Fic: Too Green to Be Cool
Feb. 12th, 2011 09:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
theron09Title: Too Green to Be Cool
Pairing: Sam/Dean
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2620
Summary: The Winchesters have never had much luck in Colorado. A violent wood spirit doesn’t help matters.
A/N: Written for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
ai_kizu for the prompt: ‘Dean is injured and Sam patches him up.’ I really hope you like it!
A/N 2: Thanks to trollmela for looking this over for me!
Eyes fixed on the blacktop that stretched out in front of him, Dean pressed down slightly on the pedal, glad that he still had the road to himself. He tapped his fingers against the top of the wheel and glanced towards the battered road map that Sam was using.
“We got much longer to go?”
Sam shook his head, “About ten more minutes.”
“Good. The sooner we deal with this and get out of Colorado, the better. Being back in this state is giving me a bad feeling.”
“It’s a big state, Dean. I don’t think we’re going to get thrown back into prison any time soon.”
Shrugging, he checked the rear-view mirror, “You never know.”
“We shouldn’t be here too long, anyway. Not if we’re right about what’s causing the problem.”
“I freaking hate wood spirits – they’re too…green.”
“Coming from the guy who owns this gas guzzler of a car, that isn’t surprising.”
“Hey, she’s reliable.”
“And old. You need to take this road.”
“This is it?”
“Yeah, Grand Mesa National Park. And there,” he pointed out of the window, “That’s the construction site.”
“Okay then,” he nodded, “Grab the badges out of the glove box.” He pulled into a space and got out, waited for Sam to close the passenger door before he locked the car. Turning to lean against it, he watched the men work for a moment or two, shook his head as they felled another tree, “How are we even supposed to stop this?”
“I haven’t really thought about that yet.”
“It’s not like they’re going to stop cutting the trees down.”
“So we kill the wood spirit.”
“How?”
“I haven’t thought that far ahead. Plus, it seems kind of crazy.”
“Doesn’t everything?”
“No, I mean,” Sam turned to face him, “They’re protecting the environment.”
Dean rolled his eyes, “Great.” He held out his hand for the badge as they walked towards the workers. “What are we this time?”
“FBI.” Sam spoke the words to the foreman rather to Dean and held the badge up for scrutiny. “We’re here about the attacks. You’re Andrews?”
Wiping a soil-covered hand on the front of his overalls, the man nodded, “I’ve already spoken to the local guys.”
“Well, now you’re going to speak to us.” Sam smiled, “It’s important.”
“I haven’t got time.”
“Actually,” Dean reached out and grabbed the guy’s arm, held on tightly as the man tried to shake him off, “We haven’t got the time to drive all the way here and then get brushed off so how about you tell us what we want to know?”
Andrews sighed, “I don’t know much.”
Sam nodded, “You found the last guy that was attacked?”
“Yeah, Ritchie. He’s still in hospital.”
“Did you notice anything unusual?”
“Like what?”
“Talking trees. What do you think? The thing that attacked him.”
“Dean.” Sam scowled at him.
Andrews mirrored the look on Sam’s face, “I thought you were meant to be polite to your witnesses.”
Instead of punching the guy, Dean shook his head and walked back over towards the Impala, leaving Sam to finish questioning Andrews; they didn’t need much information, just needed to make sure that they were after the right creature. He sat in the passenger seat and opened the glove box, pulling out his Dad’s well-worn journal with a smile. He leafed through the pages until he found the one he was looking for and then frowned; there was plenty of information on wood spirits but not a thing about how to actually kill them.
“We’re right.”
He glanced towards Sam who had climbed into the driver’s seat, “That makes a change.”
“Anything there about wood spirits?”
“There’s plenty here but not anything useful. I’ll call Bobby once we find a motel.”
Sam nodded, then reached across and brushed his thumb across Dean’s wrist, “What was the problem back there?”
He shrugged, “The guy’s friends are in hospital and he can’t even talk to the police. He’s a jerk.”
“So are you. You’d think Dad would have known something.”
He shrugged, settling back in the seat, “Wood spirits aren’t known for being violent.”
“Well, these ones are. Two deaths, four in hospital, another three attacked.”
Dean nodded, “They must really love their trees.”
---
Soaked jeans sticking to his skin, Sam pushed his way through another clump of branches and cursed as one of them scratched at his arm. He pulled his rucksack through after him and, as he waited for Dean to catch up, glanced towards the path that they were supposed to be taking next. Mud that looked way too slippery and way too deep covered the gravel path that was usually a favourite hiking route for walkers and the rain that was still falling wouldn’t help at all. Shaking his head, he turned to look at Dean.
“There’s no way we’re getting through that way – we should have just turned back when it started to rain.”
Dean shook his head, “We had already come too far, Sam.”
“Well, maybe we should wait here until the rain stops.”
“That’s a good idea – we wait here in one spot so that we’re perfect bait for the son of a bitch. The Stanford education obviously helped you a lot.”
