Now I Know My ABC's  Â
           Summary:      Â
A hurt/comfort romp through the alphabet, one letter at a time from A to Z. Each chapter is a stand-alone one shot. There is hurt, comfort, angst, humor, feels and all around fun.
         Notes:  Â
This chapter is loosely set in Season 1. No particular time reference other than that because our boys were wonderfully uncomplicated back then and it seemed like a good place to start.
And on with the alphabet of Hurt/Comfort we go!
Beta'd by the always awesome JaniceC678 :Dâ Friend and Muse's co-conspirator.
**Follow me on Facebook as "Disasteriffic Kaz" for frequent fic updates or just to chat!
~Reviews are Love~
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 A is for Assault Rifle -
"We should really think about this, Dean." Sam followed his brother across the huge parking lot toward Wal-Mart and sighed when Dean's stride didn't falter. "What if this guy's bad news? There are civilians in there."
"No one's dead, Sammy," Dean said easily and shrugged. "I don't think the dude even knows what he's doing. Look, we'll find him in here, pull him into one of the service hallways or somethin', and have a nice friendly chat and ask him to please give us the cursed pendant and have a nice day."
Sam shook his head. "I have a bad feeling about this."
"Ok, Han. Chill out." Dean chuckled and slowed at the wide, glass doors as they slid open for them. "It's two in the morning. There's like ten people in the whole store. Everything's gonna be fine."
"Famous last words," Sam muttered and followed him inside. "You remember what he looks like?"
Dean sneered over his shoulder at his little brother and rolled his eyes as he walked past a row of empty registers and then stopped, looking at them. "Shouldn't there be somebody up here?"
"Hello?" Sam called and ducked the swing Dean took at his shoulder.
"Shuddup! You wanna announce to the bad guy that we're here?"
Sam snorted. "We're just customers looking for a cashier. How is he going to know any different?"
"Because he's a bad guy and they always know." Dean rolled his eyes as if that should be obvious and strode further into the store. "You wanna announce us any louder or can we get on with the stealthy hunting now?"
Sam chuckled and followed behind his brother. "You know you're not a ninja, right?"
"Ninjas are lame, Sammy. I'm Batman." Dean plucked a Barbie off the shelf beside him and turned, giving it a toss to his brother. "You, on the other hand..."
"Bitch." Dean grinned and rolled out his shoulders. He took a deep breath and heard Sam blow out a long breath behind him, in sync as they quieted and turned their senses into the massive store for any sign of their quarry. It was quiet. There were no sounds of people talking anywhere, which wasn't completely unusual at that hour of the night. What was unusual was the total silence; the music that should have been playing and making Dean's teeth itch was nowhere to be heard. You could have heard a pin drop.
"Too quiet," Sam whispered and even that sounded too loud to him.
Dean gave a nod and stepped cautiously out into a wide aisle that ran the length of the store from front to back. "Ok, I'm with you. I don't like thi..." The sound of a woman's short, sharp cry came from somewhere in the store and Dean froze.
Sam tapped his brother's shoulder and pointed off to their left. He quirked a brow, got a nod in response, and started off to the left, angling at a diagonal toward the back corner of the store. He drew his gun and released the safety and knew without looking that Dean was doing the same. Whatever they had planned to do, the man they were after had just upped the ante if he was hurting civilians.
Dean snapped a hand out and pulled Sam to a halt in front of him before he could step out into a new aisle. He put his head close to his brother's and frowned. "He knew before we even came in here. This asshole knew we were coming in here for him." His voice was a harsh whisper and just loud enough for his brother to hear.
Sam gave a firm nod of agreement. He couldn't understand how Malcolm knew they were after him, but Sam's sixth sense assured him that Dean was right. "How you wanna play this?"
Dean shook his head, thinking furiously. Thanks to the scream, they had a rough idea where Malcolm was but little else. He pulled Sam around and then tapped his own chest, flicking his fingers out to the left towards where they had heard the scream, then tapped Sam and pointed to the right. Sam shook his head with a scowl, and Dean rolled his eyes before shoving Sam off to the right.
Sam inwardly growled as Dean moved away from him and out of sight. He had a bad feeling that splitting up on this job was a mistake. He opened his mouth to call his brother back, snapped it closed, and started off to the right under silent protest. The store was once again eerily quiet and it made Sam's skin crawl. He moved around a display taller than himself and eased out to a narrow aisle. His eyes scanned the racks of clothes and shelves of cheap knick-knacks for any sign of movement but could spot nothing. Still, the little hairs on the back of his neck stood up and insisted there was something he wasn't seeing.
