Title: Choose Your Words Wisely
Author: winyumi
Rating: R, I guess
Words: 700ish
Characters/Pairing: Sam, Dean/OFC, John
Warnings: language, v. brief scene of het sex
Summary: What you say when you're hurt or scared says something about you.
Disclaimer: Not mine. Please don't sue.
Dean’s nineteen years old and he’s managed to avoid being shot so far, but he has a pretty good idea of what the first word out of his mouth will be if he ever is.
At fourteen he got clawed deep in the meat of his thigh by a pissed off coyote spirit, and he clearly remembers writhing in mute pain on the desert floor, red dust coating his lashes, making his eyes water (fucking dust). It was the first time he’d ever gotten seriously, felt-like-he-was-dying injured, and when he finally got his breath enough to speak it was a drawn-out groan that lasted until his lungs were empty. “Shiiiiiit.”
At sixteen he experienced the worst agony of his life as the whole family was tramping through a mossy forest in Washington state. They were on the trail of something small, ugly, and naked that started out stealing horses and then moved on to toddlers. Dad called it a pixie, and Sam kept insisting over and over that it was a goblin, ‘because goblins are ugly and pixies are beautiful and that’s in every book, Dad,’ and if Sammy didn’t knock it off Dean was gonna show him ugly. He stomped the ground, pretending it was Sammy’s bitchy little face, and then some stupid-ass hidden branch snapped up through the leaves and jabbed him in the groin. “Shit,” he gasped breathlessly, inaudible to any but himself.
Age eighteen in the back room of the Hollywood Video was the closest he’s ever been to actually getting shot. He had his pants around his ankles and his dick inside Marissa with the permanently blissed out eyes, her writhing and jiggling her C-cups obscenely, him really getting the rhythm finally, just took him a minute cause she wouldn’t fuckin quit scratching, and the door slammed open behind them.
“What the fuck!” screamed Javier, Marissa’s boyfriend, and there was the nightmare-click of a gun cocking. “Shit!” Dean hissed with his eyes locked on her suddenly frightened ones.
A lifetime of experiences have taught Dean that in moments of extreme pain or stress ‘shit’ is his default setting.
He’s an eloquent guy that way.
He guesses maybe in their line of work he should have some more poetic words ready, but the claw wounds in his thigh are just silvery scars now, and the stick to the groin didn’t even leave a scar (except the mental one), and Javier was distracted enough by making Marissa cry and plead, that he was disarmed without getting a shot off, and Dean figures ‘shit’ has served him well. He wouldn’t be surprised if someday it ended up as his last word too.
**************************
He fires point-blank at the brown bear-thing with a name that he can’t pronounce and feels a waft of rancid breath expelled into his face as it death-rattles. That was way too close, he thinks numbly. It topples majestically to the ground to reveal that Sam’s standing behind it, slack-jawed like some brain-damaged guppy, so Dean must not be the only one who thought that was a little too close. Dean covers up his own shakiness with a celebratory “Goddam!” because for one shining second he doesn’t notice anything’s wrong. Dad swoops through the doorway moments later, gun up and ready for action.
By then Dean’s had time to flip once through the whole slide-show.
One: the beast crumpled at his feet like a broke-down Disney World animatron.
Two: his little brother’s eyes, frozen wide as dinner plates.
Three: his little brother’s belly, and the magically appearing fountain of red ink making it’s mark there.
Dean’s nineteen years old and he’s never been shot but he’s done plenty of shooting. He knows a bullet hole when he’s faced with one.
Dad asks “Is it dead?” and Dean mumbles “Shit. Dad. I think I shot Sammy.” Sammy looks down at himself and Dean sees him sway a little when he spies the blood pouring out of his punctured gut. He looks back up, mouth opening, and Dean half expects to hear a choked out ‘shit,’ but that Dean’s default, not Sammy’s. Sammy looks to him and gasps out the first word he says, every time he’s scared or hurt. It’s the only thing Sammy says before he goes down. “Dean.”
Author's Note: I considered warning for possible character death, but in my mind they immediately rush Sam to the hospital and they fix him and he spends the next few weeks being waited on hand and foot by his poor guilt-stricken wreck of a brother. That didn't make it into the story though, so it does leave open the possibility that Sammy bleeds out on the floor a few minutes after the story ends. Sorry if you feel I should've warned for that; please feel free to leave me a comment about it if you think I ought to change it. Thank you for reading!