He stood still on the spot as Dean stalked about the clearing, looking for another path, “So, what do we do, genius? Carry on getting more and more lost until we catch pneumonia? I told you we should have waited until another day, you know, when there wasn’t rain forecast.”
“We’ll head back the way we came, stop in that cabin we saw until the rain lets off.”
“It’ll be dark-”
“So we wait until morning.”
“ Fine,” he sighed, “We should be able to secure the cabin. I don’t think the wood spirit will be able to actually get inside because it’s not exactly part of the forest.” He didn’t wait for Dean to answer, just began to stride back through the trees, ignoring the way the rain dripped from his hair and the branches that shed pine needles onto his jacket.
Scowling as the cabin came into sight; he forced a thick branch aside and stalked towards the shelter without waiting for Dean. The lock on the door was rusty and it only took him a few shoves to open the door.
“Oh yeah, this is really secure. It’s-” He broke off as he span around and realised that he was talking to an empty space. Reaching for his gun, he scanned the area, swearing when he caught sight of Dean, lying fallen on the ground. He ran towards his brother, adrenaline starting to course through his body as he neared him.
He saw the blood first. Streaks of red mixed in with the material of Dean’s ruined shirt and the soil from the forest floor. A long gash ran across his forehead and his eyes were closed tight as he tried to push himself up off the ground.
“Dean, wait.” Shaking his head, Sam knelt down and helped him to stand, worried by the way that his brother was swaying with the effort to stay upright. “You need to let me help.” He never did that, never admitted that he might need some support, but Sam wasn’t going to let Dean’s stubbornness win this time.
“No we-” Dean took a deep breath, “We need to get inside before it comes back.”
“Damn. Okay.” He hadn’t even thought about the wood spirit, had been too caught up in helping Dean and that might have cost them valuable time. Grabbing Dean’s rucksack from the ground, he began walking, helping his brother to stagger back towards the cabin. It could only have taken them a minute, maybe two, but even that was way too long; on a good day, the wood spirit would be hard to handle but now, in the rain with an injured brother, it was going to be nigh on impossible.
Swearing, Dean lurched towards the bed at the far end of the cabin as Sam closed the door behind them. He forced himself to ignore his brother’s grunts of pain, focusing instead on securing their shelter by laying salt lines and chalking familiar symbols onto the walls. Once he was done, he checked everything again before turning to face his brother. Dean was lying on top of the covers, his hands pressed against his stomach as he tried to stop the blood that was seeping out through his fingers. The cruel image of Dean, lying naked, teasing him, on the bed in the motel just that morning flashed into Sam’s mind and he shook his head against it; now wasn’t the time to think about how much he could have lost.
Hands shaking, Sam grabbed his rucksack and rooted through it until he found the first aid kit, glad that he’d insisted on bringing everything with them rather than just the quick patch-up kit that Dean preferred to carry. He closed his eyes for a brief moment, mentally listing all the things that he would need before opening the box and pulling the items out.
“S’okay, Sammy. Just relax.”
“Relax?” He twisted around to face Dean and then looked down at the needle and bandages in his hand, “When you’re hurt – really hurt – and the wood spirit is just outside. You’re joking, right?”
Slurring his words, Dean replied, “No, I’m not. Not letting you near me with a needle when you’re freaking out like that.”
“I need to stop the bleeding as soon as I can so you’re just going to have to let me. What happened, anyway?” He moved over to the bed and began to peel off Dean’s ruined t-shirt, grimacing in sympathy as it pulled at his brother’s skin.
“Thing came out of nowhere, didn’t even have time to get to my gun.”
“How come it didn’t kill you?”
“Don’t sound so upset about it.” He hissed as Sam swabbed his wound with alcohol, “Don’t know.”
“I guess we weren’t actually harming the forest.” Biting his lip, Sam poured more alcohol onto Dean’s stomach and wiped away the dirt surrounding the deep gouges that were still bleeding. “You’re losing too much blood.”
Dean turned his face away, eyes squeezed tight shut, “So stop it.”
“Yeah, great, really helpful, Dean.” He frowned, glancing back at the medical supplies that they had with them. “I’m not sure if we can wait out the night.”
“There’s no choice – the son of a bitch is – it’s goddamn lurking out there; there’s no way we can take it down in the dark.”
“We? You mean me. You’re not hunting anything like this – it’ll kill you.”
“Awww, shucks, Sam – I didn’t know you cared.”
Scowling, he pressed down on the wound a little harder than he really needed to, “Don’t even – you know I care.”
“S’just joking.” Dean reached out and grabbed a hold of Sam’s hand, “You know that.”
“Yeah,” he sighed, “Yeah, I know. You’re not funny, though. This is going to hurt.” He held up a needle and doused it in alcohol before holding the bottle to Dean’s lips and letting him have two large swigs of whiskey.
“Not half as much as if you don’t do anything – just do it.”
Again, he forced himself to ignore the sounds of Dean’s pain as he stitched up the wound, taking less care to make it neat than he usually did because this wasn’t the usual patch-up after a hunt; the hunt was still on and Dean was hurt and he needed to be strong.
