black water ridge, colorado
nov. 11, 2005 // midday
𝐃𝐄𝐀𝐍 𝐖𝐈𝐍𝐂𝐇𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐑𝐀𝐑𝐄𝐋𝐘 felt like he was a bleeding-heart hero. He was typically responsible for peeling Sammy away from this sort of empathy, general decency, human-kindness branch of existence that did not leave its doors open for hunters. Now, the roles were reversed, and it was Dean who felt backed into a corner.
He'd gotten the impression — perhaps incorrectly — that Fitz was of a similar stern calling: always nagging him on how he treated the witnesses and being a stickler for professionalism. At least Fitz seemed concerned for Hailey and Ben's well-being. But Sam's vision was tunneled in on finding Dad. He called it babysitting, the idea of protecting two civilians out in the woods. This wasn't babysitting.
Dean would know.
He stowed away the thought as he drove the impala up the gravel driveway, approaching the three people standing out by the road market. Hailey and Ben he recognized, but the older male was unfamiliar. The stranger was stooped under his trunk, cleaning a Remington 7400 with an old microfiber cloth.
Dean parked the car and the three of them got out. Dean and Sam hadn't exactly dressed for the excursion, but Fitz had. Back in Palo Alto, she'd blown at least two-hundred on a week's worth of clothes, not including a fake-FBI monkey suit and the hunting attire she'd donned this morning before the crack of dawn: dark brown fusion hunter pants, a zip-up camo windbreaker, and a ratty maroon baseball cap with leather shooting gloves. Her shotgun was assembled and strapped to her back with a hunting knife in a sheath on her thigh. Both gleamed in the dim morning light. Dean carried their "provisions" in a duffel — M&M's and Slim Jim's — but she brought her own canteen, attached to her belt. The most shocking thing about it all was that her hair was actually brushed and pulled back into a ponytail.
A real stickler for professionalism.
"You guys got room for three more?" Sam asked as he shut the door, tossing his canvas duffel over his shoulder.
"Wait, you wanna come with us?" Hailey glanced between the three of them, her eyes narrowing at Fitz like she'd come up with the idea. She had.
"Who are these guys?" The guide inquired skeptically, giving each of them a lookover. He didn't look too impressed with Dean and Sam, but Fitz earned a terse nod of surprised approval.
"Apparently, this is all the park service could muster up for a search-and-rescue, Roy," Hailey huffed.
Roy didn't seem convinced. "You're rangers?"
"That's right," Dean said with a thumbs up. Sam snuck around behind him towards Ben, clearly trying to avoid the conversation and the suspicion that came with it.
Hailey put a hand on her hip and arched a brow. "And you're hiking out in biker boots and jeans?"
"Well, sweetheart, I don't do shorts." The smartass response came all too easily. Dean smirked at Roy before making his way over to Sam.
If the older Winchester expected to have the last word, Roy proved him wrong. "You think this is funny? It's dangerous backcountry out there. Her brother might be hurt."
Dean looked back at Fitz, expecting some sort of snarky expression that said I told you so. But she wasn't even looking his way. She was ogling Roy's gun like it was a pin-up. "Believe me." Dean hitched the strap of his bag. "I know how dangerous it can be. And if it makes you feel better, buddy," he pointed to Fitz, who finally dragged her eyes away to stare at Dean. "She's taking it seriously enough for the three of us."
Her eye twitched at the jab. "We're just trying to help, sir. The more the merrier, right?"
"If you say so," Roy grumbled, shouldering his own rifle.
They set off into the woods shortly after that. Roy took the lead with a sort of arrogant stiffness that seemed to offend Dean on a primal level. It didn't take him more than an hour of trudging through the woods before he decided to challenge the guide.
"So, Roy," Dean said as they waded through the thicket, keeping close pace with Fitz. "You said you did a little hunting."
"Yeah, more than a little," the older man said tartly, making note of a broken tree stump as they passed it by.
Fitz took a long stride and got in front of Dean as if she could sense a fight brewing. Her break action sat open at her hip, a loaded shell in each barrel: one silver, one salt. Dean found that her revolver was strangely absent, and wondered if his snide comment from yesterday had convinced her to leave it behind.
He ignored the idea and took another big step, leaning in front of Fitz, now in the lead again. "What kind of furry critters do you hunt, Roy?"
The guide didn't miss a beat, slowing the pace to survey the area. "Mostly buck, sometimes bear."
Dean stifled a snicker and took Roy's sudden lethargy as a chance to take charge. He sped up and grinned. "Tell me, uh... Bambi or Yogi ever hunt you ba—ghk!"
Fitz yanked him backwards by the handle of his backpack. He stumbled and nearly broke his neck turning to face her, accusations written all over his face. She maintained eye contact with him as she lifted a stick with the toe of her boot and tossed it a few inches forward.
A bear trap snapped it clean in half, and Dean winced.
