This is why you never hunt alone

[Parker Dorian]

Date: December 20, 2009
City: Eagle City
State: Oklahoma
Synopsis: Dean has a surprise late night visitor and it’s not as fun as it sounds.

Parker felt the blood slowly soaking through the front of her shirt, and grit her teeth. With one hand pressed to the gash on her stomach and the other gripping the wheel of her truck, she sped down the deserted highway a little faster than was probably save in her condition. Sparing a glance at her rear view mirror, she was momentarily relieved to see nothing but empty road behind her, but the relief was short-lived as she shifted slightly and pain lanced through her side.

She wasn’t dizzy yet, or losing any peripheral vision, so she wasn't suffering from too much blood loss yet. It sure felt like a lot was slipping through her fingers, but the cut was shallow enough that she wasn’t too worried about internal organs. The pain was something else all the same, though, and Parker was having a hard time remembering anything that had felt worse. Dislocating her shoulder hadn’t been this bad.

Seeing the sign for the Royal Elm motel looming up out of the darkness, Parker took the turn fast enough to spin out a bit, and slammed her truck into the parking, narrowly missing clipping the bumper of a familiar Chevy Impala. She grabbed the blood-splattered duffel bag from the passenger seat, groaning in pain as she did so, and quickly made sure that her machete was still safely inside. There was only one room with a light on at the motel, so once out of the truck she wasted no time in heading for the door. Hopefully she wasn’t about to bust in on a couple of total strangers getting freaky, though honestly, it would be their fault for choosing such a crappy motel in the first place.

For a second she considered actually knocking, but a large boot print on the door made it pretty obvious that someone had already broken the lock for her. Jesus, if there were monsters inside, she was just going to… she was literally going to die, probably. Still, she pushed the door open with one shoulder, dripping blood onto the floor as she entered the room.

“Dean?” She said as she kicked the door shut behind her. “Hey buddy, quick question, kind of time sensitive: how good are you with crowd control?”

[Dean Winchester]

When Dean was about eight or nine, he read Sammy a book called Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, and while Dean’s day was not quite on the same level as poor Alexander, it was certainly a day.

It was not everyday that a hunter in the life literally fell afoul of the supernatural without the whole shebang of an investigation preceding the ganking of a monster as usually necessitated by said monster. When such an event occasioned, it was terribly inconvenient for all concerned. Dean had barely checked in, not even unpacked, when the hotel door was kicked in and a sickly looking man lurched in. Wide eyed, Dean barely managed to curse before the man was on him.

He had seen this kind of thing once before. Rougarou. He was full on rougarou, wormy pale skin, point of no return hunger for long-pig. And the long-pig in question was Dean. “Fuck!”

Shoving his arm between his neck and the rougarou’s mouth, Dean winced as the rougarou’s powerful jaws clamped down on layers of cotton, plaid, and denim barely protecting Dean’s flesh. Dean fought against a creature that was twice as strong as him, and here he was, woefully unprepared.

Wracking his brain for a fire source while the rougarou whaled on him, trying to bite and scratch his way into Dean’s warm, gooey innards, Dean had enough and kicked the rougarou back. On his feet, and bolting for the door, Dean shoved his hand into his jacket pocket, grasping for his lighter. Skin warm metal cleaved into his fist as the rougarou tackled him. Breathlessly cursing, Dean rolled with the hit, trying to gain the momentum to buck the fucker off before the sensitive skin of Dean’s neck could be made vulnerable to the rougarou’s blunt yet strong teeth.

The rougarou growled, frustration welling deep, “stop fighting!” He snarled, twisting and grappling.

“Fuck off!” Dean snarled back. He had a gas canister in the car, and a lighter in his fist. Just needed to get this fucker to back off for five seconds. Opportunity came when Dean managed to leverage the rougarou, causing him to crash into the table and splintering it into pieces. Dean grabbed the door knob and pulled himself up, slamming the door shut in the process. No time to think; his body moving before his brain could say go, Dean was circled around his car to the trunk and had it open just as the rougarou wrenched the hotel door open. The pale, ugly, veiny face leered out at Dean just as he ducked down to grab the canister of gas.

