Chapter Text
“Help!" You bleat out into the crisp, nothingness of the forest. Your throat is on fire, your screams scratch along the inner walls of your esophagus like gravel. The cold air hits your, bloodied, dampened clothes as they melt into the freshly mangled wounds.
You press forward, moving as quickly as you can with one hand braced against your abdomen.
"Please! Anyone!"
The crunch of a rain-softened branch catches your attention and stops you dead in your tracks. Fuck. it's back.
Your chest heaves with every nervous breath.
Breathe. Focus. You need to run.
Another crunch. Behind you.
Don’t. panic.
"Who the hell are you?" You could hardly react to the weathered, deep voice that booms from behind you. In an instant, you feel the undeniable press of a handgun's barrel square between your shoulder blades.
With wide eyes at the sudden, new threat, you cautiously raise your hands just above your shoulders. Holding them any higher would send a wave of sharp pain coursing through your shredded midsection. The hand that was applying pressure to your wound is drenched in blood, the beds of your nails are discoloured. A dark brown oxidized-ooze crusts over the creases of your knuckles and fine lines of your ground-scraped hands.
“Please,” your throat bobs after each word, swallowing the reoccurring lump that seems to form there. “Don’t hurt me-“
“Dean, she’s bleeding.” Another voice, softer this time, you can practically feel his eyes giving you a once-over as he speaks.
The pressure of the barrel dissipates and then it’s lifted away entirely. Your relief is short lived as a sudden harsh clamp of a hand on your shoulder forcefully spins you around. You nearly gasp in shock, bracing yourself in the split second it takes to turn you towards the pair of men who are now standing in front of you.
The tall one, longer brown hair, broader in the shoulders, intimidating by stature alone immediately lets his gaze drift down to your blood-gushing mid-section. He takes a single step closer, which has you shuffling backwards in response, pulse in your throat.
“Whoa, hey, don’t worry we’re not going to hurt you.” He raises his hands placatingly, shooting a look to the man beside him.
The man, holding the gun, still in position towards you rolls his green eyes and huffs as if being inconvenienced, before holstering the weapon.
“Yeah, relax.” He’s says rather bluntly.
Your eyes flit between the two, trying to assess their sincerity but you have no other option than to take them at their word right now. You’re losing blood quickly, the tree-line grows increasingly fuzzy and frayed at the edges. Adrenaline can only propel you for so long, and yours is starting to fizzle out.
“Please,” You plead. “You have to help me. Before it comes back.”
“It? What attacked you?”
“I-I thought it was a man… but then it-…” you trail off, getting lost in the recent memory.
The teeth…the nails. “You’ll think I’m crazy-“
“Listen kid, you’re dying and judging by the way you’re looking at us, you’re fading fast. You don’t got time for the “Monsters are real” speech. But I promise you, us thinking you’re crazy is the least of your concerns.” He’s harsh, to the point but he’s not wrong. The once sharp pain has thrummed into a constant dull ache, you’re losing too much blood.
Your eyelids feel heavy, they flutter slowly and with great effort to stay open while you sway on uneven footing. “He was a man- and then.. he wasn’t.”
“Okay- so he transformed?” The tall one nods to encourage your confirmation “into what?” He coos, as you would to frightened animal to keep it from running off.
You hesitate and after an involuntary stretch of silence, you decide it’s easier to just show them, than try to explain. Your thumb and index finger meet at the corner where the thin fabric of your t-shirt is stretched over your hipbone. With a trembling pinch, you pull the fabric up diagonally, letting the men assess the wound for themselves.
Torn into your abdomen, deep and gruesome- are long, distinct claw marks. They begin at your sternum and trail a bloody path to just above the hipbone you had pulled your shirt off of.
“Jesus.” The man who was referred to as Dean previously mutters. “New plan Sammy,” He glances over “We’re patching her up now, we’ll find that goddamn thing later.”
“Is-“ your words get caught in a bubble of spit you tried to swallow down. “Is it bad?”
‘Sammy,’ the tall one, takes a careful step towards you, hands still raised in line with his shoulders as to not frighten you.
“You’re going to be okay, but we need to get you somewhere safe, now.” It’s said with practiced ease, though even you’re not convinced your lights will be on for too much longer.
He closed the distance between you in a couple long strides. He moves his hand as slow as possible, making sure you see every movement. One of his massive palms presses against the length of your abdomen in an effort to slow the bleeding. You wince in response but it’s getting harder to ignore the blurred edge of your vision expanding- threatening to consume. Still, even then, you’re wary of getting into a vehicle with these two.