"You're right," Roy said, adjusting one of his backpack straps with a sneer. "She is taking it seriously enough for the three of you."
With that, he surged forward again, and Fitz let Dean go with a sigh. He made a show of stepping over the bear trap. "I saw it, you know."
She shrugged in response and kept going. After that, Dean made no other attempts to get out in front of her, lest she be the one to take his foot off. At some point, their hours of silence broke as Dean and Hailey started to lag behind. The Collins girl voiced her suspicions as to their real reason for joining this motley crew. Fitz didn't attempt to engage, but she caught the tail end of their conversation.
"Sam and I are brothers. We're looking for our father. He might be here... we don't know."
"And what about... Fitz?"
A pause. "She's like Roy. A trail guide. Doesn't matter... I just figured that you and me..."
Fitz turned the rest of it out, breaking into a jog to catch up with Roy. He acknowledged her with a curt nod and then set his eyes back on the trail. "Is your name really Fitz?" He paused to reconsider his question. "It's just... it's a bit silly."
"Everyone calls me Fitz," she said, unzipping her windbreaker and tying it around her waist, nimbly stepping over a gnarled root stuck six inches in the air. "Watch your step," she called back. Dean and Sam jerked to attention and then kept their eyes on the ground beneath them.
Roy hitched the strap on his gun. "So, how'd you get caught up with these greenhorns?" When she didn't respond, he nudged her left shoulder, which had finally healed from that nasty gunshot wound. "I know all the fellas with the park service, and most of 'em know a bear trap when they see one. Or when they don't see one, rather."
Fitz scanned the treeline from beneath the rim of her baseball cap. "It's a long story."
"Well, we've got some time to kill."
Nosy, aren't we? Fitz quirked her lips in reluctance, passing her tongue over them. "Let's save the ghost stories for when we set up the campfire and sing Kumbaya. And maybe make smores... I'm feeling peckish."
As if on cue, her stomach growled loudly. Roy side-eyed her, before power-walking in front of her. She shook her head in resignation as the group fell into uncomfortable silence until Roy suddenly stopped short in a random clearing. Fitz mimicked him a split second later.
"We're here," Roy said, examining his battery-operated GPS. "Black Water Ridge."
"What coordinates?" Sam chirped from the back.
Roy turned the device to Fitz, and she read them out.
"Thirty-five, negative one-oh-eight."
She looked back at Sam and Dean, watching as their expressions went from determined to crestfallen in three seconds flat. Dean's brows knitted together and Sam's lips dragged down as they looked around for any indication that their father had been here, maybe another pair of coordinates slashed into a nearby tree trunk.
But there was nothing. John Winchester led the three of them into the middle of a supernatural hunting ground with two civilians and a hunter of the wrong denomination.
Fitz was really starting to hate this guy.
So John was gone with the wind, as were the sounds of the forest. The woods bloomed green, plants and roots infesting the muddied trail with fronds and curls of ivy, knuckly-knobs of rooting undergrowth. The air was ice-cold and humid, freezing dewdrops on the leaves, painting frost on the ridged pine trunks.
A fog was beginning to settle overhead, blanketing the canopy, suffocating sunlight and trapping them all in a dreary gray.
And it was silent. Dead silent.
"Not even crickets," Sam murmured.
Dean's jaw was set, his hands shoved into the pockets of his dad's leather jacket. Roy tucked away his GPS receiver and took his gun off his shoulder, wiping his custom scope dry of moisture. "I'm gonna go take a look around."
"I'll come with you." Fitz snapped her shotgun shut with a well-oiled click. "Buddy system."
"Nah," Roy gestured to Sam, Dean and the Collins siblings. "They need someone to watch their back. Don't worry, I'll be back before you start roasting marshmallows."
He didn't give Fitz a chance to respond before tramping back into the forest, his silhouette disappearing into the greenery. Dean scoffed and turned to Fitz, who looked somewhat irritated. "You're hitting it off Mike Vronsky over there."
"That film wasn't particularly accurate. You know, historically." Fitz broke her gun open and scratched her cheek. She leaned in closer to him. "If you have a problem with me being friendly, you should cut your causerie with Hailey. No one likes a man with double-standards."
Hailey spoke before Dean could retort. "Let's just keep going, okay?"
So they did. Fitz certainly hated these long gaps of silence, but at least she could busy herself by identifying the types of flora scattering the ground: kinnikinnick, mountain muhly, golden banner and yarrow, bristlecone pines and Engelmann spruces, honeysuckle and euonymus vines. There were no animals to pick out between the branches — some other beast hunted here, and they stayed far, far away.
Once she'd identified everything, she counted steps and recalled papers she'd read on the supernatural creatures that occupied forests, refining her checklist of creatures, keeping an eye out for any indicators. She'd figured out the hard way that certain creatures didn't give off supernatural energy: mostly transformative ones, culture-specific. Rugarus. Kohontas. Diablesses. Tulpas. Wendigos.