Shaking it, he heard and felt the liquid slosh inside. Better be enough to torch the fucker. Metal banged and Dean reared back and shouted, “hey!” The fucking rougarou was bounding toward Dean, on top of his car. “You motherfucker—“ was all he had time before he knocked the cap off the canister and raised it in one smooth move, the gasoline arcing out and splattering across the rougarou’s face. Dean pivoted on one heel, barely scraping by as the rougarou howled, crashing to the ground, and raising his hands to his burning eyes.

Not sparing a second, Dean dropped the canister and flicked the lighter. The flame obediently leapt into existence and he tossed it toward the rougarou. “Hey, buddy. Catch.”

It didn’t take much before the rougarou was covered with flames and screaming. Dean grimaced at that part, but everything before it was awesome and he couldn’t wait to tell Sammy all about it.

Picking up the gas canister, he poured more gas on the fire, jumping back as the flames roared higher. He was glad the motel was in a relatively remote area, and nearly every room in the place was vacant. There were no witnesses. Luckily, rougarou remains tended to burn easily and clean up was easy. Huh, the presence of the rougarou may explain why there were so many vacancies. Dean was kind of retroactively embarrassed that he had been slow on this particular uptake, for about five seconds, then he shrugged and retired to his motel room.

Shit. The door was fucked and the table was a lost cause. There went his security deposit. Fuck it, he’d deal with it in the morning.

He strode over to the mini fridge and pulled out a bottle of beer. Twisted the cap off and took a long rewarding swallow. Releasing the tension in his shoulders, he ambled over to his duffle and withdrew his laptop. Sinking down onto the bed, he kicked back, relaxed and opened the laptop resting on his legs. Time for some real R&R, which clearly involved some kind of porn in his immediate future, and the Internet did not disappoint.

Taking another draught of his beer, Dean relaxed even more onto the bed, eyes glued to the screen, volume turned up.

As fate enjoyed annoying Dean, that moment was when the whirlwind hurricane that was Parker burst into his motel room, talking at him and bleeding all over the dirty floor.

Dean stared at Parker wide-eyed, somehow not even surprised at her completely unexpected appearance. A particularly loud moan emitted from his laptop and he quickly closed it. “Fuck crowd control; you look like you need a doctor.”

Shoving his laptop onto the bed, and setting his beer on the bedside table, he stood up and grabbed his duffle. The FUBAR kit was inside, and he pulled it out. It was fairly well stocked; something he maintained as par for the course of a hunter. Pulling out gauze and the cat-gut in case he needed to do some stitching, he set them aside and drew out the large bottle of vodka for sterilization and pain numbing.

“You talk, I’ll fix you up.”

[Parker Dorian]

For a second Parker thought that she’d actually woken Dean up, until she saw the laptop. And heard the noises coming from it.

“Nice.” She said flatly as the door shut behind her. The room looked about as bad as she felt; Dean had either just finished hosting an absolute rager of a party, or he had recently had some monster trouble of his own. He didn’t appear to be actively bleeding from the flank, however, so she had to assume that he was having a slightly better day than she was. Stepping over the pile of kindling that used to be a table, she grabbed a chair and used it to jam the broken door. That would hold for, what, five seconds?

Dean seemed pretty concerned about the state of her shirt front, which she would have found touching if they had enough time to hug it out. However, time was probably not something they had a lot of at that moment, and she would have a lot more to worry about when they were both dying on the floor of this shitty motel room.

“What, this? Nothing an ice pack can’t fix--” She said with an attempt at a grin, but it turned into a grimace as she tried to move her hand away and another wave of pain hit. A clean-ish looking hand towel was hanging by the kitchenette sink, and she quickly grabbed it and pressed it to her bloody side. Wow, yeah, okay, that hurt.

“Alright, just make it fast.” She conceded, dropping her duffel and gingerly sitting down on the edge of the bed (giving Dean’s laptop a very wide berth). She did, however, take a long pull of Dean’s half-finished beer. Hey, he was probably done with it anyway.

