Title: What evil lurks…
Author: Disasteriffic Kaz
Info: What's the world coming too when even a simple salt and burn can't be simple anymore? Post 5x05 "Fallen Idols" hurt/limp/awesome!Sam/Dean with a dash of awesome!Cas for taste.
Author's note: What? You didn't think I was going to give you a break yet, did you? Silly rabbits. :D
Do please Review once you've read. :D Every comment and vote of support helps keep me writing. Not to mention if I've pooched anything, someone can always tell me. :P
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Sam handed Dean his flashlight. "Hang on." He stepped away and bent to where he could see Dean's light gleaming faintly beneath the water. "Dibs on a hot shower." He said as he dove his arm beneath the surface. The water lapped at his chest and drove the cold further into him. Sam wrapped his hand around the flashlight. "Got it." He started to pull it up and then shouted in surprise as something wrapped around his arm and pulled. His head was dragged under the water as his legs went out from under him. He caught flashes of the thing holding him, a glowing figure beneath the surface as the beam from the flashlight danced over and through it. The frigid waters filled his nose and made his skin burn. He felt Dean's hand close on the back of his belt and tug. A ghostly hand shot forward and took him by the front of the neck, squeezing. Distantly he was amused as the crushing grip on his throat kept him from breathing in the freezing water. He did the only thing he could think of and brought the shotgun barrel up, hoping it would fire in the water as he squeezed the trigger.
CHAPTER 3
"Sam!" Dean shouted as his brother's head was suddenly pulled under the water, the dark liquid closing over his back in a rush. "No way." Dean thrust his hand out and caught the back of Sam's belt. He wrapped his fingers around the leather and pulled, trying to bring him up but something was holding him down. "Sammy!"
His breathed misted out ahead of him. Dean looked up and gasped, seeing several more spirits hovering a few meters away as he fought to hold on to Sam. There was an explosion in the water beside him and Sam came up in a rush, gasping for air between lips gone blue with cold.
"Sam!" Dean wrapped an arm around his waist to hold him up when he would have sunk back down.
"Gun…worked." Sam panted. "Ghost…in the water."
"We're outta here." Dean leveled his shotgun at the nearest spirit, said a silent plea and pulled the trigger. He grinned as it fired, rock salt making the ghost ahead of them vanish with a scream.
Sam kept his shotgun aimed at the water, wary of another sneak attack and did his best to stay even with his brother. He was all too aware that the arm around his waist was the only thing keeping him standing as he gasped still to make up the difference in lost oxygen. His throat burned from the ghostly tight grip and he was reminded of the Subway Strangler.
Dean backed them away from where they'd entered as six spirits clearly stood outlined in the tunnel. Instead he pointed them deeper into the subway and trusted that Sam would remember another way out from his study of the blueprints. "You good?" He asked and watched Sam's dripping, shaggy hair nod twice as he wheezed.
Sam felt the water falling lower on his legs and managed finally to take some of his own weight as they edged up a ramp, out of the water and into another subway tunnel. He growled as the barrel of his shotgun trembled in time with his shivering and fought to steady it. He fired as another spirit shot toward them, banishing it in a cloud of mist and rock salt. Sam was surprised to feel the weight of the sodden bag still hanging from his shoulder, surprised it hadn't been lost in the water and he still had a death grip on Dean's flashlight; he'd been unwilling to relinquish either under the dark water.
Dean allowed himself to take a breath as they rounded a curve and the spirits didn't follow. He leaned Sam up against the wall of the tunnel and shined his flashlight at him. "How you doing?"
Sam nodded. He was breathing easier finally; all he wished for now was warmth. "I'm good just…freezing my ass off."
Dean chuckled. "Join the club." He tipped his brother's chin up and his face darkened; a ring of bruises was slowly appearing above his collar in the cold whitened skin.
"It's nothing, Dean." Sam smiled. "I shot the bastard."
"Good." Dean set his flashlight on a small ledge beside Sam's head and stripped off his water-logged jacket. He did his best to wring it out, leaving a puddle at his feet. Sam was doing the same with his shotgun tucked under his arm.