In Callahan's words: if they didn't spring from Hell, you won't be able to tell.
And even then...
She pushed the thought away, nails digging into the creases of her hands. She'd already entertained the idea that a demon had killed Jess, but she would've been able to sense it. From the limited experience she'd had with them, those things give off energy like atom bombs. Migraine-inducing, vision-blurring, skin-splitting energy like being doused in hellfire. And the way Jessica'd been killed was —
"Fitz! Over here!"
She'd never been so happy to hear someone call her name with such terrible urgency. All heads snapped to the sound, and five pairs of feet dashed towards Roy's gruff voice.
He'd found the campsite. Or what was left of it.
"Oh, my God," Hailey whimpered, pulling Ben close to her.
The tent was ripped to shreds, chairs upended, fire doused, coolers empty and leaking ice water. Just above the tent's eviscerated entry flap was a dripping splash of blood. And then another on the side, and another on the nearby tree trunks. Crimson was smeared on the leaves near Fitz's foot, leaving an almost-invisible trail into the bushes to their right.
Roy made note of the destruction. "Looks like a grizzly."
The six of them spread out across the small clearing, and Fitz crouched in front of the cluster of logs that used to be a fire. Her fingers touched the wood and came back wet. The kindling hadn't burned itself out... it had been drenched by one of the coolers. Whatever attacked Tommy and his friends was intelligent; hardly news given the mechanical timing of the attacks.
But it had snuffed out the light. That was unusual. She decided to include vampires in her list and crossed out kohontas, skinwalkers, werewolves and a few others. The chenoo was looking likely again, as was the wendigo. Neither of those options put her at ease.
"Tommy?" Hailey dropped her backpack to the ground and began to frantically circle the site. "Tommy!"
Sam caught her by the forearm and pressed a finger to his lips. "Something might still be out there."
"Hey, Sam! Cujo!" Dean's voice rang from behind the treeline. Fitz tensed almost immediately, and then rubbed the bridge of her nose at what he called her. He seemed severely allergic to referring to her correctly: she would've taken Erin over the name of some rabid dog from an 80s movie. It pissed her off, but she followed Sam anyway.
They both sat on their haunches beside Dean, who was examining the blood-stained tracks in the dirt. "The bodies were dragged from the campsite." Highlight vampires and wendigoes. Cross out chenoo and rugaru. Thank God. "But here, the tracks just vanish." Cross out vampires, reconsider augerino's burrowing techniques. "It's weird, I'll tell you that." Dean got up as Fitz reached out and touched the bloodied dirt. "It's no skinwalker or black dog."
The dirt wasn't freshly upturned, still packed down hard from years of traversal by wildlife and campers. Fitz rubbed the soil between her fingers. "It's a wendigo."
Dean looked down at her, and he could see she looked like she was biting back a scream. He raised his brow. "You've gotta be kidding me. You know we're in Colorado, right?"
Fitz's eyes went wide and her jaw fell open. She stood up and batted her eyes in a ditzy manner. "Are we really? I mean..." She tapped her lower lip and looked around. "Jeez, that's surprising. Who was it that found the coordinates that led us here? Couldn't have been me, right?" She dropped the act, her expression stone-cold. "Oh, that's right. It was me."
She stored past him and returned to the campsite, and Dean looked over at Sam. "What's her deal?"
His younger brother just scoffed and followed her back to the campsite. He kicked some dirt on his way, approaching Hailey, who was clutching her brother's bloodied satellite phone with a trembling chin and glossy eyes. Roy still patrolled the perimeter, his gun mounted and his cheek pressed tight to the comb. He looked like he wanted to shoot something.
Fitz moved for Dean's duffel bag and pulled out his bag of M&M's, shoveling some into her mouth as her stomach growled again. As soon as she did, a scream split the silent forest air.
"HELP! HELP ME!"
Fitz immediately mounted her shotgun, stuffing the chocolates in her pocket as the barrel snapped shut. Her cheek pressed to the comb and she swiveled to face the voice.
"PLEASE! SOMEBODY HELP ME! OH, GOD! IT'S COMING! IT'S — HELP!"
Everybody took off in that direction, but Fitz held back, still shifting her stance in the center of the campsite, her eyes on the trees. Dean slowed to a stop at the treeline, turning back to face her. She didn't spare a glance at him as she spoke. "If it's a wendigo, you could all be walking into a trap."
Dean looked at her. "And you're leaving yourself alone. Who do you think has a better chance of making it out in one piece?"
Fitz paused and lowered the gun in dismay. After a beat, she followed Dean into the forest, her lips tugged down in an irritated grimace.
⌖
On the whole, Dean hated being wrong. It didn't sit well with him. But he was coming to realize that he hated something else even more: Fitz being right.
