Chapter Text
“Stay inside!” Dean warns the family huddled in a corner as he bursts out of the old farmhouse, Sam on his heels. “And lock the door!” he calls back, the screen door slamming shut behind them.
Dean’s off the porch in three long strides, jumping over the rickety wooden steps entirely and breaking into a run, chasing the shifter who’d been posing as the middle brother into the corn field as fast as his legs would carry him.
“What the hell, Dean?” Sam yells as they run, barely even breathing heavily, the freak. He must have taken up running or something over there at Stanford.
“I know!” Dean yells back.
“I thought we were looking for some kind of ghost or poltergeist or vengeful spirit! Not a shifter!” The shifter darts right and they follow it, feet digging into the tilled dirt between the rows.
“I know!” Dean grinds out and bats a corn stalk out of his way.
“A shifter shouldn’t even be out h—”
“I KNOW!” Dean cuts in and slows to a stop, looking around. “I’ve lost track of him…Damn corn’s gotta be six fe—”
“THERE!”
Sam takes off to the left, and Dean scrambles to keep up. They dodge and weave through the rows until, finally, they’re stumbling back out of the corn and into a field of barley on the other side of it. Both look around frantically, no sign of the shifter anywhere.
“Son of a bitch!” Dean bends down, bracing his hands on his knees and working to catch his breath. If they let it get away now, it could be anyone next time they see it.
“Maybe in there?”
Dean looks up and follows Sam’s line of sight to a small shed in the middle of the field. He looks back at Sam skeptically.
Sam gives an exasperated shrug. “There’s nothing else out here, Dean.”
Dean huffs. “No, of course not, just the acres upon acres of corn and barley he could be hiding out in…” Asshole’s probably just out there resting by now, planning to let him and Sam run their asses off looking for him.
“In which case we’re screwed.”
Dean grunts an acknowledgement. There’s no way they’d be able to comb through the fields efficiently enough to catch him before he can get away.
Sam sighs. “Even if he’s not in there, we can at least climb on top of the shed to get a better vantage point to look around, maybe spot him crawling or something.”
With no better ideas, Dean huffs and shoves himself upright, then trudges through the tall grass towards the building. It’s just a small wooden shed in the middle of the field and looks like it’s seen better days. The boards are warping and cracked and gray with age. The tin roof is rusty and probably leaks.
When they get close enough to notice that the door is nailed shut, they meet eyes and nod before splitting to slowly circle the building, looking for signs of entrance somewhere else.
There’s nothing.
The boards are beginning to rot at the bottom, leaving a few small gaps here and there, but nothing big enough to let anything in that's bigger than a snake or a mouse. Can shifters turn into something like that?
Sam lets out a frustrated sound. He puts his hands on his hips and looks up at the rusty, tin roof. “All right. Who’s going up?”
“I’m not hoisting your tall ass up there. Come on. Gimme a lift.”
Sam scoffs. “My “tall ass” doesn’t actually weigh more than you. Besides, my extra height will help me see further.”
“'See fur—’ bro, you’re like two inches taller than me. If that.”
Sam shrugs. “Taller is taller.”
“That’s not enough to matter!”
“Okay, Dean, then why did you insist that you’re not lifting my ‘tall ass’ up there, if you don't think I'm bigger than you?” Dean’s little brother smirks down at him, eyes sparkling under the line of that shaggy mop of hair.
Dean scowls. “Man, why’d you even ask who’s going up if you’re just gonna argue about it?” he grumbles.
Sam’s smirk intensifies.
“Ugghh, fine!” Dean widens his stance and drops his hands, lacing his fingers together to give Sam a step. “Go.”
Sam puts a foot in Dean’s hands and pushes upwards, climbing onto the roof. Dean steps back and watches him turn a few circles, hand shielding his eyes from the sun.
“If you get tetanus, it’s your fault!” Dean calls up.
Sam holds out a middle finger.
“Anything?” Dean asks.
“Nothing.”
“Well, he didn’t just disappear. He’s gotta be somewhere.”