“Working solo for a bit, found a vamp nest near Cheyenne.” She explained, lifting her shirt up away from the open wound on her side. “Torched the warehouse with five of them in there yesterday-- Jesus, ow-- and got the hell out of Dodge, but apparently there were more of them than anticipated. Like, a lot more. Assholes jumped me at a gas station a few towns over, I got one before running but the rest probably got my scent still."

Parker paused to take a few deep breaths, as well as grab the vodka from Dean. It was probably best not to even look down to assess the damage, she thought, and Just let Dean worry about it. She could assess if they survived the night.

"I’d say we’ve got maybe fifteen more minutes, absolute max, before they’re busting through that door." She continued through gritted teeth. "So not to rush you, Dr. House, but you gotta pick up the pace."

[Dean Winchester]

Seeing Parker barricade the door drove home the point that Parker didn’t exactly feel secure here. All the jokes she was making aside, she was seriously injured. Dean was glad she didn’t argue with him and allowed him to see to her injuries. Rolling his eyes as she appropriated his unfinished beer, he sorted through the med kit and knelt down at her side.

Listening with half an ear as Parker made her report, Dean cleaned the blood away. As he assessed the wound, he concluded that it was shallow enough not to need stitches, but infection was a real concern. He slathered ointment on the large square of bandaid he prepared and taped it to the worst of the injury. He wrapped around a roll of bandaging to keep the rest of the wound clean and help it scab over without getting irritated by Parker’s shirt. It was a quick and rude job, but one that would suffice in the time they had.

“Wrong fandom,” Dean protested, “I like Doctor Sexy.” And he immediately regretted saying anything at all. Even though Sexy’s Anatomy was the greatest show ever, Parker would probably eat him alive. If he were lucky, she’d only tease him about it for the rest of his life.

Sighing, he packed up the med kit and stowed it away in his duffel before pulling out his machete, his very best vampire killing weapon. He thought he ought to give it a name given how many times he had used it to reliable effect against vampires. Maybe… Mr. Slice-y.

Amazing that only a few years ago Dean thought, no, knew, with utter certainty, that vampires were extinct. Now they seemed to be crawling out of the woodwork. They hadn’t gone extinct; just learned to hide better.

He leaned against the wall next to the door, all the better to surprise the vampire that walked through. Despite Parker’s hurry, Dean prepared himself for a bit of a wait. Hopefully the vampires were stupid ass and barged in without thinking. That would make it easy to pick them off.

Fricking vampires.

[Parker Dorian]

Parker tried to remain stoic, but visibly winced as Dean dressed her wound. It felt a little bit like she might be dying, but Dean wrapped her up without pulling out a needle and thread, so it must not have been as bad as it felt. Honestly, though Parker wasn’t exactly a rookie at hunting, she was still a relative rookie at taking the big hits. She wouldn’t tell that to Dean, of course; from his reputation, she was pretty sure that he’d seen worse, and Parker Dorian was not about to look like a wimp in front of him.

She didn’t usually care what anyone thought of her, so wasn’t quite sure why she was trying so hard now. Maybe it was because Dean Winchester was the closest thing there was to a celebrity in the hunting community, or because the last time they’d met she had quite literally climbed him like a tree, and was still a little embarrassed about that. Or maybe it was because he was stupidly good looking, to the point where it felt a little bit like a personal attack. Hunters weren’t supposed to be good looking, they were supposed to be middle-aged alcoholics with questionable personal hygiene. Honestly, how dare he?

She thought about taking another swig from the vodka, but thought better of it and put the bottle down. Probably best not to be suffering from blood loss and the spins while fending off vampires, though she was planning to hit the booze hard if she came out of this in one piece. And then sleep for ten hours. And then eat a burrito the size of her head.

“What the fuck is a fandom?” She asked as she stood up, still a bit shaky. “Actually, you know what, nevermind. I can make fun of you tomorrow.”

Her machete was still in her duffel, and it was still dripping with vampire blood as she picked it up. Nice. Parker took up position on the other side of the door opposite Dean, resting her uninjured side against the wall. They probably had another five minutes or more, according to her Spiderman kid’s watch, and for a second she considered sitting down on the floor. Not the most ready-for-action position, but man was she tired. Probably wouldn’t look too competent to Dean, though.