By the time they'd sprinted back to camp, he'd had enough time to process that and then some.
All their stuff was gone, save for the questionable amount of paraphernalia strapped to Fitz's extremities. Their provisions, cell phones, Roy's GPS, so on and so forth. His bag of provisions was nowhere to be found. The cumulative total of the Winchester's supplies was whatever Dean had stuffed into his jacket: a lighter, a bottle opener, and sixteen cents of change.
Fitz shouldered her gun and walked over to Dean, unzipping her windbreaker and pulling something out. She pressed a yellow bag of M&M's into his chest. He grabbed it and looked at it, and she pulled a few of the candies out of her pocket and began to eat them. Dean wanted to make a snide comment about her hitherto-healthy sort of diet, but instead turned away from him and pawned the bag off to Sam.
"I don't want your candy," his brother grumbled, even as he put it into the inner pouch of his Carhartt jacket.
"Okay," Fitz said after a moment, glancing over at Roy, Hailey and Ben. "No more fooling around. This thing's... it's smart. It's gonna pick us off one by one and make sure we can't call for help."
"It?" Roy asked, still catching his breath. "This ain't a monster, kid. This is some sort of... nut job who's got it out for us."
"If that's what will make you take it seriously, then yes, it's a homicidal mountain man," Fitz said, turning away from Roy and kneeling down next to the fire. She pulled a lighter out of her pants pocket and cupped her hand against it. "Gather some kindling, would you? Don't leave the clearing."
Roy's eye twitched at being ordered around by a woman half his age, but eventually followed the Collinses in their brief search for firewood. Sam grabbed Dean by the crook of his elbow and led him a few feet away from the campsite, out of earshot from Fitz and the others.
Sam crossed his arms and faced Dean with a stern expression. "It's a wendigo."
"Yeah, sounds about right," Dean said, looking back at Fitz's hunched figure by the fire.
His brother narrowed his eyes, jaw clenching and unclenching. "So it's okay when I say it, but not Fitz?"
"Yes," Dean said, turning his attention back to Sam, whose face fell at the certainty in Dean's voice. "Don't be like that. I'd pick your call over hers any day."
Sam studied his face for a moment, the dots connecting in his brain. "This is about Callahan."
Dean rolled his eyes. "Whatever makes you feel better, Sammy." Seeing that his brother didn't seem any less frustrated, Dean patted Sam on the shoulder with a rictus grin. "We can talk about it later. After we kill this thing."
Sam swallowed his response and followed his brother back to the campsite, where Fitz was sitting by the small flame that she was constantly blowing on to keep alive. Roy was next to her, perching on one of the coolers, clutching his Remington. They seemed to be deep in conversation.
"Whatever's out there, I think I can handle it," Roy said, his fingers tapping his gun as if that proved his point.
"Roy," Fitz exhaled into the fire, watching as golden speckles of flame appeared on the blackened kindling. "You're getting paid to protect these people, not to go hunting for this thing. If we can all just do our jobs" — she looked pointedly at Dean and Sam — "we'll make it out of here in one piece."
Roy's lip curled. "In what world do you have more experience than me, girl? I mean, lookatcha. You're hardly a hunter."
Dean expected Fitz to make light of the jab, maybe smile and offer some of her politely demeaning insults. Or maybe she'd yell at him with an airtight sort of lecture that left Roy feeling like she'd backhanded him. Or just leave with a polite nod.
But she just stared at him. Stared and stared and kept on staring. And then Dean saw her haunches tense, her shoulders square, her fists curl, and he lurched forward to get between her and Roy. "Alright, ladies, let's cool our jets."
He could see the fire reflecting in her eyes as she stared at him, before quickly getting to her feet. "Sure thing." Dean could still see the tension between her shoulder blades, written across her set jaw. But the dead giveaway was her face: still perfectly neutral. Unnervingly so. She turned to Hailey and Ben "Alright, our GPS is gone, but I've got a compass." She flipped open a leather cap on her belt to reveal it, arrow jerking left and right. "We're leaving in the morning."
"I'm not going anywhere," Hailey said sharply, her gaze locked on Fitz. "Tommy might still be alive, and I'm not leaving here without him."
"Then you might not leave here at all," Fitz said evenly, watching as Hailey seemed to shrink. "This thing is an apex predator. It's probably watching us now. Where the hell did you get the idea that you can save your brother when you can't even hold a gun?"
Dean blinked twice, turning to look at Fitz with his brows knit in disbelief. He didn't know her well, but what he did know was that those were not her words coming out of her mouth, because he'd heard the exact same thing before, from a man behind closed doors on a muggy summer night in Arizona, dragged by Midwestern slur and a cold, accusing authority that made Dean's shoulders instinctively square.
Where the hell did you get the idea that you can avenge your wife when you can't even protect your kids, John?
