"Cornel Sander's Nightmare"
Mystic25
Rating: T for language and imagery.
Summary: Okay, I was looking around and various comment fics for SPN, but it was all either "Team Free Will goes to the mall" or Sam cuts himself and Dean hates him for it, or Sam/Dean/Everybody else kill each other….so I just threw something together with monsters instead. Enjoy!
A/N: I wrote this in about three hours, and its unbetaed, so I'm sorry for any mistakes. I just wanted to get it up, just let me know if you find any issues.
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" …Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun…"
-Lewis Carol
Through the Looking Glass
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"Why are we hunting Cornel Sanders nightmare again?" Dean asked between pants as he hiked up the incredibly long, godforsaken mountain. It was December, which meant that anyone deciding to trek up the Bearpaw Mountains in Montana were just stupid, or after something really, really good.
Dean really wished he were stupid right now instead of a seasoned monster hunter. Because it was fucking cold, and there was about a foot of fallen snow on the ground, and it was fucking cold. And after walking three miles up hill all the way, he through and completely hated snow like the Bubonic Plague.
Sam turned to Dean to give him a look, the wind sent his ridiculously long hair blowing around like crazy amidst the falling snow flurry "It's not Cornel-" Sam had to shout to be heard over the roar of the wind, but he still managed a sigh loud enough to overcome the wind's roar. "Dean, it's a Cockatrice-an ancient monster that petrifies its victims-"
"Blah blah, wah wah," Dean shouted back "It's a giant chicken, Sam. I'm freezing my daddy pills off for a giant chicken on steroids!" A particularly nasty gust of wind whipped up his neck like knives and he pulled the hood over his rented parka up higher, cursing words that were drown out by the weather.
Ahead of them, snow was piled up a good twenty feet on top of a sheer rock face set off from the mountainside. In front of the snow bank broken dead tree were bent backwards from the force of the storm and covered in snow. Tucked away in the corner of the rock face was a small peaking of blackness, so small that no one would have noticed it if they weren't looking for it on purpose.
"I see it!" Dean shouted, pointing at the tiny black speck. "Come on, I still might want to procreate some day!"
He and Sam trudged through the snow like they were in slow motion. The wind had picked up tremendously and it slammed against them like they were fighting against traffic. Dean couldn't feel his face by the time they made it to the cave entrance.
The entrance had frozen over from above and below with hardened sleet and snow. Sam took the butt of his Remington 700 Rifle and smashed through the ice, and Dean broke the pieces that Sam's smashing missed with his gloved hands, until they finally had a big enough hole for them to wiggle through.
It wasn't that big of a hole, there was a lot of swearing and clothes snagging from both of them on the way in. But neither one of them knew how dependant the snow above the cave was to this wall of ice, and all it took was one bang too many and they were caught in an avalanche.
Sam was inside first, then Dean. Dean turning on his high intensity beamed flashlight into the darkness.
The cave was huge, going back a good 50 feet inside the mountain. It was made of solid rock, with a vault like ceiling that was covered in hanging stalactites and darkness. It smelled of damp and rot from lack of ventilation. There was a drip, drip of water from somewhere deep inside the cave.
There was a drop of half a foot from the entrance from where rocks had piled up like a broken staircase. Their boots crunched on broken pieces of rock as they made their way down into the cave.
Sam's flashlight clicked on and joined Dean's beam, cutting a swath of light through the cave.
"You see anything?" Sam moved his beam around methodically, first up at the stalactites on the ceiling, then down at the cave floor.
"I see a whole lot of black shit, and smell a whole lot of bad locker room," Dean answered. He walked away from Sam and moved his beam to where the blackness became like pitch. He stepped slowly like he was on a live mine field, testing the location with the toe of his boot before placing his foot down. Besides the blackness and the rocks his flashlight beam illuminated, Dean didn't see anything else. "Are we sure this is the right cave? I mean there's gotta be at least a hundred unmarked caves out here."
Sam didn't answer, walking away from Dean in the same careful movements as his brother. Something crunched under his boot, something that resonated with a different sound then crunched rock.
Sam raised his foot up and shown his light down on what he stepped on. "This is the right cave Dean."
The complete insistence in Sam's voice made Dean make his way over to his brother, and look down at what Sam was aiming his flashlight on. He shined his own light on it.
A human ribcage lay by their feet, missing three ribs. Further sweeping of their lights showed two caved in skulls, and one femur bone. Dean turned one of the skulls over with the muzzle of his rifle and revealed a clinging of pink flesh around the back of the skull where it had once connected to a neck.
Dean made a face "A monster on Adkins. Awesome."