“Well, I do like a challenge,” She said in a low voice, listening for any passing cars outside, “But I’d feel a little bit better if it wasn’t going to be ten on two. Aren’t you supposed to have a brother or something? He wouldn’t happen to be nearby or something--”

Headlights briefly illuminated the parking lot outside as someone pulled into the motel and cut the engine. Doors slammed shut, but Parker couldn’t hear any voices. Glancing over at Dean, she gave a small nod and tightened her grip on her machete.

[Dean Winchester]

The silence and the waiting was chock full of anticipation, and the longer they waited, the more anticipation built up. His eyes had gotten used to the dark, and he could see Parker as she waited, ready and raring to go. Or well, less raring and more resigned. She had bitten off more than she could chew, and in true Parker fashion (yet he’d barely known her for days), she rallied in the face of overwhelming odds.

He supposed she might forget about his fandom leanings if he proved to her what a badass he was. Ten against two did sound troubling, and they might die. He’d like the odds better if Parker wasn’t injured and partially patched up— she really needed stitches (if only time had permitted)— and Dean were fresh instead of feeling bruised from his encounter with the rougarou.

Taking a peek out through the peephole, Dean saw the tail end of the car, and not much else. Leaning carefully back away from the door, he raised his machete.

“I do have a brother. It’s complicated right now.” The reminder of his brother was a bit irksome. This time last year in the real world, Sam had been concerned, attentive, kind of smothering, but Dean wasn’t sure if that wasn’t just because he was misjudging Sam under the stress of his demon deal coming due while coming to terms with Sam’s strange freaky demon powers, or if Sam really was overdoing it. This year overlaid with the memories of hell and his crippling depression which he was self-medicating with alcohol, dealing with the fact that he broke a seal to make the apocalypse possible, Sam was off doing god knows what with who the fuck knows. At least there were only eleven days left until the new year. It was entirely possible if not probable that things could change for the better in the new year, because of resolutions and making merry and all that.

He looked at Parker. “Long story.”

The door splintered in one great crash, and Dean was quick to jab the creature that barrelled through, aiming for the blur that approximated its neck. He struck true and pivoted through the blow, turned on his foot and swung ready for the next opponent. They were swarming through the doorway, though Dean spared a moment’s glance at the plate glass window that was soon going to be—

“Parker, watch out!” He managed before he was tackled to the dirty carpet, fighting for his life.

[Parker Dorian]

Dean was doing this jaw clenching thing that made Parker think the brother was a sore subject, but she didn’t have time to investigate at the moment. She mentally filed that away to get back to later. “It’s complicated” is something you say about a girlfriend, not a sibling.

Her reaction time was slightly off, she realized as Dean took out the first two vampires through the door before she’d even moved. Who would have thought that massive blood loss would negatively affect her ability to function? Shocking. Get your head in the game, Dorian.

Dean’s shout pulled her focus, and she managed to duck and roll a second before the window behind her shattered. Machete at the ready, she sliced at the legs of the first vampire who jumped over the sill, before standing up and delivering the killing blow to the neck. Another, diving headfirst through the window, tried to tackle Parker from behind, but she reflexively tossed them over her shoulder before delivering a killing blow. Two down.

She saw Dean hit the floor a few feet away, and took a step towards him, but her path was quickly blocked by yet another vampire, at least a head taller than her and twice as wide. The fanged smile he gave her was slightly sickening. He had no weapon, but one hammy fist swung at Parker’s head, and she had no choice but to retreat. Hopefully Dean didn’t need backup.

Despite the added reach her machete afforded her, trying to dodge a flurry of punches and stab back at the same time proved exceptionally difficult. The vampire was obviously attempting to back her into a corner, where he would probably crush her skull against the wall, but with two more climbing in through the window, there were very few positions to maneuver to that weren’t fang-adjacent. Attempting to keep an eye on three different monsters, Parker felt her heel catch on an electrical cord. Reaching back, her fingers wrapped around the base of a porcelain table lamp.

“Catch!” Parker said, before chucking it at the largest vampire’s head. Reflexively he reached up and grabbed it, which gave Parker the split second she needed to sidestep around him, her machete parting his head from his body.