Suddenly, Fitz's aggression made sense. Too much sense. Dean saw the hurt in Hailey's eyes and stepped forward, pushing his thoughts back. "It's getting late. Let's settle in and protect ourselves, figure out where to go from there. Let's get dinner going, if we can. Sam —"
"Got it," his brother said, picking up a stick from the ground and catching Dad's journal as Dean tossed it his way, flipping it open and beginning to draw Anasazi sigils on the ground around the site. Roy gave Dean a hard look before breaking off to look for some small game for dinner.
Hailey broke eye contact with Fitz and turned to give Ben a long hug and kiss on the forehead. The affectionate gesture seemed to take the life out of Fitz, her eyes wide and glossy as she watched them, her chin trembling.
He should've asked her what just happened. Even better, he should've told her that they needed to talk. But instead he just walked away, and didn't spare her a glance as she walked over to her shotgun, broke it open, and began to clean, clean, and clean some more.
⌖
Nightfall came suddenly. The clouds gave no warning by way of sunset, just the sudden droop from gray to blue-black, midnight hues casting silvery gleams on the poles of the ravaged tents and the polished barrels of Fitz and Roy's guns.
Everyone sat around the fire as Dean finished scribbling sigils on the outer edge of the camp. Roy watched him with a derisive sneer and occasional jeer at how Dean needed to be tossed into a loony bin. Fitz tucked herself just outside the firelight, still cleaning her gun and making eye contact with no one.
Sam was just about the same, stationed outside the circle on the opposite side of camp, hunched over and staring at the ground. Dean couldn't shake the feeling that he'd screwed everything up somehow, because Sam looked like John and Fitz looked like Callahan.
He didn't even know what Callahan looked like, but he heard him in her voice when she got angry, and he saw him in her eyes whenever her dark irises found his own. That man who John cursed as an inexperienced, selfish bastard who didn't know how to work a job without getting someone killed... he saw him in her. Nobody had hurt his father like that before, physically or emotionally. Nobody. And now he had to sit and tolerate working with his student, raised on the same methods that had his father bleeding out on the floor while twelve-year-old Sam wept in the motel hallway.
Dean settled down next to his brother, his eyes still lingering on the girl with Callahan's eyes, that wordless admission that Sam was right: Dean still hung himself on the meat hooks of his past because it was easier than having to move on from it.
And then he turned his attention to Sam, letting that thought fall away once again. "Alright," Dean said, putting his foot out to stop Sam from digging a hole in the ground. "Wanna tell me what's going on in that freaky head of yours? And don't say you're fine, 'cause you're not."
Sam gnawed on his lip. "Dad's not here." He tossed his stick away. "I mean, that much we know for sure, right? He would've left us a message? A sign?"
So that's what this is about. "Yeah, you're probably right. To tell you the truth, I don't think Dad's ever been to Lost Creek."
"Then let's get these people back to town," Sam said in a low voice, meeting Dean's eyes. He didn't look like John now. "And let's hit the road, go find Dad. I mean, why are we still even here?"
Dean pressed his lips together, lacing his hands and looking back to camp. Then he squatted down and pulled Dad's journal out. "Because of this. The most important thing Dad's ever owned, and he handed it over to us. He wants us to pick up where he left off — saving people, hunting things, the family business." Sam didn't look reassured. "And because..." Dean chewed the words for a moment. "He gave us a job to do, and I intend to do it."
Sam's voice was soft enough to rumble in his throat, his eyes so overshadowed they almost seemed pitch black. "Dean... no. I gotta find Dad. I gotta find Jessica's killer. It's — it's the only thing I can think about. I got" — his voice cracked, and Dean winced — "I got her sister killed, Dean. I — I told her I could keep Jess safe and I —"
"Okay, alright," Dean said, almost hastily. "Sam, we'll find them. I promise. But listen to me. You've gotta prepare yourself. This search... it could take a while. And all that anger: you can't keep it burning over the long haul. It's gonna kill you."
"I don't..." Sam's shoulders sagged. "I don't understand how Dad does it. How you do it."
I don't. "Well, for one... them," Dean said, looking at Ben and Hailey huddled beneath the remains of a tent, holding each other tight. "I mean, I figure our family's so screwed to hell, maybe we can help some others. Makes things a little more bearable. And... you know what else helps? Killing as many evil sons of bitches as we possibly can."
Dean smiled, and Sam failed to match the expression as someone cried out for help past the treeline. Fitz was on her feet in an instant. Roy cocked his gun as the Winchester brothers hurried back into the Anasazi ring. Fitz scooped up a large branch and dipped it in the fire, holding its flaming tip in front of her like a staff.
"Alright, everybody stay calm," Dean ordered. "It's trying to draw us out, so... stay together."
"Inside the magic circle?" Roy teased, mounting his gun and aiming down the attached sight. The wendigo's screams tapered off into a growl, and Roy's stance shifted. "That ain't no grizzly."
