Salt, Snails, and Slimy Trails.

Characters/Ages – Sammy, 8 years old. Dean, 12 years old.

Summary – Ever since Sam learned how to repel demons, he'd been 'practicing' his 'exorcisms' on everything. So Dean really shouldn't have been so surprised at his kid brother's latest experiment…

GIFT FIC for…. Dodo.123. :D Reasons below. ;) Read on~

Tongue protruding from the corner of his mouth and eyebrows furrowed in concentration, the eight-year-old reached out his hand and carefully, cautiously, sprinkled the little white cubes onto the slimy, slow-moving creature. He hastily shuffled back as the reaction started, in the process scattering the rest of the salt from his hand and in turn adding to the mess.

Sam stopped and stared in fascination as it slowly fizzed, bubbled and eventually disintegrated completely upon coming into contact with the salt cubes, leaving behind a silvery slimy trail, a fizzing mess, and a shell. Reaching into his pocket, Sam covertly looked around him for any more of those miniature monsters. His wide green-brown eyes narrowed upon not seeing an oncoming vengeful army on his tail, and he pulled out the customary small salt shaker his big brother had instructed him to always have. He eyed the no-longer sizzling mess suspiciously before getting to his feet and creeping back towards the house, step by cautious step, eyes roaming the ground like he's seen Dean do whenever something was after—

There. Another one. Sam froze and glared at the ugly monstrosity with all the bravado an eight-year-old could muster in the face of something so potentially dangerous, mentally yelling at it to go away. It didn't, just slithered half an inch forward, its protruding antennae wavering slightly with the movement. Sam could have sworn they were angled at him, and he vaguely wondered if it could use some scary demon powers and smite him on the spot.

He couldn't die from these mini pathetic excuses for demons! He panicked, and in a second, the creature was buried under a pile of white. Sam's eyes widened and his breath came out in a quick huff, the brief panic having sped up his heartbeat. He twisted his salt-shaker so it was fully open but his half-horrified, half-awed eyes never left the new mass of salt on the ground. Was it gone?

An antenna poked out from the white cubes, even as it shrank and shriveled.

With a startled yelp, Sam took a few quickened steps in a backwards run when a sudden crush and a squelch sounded from under his right shoe. He stopped, feeling the panic mounting as he slowly lifted his foot and dropped his head to check it.

A shattered shell. A smatter of slime. And…

Oh no. Oh no, no, no… Sam fumbled with his salt and threw a handful on the squished thing and then on his shoe. Then he noticed another one, alive and definitely looking at him, not two feet to his left.

And his panic escalated.

He'd just stepped on a demon. He'd just killed a demon. Heck, he'd killed three demons today! Mini-demons, yeah, but still! Now they were gunna all come over and do their evil demon thing and all Sam had was his half-empty salt shaker. He wished Dean would let him borrow his pocketknife…

Dean! He could get rid of them! Sam broke his stare-down with the slimy thing and turned, running back full pelt towards the back door of their motel room, leaving a trail of salt right outside the door before entering, like Dean did every time to keep the demons and ghosts away.

Then he bolted in, all hyper nervous energy and flailing arms.

Dean tested his boot knife again, making sure the edge was kept razor sharp. He briefly wondered what Sammy was doing outside, but let it go. The kid deserved to have some fun, and it wasn't like anything could get to him there – it was daytime, he was just out in the back yard, and Dean would hear him if anything happened, anyway. He'd always had a sort of sixth sense where his little brother was concerned, able to tell if Sammy was in danger or hurt – both physically and emotionally, mind you, because the kid was a total girl sometimes when it came to feelings.

Not that Dean gave him any real grief over it, though. Especially since his brother had found out that monsters were actually real – along with demons and ghosts and all the stuff of nightmares – and their dad hunted them only last Christmas. It had taken Sammy a few days to adjust, get used to the idea, and he was good now, anyway. Completely fascinated by the fact that demons and ghosts didn't like salt and holy water, actually.

Dean stopped and frowned when he heard the unmistakable surprised yell of his kid brother from outside. In a second, he had his rock-salt-loaded rifle in one hand and knife in the other, when Sammy burst through the door.

"Dean! DEAN!" His murky green eyes were widened to the point that they made up half his face and his gangly arms waved all over.

Dean caught him by the shoulders, dropping the knife on the table in the process, and crouched so they were on eye level. "Whoa, Sammy, what the heck's going on?"

