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Sam
The Impala pulled up next to Jody and her sheriff cruiser. The doors creaked as Sam and Dean stepped out of the car and into the light rain, their suits dampening instantly.
"You boys are a sight," Jody said as she stepped around the cruiser to greet them.
"Jody. How's the shoulder?" Sam asked, remembering their last encounter--wow, only five months ago. Felt like longer.
Jody shrugged. "Eh, only aches when it rains. How you boys been?"
"Peachy," Dean said curtly at the same time Sam said "Touch and go."
Jody nodded solemnly. "I know the feeling."
"So, what you got for us?" Dean asked eagerly after an awkward stretch of silence.
Jody turned around and opened the trunk of her car to reveal a body stuffed in next to its decapitated head. Sam scanned the area for civilians before bending down and pressing a finger to its gum. A vampire fang slid out. "Yeah, that's a vamp all right."
"I don't know, Sammy. Looks like Jody might not need our help anymore," Dean said, smirking.
"Oh, they grow up too fast," Sam replied with a grin.
"Don't they?"
It felt easy to banter with Dean, almost like things were before this whole mess with Gadreel and the Mark. Sam found that he didn't mind that at all.
"Yeah, joke all you want. There's more where this came from," Jody said.
Dean
So, they were dealing with a nest, and these vamps had a runaway bloodslave. Just more motivation to kill the sick bastards, then.
Dean and Sam were approaching the last abandoned house on their list of possible vampire nests, and this one seemed like a viable contender. Large, rundown, out of the way... a perfect breed-and-feed.
The boys cautiously entered the house, examining the area with their flashlights. The building was obviously lived in, as there were beds made on the floor and food in the kitchen.
"This place is foreclosure, right?" Dean asked.
"Yep. Just like the rest of them," Sam said.
"Well, somebody's squatting here," Dean said, gesturing at the beds and the kitchen.
Sam pointed his flashlight at the windows, which were covered in a black film. "Blackout windows."
Both boys turned at the sudden sound of machinery outside. They went out back and saw a man feeding something into a wood chipper...which was spraying blood everywhere. Sam started forward, but Dean put his hand out, shaking his head. He signaled with his hands: I'll distract, you get him from behind.
Dean approached the vampire, not bothering with stealth. "Hey! Hey, you need a hand with that?" The vamp turned the wood chipper off and Dean noticed a bloody hand sticking from the teeth of the machine. He chuckled dryly. "Oh, I guess not."
The vampire turned and bared his teeth, but Sam jumped in and hit him over the head with a shovel before he could make another move.
Dean paced in front of the tied up vampire--who's name turned out to be Dale--holding his machete casually. "You go out with the family, bring home a nice dinner. How did you get stuck doing the dishes?"
"We all have our roles to play," Dale said.
"Yours being destroying the evidence, yeah? Nice job. Ralph Hedges. Stacy Kepler. Any reason you targeted them?" Sam asked.
"Yeah. Hunger."
Dean stopped pacing, feeling along the ridged edge of his blade. "And so, the family's what? Out taking a nice after-dinner stroll?"
"Oh, I'm sure they'll be back real soon," Dale growled.
"What I asked was..." Dean grabbed Dale's hair and jerked his head up so they were eye-to-eye. "Where are they?"
Dean's blood-covered fist landed directly in Dale's abdomen, knocking the breath out of the vampire. He hung limply from his chains, and Dean took a step back. He could do this all day. Kind of wanted to, actually.
"You don't want to talk. No skin off my back. 'Cause you see, a blood-sucking, body-chipping vamp--that's bad enough, but vamps that kidnap kids... Well, I'm going to enjoy putting you down."
"Of course. Oh, I knew this was about Alexis. I warned mama that girl would screw everything up for us one day," Dale moaned.
Dale eagerly told them everything they wanted to know about Alex; apparently he wasn't too fond of "little sis". But this left them with an unforeseen issue. Jody was alone with a loyal vamp lure, and had no idea what kind of danger she was in.
The brothers went out to the porch, leaving Dale strung up in the house. Sam called the police department and Dean was about to try calling Jody again when his phone rang.
"Jody?"
"Dean, what's up?"
"Listen to me. The vamps knew that Alex went to Sioux Falls, okay? They're probably already there. We're on our way there next. But there's something else. There's something about Alex."
"It can wait. They're here."
"What?"
"At the cabin. Now."
"We're on our way."
"Hurry," Jody said right before she ended the call.
Dean pocketed his phone. "She hung up."
"We moving?" Sam asked.
"Yeah. Meet you outside." He had a job to finish first.
Dean went back into the house and stalked towards Dale, brandishing his machete. Without missing a beat, Dean sliced off the vampire's head in one swift motion. All he felt was satisfaction as the body crumpled and the head fell to the ground.
Sam
Sam struggled against his bindings as he watched the vamps dump his unconscious brother on the floor. He stopped when he felt a shotgun barrel pressing against his skull.
This was supposed to be easy. In and out. Instead, he was a captive, Dean was dead to the world, and Jody was nowhere to be seen.
