, be careful.”
“I’ll teach you to waste your time on this. I thought I made it clear. I’m fine. Never been better. The witch is dead, ding dong, yadadadada.”
Sam hesitated, but he didn’t want to start arguing again. He got his notes together and put them aside. He could let Dean have his way, for now.
Instead, he pointed at the papers. “What’s that about?”
Dean sat and started pulling food out of the bag. “Think I found us a hunt. Look at this one, page three. Seems like our kind of gig.”
Sam opened the Palmer Daily and read the title out loud while Dean stuffed his mouth full of fries. “Four bodies missing from the county’s morgue.”
Dean smiled his most charming smile and swallowed loudly. “Zombies, Sam. Maybe ghouls, but probably zombies. And it’s like… only a two days drive. What do you say? “
Sam never could resist Dean’s childish enthusiasm. He shook his head and smiled back.
“Okay.”
“Great!” Dean answered, rubbing his hands together.
Sam could maybe put the deciphering aside for a while. That didn’t meant he would stop watching Dean carefully.
::: :::
Palmer, Illinois, November 16
The exploding head reminded Sam of a bursting watermelon. He thought about the similarities with a strange detachment as blood, bones and pieces of brains fell all around him like some dreadful confetti. The room smelled of formalin and gunpowder. Sam heard Dean yell somewhere over him:“That’ll teach you to snack on my brother, you bitch!”
Sam lay still on the morgue’s floor, blinking in surprise under the bright neon light. He was okay. Thank God Dean had gotten here just in time. The ghoul had just started to munch on Sam’s left arm. The wound looked messy but wasn’t bleeding too much. The pain was tolerable.
“You okay?” Dean asked, kneeling next to him, eyes wide in concern.
Sam turned his head and saw the dead ghoul who had taken the body of the last cadaver it had eaten: an eighty year old, five foot tall woman wearing imprinted printed flower dress. Who was now headless.
He burst into a hysterical laugh while Dean looked at his injury. His brother cocked his head and frowned. “Did you hurt your head there, Sammy?”
“No. ‘M fine” said Sam, whipping tears from his eyes.
He took Dean’s hand and got up, still a bit dizzy from his fall. And then he thought about the last insult his brother had leveled at the monster and bent himself in half, laughing so hard his stomach started to hurt.
Dean was rapidly wiping any surface that could’ve had traces of their fingerprints and getting their stuff together, all the while watching Sam as though still unsure of his mental state.
“Gosh, Sam, if I’d known killing ghouls would make you this happy, we would’ve done it ages ago. Yuck. You have ghoul bits all over you. “
For some reason, this thought seemed incredibly funny to Sam and he burst into another fit of laughter. Dean took him by the elbow. “Come on, chuckles. We’ve got to get the hell out of here before someone comes. And your wound needs to be cleaned.”
Sam took a handkerchief from one of his pockets and wrapped it around his arm. Less than two minutes later, they were walking back to the car in the dark of the night, passing through quiet streets. Dean seemed somewhat sad, and after a while, he sighed loudly.
“What’s wrong?” Sam asked, still smiling.
“Y’know, I really thought it was zombies.”
“Aaww, we’ll find you zombies, Dean, I promise.”
Sam put his arm around Dean’s shoulder, hanging on even as his brother fought him fiercely.
“Great. You got ghoul goo all over my jacket, asshat. You strip off your shirt before you even think about getting in the car, understand?”
“Yes sir.”
“And stop smiling like the fucking Cheshire Cat.”
Later that night, after they both took a shower, they were relaxing on the bed, Dean absorbed in some stupid monster truck show while Sam filled in their journal with details about their latest hunt. It had been a good one. That was the thing about ghouls - they were filthy, unpleasant creatures, but they would satisfy themselves with eating cadavers, unless they were attacked or starving. Of course, the families of said eaten cadavers would have a different opinion on the subject, but no one got hurt, and that was the important thing.
Sam was down to his second beer and feeling slightly euphoric. He then realized it was the first time he’d felt really relaxed since the witch’s attack. He put the journal beside the bed and got closer to Dean, leaning on him and kissing his neck while his brother absent-mindedly stroked his back and hips.
They were both only wearing boxers. Sam rearranged himself on the bed, straddling Dean’s thighs. His brother wasn’t paying attention to the TV anymore. Eyes half closed, he pressed both of his hands to Sam’s ass as he tilted his hips up, and Sam could feel both of their cocks hardening while they rubbed together. He bent his head and pressed a slow kiss to Dean’s soft lips, humming happily.
“What do you wanna do?” Dean asked in a low, broken voice.
“Well, I was thinking about sucking you,” Sam smiled wickedly.
“You know me, I’m a sucker for-”
“Oh, shut up.”
Dean laughed and pulled Sam’s boxers down his hips, grunting and pressing his nails into Sam’s hard muscles. Sam kissed his way down Dean’s neck, then suddenly closed his mouth on one of his nipples, sucking hard. Dean’s nipples were particularly sensitive. He had been embarrassed about it at first, but Sam had made sure to let him know how hot he thought it was, and slowly but surely, Dean was learning to appreciate it without any second thoughts.
Dean let out a load moan when Sam pulled at his nipple with his lips before twisting the other one between his fingers. It usually drove him crazy and Sam was taken aback when he heard his brother curse while pushing him away.
“Fuck, Sam. Stop. It hurts. “
“What?”
Still wincing, Dean brushed one of his fingers against his nipple. “I… I don’t know. They’re like sensitive… Not in a fun way. “
He blushed when Sam turned on the bedside lamp to take a better look. “That’s… they look darker.”
“Yeah, you’re right”,” Dean said in an uncomfortable voice.
Sam delicately pressed his fingers around the nipples. Dean hissed.
“Does that hurt too?”
“Hun-hun.”
“They feel kind of swollen.”
And that was all Dean could take, really. He pushed Sam’s hand away and sighed. “Okay, it’s not that I don’t enjoy talking about my nipples but I really don’t. Can we get to the fun stuff, now?”
Dean’s cock was poking out of the waistband of his black boxer briefs and Sam felt a new rush of need going straight to his groin. He licked his lips and kissed Dean again, forgetting about the nipple thing.
He would only remember it two weeks later, while hearing Dean throw up in the bathroom, on a cold morning. And then, it would already be too late.
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