Work Text:
Old Hag
by Sam-Tony
He wasn’t dreaming, he knew that; the dream catcher over their beds made and blessed by the shaman Dad had helped with that skinwalker in Texas made sure that no bad dreams or worse - nightmares - ever interrupted his or Sammy’s sleep. So that must mean he was awake, and if he was awake, that meant there was something definitely wrong. Bad, wrong; like their kind of bad wrong.
Like he couldn’t breathe wrong, the weight on his chest denying him the breath he woke up gasping for, lungs already starved and sending panic signals to limbs that remained frozen and refused to move.
But there was nothing there. Nothing that Dean could see on his body or in his room, nothing that would be able to keep a healthy teenager immobile in his bed, much less a Hunter with wards and talismans and measures already in place to counter the various ghosts, apparitions and other demons that might want to strangle a kid in their sleep. There was *nothing* there…
Dean screamed anyway - or tried to. But Dad was away, chasing down another werewolf just north of them in Oregon…and nothing had came out anyway…
The second scream he kept to himself. He didn’t want to draw the thing’s attention to Sammy, hopefully still asleep - please, please still be asleep - in the next room. He wouldn’t. No way was thing getting his Sammy…not his little brother…
If he could just move his right hand a little…he had a shotgun propped up beside his bed…just like Dad had taught him…if it was a ghost the salt would disrupt it long enough for Dean to plant his back to the wall…hopefully the blessed iron rounds mixed in would work on anything else…
He concentrated until his vision blurred with the effort - or maybe that was the lack of oxygen…focused the scream he wanted to loose into the movement of his fingers, slowly…too slowly…reaching for the shotgun…tips tingling from lack of circulation brushing the cold metal of the barrel…slipped…missed…no…please…
A sudden loud yell and a wave of air from where Sammy swung - something - in a wicked homerun arc over his chest and suddenly Dean was sucking in great lungful of air, the weight gone as quickly as it had arrived.
“S - Sammy…”
The hand on his shoulder was too small, too young to be made to comfort him - to be made to save his big brother. Dean should be saving Sammy - from anything, everything - that was *his* job. Sammy shouldn’t have to. He shouldn’t *have* to…
Hand on his chest, rubbing away the ache that had nothing to do with whatever it was that had attacked him, Dean looked away from the too-bright eyes, looking around his room instead and not seeing a damned thing. “How did you know?”
Dean’s movement had shifted Sam’s hand and Sammy let it fall away, shrugging as he shifted his eyes to the floor before looking back at Dean. “I heard you.”
Dean stilled, turning to Sam slowly, heart pounding in sudden suspicion. “What do you - I never made a sound,” he couldn’t help accuse.
His little brother just shrugged, thin shoulders looking far too fragile to hold the heavy, antique iron poker despite the training Dean and their Dad put the youngest Winchester through. “I heard you. And I saw yellow eyes in my dreams,” Sam rushed on before Dean could tell him to shut up. “Brown ratty robes and yellow eyes, sitting on you and hurting you. I woke up and grabbed the first thing I thought of.”
Holding him still Dean looked into the green eyes lightening to become so much like his own and pressed, “So you had a dream then?”
“I had a vision, Dean,” Sam told him stubbornly, chin lifting with the beginnings of stubbornness so like their father’s that Dean was both relieved and no little resigned to see. It meant he would be better able to stand his ground, not get pushed around by the high school bullies, but it also meant Dean was going to have a harder time getting Sam to just go with the flow and not question him. Like now.
“You had a *dream*, Sammy,” Dean told him firmly. “Nothing more.”
“But Dean - “
“A dream, Sam. Okay?”
The silence dragged on for long moments before Sam lowered his eyes once again to the floor and muttered, “Yeah. Whatever.”
Dean felt the relief flood through him much like the oxygen had earlier, making him a little light-headed. With what they did for a living the last thing they needed was for Dad to find out Sammy was having *visions*. “Good.”
Suddenly Dean smiled, ruffling the long flop of brown hair that seemed to always hang in Sam’s eyes. “We sure kicked that thing’s butt, didn’t we?”
The rolling of the green eyes silently snorted ‘we?’, but even as he was ducking out from under Dean’s hand Sam’s smile widened in realization that this was one they had tackled on their own. Without Dad. “Yeah. I did.”
Dean snorted but didn’t protest, only calling out as Sam started to leave, “Sammy?”
“Yeah Dean?”
“Don’t tell Dad.”
“I won’t.”
And if Sammy thought he just didn’t want their dad to know Sam had saved his life instead of the other way around, Dean could live with that.
End