"Hell of a sight to come home to...brother lying dead on the floor," the vampire--Conner, Sam thought--said. He rammed the butt of the gun into Sam's stomach, and he couldn't suppress a groan of pain.
"No idea it was a Winchester that had done it. So, which one of you was it? Which one of you took off my brother's head?" Conner was yelling by the end. He walked around Sam so he was facing him. "Was it you?" he asked, pointing the gun at the younger Winchester. "Was it him?" Sam tried not to move as Conner pointed the gun at Dean, tried not to look him in the eyes. He didn't say anything.
Regardless of Sam's silence, Conner leveled his gun at Dean's head, watching Sam's face. "Pretty fitting--brother for a brother." Not getting the reaction he wanted, Conner set down his gun, leaving one of the other vamps to stand over Dean, ready to shoot if he stirred.
"This place has been a good home to us. But since you two had to come around and ruin it, we're gonna have to hit the road and find a new one. And when we hit the road..." Conner lifted a bucket and smiled maliciously. "We like to pack a lunch."
Sam's vision blurred as a struggled to keep his hold on consciousness. His blood was being drained at an alarming rate; they were already on their second pint jar.
Conner stood from where he'd been crouched next to Sam. "Tapped this keg. Get the short-haired one ready. Time to finish this."
The other vampire gave Dean a vicious kick in the back. Dean grunted, but didn't appear to wake. They put their gun down and grabbed Dean's hair to pull him up, but before they could Dean's eyes snapped open and he stabbed a syringe of dead man's blood into the vamp's neck. He pushed down the plunger and grabbed the machete from the floor as he got to his feet.
Before Dean could make another move, Conner rushed him and pinned him up against the wall with his machete at Dean's throat. Dean held the blade away from himself, then glared as he began pushing it away. He suddenly swung Conner around with unnatural strength and forced the machete slowly towards the vampire's neck.
Sensing his defeat, Conner avoided Dean's gaze. Dean's face twisted into a snarl. "Look at me. Look at me, bitch!" he yelled.
Conner glared back at Dean, and the hunter shoved the blunt end of the machete into his neck. He kept it there for a moment as he watched the life bleed from the vamp's eyes. Then, with one final push, Dean severed Conner's head from his body.
Dean stood there for a second, then dropped the blade and ran over to Sam.
Sam couldn't process what had just happened, but he knew it wasn't good. He could see Dean's hands shaking as he struggled to remove Sam's bindings, the anger in his eyes replaced by fear and worry.
"Dean," Sam groaned. Trying to convey What the hell was that? and Don't worry about me, where's Jody?! all in one word.
"Yeah, I know. You wouldn't have done the same for me," Dean said as he worked on taking the tubing out of Sam's arm.
Sam could barely think straight, but he knew that wasn't what he meant. "No. Jody," he managed weakly.
Dean met Sam's eyes, his expression saying something along the lines of Oh, shit. He sped up his efforts to free Sam. They had a sheriff to save.
Turned out Jody was fine on her own, and she was right about Alex too. Sure, she'd done some shady crap, but hadn't they all?
It was two days after they'd left the nest, and Sam had spent most of that time out cold at Jody's place. He was finally back up on his feet, and ready to head back to the bunker.
Sam met Dean at the Impala, standing to the side once they were done loading their bags. Sam was first to break the comfortable silence.
"Nice work back there." He nodded in the general direction of the nest. He raised an eyebrow as he looked back over at Dean. "'Look at me, bitch'?"
"Well, hey, you got another snappy one-liner, I'm all ears," Dean said nonchalantly.
"What I'm saying is--it looked to me like you were enjoying it. Maybe too much," Sam ventured.
Suddenly Dean was defensive, maybe even a little angry. "And?" He glared at Sam. "Well, sorry for not putting on a hair shirt. Killing things that need killing is kind of our job. Last I checked, taking pleasure in that is not a crime."
"Right, but..." Sam was thankfully interrupted by Jody just then, because he had no idea what he was going to say.
Once they said their goodbyes, the brothers were back on the road. Sam found himself glancing worriedly at Dean as his brother stared intently at the road. He seemed to be catching himself doing that a lot lately.
Things were getting out of hand, and had been ever since Dean got the Mark. He could see that now. He just had no idea what the hell he was supposed to do about it.
Dean
Dean felt his anger slowly fade to weariness, as it so often did these days. His head ached, and he was overly conscious of his brother glancing at him when he thought he couldn't see.
"He would not trade his life for yours."
"Fine. You want to work? Let's work. But if you want to be brothers..."
Strangely enough, these thoughts didn't bother Dean as much as they had before.
So they weren't brothers? Fine. They didn't need to be. He had to remember his goal, his mission. But it was becoming less and less about killing Abaddon and more and more about the feel of the First Blade in his grip, the rush of strength and adrenaline as he would shove the Blade through the demon's heart.
Dean gazed at the road ahead of him, not really seeing it.
Killing Abaddon would be a new beginning, one way or another. He just had to keep his focus.
Easy.