“Call 911 then-“ You manage to choke out but you’re cut off by Dean in what almost sounds like a scoff.
“Okay, listen sweetheart, I get it. Attacked by a monster, found by strange men in the woods, real horror movie setup. But, here’s the deal—you either let us patch you up now, or you bleed out waitin’ for paramedics that might not show if the thing that attacked you gets to them first.”
“Dean-“ Sam interjects with a huff, frustrated at how tactless he’s being.
“What? I’m being honest. The kid is dying, Sam.”
You unconsciously lean into Sam’s hand that’s pressed against your wound. Amidst their bickering, you cough through a stiff nod of your head. You’re trying to agree, to allow them to help but the walls of your mouth taste coppery.
“Crap” Dean mutters, looking over at the blood pooling in the corners of your lips.
Sam’s eyes follow Dean’s. With no further discussion, your legs are swept out from underneath you, one large hand still pressed against your abdomen.
Your eyelids are heavier now, barely able to register your surroundings as you’re rushed into the back of a chevy Impala.
“You’re going to be okay- stay with us.” Sam murmurs, settling in next to you and digging for the first aid kit.
Dean slides into the drivers seat with haste. The engine of the impala roars to life a moment later. With one hand on the back of the passanger’s side chair he backs out of the spot they’re in. The headlights cut through the night-fallen forest as we tear out, leaving tire tracks in muddy, storm-swept ground.
“You focus on stayin’ awake back there. No faintin’ got it? No dramatic “last words.” None of that crap. You pass out, I’m having Sammy take one of his gigantor hands and we’re shakin’ your ass back to life. Understood?”
They kick up dirt, peeling onto the main road. You have no strength to question where you’re going. You just have to trust them, and for what it’s worth, you have no other choice.
The lights dim. The last things you feel are Sam's rough, calloused hands working at the gashes strewn across you. Your eyes flutter again, this time, staying closed.
-----------------------------
The bed you wake in is not yours. The room your eyes have trouble un-blurring and focusing on is not familiar. Each time you blink, trying to will yourself awake, you catch a glimpse of the attack that landed you here.
“Ah-“ you hiss, “fuck.”
You groan to life, struggling to sit up in the dimly lit room. Your eyes scan your surroundings as you try to piece together how long you’ve been out for. Empty beer bottles and fast food containers cover the side table. Along the walls and ledge above the bed, there are several weapons scattered and hung. You recall the two men who presumably brought you here, how they barely even flinched when you hinted at your attacker not being human.
You finally sit all the way up, leaning against the headboard. Your torso feels tight. The second you look down, your breath catches in the back of your throat. For a terrifying moment, you stare at the shirt on your body. It’s not yours, you’ve been changed.
Before you could properly consider the implications, a soft knock at the door catches your attention. Your head snaps up towards the sound instantly.
“Hey- you awake in there? Thought I heard something.. I’m coming in, okay?”
The voice is soft, somewhat familiar. At least, you recognize it from earlier.
The door creeks open, his tall frame filling in the doorway. Sam. You somehow remember his name, he was kind, given the unfortunate circumstances. Still, your heart beats erratically when he appears.
“Hey,” he smiles softly when he sees you sitting up. “How’re you feeling?” His eyes latch onto yours, as if he’s studying you, reading your body language. He sees how your gaze flits between him, the door and the weapons, like you’re calculating your next move.
“Sorry about the room,” he vaguely gestures to the litter of weapons and general unkemptness of the scene around you. “Dean swore his bed was comfier but it’s probably not the most comforting place to wake up in.”
“Hey, you watch your mouth.” Deans voice grows louder, cutting into the one-sided conversation as he approaches the room. “Women *love* waking up in my bed, Sammy.”
Sam shuffles into the room with an amused huff at Dean’s comment. He steps closer to you while Dean finally appears in the doorway. He’s holding out a glass of water in his right hand and clutching two pills in his left.
“Don’t listen to Sam, my room’s awesome. Decorated it myself.” He saunters over, less cautious about scaring you than his brother, perching himself on the foot of the bed. “Here. You look like hell.” Dean holds out the glass and pills, to which you hesitantly grab them from him, reluctant to take anything they give you.
“Thanks” you mumble, eyes darting between the both of them.
Sam sighs, not in annoyance, more in quiet understanding.