"Yeah, no fucking shit," Fitz said, the fire flickering across her sharp features. She held her arm out in front of the Collinses. "Stay behind me."
Roy fired several warning shots in the wendigo's general direction, and it let out a wail of pain. "I hit it!" He bounded off into the forest.
"Goddammit," Fitz said, suddenly going very pale. "Don't move, okay?" She offered the campsite a cursory glance, seeming to search for something, before taking off after Roy. Dean was hot on her heels.
She raced through the brush, twigs lashing at her face and snagging on her windbreaker. She held her torch close to her so as to not burn the entire forest down, following the sound of Roy's voice. She heard a gunshot just ahead of her, but when she arrived in the clearing, there was no one to be found.
Fitz spun in a circle around the clearing, eyes wild. "Come on out, you bitch," she said, brandishing her makeshift staff.
A twig snapped to her left, and she whirled to face Dean, his hands in the air. The flaming point of her staff was inches from his chest. "Woah, there. Don't go all Lord of the Flies on me."
She lowered the stick, exhaling through her teeth as Dean scanned the area for any sign of Roy. She swept the torch out in front of them and saw a glint of light near a tree. She approached it cautiously and poked it with the blunt end of her stick, just to make sure it wasn't a bear trap. She bent over and picked up Roy's Remington by its blood-stained shoulder strap.
"That idiot," she said stiffly.
She handed the gun to Dean as she walked past him, and he thought he saw a tear sliding down her jaw as she did, illuminated by the firelight. Dean followed close behind her as they went back to camp, stepping where she stepped so he didn't lose his foot. "He might be alive. Wendigos are slow eaters."
She was silent for so long that Dean wasn't sure she'd even heard him. But then she spoke. "He's dead, Dean. Wendigos don't take well to being shot at. The longer we stick around... the higher the chance we have of finding his corpse dangling from the treetops."
"So you've hunted one before."
"More than one," she said. He thought her voice sounded a little thick. "There was a horde up in Nunavut, five years ago. One of my first jobs, so I'm... I'm nervous, you know? Well, maybe you don't, whatever. Callahan and I are with four other hunters." Dean caught up to her, and she purposely looked the other way. "We were the only ones who made it out."
Sam was waiting for them at the campsite, and Dean felt sharp words forming on his tongue, making his lips twitch. "I—"
"Yeah, I know what you're thinking," Fitz said, swiping at her eye with her thumb. "But it wasn't Callahan. It was me, Dean. I froze up, got scared, got those hunters killed. Callahan was furious with me, right? He-uh..." she laughed briefly. "He told me I probably wasn't cut out for this hunting shit."
I mean, lookatcha, Roy's words echoed in Dean's head. You're hardly a hunter.
She took a deep breath. "Sorry. Talk about unprofessional, right? You should probably explain to Hailey and Ben what happened just now. I don't wanna fuck that up, too."
As she walked off, Dean found he had one last question. "The wendigos — you torched 'em, right?"
She turned back to him, her eyes half-lidded. "What?"
"You lit them up," he repeated, almost a question. "Set them on fire. That's how you kill them."
"No, no... they're scared of fire, but it's not fatal." Fitz was facing him fully now. "The only way to kill them is a silver stake through the heart, then dismembering them with a silver ax."
Dean felt something cold coiling in his gut. "Is that how you iced them?"
"Yeah, that's — that's what you're supposed to do," she said, sounding less sure now. "Callahan said so. He never said..." She trailed off, her gaze catching on a discarded beer bottle.
"Maybe he didn't know." Odd as it felt for him to be speaking on Callahan's behalf, Dean found it far more plausible. The man was inexperienced; his father told him so again and again and again.
But he was the one John had called when he needed help. Not Sam, not Dean, not Bobby or Caleb or Pastor Jim. Professor Louis Callahan.
"Yeah, maybe." Fitz didn't sound like she believed it at all, still staring at the bottle with her knuckles whitening on her staff. "I mean... he's only been hunting for forty years."
Dean's half-hearted smile fell right off his face as she laughed again. What?
She walked off, tossing her stick into the fire and sitting down beside it. As she sat there, her head propped up on her cheeks as she watched the flames with empty eyes, Dean found it all too easy to picture her in Nunavut. Not even old enough to drink, hacking up monsters until her arms were covered in wendigo guts. He didn't like how he could imagine the look in her eyes when she did it: the same one he'd seen back with Constance, that cold you have to do this sort of darkness that his father took care to hide from Sam, but not from Dean.
John had never mentioned that wendigos could be killed by anything other than fire. Callahan had done the exact opposite with Fitz. And that meant something. Maybe it meant everything. Maybe it meant Callahan wasn't as inexperienced as Dean thought. Maybe it meant that Callahan was twice as cold-hearted as John said he was, because he knew who he was hurting and he still did it anyways.