"Yeah," Sam agreed with the same grimace on his face as his brother. "Let's just kill the damn thing before we're next on the menu."
From deep inside the cave there came a weird, chortling sound, it was high, and not very deep. But it echoed eerily through the cave.
Dean and Sam both raised their rifles, aiming their flashlights into the darkness.
The chortle sounded again, closer.
A nauseatingly, rotten smell wafted up from the darkness.
Both Sam and Dean raised an arm to their noses, fighting not to gag.
The smell grew stronger, like burning, decayed meat, and Dean swallowed down the vomit in his mouth. The cave rumbled and shook like a mini earthquake, shattering pieces of stalactites at their feet.
A demonic hissing sound erupted over the falling rocks, and a monstrous birdlike figure emerged from the darkness.
It was over 10 feet tall, shaped like a roster the front, with massive feet tipped with razor sharp claws. It's back was that of a giant lizard, long scaly snaked tail and huge clawed feet. It's giant wings were flared open, and the horrible smell came from dead beetles and spiders that fell from its plumage like rain.
It's eyes were dark yellow with red pupils, and they opened wide in anger at the intruders inside. It darted its head back and forth in tic like fashion just like a rooster at both Sam and Dean.
"Close your eyes!" Dean shouted to Sam as he shut his own and began firing blindly at the monster.
It hissed again and reared up like a horse before slamming its front feet back onto the ground, cracking through bones it had spat out from its last meal.
Sam's eyes were shut tight as he began shooting buck shots at where he knew the creature to be standing. It roared horribly, and Sam could hear its legs smashing through the floor of the cave.
"Sam!" Dean's shout echoed around the cave.
Sam felt a rush of wind and a rotted smell by his head, and he opened his eyes, but kept them off the creatures', rolling away from a swipe at his head from those massive front talons. He fired another shot at the undercarriage of the monster and it screamed fiercely, almost like a human woman, it was a terrifyingly loud thing to hear.
The Cockatrice roared and turned around with more agility then would be expected for something its size. It aimed a swipe at Sam with its spiked scaled tail.
Sam fired again, and he found himself suddenly airborne and slammed hard into the solid rock of the cave wall.
He heard a sickening crack when he landed. The pain was instantaneous, bursting from his head and travelling like hot serrated knives slicing down his skin to his right leg.
Sam felt himself black out for just a moment, but when he opened his eyes again, it was to the sight of his tibia sticking straight up out of his jeans like a bloody thorn and to the head of the Cockatrice right in front of him.
"Sammy! " Dean's voice came from behind the feathered mass of the Cockatrice, and the sound buckshot.
Sam heard the bullets hitting the flesh of the Cockatrice, but it acted like it was an annoying buzz of flies, keeping its focus on Sam.
"Sam!" Dean raced around the body of the monster, seeing only his brother's legs flayed out from behind the creature's massive bulk. "Don't look at it!"
Sam's head was fuzzy from the blow, and pain bloomed like erupting spring flowers from behind his eyes, and was only superseded by the agony in his leg. His eyes kept blinking opened and closed like a flickering light bulb. He heard Dean's voice like he was underwater. He shook his head, which escalated the pain to a spike in the head level, but cleared away the fog in time for him to see the head of the Cockatrice inches from his own.
His had been thrown a foot away from him when he fell, there was no way to reach it from where he sat without getting torn to shreds by the things claws.
But he didn't try for it. Instead he groped inside his parka pocket, ducking from the monster's razor sharp snapping beak. He pulled hard on what his fingers finally closed on and closed his eyes, thrusting a hand mirror up in front of it.
There was a horrible wail, ten times louder than anything the Cockatrice had emitted before, and it reared up and exploded like a bomb into a mass of bright light and feathers.
The explosion shook the cave, and stalactites began falling down around him.
"Dean!" Sam screamed in agony as he stood up on his broken leg, but he fought down the pain and dragged his bad leg behind him, looking frantically in the darkness, around increasingly larger amounts of falling rocks.
The cave was seconds away from a total collapse, if they stayed there they were dead.
"Dean!" Sam scream grew more urgent at the same time his consciousness grew more faint and the pain in his leg grew more white hot. He groaned and forced himself to stay awake and walked, desperately searching for his brother.
A hand yanked his elbow and Dean's voice screamed by his ear: "Sammy! C'mon man move it!"
Dean threw Sam's arm over his shoulder and they ran in a hobble tumble combination over fallen rocks.
Dean kicked at the remainder of the ice blockage and Sam ripped at it with his free hand. Rocks started pelting them in the back, finally making Dean give up and shove Sam through what amount of the whole they widened.
Sam fell face first into the snow and heard the rocks fall in a crazy landslide behind him, sealing up the cave like it never existed.
