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In Dean’s defense, he hadn’t meant to hit the kid.
Sam had been tapping away at his laptop, taking small bites out of his burger while Dean angrily fiddled with the music, looking up every few seconds to check the empty road.
The stretch of land had been deserted for hours, with only the occasional pick-up truck or minivan coming into view. So honestly, Dean wasn’t too worried about ramming into pedestrians and was more focused on finding at least some tolerable music that wasn’t country or disgusting pop on this state’s god awful radio stations.
He was rethinking trekking into the wilds of Arizona, just to solve a few random hellhound sightings and werewolf attacks, but Bobby had been adamant that the brothers better get their sorry asses off his couch or he’s sending them on vampire scouting duty.
Dean had immediately got off the couch, dragging Sammy along with him, and saddled up his Baby for a long drive. With no destination in mind, the younger brother took to the internet, searching for potential cases, while Dean stacked up on snack provisions.
Halfway through Wyoming, Sammy found something.
“6 attacks, victims all found torn apart, claw marks all over the neck and skull”
“Werewolf”
“Most likely”. Sam rifles through the journal, carefully turning the crinkled pages. “Also, there’ve been sightings...”
“Of…”
“Of hellhounds”
Dean turns to his brother, a look of disbelief on his face.
“You know hellhounds are-”
“Invisible, yes”, Sam sighs, bringing up some articles onto his laptop. “All witness said they see invisible dogs attacking the victims”
“Odd that there's so many at once”, Dean muses, tapping the dashboard. “Especially all in one town. Maybe it’s gone rogue?”
“Well…”
“I’m sensing a but”
Sam sighs.
“Ten-year old Cather Stone said she saw them... Like, actually saw them.”
“...what did she...see?”, Dean questions, not really believing. “She might of just saw a really big dog, you know kids, they love to make shit up”
“I’m not so sure about that”, Sam looked over the article carefully. “She says it was the size of a Grizzly Bear, had uh, had glowing red eyes”.
Dean raises an eyebrow. “Again, doesn’t really sound like ‘hellhounds’, more like possessed wolves if you ask me”
“Still, it’s worth checking out. Besides, we got nothing else on the radar”
Dean stamps his foot onto the accelerator.
“Arizona it is”
Fast forward, baren Wyoming road, not another car insight, horrid music blasting through the speakers, your usual hunt.
And then a kid fell out of the sky.
Sam yelled in surprise as Dean swerves to a stop, eyes widen as the crumpled figure lay smushed against the car’s hood.
Sam slams the door open, rushing to the figure’s aid, while Dean curses under his breath, quick to follow his brother’s lead. The child, cause yes this was a child, maybe ten years old, was curled into a protective ball, their head hidden within their puffy-jacket covered arms.
“Oh my God Dean!”
“I didn’t mean to hit the kid”, Dean snaps. “He just came out of nowhere”
“We need to help him”, Sam carefully picks up the unconscious boy, surprised at how light the kid was. He carried the pale child bridal style, slowly placing him in the cars backseat.
“Sam, we don’t know...I mean we can’t trust him”
Dean’s eyes meet his brothers stone cold glare.
“I’m just saying-”
“He’s a kid , Dean! And you hit him. And you just want to leave him on the road, unconscious, half-dead, because he’s a stranger ?”
His face fills with disbelief at his brother’s lack of empathy.
“ Dean ”
“Fine, let’s just… get him to a hospital or something”.
Sam begins to check the boy for injuries, counting his pulse and searching his arms for any bruises that being slammed into a car would cause. The Hunter found many, many scars, far too many for a kid at that age, but no newly blemishing bruises, which Sam took as a good sign.
“Where’s the nearest hospital?”
Dean eyes the barren landscape.
“Not close”
Swearing, Sam notices a deep cut along the boy’s arm, hidden beneath his torn jacket.
“Do we have any bandages?”
“I think so, maybe in-”
Dean cuts off as the boy shudders
His eyes fly open, panic prominent in his seemingly abyss like eyes. Gaze flickering from a cautious Dean to Sam, he tries, and fails, to scurry out of the car.