Maybe it meant that Fitz was just the same, because she had his eyes and spoke in his voice. And that, somehow, was a lot worse than inexperience.
⌖
black water ridge, colorado
nov. 12, 2005 // noon
Hailey and Ben were taking the news much better than anyone had expected — no screaming, crying fits as of yet. Sam had shifted gears and was now more than eager to kill this "evil son of a bitch," which meant that the three hunters were in the same boat for the first time, and all of their own volition. Fitz dropped a quick history lesson on wendigoes — what they were, who they used to be, how they became monsters, how they kept their victims alive — and then Dean provided the least grisly way to kill them as Fitz finished off her second jerky stick of the morning.
"Basically... we gotta torch the sucker."
And so they set off. Dean had a canister of gas and a lighter, Sam clutched a molotov, and Fitz brandished a different stick, new and improved with a gasoline-soaked cloth wrapped around a sharpened point. It wasn't long before they discovered bloodied claw marks on certain tree trunks, like the wendigo had been frolicking about after the kill. They followed the strange trail markers out to a small gap in the trees.
"Dean, Fitz," Sam said, his neck craned upwards. The two hunters jogged over to him as he grimaced frustratedly. "I was thinking that these claw prints... so clear and distinct..." He chuckled despite himself, maybe impressed at the wendigo's intelligence. "They were almost too easy to follow."
"Good," Fitz said, sniffing the air and scratching her nose. "It's asking to be charbroiled. Happy to oblige."
As if on cue, a guttural growl silenced the clearing. Something humanoid darted through the treeline to their left. Fitz lifted her spear, head jerking left and right as the wendigo circled them. Her eyes latched onto its figure every now and then, but it gave her and her flaming stick a wide berth.
It let out a keening howl that rattled her bones, followed by a shriek from Hailey that made Fitz jump to attention. Roy's corpse fell from the sky and landed next to Fitz with a wet snap. His neck was twisted all the way around, skin spiraled and bones peeking through the flesh.
And still the wendigo howled.
She vaguely heard Dean telling her to run, and she vaguely felt her feet following his command, leaves crunching under her boots as she, Sam and Ben took off together. At some point, they split, zig-zagging through the trees. Ben tripped over a tree root and fell Hard. Sam spun back to help him, and Fitz watched his back almost instinctively, eyes always moving from one flicker to the next.
Sam pulled Ben to his feet and they kept running, and running, and running left-right-left-right-where-even-were-they-now, and they didn't stop until Ben keeled over, out of breath. Sam's arm wrapped around the younger man's shoulder, holding him up as Fitz scanned the clearing. She could feel adrenaline racing through her veins. She felt hungry.
"Think we lost it?" Sam asked from behind her.
Fitz nodded slowly, still clutching her spear. "Let's hope s..."
She trailed off as she turned back to Sam, Ben, and the hulking, pale-fleshed, sunken-eyed figure that loomed over them with anglerfish-teeth and talon-like hands. Time seemed to slow as she looked at it, her feet glued to the ground, cold sweat dripping down the base of her spine. Suddenly she was five years younger, hearing the blood roaring in her head and drowning everything else out.
Kill it kill it kill it kill it kill it —
She wasn't sure how it knew, but it knew. The monster knew who she was and it knew what she had done to its brethren. It batted Ben away, and the dark-haired teen went sailing into a nearby tree with a sickening crack. Sam whirled to face the creature, and it grabbed him by the throat, lifting him into the air.
Don't kill him — kill it — don't kill him — kill it — don't kill him —
Her body moved, the flaming tip of her spear homing in on the wendigo's sallow flesh, on the gaps between its ribs. But it was gone in a blur, reappearing behind her. She had just enough time to twist her body so it caught her on the side instead of across her spine, leaving five claw marks across her ribcage and catching her temple on the upswing.
She staggered back, blood pouring down her waist now, but she could barely feel it. She couldn't hear a thing, couldn't see anything but the wendigo. She had to kill it. It was still holding Sam in its hand, loosely — it wanted him for food. He'd live. He'd be okay. Her vision was swimming, but she spared a glance at Ben — he was slumped over on his back, was he breathing? A red filter was dripping over her eyes, and she could taste blood.
The monster advanced again, and she could feel her lips forming words, a name, maybe. Callahan. She was backtracking now, on the defense but still ever-searching for an opening, a chance to finish the damn thing. She'd done it before. Many times before. She could throw her spear now, aim for the heart, and her aim would be true —
Don't throw it. Callahan's voice was razor-sharp and unnervingly lucid, like he was standing right behind her. Do not throw it. That spear's the only thing keeping it from snapping your neck like it did Roy.
She kept shuffling back until she collided with something solid. A tree.