“I know it’s probably freaky waking up here but I promise, we were just trying to keep you alive.”
“Yeah, kid. That thing ripped you apart pretty good. Sammy, here nearly gagged stitching you up.” Dean shoots a teasing glance over his shoulder to his brother.
“No I didn’t Dean,” Sam scoffs, crossing his arms over his chest before looking back down at you. “Ignore him, he’s a jackass.”
“Noted.” You quietly retort, looking Dean up and down with intention.
Now that you weren’t actively losing blood, you’re able to finally assess the men in front of you. Sam was towering, his frame was more than large but his eyes were soft, as if he could read the unease in your posture and he was actively trying to quell it. Dean, on the other hand was unreadable for the most part, he looked at you like he didn’t fully quite trust you and that made your stomach lurch.
“So,” Dean eyes the way that you set the pills down instead of taking them. The corners of his mouth twitch, biting back a side-smirk in a strange sense of approval. He doesn’t want you to be scared, but he likes that you’re being cautious. It shows you got some sense, not trusting two random men, even if they did just save you.
“You obviously ain't dumb, got a good head on your shoulders-“ He shifts so he’s more comfortably facing you. “So what the hell were you doing in the goddamn woods by yourself” he pauses, a sickeningly charming smirk dancing across his lips, “besides bleeding to death?”
“Dean.” Sam warns, clearly not thrilled by his brothers line of questioning.
“Let the girl speak Sammy, geez- I thought you were ‘Mr. Feminism.’ ” He jabs at Sam, looking at you as if expecting you to also laugh at his joke. When you don’t, he settles back into his spot near the end of the bed, pressing his lips into a tight line before speaking again.
“Look, I know you probably got an ass-load of questions but we need to know details now that you’re alive-enough to talk.”
“Dean’s right,” Sam sits on the edge of the bed now, gingerly reaching out and placing a hand on your shoulder. You flinch and he quickly withdraws his touch, not wanting you to pull your stitches. More than anything, he doesn’t want you to be afraid of him. “We need to know what attacked you, so we can hunt it.”
That catches your attention, furrowing your brows in disbelief.
“Hunt..it..? You’re insane. That thing, it’s not an animal to be hunted- it’s- it’s-..”
“A monster?” Dean cuts in. “We know. What we don’t know is what kinda’ monster and how you got away.”
“What my brother is trying to say,” Sam interjects again, giving dean a disapproving look at how blunt he’s being. “We’ve hunted our fair share of monsters and we can promise you, you’re not crazy. We believe what you saw and we just need your help piecing some missing info together.”
Your trepidation is clear but there’s no denying what you saw. Even now, your rational brain is trying to explain away the claws, the way that thing transformed right in front of you. Both boys stay quiet, watching you come to terms with this new revelation. Monsters are real, and you just met one.
“It was a guy. I met him at the bar.” You start, filling the tense silence with the painful details of the night before. “He um- bought me a drink. I had a couple too many..” You begin to trail off, looking down at your fingers that are unconsciously fidgeting in your lap. “Then he um… he—“ your eyes well up with tears that threaten to spill over.
Both men look at each other briefly, silently communicating with one another. This time when Sam places a hand over yours, squeezing lightly to ground you, you don’t pull away just yet.
“Hey,” he soothes, “it's okay, you can tell us.”
You sharply inhale, forcing yourself to focus, to not be vulnerable. You jerk your hand away from Sam’s and reluctantly continue.
“We went around back. I can still feel his hands.. all over me.” You physically shudder recounting it all. “And then- when he was done.. His eyes they- they changed.” Your brows knit together in contemplation, getting lost in the replay happening in your minds-eye. “His hands.. he had claws and… when he snarled, like a dog, his teeth.. they were.. horrible.”
Your voice cracks, your throat bobs as you try to correct the unevenness in your breathing. The inference of your assault hangs heavy in the room’s atmosphere.
“Okay.” Dean breathes forcefully through his nose, like he’s physically trying to keep himself in check for your sake. He steers the conversation back to business. His tone takes command of the room, keeping you here, present and not panicking over the memory. “Sounds like a werewolf.” He refocuses, “but those things never leave a victim, once it catches your scent it won’t back off. So how’d you get away?”
“My purse,” you say, earning a confused look from Dean. He follows your eyes with his own, you’re leaning over the edge of the bed, looking for your bag.
“Here,” Sam says, reaching into the side-table drawer and handing it to you. “Didn’t want it to get lost in Dean’s pile of….” He glances at the heap of clothes and miscellaneous food containers, “whatever that is.”