He swallowed down his nerves, brought up his gun again and stepped out into the aisle. Sam froze as Malcolm suddenly appeared, standing up from where he had been hidden behind racks of clothes. "Shit," Sam groaned and took aim at the man. "Malcolm, you don't want to..." Sam's words trailed off as another man and then another rose into view, and Sam's eyes blew wide. Each of them was Malcolm, or a damn perfect copy of the man. He took an involuntary step back as three more appeared and felt his heart thump in his chest as all six men leveled assault rifles at him.
"Oh, crap. DEAN!" Sam bellowed his brother's name and dove out of the aisle as gunfire erupted and echoed through the store. Bullets whizzed past him, hitting shelves and knocking clothes from racks. Sam ran hunched down to keep his head out of sight and went toward the last place he'd seen his brother. He broke out into another aisle and slid onto his back as another Malcolm stepped over him and lowered the muzzle of his assault rifle into his face.
Sam grabbed the man's hand and pulled the gun to the side as it went off. He yelped when he felt the hot metal of the round go into and through his arm. He heard the bullet thunk into the floor behind him, felt chips of tile from the impact slam into his back with sharp, burning pains, and then there was another shot. Malcolm's hand went loose in Sam's grip and the man toppled to the side.
"Sammy." Dean jogged up the aisle and kept his gun trained on Malcolm as his eyes shifted to his brother, narrowing when they saw the blood on Sam's shirt and spreading on the floor. "You alright?"
Sam sat up and slumped forward in relief. "Holy crap, Dean."
"Hey, come on." Satisfied that his brother hadn't received immediately life-threatening wounds,Dean reached down and grabbed Sam's uninjured arm, dragging him to his feet. "We're too exposed here. You see the freakin' pod people? I mean, what the hell?"
"Guess we know what the amulet actually does now," Sam gasped as they moved quickly across the aisle and back among the racks. He let Dean tug him down to the floor as more shots rang out.
"Shit." Dean jerked reflexively. He caught the corner of a counter beside them and overturned it to give them more substantial cover. He flicked his eyes around the jungle of clothing racks and resisted the urge to shoot uselessly each time he saw a hint of movement.
Sam slid his right hand over his lower back and sighed, feeling blood, pain, and the unmistakable sensation of little bits of tile stuck into his skin. "Well, this was a bad idea," he said softly.
"Gee, ya think?" Dean rolled his eyes and resisted the urge to slap his brother for the massive understatement. "We gotta get outta here."
It was Sam's turn to snort. "Why didn't I think of that? Oh, right. I did! Ten minutes before this went to hell!"
"Not helping!" Dean did slap Sam's shoulder then, careful to hit the uninjured one, and smirked at the grunt of pain. He knelt up and peered around the edge of their cover, the overturned counter. "Why'd that Malcolm asshole have to run into friggin' Wally World at two in the damn morning?"
Sam chuckled and reached out to the clothing rack across from them. He caught an elastic strap, jerked it down and flung the lacy, pink bra into his brother's face. "Try a disguise. Maybe you can make it to the front of the store."
"Knock it off." Dean yanked the bra out of his face and smirked as he tossed it aside. He looked back over at Sam and frowned. "How you doin'?"
"Fine," Sam said dismissively and glanced down at his left arm. He was still bleeding and the little holes in the left sleeve of his jacket let him know he was going to be feeling it as soon as the adrenaline wore off. "Bullet went through. It's not that bad."
"Right, 'cause being shot is totally normal." Dean rolled his eyes. "Just let me know if you're gonna pass out or something." He ignored the bitchface Sam shot him and glanced around again, still seeing no sign of any activity. "Alright, I'm tired of this crap." He jerked his head up at the sound of screams from somewhere further back in the store. "Dammit. Come on."
"We need to get the pendant off of Malcolm." Sam followed Dean out into the aisle, steadying himself on a display rack when his head swam, evidence that he'd lost more blood than he thought. He shook his head and drew his gun. "As long as he's wearing it..."
"We're screwed. Yeah, I got that." Dean snorted and kept his own gun up and ready. It was bad enough that some unsuspecting guy had stumbled onto a cursed object, but in typical Winchester fashion, that unsuspecting guy had also been one sick bastard who took way too much pleasure in using it. Dean stiffened when he heard a footstep on the tile at the end of the aisle ahead of them. He waited and fired when the man appeared. The shot took him between the eyes but, rather than topple to the floor and die like a person, the man burst into a cloud of shadows and vanished. "How many of these damn clones can he make?"
Sam shook his head. "No idea; but there's no way he didn't hear that shot."
