February 20th excerpt:
An unfamiliar voice rumbled through the air and froze Sam’s blood solid.
“I think I saw someone over by the desk.”
Sam scrunched his eyes closed, wishing he had anywhere else to go. He was too far away from the wall entrance, he couldn’t scale up any of the gargantuan furniture that soared above his head.
February 19th excerpt:
Was that … a leather jacket?
The perplexed expression lingered on his face and he stood there, frozen, long after the small whatever-it-was had disappeared. He couldn’t even be sure he’d actually seen anything. He frowned critically at the toaster, before shrugging and heading up the stairs.
( This is my entry for the @brothersapart 2016 Contest:http://brothersapart.tumblr.com/post/136391836334/brothers-apart-contest-2016 . Enjoy! )
Ziana slept for a total of five minutes while sitting by Shay’s bed. Spending the majority of the day and evening scoping out rooms for food and non-existent medication took more out of her than she cared to admit, but she didn’t dare go to bed after her encounter with the man claiming to be brothers with a friendly human.
A stressful day overall.
She blinked hard and shook her head as she came out of her brief nap. Standing up, she stretched her sore arms over her head; that was what she got for sitting with her arms crossed so tightly for hours. Shay was curled up with her back to Ziana, the blanket pulled up to her chin.
Dim light filtered from one wall. The lamps were on in the motel room on the other side. It had to be morning at least, judging by the rumble of footsteps coming from the room. Ziana could only hope that meant the “brothers” were preparing to leave that morning. After all, Sam claimed they would only stay for one more night.
“Good morning,” Ziana said in a singsong voice, moving over to the table to scrape up some breakfast. Not for her; she could do without, but Shay needed to eat and keep her strength up if they wanted any hope of breaking that fever. “Looks like Sam decided not to have his human come rain hell on us.”
When she received no answer, she looked over her shoulder from the crinkly wrapper.
“Shay?” she called, a little louder.
A barely audible moan came in reply.
Dropping the crumbs on the table, Ziana rushed back to the bed and leaned over Shay to turn her over. Skin hotter than ever, Shay fluttered her eyelids a few times but couldn’t keep them open more than halfway before they drooped back shut.
“Shay? Say something, come on!” Ziana sat on the edge of the bed and pulled the other girl’s upper body into her arms, giving her a rough shake. “Come on!”
“M’sleepy,” Shay murmured, peering at Ziana from under her eyelashes. “Just… a little more sleep. I’ll be fine.”
“Don’t give me that! You know this isn’t okay!”
Ziana bit her lip and shifted Shay’s weight to one side so she could peek under the bandage on Shay’s upper right arm. Bracing herself, she lifted the edge of the wrapped cloth and almost gagged; the skin around the gash was angry red and swollen. She didn’t look at it long enough to be sure, but some nasty stuff seemed to have built up on and around it.
“Gross,” Ziana hissed, cradling Shay back into both arms. “I’ll look again today for some medicine. Hell, even an actual bandage. I swear, I won’t come back until I–Shay?”
The other girl’s eyes were no longer even at half-mast. Her eyelids didn’t so much as twitch in response to Ziana’s voice. The only signal that assured Shay was alive was the weak tickle of breath on Ziana’s neck. But who knew for how much longer that would last if they carried on like this, with no proper medication for the festering wound.
Maybe we can help, she remembered the man from the motel room saying.
“Shut up, Sam,” Ziana muttered, clutching Shay more protectively at the mere thought of the massive human stomping through the room just beyond the wall. Dean, Sam had called him.
Shay let out a soft, shuddering sigh like a whimper, her head falling limply against Ziana’s shoulder. Her breaths came slower, and she began to shake. For a few agonizing moments, Ziana sat there on the edge of the bed, aware that Shay’s skin could go from burning hot to icy cold in a matter of hours if she didn’t do something.
“Fine, fine, fine!”
There was nowhere else to turn. She secured one arm around Shay’s shoulders and slipped the other under her knees to scoop her up. Too desperate to change her mind there and then, Ziana rushed to the passage leading to Sam and Dean’s room.
~~~
By the time she reached the opening behind the nightstand, Ziana had considered going back home no less than a dozen times. It occurred to her that she hadn’t brought her climbing gear. Not that it mattered. Hauling Shay around meant that hooks and ropes weren’t going to do either of them any good. Still, she felt naked without her usual supplies. She wanted to kick herself for not grabbing her needle on the way out, at least.
