The Runt of the Litter

I've Got All This Ringing in My Ears

Note: Thanks for existing, guys. And for reading and voting and commenting.

I'm still working my way through a bunch of requests. I promise everyone who's waiting that yours is on its way. I didn't forget.

This one was from tudfo9. I won't write out the request, because I don't want to give away the story. The title is a Fall Out Boy song. Which you should listen to.

Anna is eighteen.

I've Got All This Ringing in My Ears

Anna's head hit the ground hard just as she heard the gunshot and subsequent thud of a large body against the floor that signaled the final vampire's death. Her ears rang momentarily as she pressed her palms to the floor and made an effort to push herself to her hands and knees. Her arms were either numb or simply too weak, though, and she didn't move for a second. Her head thumped with a dull but piercing agony, and she felt overheated. Her vision blurred momentarily, went dark for a second, then cleared.

She realized with a start that Dean was calling her name, and he sounded panicked. She wondered if she'd blacked out for more than just a second, but then when she pushed herself-- successfully this time-- to her hands and knees and looked up, she saw him crouched over Sam, who was lying mostly flat on the floor. She caught a glimpse of red, and all thoughts of her own pain went out the window.

"Anna, get the kit."

Without questioning her brother, Anna forced herself upright. Bobbling to the right, she quickly caught herself and moved unsteadily but at a brisk pace toward the doorway to the old warehouse. Once outside, the sunlight blinded her, and she shied away instinctively, covering her eyes with one arm. Her stomach turned violently, and in the next moment, she was on her knees, retching into a cluster of mostly-dead bushes while everything seemed to buzz around her.

She was almost startled when the world righted itself, and she squinted around at her surroundings for a minute, her mind moving slowly around the questions of what the hell she was doing here and where here even was. Suddenly, it was all there in front of her again, and she pushed herself up and forward at the same time, nearly sending herself back to her knees in her hurry to get to the car.

It took her three tries to get the trunk open, and she growled in frustration at her own lack of motor coordination. As soon as she hit the kit in her hand, she slammed the trunk closed and ran as fast as she could back to the warehouse, nearly running into the wall before realizing she'd been moving in a crooked line and wasn't at the doorway.

"The hell took so long?" Dean demanded when she finally dropped to her knees beside him and slammed the kit open. He dug both hands into the kit and nodded toward Sam's midsection.

As soon as she saw the gushing wound there, Anna knew exactly what he wanted from her. She reached out to press against the wound while Dean readied his stitching needle. "Here," he said and handed her a handful of bandages. Anna tore open a package, hands shaking so violently that she had to use her teeth to successfully get through the plastic. Dean didn't comment if he even noticed at all. She pressed the bandage against Sam's wound with her right hand. Just the energy it took to actively push down hard enough to do anything to stop the bleeding was enough to make her go light-headed. As the room spun, she stared faintly at a splotch of old, fading graffiti on a far-off wall. She couldn't read it, and she wouldn't have spent the energy if she could have.

"Here, let me-"

Sam's groan of pure agony cut Dean off, and he leaned forward over their brother while Anna continued to press down on his wound. She knew she had to keep pressure on it, and she couldn't think beyond that. She heard Dean murmuring something, but the words weren't making sense to her which didn't really matter, because they weren't for her. They were for Sam. And whatever he was saying, the rumble of his voice calmed Sam into some kind of stupor or sleep, because he stopped squirming under her hands.