( 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.
Tag: dean
January 27th excerpt:
“We lived on the road,” Sam said, his ears still slightly red. Hopefully the two humans were too big to notice. “Dad took us from case to case after our mother was killed. Vengeful spirits, poltergeists, werewolves…” He trailed off.
“Witches,” Dean finished, remembering their last fateful case. “And cursed objects. People write strange deaths and disappearances off but there’s always a reason for them. People don’t just die and fade away.”
“Other people just stop looking,” Sam said sadly, picking up the train of thought. Dean wasn’t the only one that wished he could keep others from going through the same hell as they had.
January 26th excerpt:
Dean was exasperated, still rambling about the dog. “He’s the size of a freakin’ house! At least when Sam brought home a mouse, it couldn’t try and eat me!”
Sam snorted at him, rolling his eyes. “Dean. He’s not going to do anything.”
“You keep telling yourself that,” Dean said, one hand clutching the fabric behind them, “and I’ll be up high. Where it’s safer.”
We’re so happy that you’re enjoying them (and especially happy that everyone is looking forward to seeing Jacob show up, he’s gotta be one of my ( @nightmares06 ) favorite characters to rp against), and we are currently leaning in this direction. It would be weird to go back to one post a week, really. Though I’m also not against the option to switch to only one story posting at a time, with more updates. It would put a stop to constant BA updates, though, so we’ll wait to see if anyone else likes that option.
For Brothers Together, we won’t have this scenario showing up. It’s possible it may appear in a different AU, but it’s a difficult type of scene to write and the setting and the emotions have to fit.
With Oscar and the younger Winchesters, bullies usually pick on easy targets, which is why Sam had such trouble in school. He’s a scrawny kid. Dean might be the type to get into fights, but in this scenario he’s not looking for trouble. He’s keeping his head down in order to keep Sam safe, and he’s a dangerous enough looking guy that no one wants to go after him first.
And I doubt that Oscar would ever come out of the motel again if he was involved in a fight.
Well, they’d be trapped in that motel. Saved by Walt and Mallory, stuck waiting in a motel with their lives going nowhere unless…
Oh, wait. This is one of those times when I get an idea for an entire crossover AU.
How about we call it Brothers Lost?
He was supposed to be out there. Saving people. Hunting things.
He wasn’t supposed to be the victim. Trapped by a witch and a curse that tore his entire world away. Everything gone but Sam himself.
Send in any prompts you think of for this idea and read the little drabble I came up with below!
I’m thinking if it gets written in its entirety, it’ll be added into the supply of AU ideas that have been written out and I’ll poll for which of these stories people want posted once A Lich of Sense is finished! (Some AU’s contain spoilers for that story)
Other AU’s created for this so far include Brothers Together and the ‘verse where a kid finds Sam before Dean. And one that no one has guessed so far. And now Brothers Lost.
“You know, you’ve done a lot of stupid things before, but this has to take the cake!”
Dean rolled his eyes and didn’t break stride. Sam had to walk faster to catch up, grumbling about his older brother’s stubborn behavior.
“Dammit, Dean. We can’t go into that room. We have no idea when that kid’s coming back. Hell, for all we know he just stepped outside to take a smoke!”
Sam finally got a hand on Dean’s shoulder, and tried to whirl him around. Dean caught his arm and used his momentum against him, sending him flying into the ground with a practiced motion. He grinned down at the frazzled Sam he was holding down. “You’re getting soft there, kiddo.”
Sam made a face and kicked up with a leg. He managed to catch Dean’s side, flipping him onto the ground in seconds. “You were saying, jackass?”
“Get off me.”
Sam helped Dean to his feet. “C’mon, let’s just head back, wait until it’s night. We can hit the room then. Walt never has to know we were here.”
Dean threw him a look. “All you do is argue with Walt! I can’t believe what I’m hearing!”
“Sure, I argue with him, but this? And for what – a slice of pie?”
Dean held out his arms. “How often do we see a slice of pie left out in a room? Hell, how often do we see it just vanish into the fridge whether they remember it or not? Sam, I’ve got to try. We might not get this chance again!”
It hurt for him to admit that, but it was sadly true for them both. Thirteen years ago, they’d gone to a motel with their dad. He was on a hunt, searching for missing children in the area.
He’d left them alone in the room.
Dean wasn’t completely sure what had happened that night. He could remember a woman, standing inside the door. The door itself bolted shut. Himself, slammed against the wall.
A flash of white hitting Sam.
Before Dean could react past the shock that covered his face, the same flash had slammed into him.
Then he was falling.
The next thing he could remember was waking up, his entire world changed. It was dark. Closed off. Two people were in the room watching over them. A woman, her blonde hair and blue eyes gentle as she helped Dean off of the stacked up fabric. She was tiny, even next to himself as a kid. In fact, Sam wasn’t far off of her height back then. He’d outgrown her in only a few years.
Mallory and Walt had tried to convince him, but he didn’t want to see the truth. He didn’t want to hear that he’d been cursed and stood under four inches tall.
He’d found Sam. They’d tried to run off into dark corridors, following dusty paths. Walt had found them in time to get them to safety. In his urgency, Dean had burst into an occupied motel room.
Occupied by giants.
Over the years they’d both come to terms with their new lives. Walt and Mallory had helped them adjust to the way things were. Finding supplies, knowing where and when to find food. All the lessons that they both needed to know to survive.
These days, Dean lived on his own. He’d found a place to make his own and had spent his time adjusting it to be livable just like Walt and Mallory had done with their own. Mallory helped him with fabrics, making up wall hangings to drape on the walls and covers for his own nest of blankets. Sam had a bed of his own back with Walt and Mallory. Dean had insisted that his younger brother use it back when they’d discovered it in abandoned motel room.
Sam came to stay with him more often than not. It didn’t feel right to be too far apart after everything they’d survived together. Dean knew that it was assumed that Sam would eventually court Krissy, but Sam was uncomfortable with the idea. There were no girls in the area that were Dean’s age, so he was left on his own.
To brood, mostly.
Which was why Sam had a habit of showing up at the worst times, trying to keep his big brother’s mind off of their situation.
Like right now, when he was trying to sneak into a room where the guest had left out a slice of pie.
I mean, who can turn down a slice of pie?
Prompts Open for Brothers Together!
Just a friendly reminder that if anyone has any prompts for Oscar and his adventures with the brothers, they are currently open! Remember, the more prompts and ideas we get for them, the longer the story will go for before it concludes. All rules for standard prompts apply, and you can find them here.
To catch up on the storyline so far, check out the series: Brothers Together.
Asks and submissions are open as always for all AU’s!
I give it a 90% likelyhood that everyone here has seen them before. There’s always the chance that someone missed them.
If Castiel is to appear in the series, it will be after Dean goes to Hell, just like in canon Supernatural.
Currently, signs point to a 50/50 chance of this series lasting long enough for this to happen.
Supernatural G/t all day every day!
Check out the group on Deviantart: Supernatural-GT
Manip by @little-miss-maggie
Original photo op here
Brothers Apart 