Night Terrors for ucat42

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Title: Night Terrors
Author: ukefied
Recipient: ucat42
Word Count: 1,835
Rating: PG-13.
Warnings: language, some h/c.
Character/Pairings: Sam, Dean.
Author's Notes: Season 2. I have been to Port Orchard and its environs; it really is that boring, but it is a nice place to live.
Summary: Dean, for his part, made friends with a guy named Ben Larkin. Ben was an older fellow — a hundred-thirty, give or take — and he and Dean really hit it off. Repeatedly. In the face.


“Night Terrors”



It’s a beautiful afternoon, and Dean Winchester is lying on a hideous yellow-and-orange coverlet, waiting for his hungover little brother to finish in the shower.

The thing with Port Orchard is that it’s boring as hell. It’s in the middle of nowhere, it’s quiet, and there isn’t even a decent bar to hustle in. They aren’t even supposed to be in Port Orchard; their last job had been a routine salt-and-burn in Bremerton about a week ago. As usual, the routine part was called into question — because seriously, it’s hardly ever a simple routine. Sam spent most of his time spinning in place like a top, faster and faster, complete with outstretched arms and helpless cartoonish yelps and wide, terrified eyes that screamed get-me-off-this-crazy-thing. Dean, for his part, made friends with a guy named Ben Larkin. Ben was an older fellow — a hundred-thirty, give or take — and he and Dean really hit it off. Repeatedly. In the face.

(Ben was a tombstone.)

Dean winces, gingerly touching his cheek at the memory. Anyway, the point is this: Port Orchard sucks. Other things that suck: Sam, for dragging him to a stupid bonsai garden. His brother wanted to visit the Elandan Gardens or some shit. Dean joined him because one, there was fuck-all to do around there anyway, and two, he didn’t want to be the buzzkill big brother who made Sammy go on an outing alone. The puppy-eyes thing, man, he is not immune.

They overheard the rumors about grisly murders and maulings from a couple of girls visiting the gardens. Dean barged in on their conversation mostly to have something to do, and they didn’t disappoint. Stay away from Port Orchard, they warned him, there is some strange shit going down over there. At first, they were eager as anyone to dispense gossip and they-says — but lost their steam once Sam joined in and they realized that the brothers’s questions are both a little too interested and a little too detailed. Sam and Dean took the weirded-out expressions as their cue to go.

So here they are: Port Orchard, Washington. Boring as fuck. Also, for being so goddamned small it certainly is tough to find one bloody black dog. After the third consecutive no-show and four days of losing his mind, Dean demanded he and Sam go out — find a watering hole, get hammered, and at least have some sort of a weekend. Sam resisted, of course. And then he didn’t.

Now, the thing with Sam is that, despite his size, he cannot hold his liquor. Perhaps this is an understatement. Two beers, Sam’s doing karaoke. Four beers, Sam’s telling whoever’s buying that he loves them. Around the ten-bottle mark, Sam lives in an alternate universe, and it is literally the most hilarious thing Dean has ever seen.

Until they’d staggered back to their motel and he realized he had to carry all eight feet of Sam up four flights of stairs. Suddenly, it wasn’t funny anymore.

When Sam finally gets out of the shower — seriously, half their expenses are his lotions and loofahs — he looks considerably more sober. He pulls on a change of clothes and says, “I’m gonna run to the cafe down the street. You want something?”

“Coffee,” Dean replies, not even bothering to sit up.

“What kind of coffee?” Sam presses, because well. Sam.

“Coffee-flavored coffee,” Dean sneers back.

Sam is undaunted. “Wow, cranky much? You hungover?” He quirks his lips into a smile. “Maybe you should cut back.”

Dean grins back. “Sure thing, Flashdance.”

His brother gives him a nasty look, but he’s laughing too hard to care.

~*~

Coffee is the reason they find themselves on Fern Street when the moon is high. It’s actually a funny story; one of those freak coincidence things. When Sam goes to get their cups of java, he gets a weird vibe from the barista and starts making conversation. Turns out the girl is replacing the usual employee, who was away because his cousin was mauled on Fern St.

Their fucking lives, man. Sometimes it feels like everything’s all planned out.

“Watch its teeth,” Sam murmurs as they inch along the old country road.

“Right,” Dean says, not quite snarkily. “Because sticking my arm down its throat is the first thing I’d do.”

Sam gives him a sidelong exasperated glance. “I think I’m going to throw you at it as bait.”

“You can try,” Dean eggs him on in a sugary tone. “But I don’t think living on lettuce gave you the muscle mass necessary.”

Any other time, after a comment like that it would be on. This particular time, the black dog haunting Fern Street decides to make its entrance.

Dogs are funny animals. They can be loyal and loving and some of them will let crooks rob your house so long as they bring snacks. When a dog turns vicious, low growls and snapping jaws, the whole power dynamic changes. People generally just don’t expect man’s best friend to be capable of such feral behavior. When dogs do snap, they can be ferocious and relentless.