If Sam was lying and Dean was the snatch-em-up type, she and Shay were royally screwed. But what else could she do? She couldn’t leave Shay to die, even if others would do just that rather than go to a human for help. She could barely handle watching Shay when she first broke out in a fever.
The floor shook again–a sure sign that Dean hadn’t left the room. The drone of the TV was mere background noise between the human’s stomping and Ziana’s instincts screaming in her head to flee back to safety.
A glance down at Shay’s troubled face was enough to force Ziana through the opening and walk along the edge of the wall. She moved out from behind the nightstand, but stayed hidden between it and the bed’s shadows.
The towering human stood by the far table, packing things up by the looks of it. Sam hadn’t been lying when he said they were only staying for that night, and it seemed neither of the “brothers” had pursued any interest in finding people in the walls after last night’s incident.
Ziana swallowed hard. “H-Hey,” she said, quieter than a mouse.
And then Dean’s boots were on the move.
Ziana held Shay tighter, biting back a cry and shoving her back against the wall, but the human didn’t move in her direction. In fact, it seemed he was still minding his own business. He hadn’t even heard her. She squared her shoulders and tried again when he stopped moving in front of the dresser.
“Hey.” It wasn’t much louder than the first time.
Again, she was ignored.
Feeling her cheeks grow hot, she bit down hard on her lower lip and released a long, shrill whistle to get his attention. “Hey!” she roared. The giant’s movements paused. “Yeah, I’m talkin’ to you, long legs!”
The moment the words left her lips, Ziana realized she should have at least left Shay within the opening of the passageway until she could get a better read on Dean’s personality instead of carrying her vulnerable friend directly into danger. She should have grabbed her needle. She should have had a backup plan in case things went south.
She should have not yelled at a freaking giant.
But it was far too late to take it back and do it over. The boots turned and started for the nightstand.
You can rest easy! Sam won’t be left behind in the dirt when he’s living with the sprites, no way. He’s got a plan, and he’s ready to go!
February 18th excerpt:
Dean scooped up the wires and pins into his arms and started to pack them away into his duffel. “No, I think you’re good. This is more than I asked for. I might have to start hiding the pins from Sam soon, he might throw them at me if he has to sit around much longer.”
Jacob snickered at the image of Sam tossing around pins the size of small daggers to him. They would be like slightly bulky throwing knives. “Maybe,” Jacob agreed, raising an eyebrow appraisingly at the pins as Dean stashed them away.
Cursed Dean was just a prompt. It was very fun to write, but since there’s no inspiration for the story, there’s nothing in the works for it. I even have the ideas for the AU’s name (Brothers Reversed, Brothers Flipped), but again, no inspiration means no story. Currently we have five separate AU’s that we are working on with multiple ideas each, and there hasn’t been as much time to flesh out any other ideas.
For anyone who wants to check out Cursed Dean, check out the links below. Of course, prompts are open for that story, so feel free to send in ideas, or if you want to write a story based on them, go for it!
I got bored in class so I drew Sam and Smaug.
February 17th excerpt:
“This is the right thing to do.”
February 16th excerpt:
Dean started by tugging off his boot and placing it to the side, followed by the other. As he pulled at the socks to check his feet first, he paused. He jabbed a finger in Jacob’s direction. “Just don’t go blowing my socks away! They’re hard enough to hang onto as it is.”
Jacob rolled his eyes at Dean’s stubborn grousing. “I won’t blow away your socks,” he promised in a low murmur.
( This is my entry for the @brothersapart 2016 Contest:http://brothersapart.tumblr.com/post/136391836334/brothers-apart-contest-2016 . Enjoy! )
The night proceeded as normally as it could for Sam–at least for a time. Dean took a break from glancing through the Internet for their next potential case when he answered the knock at the door to receive the Chinese food he ordered.
Try as Sam might to put the girl in the walls out of his thoughts, he couldn’t. He had noticed the particular way she stood, blocking his path with everything she had. There was something she didn’t want him to see, and it was easy enough to guess that she was protecting others of her kind–a difficult thing to do without alerting Sam of their existence in the process.