Sam raises an eyebrow and points down at the shed he’s standing on.
“It’s boarded up.” Dean reminds him.
“He’s gotta be somewhere,” Sam throws back.
Dean rolls his eyes and walks back around to the front. Sam drops down next to him. They both work to pull off the boards nailed over the entrance, then Sam holds up his left hand, counting down from three with his fingers.
They kick open the door and burst into the shed—a wellshed apparently—guns raised, quickly clearing the corners and again finding nothing.
Dean looks at Sam. “You sure you saw him come this way?” he asks, moving further into the old wellshed and taking it in. There was seriously nothing in here but a well that had been boarded shut, same as the door.
“This way? Yes. In here? No. But I thought it was our best chance.”
Dean grunts in agreement and looks at the well. “Think he went in there?”
“It’s boarded shut…”
Dean doesn’t even have to say the words. He just glares a Really, Sam?? at his little brother to remind him that the door was the same and this whole thing was a stretch on Sam’s insistence to start with.
A rattling sound comes from the well.
“Son of a—!” Dean nearly jumps out of his skin, pointing a gun at it. He looks over to see Sam doing the same.
When nothing else happens, by silent agreement, they pull off the boards covering the well, and then, on Sam’s count, throw open the doors to it and lean in, pointing their guns down the hole.
“Friggin’ nothing…” Dean mutters, feeling more than a little ridiculous. The well isn’t even that deep, and it’s dry at the bottom.
Sam stares at it. “Should one of us climb down and check it out?” Off Dean’s incredulous look. “I don’t know! Maybe there’s some loose stones at the bottom and he’s dug out some kind of tunnel system!”
Dean looks down into it and wrinkles his nose, thinking about trying to follow a shifter through a small tunnel full of…. “If so, it’s gonna be slimy…and gross…”
“Well, I climbed onto the rusty roof and risked tetanus, so I think it’s your turn.” Sam holds a hand out at the well in a go ahead motion with a shit-eating grin.
“Uh, hell no. I’m going back to the farmhouse to check on the family, make sure it didn’t circle back."
Sam shrugs and holsters his gun. “Fine. I’ll go.”
Dean grabs him by the shoulder. “No.”
Sam brushes him off and rolls his eyes so hard that it makes Dean hope he sprains something. “Dude, why would you say you’re not going just to argue about it when I say I’ll go?” He mimics Dean’s argument from earlier.
“I meant that neither of us should go, bitch.”
Sam huffs. “Jerk.” Sam looks down the well. “I know it’s a long shot, but I still feel like one of us should, just in case.”
Dean looks at him deadpan.
“Dean…”
“Okay, then I’m going.” Dean looks down and shoves his gun back into the waist of his jeans…stupid little brother and his stupid puppy dog eyes—he’d always win any argument with Dean, law student or not. And if the shifter is down there, he’s not sending Sammy in. He’s just gotten him back—he’d missed him so damn much off at Stanford—and then with Dad in the wind…well, he’ll be damned if he lets something happen to Sam.
“You got silver on you? Mine’s in the car.” Sam rolls his eyes and scoffs. “I’ve got plenty of salt though if you wanna season him.”
Dean huffs a laugh. “Yeah, a few silver bullets in the bottom of my clip that I keep there just in case of shit like this.” He feels his pockets to check for his flashlight, hand bumping against the weird marble thing that Bobby had given him, saying it was some kind of good luck charm from Japan. He looks back up at Sam. “You got signal out here?” Sam nods. “Good. Call that family and tell them to stay holed up in the house together, in the same room, where they can see each other at all times, so no one can get swapped out. Tell them to open the door for nobody, not even us…and if they have any silverware that’s actually silver, they should grab it. He throws a leg over the wooden edge of the well and judges the distance. “And see if you can find a damn ladder or rope or something. It’s not too far to jump, but climbing out’s gonna be a bitch.”
With that, Dean swings his other leg over and straightens, falling into the well.
He never hits the bottom.