"In this place?" Dean waved a hand around the massive store. "He'll never pinpoint that with the way it echoed." He scowled and rather than staying in the aisle, he angled in among the racks of clothes and ducked lower. "Probably."
"Reassuring," Sam grumbled and followed along. He had to bend nearly in half to even attempt to keep himself hidden between the racks as they moved. It made his back burn and the bullet holes in his arm pound with renewed pain. It wasn't every day they ran into a guy that could create copies of himself solid enough to hold a damn machine gun. "Where are we going?"
"Last time I saw that jackass, he was heading that-a-way." Dean flung a hand toward the other side of the store, toward the back. "Don't know why he didn't just stay in the damn gun department."
Sam ducked and pulled Dean down with him as gunfire erupted and bullets sprayed over their heads. Screams of terrified shoppers rang out from somewhere in the store. Several displays shattered with the impacts, and clothes and bits of wood and metal rained down on their heads. "'Cause they're already armed?"
"Shuddup. Come on, move." Dean got back to his feet and stuck his head up for a look. He didn't see any of the clones. "Must have been random fire."
Sam picked up the pace, moving past his brother and narrowed his eyes when he heard the heavy tromp of booted feet heading away from them. He reached an aisle and cautiously ducked his head from behind a display for a look. He frowned to find it clear. "Huh."
"Where'd they go?" Dean whispered as he came up alongside Sam and saw no one.
"I don't like this." Sam stepped out into the aisle, started across and ran for it as bullets began to fly. "Crap!" he shouted as chunks of dirty, scuffed linoleum flew up at his feet and ran for the opposite side.
"Go! Go! Go!" Dean followed Sam across the open space and jerked to the side when he felt the sensation of hot metal brush the side of his left ear. He dove between a rack of clothes with his brother and rolled back to his knees with his gun drawn, putting himself between Sam and the aisle. "You good, little brother?"
"No new holes," Sam groaned and rolled up to his own knees. "Few new bruises though. They set a trap for us?"
"This guy is pissin' me off," Dean snarled softly. His head jerked around at the sound of muted laughter from somewhere behind them. "Ok; I am done playin' around. Come on."
"Dean..." Sam sighed and rolled his eyes as Dean took off in a crouch toward the sound of voices. He climbed back to his feet and followed Dean as they moved toward the back of the store. His arm burned with pain, but he pushed it from his mind with their father's voice in his ears. "Put the pain away, Sammy. You can worry about it later when it won't get you dead." That had been one of the louder arguments they had had with Sam demanding to know how being forced to hold two buckets of water out at shoulder height for two damn hours could possibly be a useful skill. Sam smirked to himself as he and Dean moved soundlessly through the forest of clothing racks.
Dean ducked low behind a display and kept moving. His knees and back were starting to complain about the hunched over walking and he refused to consider that he might be getting old. He reached a ceiling-height panel and cautiously stood, using it to hide his presence as he peeked around the side. He narrowed his eyes and ducked back to look at Sam as his brother reached him. "Sporting goods ahead. I can see the fishing rods."
Sam groaned softly. "Awesome. Try not to get a lure stuck in your ass. I'm not pulling it out."
Dean snorted and gave his brother a lopsided grin. "You so would."
"Just... ew. Can we go get the bad guy now?" Despite the pain, Sam couldn't help the smile.
"Stay low," Dean warned his brother unnecessarily and moved away and back among the racks. He reached the edge of another wide aisle and paused, wary of stepping out in the open and making targets of them again.
"We'll move fast," Sam whispered at Dean's back. "Couple seconds to cross..."
Dean scowled but there was little choice. He nodded and stepped out into the aisle. Every hair on his body felt like it stood on end as he moved with quick steps across the six-foot aisle. He reached the other side, turned to check on his brother, and four of the copies of Malcolm popped into view. "Sam!" Dean reached out for him even as the assault rifles began blaring. Bullets whizzed over and around him, tearing through the clothes next to him, and Dean saw Sam throw himself to the side and into the racks as Dean rolled away on his own. He came up in a tangle of track suits and hangers and jerked to his feet. He put two rounds in the nearest copy and ducked away as another hail of gunfire sounded.
"Sammy?" Dean called, seeing little point in trying to sneak up on their target now. He stopped and looked back, glaring at all the clothing racks around him as though they would vanish and show him his brother because he demanded it of them. "Sam!"
"Sporting goods! Aisle five," a man's voice echoed from nearby. "Better come quick or we may need a clean-up here."
Dean flinched and dropped his head. Somehow, Malcolm's goon squad had gotten a hold of Sam during the firefight. Dean could only hope his brother was still alive. "Son of a bitch," Dean ground the words out and started moving again.