Instead of watching TV from the table he and his brother were eating dinner at, Sam stared absently at the chunk of spring roll he took from the styrofoam box Dean was shoveling noodles from. Dean’s hair was still dark and damp from the shower, and he hadn’t bothered asking if Sam had found anything interesting when he emerged from behind the nightstand earlier. Probably knew Sam would tell him if anything out of the ordinary happened.
“Seem a little quiet tonight, Sammy,” Dean commented, pulling Sam’s wandering mind away from the paths behind the drywall. “Still thinkin’ about the hunt?”
Sam blinked in confusion before he caught up with Dean’s question. He gave his brother a mildly sheepish look and nodded. “Yeah. I guess I’m not as used to hunting yet as I thought. But I’m fine. Nothing’s going to top the crazy of people being turned into gold.”
Dean snorted and finished his bite. “I dunno, things can get pretty wild out there.” He turned his head to smirk at Sam, but his brow furrowed suddenly. He set the plastic fork in the styrofoam box, bracing a hand on the edge of the table as he leaned closer to the surface.
Sam couldn’t help but go rigid at the approach of his brother’s enormous face. Instincts told him to get to his feet and back away, but he swiftly reminded himself that he didn’t need those instincts at the moment.
“What’s wrong with your eye?” Dean asked before Sam could inquire as to why his personal space was being invaded.
Bringing his fingertips under his eye, Sam clenched his jaw in surprise at how sensitive the skin was when he pressed on it. It had to be noticeable for Dean to catch something so comparatively small, but then again, he has the sharp eyes of the hunter. There was little he missed.
Seeing the fierce concern lining Dean’s face, Sam felt even less sure about revealing the girl’s presence, and especially the fact that she had attacked him. Even in the event that she hadn’t punched Sam, he felt guilt stir within him at the thought of alerting Dean of her existence when she was so visibly frightened of humans.
“I, uh, yeah, I ran into a piece of wood sticking out,” Sam said hurriedly, tripping over his words and turning away from Dean, as if hiding his black eye from view would make his brother forget about it and drop the subject. When he continued to feel the tingle on his neck from Dean’s stare, Sam added, “In the walls, you know? I didn’t see one of the lower beams on the passage.”
Glancing up briefly, Sam knew that Dean wouldn’t buy it for a second.
“That’s great, but what really happened?” Dean asked, a flat tone mingling with the worry.
Sam let out a slow breath and didn’t answer right away. He knew in his heart that Dean could be trusted, but that didn’t make it any easier to betray someone Sam’s own size. If the girl knew what he was doing, she would accuse him of sentencing her to death as payback for a black eye.
“There was… someone in the walls,” Sam admitted.
Dean’s frown deepened as he put two and two together. “You’re telling me they did that to you?”
“I scared her,” Sam insisted, doing his best to shift the blame away from her. “I saw her, and she ran away. I caught up and grabbed her shoulder.”
“So she gave you a black eye for that?”
Sam shrugged, thinking about the metal needle the girl had whipped out. He got out of the situation far more unscathed than the worst case scenario. His stomach twisted at the thought of having to get his own knife out and fight her. He had no doubt he would come out victorious, but that didn’t make him feel any better.
“It’s… It’s because she saw you.” Sam looked down from the surprised raise of Dean’s eyebrows. “She saw you in here with me and thought she was acting in self-defense when I ran after her. Probably thought I was trying to get her captured by you.”
The massive chair creaked as Dean leaned back into it with a heavy sigh that rustled Sam’s hair. “Sorry ‘bout that, then, Sammy.” Something of a rueful smile quirked on his lips, far more welcome to Sam than the deep frown he wore at the idea of someone attacking his little brother. “Guess it’ll be hard for you to make friends with me around.”
Sam allowed himself to relax a little. He had already known that what he told the girl was true: Dean wouldn’t hurt someone their size. Still, it was reassuring to have that promise proven by Dean himself.
“Neither of us knew she was watching,” Sam said, attempting to hide his disappointment that his chances of having a peaceful interaction with anyone in those specific walls was impossible at that point. “There’s bound to be others out there somewhere. I’ll come across more sooner or later.”
“Right,” Dean said encouragingly, but Sam could see the guilt brewing in those big green eyes. “That bruise doesn’t look so pretty, though. Lemme see if we can make figure out how to get some ice on that.”
Brothers Apart 