Do you want to die now, Erin? No, you don't. So let it take him. Let it take them both. You cannot let it kill you. You have other monsters to kill. Don't you want to avenge Jessica? Avenge your birth family? Nadia? Alan? Rudy? Alyssa? Pete? All those others that you couldn't save?
Stay alive, Erin. You're no good at saving people, but you're good at payback. So do that. Do what I taught you.
She seemed to freeze in place, breath heaving, and the wendigo looked between her bloodied face and her burning spear for a long time. But then it heard two pairs of footsteps trampling along from the southwest, two human voices calling out a human name, and it made a decision to leave, taking Sam and Ben along with it in a flurry of limbs and shadow.
⌖
♫ || i wanna know what love is ► foreigner
Fitz didn't even realize what happened until Dean's face was all up in hers, saying words she didn't fully understand. Her eyes were glazed over briefly, tuning him out until his hand found her shoulder, snapping her back to reality.
"Where's Sam?" He was yelling at her. "Where is Sam?"
"I..." Fitz blinked, looked side to side, entirely disoriented. "He's not... here?"
"No shit he's not here," Dean barked, his hand still on her shoulder. "Where is he?"
Hailey was a few feet behind him, and Fitz felt her fingers loosening on the spear. It fell to her side, the flame extinguished by the wendigo's swift escape. "Where's Ben?" She asked urgently. "Did you see him? I thought — I thought he was with you —"
Everything was coming back in a tidal wave of clarity. It stung like the lashes across her ribcage, the wound on her head that was bleeding into her eye and over her lip. "He was. They — they both were," she said, tipping her head back against the tree trunk. "They — the wendigo took them."
Dean just stared at her. "And you let it?"
"No," Fitz mumbled, feeling his grip tighten as her legs started to give out beneath her. Dean didn't try to hold her up, instead letting her fumble for steadier footing. "No, I... I..." She trailed off, looking at Dean.
And she clearly didn't need to say anything more, because his hand left her shoulder and was quickly replaced by his forearm on her neck, pinning her to the tree.
The pressure against her throat made it hurt to swallow, so Fitz swallowed twice, choking on her exhale.
Dean's eyes were not ablaze like they'd been in Jericho. They were cold, lightless, and certain. So certain. Like she'd just proven his point, but what about?
It didn't matter in the slightest to her, not now. "Come on," she whispered hoarsely, appreciating how the words dragged through her windpipe. "Come on..."
His jaw was clenched, breath hot on her face. He looked like he was trying to fit the words out of his mouth, but they were too big and too angry to get out, so his mouth just formed shapes and odd staccato sounds before finally landing on something substantial.
"You said you weren't him." His voice was all spittle and ire. His eyes were a luminous green. Very pretty. Honestly, really nice. She hadn't noticed that before. "You said you weren't Callahan, and still —"
"Yeah," Fitz breathed, still looking between each of his peridot irises, not thinking about what she was saying, just following the strange voice in her heart that said she needed the hurt.
"Yeah? That's all you got? Yeah? Sam could be dead because of you and—"
The words were out before she could stop them. "Come on, man. Just hit me." Please fucking hit me, please, please, please —
Dean stopped moving. Stopped breathing, even.
And then, to her surprise, he let go of her. She slid down the tree, curling up and cradling her rib. He was just staring at her. Rage. Guilt. Disgust. For both himself and the woman sitting before him. She got the sense that he knew what she was trying to make him do. She got the sense he'd seen what happened at the funeral.
"Sorry." Her voice wasn't more than a croak as she wiped blood from her lips, staring down at her knees. "I'm sorry."
Dean flipped the collar of his jacket up and glowered down at her, feeling the rage festering in his gut, ice-cold and red-hot simultaneously. "Get up."
She froze at the hostility in his voice — a command from an officer, not just a hunter. But then she followed his order, sliding back up the bark and trying to meet his eyes. Then, her fingers fumbled about in her jacket pockets until she produced a small plastic bag of pain pills.
Hailey and Dean watched in uncomfortable silence as Fitz popped the bag open and swallowed three at once, before tossing the bag aside and straightening up, wincing as her wounds stretched across her skin. Dean didn't try to help, but Hailey stepped forward and offered her arm to Fitz.
"I'm okay," Fitz grunted, her gaze unfocused. "I can still kill it. I can still find your brother." She blinked. "Both of your ... brothers."
"You're injured," Hailey said, genuinely concerned. "You shouldn't —"
"Nope, I gotta," she replied with a pained groan, her voice a bit higher and a bit more tense. "They're missing 'cause of me. Gonna save them. That's how it works, mhm."
Hailey looked to Dean for confirmation. The older Winchester looked at Fitz for a moment, before nodding tersely. "Yeah. That's the way it works."
a/n: my computer is broken and wattpad mobile formatting makes me want to commit horrible crimes against humanity. anyways i hope you enjoyed this chapter! don't be a stranger, leave comments!