"Tick, tock, Winchester!"
Dean heard the snarl that left his mouth at the sound of something heavy hitting flesh and his little brother's bitten off cry of pain. He rolled out the tension in his shoulders and did his best to swallow back the protective, murderous rage that rose up in him. He straightened and stood and wasn't surprised to find four of the goon-copies waiting for him. He fired at each of them, moving his pistol in precise motions and watched as they burst apart into shadows before he started forward again.
The narrow path between shelves of fishing reels gave way to an open area, and Dean stopped. Sam was on his knees on the other side. Blood trickled from Sam's hairline down the right side of his face, and Malcolm - the real Malcolm Dean guessed-stood behind him with the muzzle of a .45 caliber handgun pressed to the back of his brother's head.
Dean's eyes narrowed dangerously, and he brought his own weapon up to sight between Malcolm's eyes. "Let him go."
"Soon as he does," Malcolm said with a dark look.
Dean frowned in confusion and looked at his brother again. Sam's left arm was raised up over his right shoulder like he was holding on to something. Malcolm was bent slightly forward and Dean caught on. He met Sam's eyes and gave him a small nod before looking back to Malcolm. "Got a death grip on your lucky charm, doesn't he? Attaboy, Sammy."
"You have to make it sound dirty?" Sam said in a deadpan voice and managed a smirk over the spinning going on his head. Malcolm had come damn close to knocking him out, but Sam knew his grip on the cursed charm was the only thing keeping him alive. Malcolm couldn't afford to lose it while he was using it.
"Shut up." Malcolm nudged the back of Sam's head with his gun and looked over at the other man. "Tell him to let go of the amulet or I will put a bullet in his brain."
Dean shook his head. "Nope. You shoot him, he yanks that thing off your neck as he goes down, so I know you're not gonna shoot him. Let him go and maybe I don't kill you." He watched Malcolm's face darken angrily and then flinched as Malcolm's clones suddenly stood and strode out of the racks to surround him. Dean turned his head and did a quick count; there were nine of the bastards, all with assault rifles pointed at his chest. Dean took a slow, deep breath and knew he'd never survive it if they fired.
Sam's eyes widened in fear as his brother was surrounded, and he tightened his fingers around the amulet in his hand. He felt the muzzle of the gun behind him dig painfully into the base of his skull. "No."
"Let go of the amulet, and you and your brother can walk out of here." Malcolm spoke softly and calmly as a smile spread across his face. "Or you can watch my boys shred him into a red cloud right here. Let go."
"Don't you do it, Sammy," Dean said fiercely and watched Sam's eyes rise up to meet his. He frowned when he saw the look on his brother's face, in Sam's eyes. Dean started to shake his head, half in denial and half in terror. "Sam." He could see exactly what Sam was going to do. "Sam, give it to him!" Dean's voice was pleading. He couldn't watch his genius little brother's brains be blown out. "Sam!"
Dean could do nothing but watch helplessly as Sam suddenly jerked his arm forward. He heard the the movement of the clones as they tensed, ready to shoot, around him, saw the chain of the amulet snap from around Malcolm's neck, and then in the strange silence, Dean heard the obscenely loud strike of the hammer on Malcolm's gun. "Sammy!"
The gunshot never came. Dean watched Sam flinch in expectation of the bullet tearing through his head, and then Sam was turning, pulling away. Dean stared for a moment in shock. Malcolm's gun had jammed. It hadn't fired. Sam was alive. He let that knowledge burn through him for only a second before he dropped to his knees and spun to try and save his own life from the clones. Dean fired into the first and was aiming at the second when all at once, all of the clones burst apart in the now familiar cloud of dark mist before vanishing altogether, the rifles clattering harmlessly to the ground.
"Nice," Dean muttered and jerked back to his feet. He spun around in time to see Malcolm slam the butt of his gun into Sam's head once and then again. Sam toppled to the side and Dean leveled his own gun. He fired and took Malcolm in the shoulder. He took some small satisfaction as the man howled in pain and dropped to the floor.
"Sammy." Dean ran across the open area and slid to his knees beside his brother. He picked up Sam's bloody head and cradled it in his hands. "Come on, Sam." Dean spared a glance for Malcolm, still curled around his bleeding shoulder and looked back down at his brother when he groaned softly. "That's it, Sam. Come on. Wake up now."
Sam followed the sound of Dean's voice and slowly blinked his eyes open. He looked up blearily at his brother and frowned. "M'I dead?"