“How much longer?”
He didn’t answer straight away, pulled the needle through flesh a few more times before answering, “It’s done.” After dropping the needle down onto the table he turned back around and pressed a kiss to Dean’s forehead.
“Sam, for-”
“How much does it hurt?”
Dean sighed, “It’s manageable. Honestly. If we’re prioritising, getting out of here is more important.”
He met Dean’s eyes, saw the exasperation there.“I’m done.”
“Good. Can we set the ritual up in here?”
He shook his head, “No. It has to be on the actual forest floor. We can probably prep most of it inside but it needs to be performed out there.”
“Alright. Okay.” Brow wrinkled in concentration, Dean entwined his fingers with Sam’s and squeezed lightly, “Now let me think.”
---
“I don’t like this.”
Dean smirked and then grimaced as he swung his legs over the edge of the bed. He wasn’t about to admit it to Sam but he was fairly sure that adrenalin was the only thing keeping him going now. “You never like my plans.”
“Because they’re always too risky.”
“There isn’t another way. Besides, my plan is totally stable.”
Sam shook his head, “You’re already injured – you should do my part.”
“I don’t know the ritual. Sam, come on, it makes sense.”
“Maybe in Dean-land it does.”
He watched as Sam gathered together what they would need, throwing chalk and candles and a knife into his rucksack. “We’ve been in worse situations than this before.”
“That’ll sound a whole lot more convincing once we’re back at the Impala.”
He smiled for a moment, thinking about familiar leather seats and then pushed himself up off the bed, only swaying slightly. Biting his lip, he lifted up his favourite knife from the table and turned towards the door, dropping in behind Sam. He conserved his energy, let Sam handle the breaking of the salt lines and took a deep breath as the door swung open.
“Dean-”
He met Sam’s eyes just long enough to say “See you on the flip side,” and then bolted out of the door, throwing his arms up in the air and ignoring the way it jarred at his stitches.
It was behind him, its light footsteps getting closer and closer as it gave chase and he darted off to the side, trying to confuse it, to keep it at bay long enough for Sam to complete the ritual so he could kill it. He cursed as he tripped over a branch and just managed to stay upright, shouted as the wood spirit collided with his back, knocking him to the ground.
There wasn’t going to be enough time. Claws were digging into his shoulders and he could feel hot breath on his face and he lashed out, bringing his fist up to connect with its stomach. The creature recoiled and he took advantage, driving his foot into its leg. It roared and he scrambled back, hands hitting nothing but leaves as it landed on top of him again.
Sam shouted, from somewhere off to his left, and he made sure to smirk as he thrust his knife up into the wood spirit’s chest, twisted it a little as the life left its body and then lay back down onto the ground, breathing heavily.
“Dean?”
There were heavy footsteps running towards him and then there were hands on his shoulders and he forced himself to open his eyes and saw his brother. “We killed the son of a bitch, right?”
Sam nodded, hands patting Dean down to check for new injuries, “We did. Just got to get out of here now.”
“S’okay. You can handle that.” He felt his eyes close, squeezed Sam’s hand to let him know that he was okay, just tired.
“What? Dean?”
“Hey, I can’t – can’t come up with all of the awesome plans.”
“Oh yeah?” Sam wrapped Dean’s arm around his shoulder, pulled him up, “How come?”
“You’d feel like you weren’t needed.” He leaned on Sam, knew that his brother would get him to the Impala safely and hoped that Sam understood that he would always be needed.
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no subject
Date: 2011-02-12 09:42 pm (UTC)There are so many great lines in this story that I can't decide which one I like best. I think it may be “Maybe in Dean-land it does.” I also like how Dean and Sam's relationship flows into the casefic. And I think the last line has exactly the kind of impact you wanted.
Love it!
no subject
Date: 2011-02-13 11:00 am (UTC)Thank you so much - I quite like the idea of 'Dean-land' ;)
*hugs*
no subject
Date: 2011-02-13 03:16 am (UTC)I also think “Maybe in Dean-land it does.” is my favorite line in this. It certainly stuck in my mind and made me smile. Love seeing the boys together like this. Thank you.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-13 11:01 am (UTC)Haha, can you imagine what Dean-land would be like? The mind boggles :)
Thanks again XD
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Date: 2011-02-13 04:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-13 11:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-13 05:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-13 11:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-13 06:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-13 10:57 pm (UTC)This fic made me so happy and it's case fic with brotherly love and is just lovely and so in character for the both of them! I like the care they both have for one another that you showed really well and Sam patching Dean up and being all worried and I just love it ;_;. Thank you so much for writing this ♥.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-14 08:34 am (UTC)I'm really glad you like it! And you're very welcome - it was really fun to write :)
no subject
Date: 2011-05-11 04:51 pm (UTC)I loved this. I liked the case, and I loved Sam being all bossy in trying to fix Dean up. It's totally my cup of h/c tea too. ♥
no subject
Date: 2011-05-11 07:22 pm (UTC)Thank you! I'm so glad you liked the fic and the case and bossy!Sam :)