Sam stared at him and latched onto his big brother's jacket, hands sticky with salt – Dean frowned at that, confusion rising. "Outside! Dean—Dean, the demons! The mini slimy demon monsters! They're—Dean! They're gunna—"

"Whoa, okay dude, calm down." Dean cut into his ramblings, shifting so that he could lean Sam's head on his shoulder, and wrapping an arm around the kid protectively. "Alright Sammy, you're okay. There's nothing here," he soothed quietly, a good few years of brotherly instinct kicking in. His eyes roved to the clear doorway, puzzled. "You gunna tell me what happened? Without sounding like a wingless chicken, dude."

Sammy sniffled a bit but took a breath and started talking. "Outside… it's full of demons. And I killed two with the salt but then I stepped on one and the others are gunna get angry and get me."

That small explanation did nothing to alleviate Dean's confusion. He pulled Sam back, looking him over intently for any signs of injury, and finding nothing suspicious other than the salt covering his hands… and shoe? "Okay," he started carefully. He wasn't sure what to think. He hadn't actually ever seen a demon himself, or a person taken over by a demon as his dad explained, but he knew how to repel them, of course. And he was pretty sure if there really was a demon outside it would have hurt Sammy. And then there was the whole steppingon it? And killed them with salt? What exactly was he going on about?

Dean got to his feet, patted Sam once on the shoulder to stay there, and went to the open doorway. He looked around and… saw nothing. Nothing out of the ordinary save for the few salt piles undoubtedly from Sam.

"There's nothing there, Sammy," he called back.

He felt his brother sidling up to his side cautiously and glanced at him. Sammy's eyes were still wide as he stared at something on the floor ahead of them. He nodded at it, one hand curling around his salt shaker again. "There. It's there."

Concern bubbled up inside Dean, along with the bafflement. He crouched and followed Sam's line of sight to…

"Sammy, that's a snail." The bewildered reply escaped him as his mind tried to register what exactly his kid brother was so afraid of.

But Sam shook his head. "No, the snails, they're demons, Dean," he said earnestly, puppy eyes peeping up at him from beneath those bangs. "I tested them! They don't like salt, and you told me that demons don't like salt 'cause it burns them, and salt burns snails so they're demons."

Despite Sam's obviously genuine wariness of the supposed-demon snails, Dean relaxed in relief. He'd been worried for a minute there, the talk of demons after him and the panic in Sammy's face when he said it having set his older brother in his automatic protectSammy mode, ready to fight whatever was out there. The fact that the 'danger out there' was nothing but snails and Sammy's overboard imagination was one huge relief.

Dean grinned and ruffled the kid's hair. "Snails aren't evil demons, dude."

"But they-" Sam's puzzled voice started.

"Just 'cause salt makes 'em shrivel up doesn't make them demons, Sammy," Dean told him, trying to keep most of the amusement out of his voice. "Dad's never mentioned demons possessing animals anyway, so the snails are just snails." He paused, thoughtful. "Though they might be a little mad at you for squishing their friend…"

And Sammy's eyes widened again, only to narrow in a petulant pout as Dean started to laugh.

All things considered, having vengefulsnails on their track was a lot better than other things.

A/N – First ever Supernatural fic! :P Yay! *cuddles wittle Sammy and Dean* They're so cute! :D Got this idea from what we used to do as kids, cuz my cousin's backyard was full of snails and we were bored in the summer, so we had fun watching snails sizzle and shrivel and bubble from the salt. Evil kids, huh. xD

Ohkayz, to the good stuff – yo, dodo! (dude, you know how weird it is calling you that? O.o) So I thought just incase there isn't any wifi there (gaspshockhorrorblasphemy!) I'll give ya a bit of little-Winchester-kids goodness. ;) Plus the mental image of wittle Sammy salting up snail-demons was too cute to pass up. :P Sooo, try not to spaz inwardly about the epicness that is SPN too much cuz you might just spontaneously combust, and that won't be good. Andd… yeah, hope you liked this, dude, cuz I ain't doing another one any time soon. ;P

Meh, ending wasn't too good, but I didn't know how else to end it and I'm kinda leaving in like five hours for a loooooong 20 hours plane trip of non-stop SPN so yeah. :P Reviews very muchly appreciated, as well as rants/spazzing about how epic/awesome/adorable Dean and Sammy are and… yeah. 'tis about it, I think.

Cheers~

Izzy :D