"What?" Dean asked in a horrified voice and then forced a grin. "Hell no, dude. The idiot's gun jammed." He slid an arm behind his brother's shoulders and slowly hoisted him up so he was sitting. "Easy. Easy. There you go. See? All those times I yelled at you about gun maintenance, I was right."
Sam snorted a soft laugh and then winced, bringing a hand up to his pounding head. He startled to feel blood covering the side of his face. "You sure he didn' shoot me?"
"Yeah. Tried hard to crack your skull open, though." Dean ran his fingers through the slick blood and found the open gash at Sam's hairline. "Doesn't look too bad." He glanced down and nodded. "You wanna do something with that?"
Sam followed his gaze and realized he was still holding on to the cursed amulet. "Shatter it."
"Got it." Dean plucked the amulet from his brother's hand and turned away. He set it on the floor and took his gun back up.
"No! Don't!" Malcolm cried out suddenly.
"You got all the mercy you're gonna get from me, asshole," Dean said angrily, aimed, and fired. The bullet slammed into the amulet and broke it apart in a spray of wood and crystal. Dean's eyes jerked over to Malcolm when the man screamed. He seized on the floor for several moments and then went still. "What the hell?"
"Oh, God," Sam breathed and forced his abused body to move. He crawled to Malcolm and put his fingers to the man's throat. "He's... He's dead."
Dean closed his eyes and dropped his head for just a moment. "It's not your fault, Sam."
"I should have thought." Sam shook his head and stared sadly down at the dead man. "We should have... we could have put it in a curse box or..."
"Sam, you didn't know destroying the amulet was gonna kill him." Dean went to his brother and took Sam's good arm, levering his brother to his feet. "This ain't on you." He tugged Sam's arm over his shoulder and started them away toward the front of the store. "Now, you wanna talk about somethin', how about you pullin' that suicidal hero bullshit?" Dean's voice rose as they walked and he couldn't seem to stop it. He tugged Sam to a halt, letting him stagger for a second as he turned and glared into his face. "He could have killed you! The only reason your brains aren't paintin' the damn floor back there is because his gun jammed!"
Sam watched Dean's face and the fear flitting across it in complete understanding. He gave a wan smile and a one-armed shrug with his good shoulder. "Couldn't watch them kill you, Dean."
Dean opened his mouth to say something and closed it in the face of the pure conviction on his brother's face. He stared a moment longer and then pulled Sam's good arm over his shoulders again. "Never do that to me again."
Sam nodded but said nothing, not wanting to give voice to something they both knew would be a lie. Instead he closed his eyes and allowed Dean to lead him out of the store. He cracked his open when they reached the front and found a small group of panicked shoppers and employees. "Dean."
"Yeah, I got it." Dean tightened his grip around Sam when his brother swayed and smiled at the civilians as they went through them. "Nothin' to worry about folks. Just some crazy redneck shootin' himself back in sporting goods. Probably oughta call the cops or something."
"He's dead?" One woman said in a terrified voice and looked up at them through her long, brown hair. She put a hand over her mouth and trembled. "What about the others? There were... there were so many of him!"
"Only saw one guy lady," Dean said and did his best to look innocent. "Fear'll make you see crazy shit."
"Wow. Way to clear that up, Dean." Sam chuckled softly as they stepped out into the night air. He swayed again as the ground seemed to roll beneath him. "Cra... crap."
"Just keep it together until we get to the car." Dean half-carried Sam across the parking lot to the Impala's gleaming back form and poured him into the passenger seat. He knelt beside Sam in the passenger door and looked him over critically before meeting his eyes. "There's a clinic a few miles down the road. We're goin'."
"What? Dean, no." Sam sat up straighter and then slumped back as his head continued to spin from the blows he had taken and the blood loss. "Can't. Police..."
"Aren't gonna be lookin' for us," Dean said firmly. "You've been shot and that asshole damn near cracked your head. Suck it up. We're goin'."
Sam blew out an aggrieved breath as his brother stood and closed his door with a squeal of metal on metal. Sam's eyes slammed closed in response to the sound and he settled back further into the seat. "Fine."
Dean climbed behind the wheel, started the car and smiled at the familiar growl of her engine. He glanced over at his brother's face and snorted. "Don't gimme that look." He grinned and pulled out of the parking lot. "Bitch."
Dean smiled and stretched an arm across the seat to rest on his brother's shoulder as Sam started to list toward him over the seat. It settled his lingering nerves, but he knew he would be seeing that moment in his head for many nights to come, hearing the fall of the hammer of that gun at his brother's head. "I gotcha, Sammy."
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 Next Chapter: B is for Baseball Bat
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