You open your purse, digging around before pulling out what you were looking for. Both brothers take stock of the item you’ve just produced from your bag. A vintage hand mirror, silver, oval-shaped glass, ornate and almost victorian in design. Their eyes travel along each detail before landing on the handle, coated in a thick layer of dried blood.
“I stabbed him.” You hold out the mirror to Sam in front of you.
“I can see that-“ he says, while taking the mirror into his own, much larger hands. “Dean, this is real silver.”
“No kidding.” Dean swipes the mirror from his hands, inspecting it himself.
“Yeah it’s real silver.. so what?” You look between them again, trying to figure out why they seem so dumbfounded.
“Werewolf lore” Sam responds. “Silver is one of the only ways you can kill ‘em.”
“Holy crap kid, you mighta just ganked a werewolf on your first try.” Dean looks almost, impressed, if not a little jealous.
You exhale roughly, looking away at Dean’s words. “No- he was hurt but he.. he still ran. I don’t think I got him.”
Sam survey’s your expression; your disappointment, the hint of shame that creeps back in, replacing the pride you felt for landing a hit on it. He stands rather suddenly, drawing your attention back to him.
“That just means he’ll be easier for us to take down.” He nods towards Dean, who follows Sam’s lead and stands up after him, already reaching for his jacket that was messily thrown over his chair.
“Wait-“ your hand shoots out before you can stop it, brushing against Sam’s wrist. You swear you catch him hastily swallow back a stutter in his breath. It seemed to be in direct response to your skin against his. He composes himself so quickly that you might’ve not even noticed.
“I want to come.” You state, your shame hardening into a defiant need to prove yourself.
That catches both men off guard. Sam looks at you now, really looks at you. The determination in your eyes is not unfamiliar.
“You got a death wish or somethin’?” Dean responds. “You barely made it out of there alive and now you wanna throw yourself back for round two? No way in hell kid, you’re staying right here.”
Recalcitrant in nature, you narrow your eyes at Dean, clutching your abdomen as you pull yourself out of bed. You stifle a wince as you adjust to the stiffness below your shirt. You look up at them, Sam’s hands hovering preparing to catch you if you fall- Deans eyes not-so subtly floating from your face down to your bare legs.
The long shirt that had replaced your own, hangs past your denim shorts and the cool air hitting your legs reminds you of your compromised state. Not only had some man/wolf/hybrid, *thing* taken advantage of you; but now the men who held your unconscious body, changed you into what you can only assume is one of their shirts- are trying to tell you what you can and can’t do.
Sam watches the gears turn in your head, everything seemingly hitting you at once. He notices every little detail, the way you seem to freeze when you look at the fabric clutched between your hand that’s pressed against your mid-section.
“Hey- you were drenched in blood and your shirt was torn to bits. I promise you, we wouldn’t hurt you.” He dismantles your worries before they even come to pass. “Which is why we’re telling you to stay put. It’s not safe.”
Its strange, the way Sam’s demeanour shifts between sentences. He starts off timid, reassuring. Then there’s a curious bit of emphasis when he says “stay put,” like he’s leaving no room for argument. It’s surprisingly authoritative and it’s only amplified by his unwavering gaze.
You subconsciously shrink under his quiet domination. It’s not lost on Dean, watching it unfold, a glint of something.. hungrier flashing in his eyes.
“Sam’s right.” He takes a step forward, you take a half-step backwards. “You can barely move and that thing’s got your scent. Second you’re out there, it’s going to come runnin’. Best to leave this to us.” His tone is dripping with condescension, it only serves to aggravate your growing distaste for the authority they’re trying to assert over you.
“Besides,” he continues “It’s the middle of November and you got short-shorts on, you gonna steal a pair of my pants next?” He gestures to the shirt you’re in. Of course, it’s his.
Dean grins shamelessly when he sees the dots connect. “Don’t worry, looks cute on you.”
Sam groans in an exaggeratedly exasperated way, rolling his eyes at Dean’s incessant need to push boundaries.
“Dean, let’s just go.” Sam shoots you an apologetic glance but it quickly hardens into a silent, unspoken command.
Stay.
They both quietly exit the room while a sudden flush of colour spreads across your face and neck inexplicably. You’re beyond disoriented, you’re confused. Your pulse jumps in your throat, trying to understand what you’re feeling after the unexpected interaction.
More importantly, why you liked it.