Black dogs are sort of like that. They have shaggy black fur and glowing red eyes, and their lips are perpetually curled back to reveal dripping white canines. Their snarls reverberate across the haunted ground and they have no interest in rolling over for a cookie. Bigger than a large dog, but smaller than a wolf, the black dog makes up for the latter by giving off the most terrifyingly confident aura Dean’s ever felt. It pads over to them, one massive paw after the other, biding its time.

“Silver bullets?” Dean asks.

“Ready,” Sam assures him.

“Good.” Dean takes a step forward. “Here, Rover.” He even whistles.

So, you know, he had it coming.

~*~

It’s the break of dawn, and Dean Winchester is lying on a hideous yellow-and-orange coverlet while his brother tries to keep his fever down. The bite on his forearm is bandaged tight but the skin around it is still fiery to the touch. He’s drenched in sweat, lost in some fever dream Sam can’t shake him from, tossing his head on the pillow.

“We have to stabilize the thresholds,” Dean slurs.

“Already done,” Sam soothes, even though he has no idea what that means. He heads to the bathroom to re-moisten the washcloth, wrings it just a little, and comes back to sit at his brother’s side. The facecloth makes a wet plop when Sam drops it on Dean’s bare chest, prompting his brother to suck back a gasp. Sam shushes him, wipes him down from head to toe, and calls him an idiot for the hundredth time. If he hadn’t managed to put a silver bullet in the black dog’s ribcage when he had, who knows what shape Dean would be in right now. “Gave you the perfect opening,” his brother said, clutching his bleeding arm while he stumbled toward Sam.

Perfect opening. Sam snorts, folding the damp cloth over Dean’s forehead. It had taken four bullets to put the dog down, and at first Sam thought they wouldn’t cut it. At least the first had pissed it off sufficiently enough to get it away from Dean.

“Dad?” Dean ventures, eyelids fluttering.

“No,” Sam manages to squeeze past the lump in his throat. “It’s Sam. You with me, kiddo? You want some water?”

Dean glances at him, eyes glassy and lost — he’s in a different place, a different time. He turns his face away from the bottle Sam brings to his lips. “Where’s Dad? I gotta ask him…”

Sam cuts him off, earnest. “Shh, you need to drink this, or you won’t be asking anyone anything.” He wants Dean to talk about their father — wants him to open up and tell Sam how he feels — but not like this.

Dean puts up a token struggle, but submits when Sam pleads with him some more. He actually downs half the bottle with Sam’s help, takes two Tylenol, and settles back against the pillow. His eyes drift shut and Sam thinks that’s the end of it, replacing the fallen washcloth upon his brow. But then the bottle-greens pop right back open and Dean wants out.

“I gotta see Dad,” he insists, trying to sit up with the help of his good arm.

Sam bites the inside of his cheek and shoves his brother back down with more force than he would have liked to use. “Dean, you can’t. You know you can’t. He’s…” Sam blinks away a couple of tears. “You’re not feeling well. See your arm? Remember the black dog?”

Dean’s disoriented stare wanders to the bandage. “It hurts,” he mumbles. He might not be talking about his arm.

“I know,” Sam says, and he might not be talking about the arm, either. “Why don’t you go to sleep? You’ll feel better after you rest.” He picks up the washcloth and fists it tight.

For a moment, it looks like Dean is going to resist, but then he relents, burrowing deeper into the mattress. “Sam?” he murmurs.

Sam pauses on his way to the bathroom. “Yeah?”

But Dean doesn’t answer. Sam fills the silence with running the facecloth under cold water again. By the time he returns, Dean’s asleep. He rubs his brother down again, drapes the cloth across his forehead, and settles in to wait it out.

~*~

The only thing more humiliating than having your ass handed to you by an infected dog bite is having to listen to a poetic rendition of how it happened.

“And you were all, ‘here, Rover! Here, boy!’ and seriously, dude, not your greatest idea.” Sam’s had a stupid grin on his face as he recounted the whole story, though his eyes haven’t wavered from the road.

“Shut up,” Dean mutters darkly, slumped against the passenger-side door, wounded arm curled onto his stomach.

“Seriously,” Sam reiterates, pulling off at a rest stop. “A boy and his black dog.” His hands tighten around the wheel. “You could have been really hurt.”

“Uh, I was really hurt,” Dean points out. “And it’s fine, you saved me.” He bites his lip and looks out the window. “You got my back.”

“Whatever,” Sam dismisses, and scores a gas pump. “Take it easy. I’m gonna fill up and grab something to drink. You want anything?”

“Coffee.”

“What kind?”

“Coffee-flavored coffee.”

Sam gives him an award-winning smile. “Sure thing, kiddo,” he quips as he slides out the door.

“Kiddo?” Dean parrots with distaste. God, Sam is weird — and if there’s a fancy coffee shop here, the car is going to smell like his mocha-choca-frappa-whatever.

“Ready to leave Washington?” his brother asks once he’s back in the saddle. He hands Dean his coffee and plops his in the cup-holder. Yup, smells like French Vanilla.

“Definitely,” Dean replies, sipping. “Unless you want to drive us to Seattle to see Starbucks Headquarters. Maybe take a tour. Get the CEO to sign your boobs.”

Sam rolls his eyes and starts the car.



~end.