Sam couldn't see Dean, his heart rate was already going a million miles an hour, and it went up a million and one when he raised his head and only saw white.
"De-"
"Come on!" His brother's arm was back around him and hauling him to his feet, dragging him away from the cave.
"Sammy!" Dean kept shaking him, urging him on "You stay awake, you understand me!"
Sam tried to keep helping, but the pain was becoming blinding, and after a dozen steps, the pain exploded like the cave and he dropped, unable to stay consciousness anymore.
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Sam awoke to a blinding pain that shot him straight up with a gasp.
"Whoa, Sam!" Dean raised his hand from his brother's leg. His hands were sticky with Sam's blood, but he gripped Sam's arms anyway, knowing that he wouldn't care. "Easy man, just take it easy."
Sam panted on the pain he felt ripping through his leg. He threw back his head in a groan.
"I gotcha Sam, alright?" Dean said squeezing his arm tight by the elbow. Sam had been unconscious when Dean dragged him where they had set up their canvas camping tent at the base of the mountain. They didn't have any pain killers that Sam couldn't take without swallowing, so Dean tried to set his leg while he was out, an action that made him wince as he poised above the broken bone, because it was a compound fracture and looked horrible.
But he only managed to grab Sam's lower leg before Sam bolted awake in agony.
"I got this," Dean moved his hand to his brother's shoulder and squeezed. In his other hand he held an open bottle of Jack. "Here." He held the whiskey out to Sam. "All of it man, that's a mother of a break."
Sam wasn't a whiskey drinker, but the pain ripping through him made him grab the bottle and start chugging like it was water. He almost finished the half bottle before handing it back to Dean.
Dean knew the risks of giving alcohol to someone who was exposed to cold. But Sam showed no signs of hypothermia, and they were in an enclosed army surplus tent. There was a greater risk of Sam going into shock from Dean setting his broken leg without any form of pain control than he was of a drop in body temperature.
Dean waited a minute after Sam had polished off most of the liquor to let the alcohol work its way into his system.
After that minute past Dean hovered his hands over Sam's leg again, meeting his eyes. "I'm doing this man, you ready?"
Sam felt nauseous from all the alcohol he just swallowed on an empty stomach, and his buzz wasn't nearly strong enough to keep him from feeling the pulsing pain of his leg. But he knew if they waited any longer, there was a chance that he would lose his leg from nerve damage and lack of circulation.
He gripped the wooden frame of the camp bed he was lying on in a white knuckled hold. "Just do it."
"On three man okay?" Dean told him "One, two-"
"Three-" there was a crack as Dean manipulated the bone.
Sam reared back and screamed, and tried to buck Dean off of him, but his brother pinned him down, and quickly set the bone back into alignment.
Sam threw up the whiskey over the side of the cot when it was over, hazily feeling Dean setting his leg with a splint from the field kit and their scratchy army surplus blanket.
The pain was enormous, but Sam didn't lose consciousness, his over thinking brain wouldn't allow it. "Dean," he gasped a breath. "The car's a mile down the trail- I can't make it like this."
"We'll figure that out tomorrow, Sam," Dean said matter-of-fact. "Right now your job is to lie there and not go into shock on me, understand?" He tied off the makeshift cast.
Sam swallowed down vomit, but nodded in agreement. "First Cockatrice hunt suck ass-"
"First and last Sam," Dean said unfurling a camp blanket over his brother. "Next time I'm leaving the evil fugly ass chicken killing to the other Hunters." Dean grabbed an unopened bottle of Wild Turkey and drank a heavy swallow from it before turning his eyes to his brother. "And what the fuck were you thinking walking on a busted leg?"
"Dean-"
"You have any idea what kind of a dumb ass stunt that was?-"
"Dean shut up," Sam ground out between his teeth. Dean stopped yelling to stare at him. "I went in with you and I was coming out with you. There wasn't an Option B. "
Dean glared at him. "How about Option C? It's called Shut Up Sam." But there wasn't any anger in his words and he sat on the ground next to the head of Sam's cot.
"At least you being a girl with a compact came in handy, " Dean said after a minute.
"Fuck off man," Sam returned closing his eyes as the howl of the storm continued.
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End
The Cockatrice is a legendary creature that has the front body of a rooster and the back end of a lizard. It was supposed to come about whenever a 4 year old Cockerel laid an egg which was incubated by a snake. It's eyes would petrify it's victims, and it normally slept for years at a time in caves unless something stumbled in and awoke it. It's only known downfall was that it was so hideously ugly that it could not survive the sight of its own reflection, thus mirrors could kill it.
Thank you.
R/R please
Mystic