“Are you okay?”
The child’s eyes widen.
“Where am I?”
Puzzled, Dean leans out the door, barely making out a distant road sign.
“Just off ‘95, heading west”
“I meant”, the child sighs, “what state?”
“Uh, Wyoming”, Sam responds, sending his brother a confused look. “Wait, do you have amnesia? Or a concussion. You did hit your head pretty hard…”
The kid curses under his breath, definitely in a foreign language from what Dean could hear, before pushing open the side door.
“Wait, kid”
Sam scampers out of the car, catching up to the rushing away child.
“Kid!”, he yells, hand reaching out to touch the boy.
“I’m fourteen”, the kid growls, whipping around, “okay? So leave me the fuck alone”
“Where ya headed?”, Sam persists, backing off slightly. “You won’t get far on foot, the closest town is hours away”
“Arizona”
The hunter gives him a nervous smile.
“We’re headed there too, okay. We’ll just drop you off, try to find your parents maybe? No questions asked. Deal?”
The kid glares at the extended hand.
“Fine whatever, deal”
Dean watches in amusement as the strange kid hunches himself in the back seat of the Impala, hands balled into fists.
He’s silent for the next few hours, head hunched so low Dean wondered if the kid was still alive if not for the shallow breaths and heaving chest.
“I think he’s asleep”, Sam whispers, turning down the music, much to Dean’s annoyance.
“No shit Sherlock”
By the time the group reached civilization, the kid was fully conked, head lolled against the car door. Sam, not having the heart to wake him, ushered Dean to continue driving. He was met with a snide comment and roll of the eyes but continued nonetheless, only after a stop at McDonalds however.
“Mhmmm”
From the rear view mirror, Dean could see the kid shaking himself from his almost coma-long sleep. His hair reminded the Hunter of a rats nest, at best, and he couldn’t help but smirk at the kid’s complete disheveled expression.
“What- what time is it?”, he asks groggily.
“6:30pm”
“What?!”
“We didn’t want to wake you”
“ He didn’t want to wake you”, Dean corrects pointedly. “Keep me out of it”
“Where’s the closest town?”
Sam peers down at his laptop.
“About an hour south”
Groaning, the child bangs his head against the window, eyes bloodshot.
“On the bright side, we got you a Happy Meal”
Begrudgingly, the kid grabs the bright red box from a smirking Dean.
“What do you say”, the hunter prompts, grinning.
“Fuck off”
“I was looking for a thank you”, Dean grins as the kid flips his middle finger up, “but I’ll take it”
The kid cracks a smirk before devouring the given burger, stuffing in fries between bites until his meal was completely gone, not a crumb left.
“When was the last time you ate?”, Sam questions, eyeing the kid’s abnormally thin figure.
“I thought you said no questions asked”, the kid retorts, crossing his arms grumpily.
“I lied”
The kid grumbled under his breath, something about Jason, before responding with a sigh.
“Wednesday”
Sam freezes.
“You haven’t eaten in three days ”
“When you say it like that it sounds crazy”, he says nonchalantly, “and in my defense, I was unconscious for half of it”
“You make a hobby of that or something?”, Dean mumbles. “Seem to do it a lot”
“You make a hobby of running down teenagers with trash cars?”
“Okay 1, Baby is not trash and if you ever say so again, you’re walking your own ass to Arizona and 2, you’re the one who fell out of the sky, ‘s not my fault you were in the way”
“Whatever you say old man”
“I hate kids”, the hunter grumbles beneath his breath, ignoring Sam’s amused smile.
“Again, I’m fourteen”
“Again, still a minor, dipshit”, Dean mocks.
“Language!”
“Yeah, watch your fuckin language”
“That goes for both of you”. Sam rolls his eyes.
Grumbling, the two continue to glare at one another, that is, until Dean had to turn his attention back to the road.
.
.
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blah blah puppy hellhound Nico lost blah blah banter yeah that's all, thanks