"We should get out of here." Sam told him and worked at quelling the tremors rocking him from his time in the freezing water. "Come back warm and dry. We'll end up hypothermic like this."
"Next time no following the damn ghost." Dean said ruefully. "Can't believe you listened to me."
Sam laughed softly and shrugged back into his jacket. "Most of the time I don't."
"Such a pain in my ass. Hope you know another way out of here that doesn't involve swimming with the dead." Dean retrieved his flashlight and saw Sam nod.
"If we're where I think we are, another hundred yards or so down this tunnel there should be an offshoot." Sam closed his eyes to picture the map in his head. "If we take that, keep right we should come up near the Kodak plant."
"Nice walk back to the car from there." Dean shivered and wrapped his arms around himself. "Alright, come on. No time like the present."
They started down the tunnel. Sam stayed at Dean's back and made sure nothing crept up on them from behind. He could feel the beginnings of hypothermia; his fingers and toes going numb, the trembling quickly becoming a shaking and his flashlight beam stuttered across the tunnel because of it. His only consolation was the equally jittery beam from Dean's light. They needed to get warm and soon.
"So, way m-more than three victims." Dean said through chattering teeth as they passed along the darkened tunnel. The silence was making his teeth itch.
Sam snorted. "Clearly." His expression darkened. "One of those ghosts was barely a teenager. I hope he's dead, the Strangler, wherever he went. That's the turn there."
Dean nodded and shined his light around the corner. "Looks clear." He led the way into the tunnel. It was far smaller, the ceiling lower and doors long gone to rot opened on small store rooms empty of anything but the skitter of rats. As they passed further down the tunnel Dean squinted and realized light was beginning to filter in from somewhere ahead. "You see that?"
"Moonlight." Sam stepped up beside him and nodded. "The next section of tunnel on the map was called the Airway I think. I thought they were just being creative."
The moonlight grew as they walked and their cramped tunnel soon gave way to a wider passage; solid wall on one side and arched windows on the other empty of glass and open to the night. The cold, still winter air flowed into the passage making them both shiver in their wet clothes.
"Nice." Sam smiled. He climbed up into one of the windows and looked out. "Don't think we're more than ten minutes from the car here."
"Well get your ass out of the way already." Dean hugged his sodden clothes tighter against the chill.
Sam smirked and climbed out of the window onto the embankment outside it. He climbed up toward the top, the ground crumbling beneath his hands. He stood as he reached the top and only had time to flinch as he looked up and saw a boot coming for his head.
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Sam woke all at once, jerking up in confusion. "Dean!" He remembered the water, the ghosts, climbing out of the tunnel and then…he raised a hand to his head and grimaced as his fingers came away bloody. "Dean?" He looked around and found himself lying at the bottom of the embankment against the outside of the tunnel wall. He pushed himself up and fell back as his head swam with pain and dizziness. One blow to the head too many in a day, he thought to himself. He groaned and managed his knees but even that proved too much as he gagged and threw up what little was still in his stomach. He fell back onto the cold earth and shivered. He'd been unconscious long enough for his clothes to dry in a frigid cocoon around him.
"Dammit." Sam groaned and held his swimming head. His brother was missing, that much he knew. Dean would never leave him unprotected, not willingly. The fear of what may be happening to his brother drove him to his knees again only to end up doubled over as the pain stabbed into his skull. "Not now." He growled and tried to pull himself up using the frame of the arch. He made it to his feet with the world spinning about him and had to slide slowly back to the ground. "Dean." He breathed the name and despised his inability to stand.
Sam fumbled in his pockets and pulled out his cell phone. His fingers shook, the phone dropping into the earth at his knees. He picked it back up and then stopped, trying to order his scrambled thoughts. Bobby was more than two days away, the same for Ellen or anyone else who might help him and he knew Dean needed him now. Inspiration struck him and he flipped the phone open. The screen blurred in his vision and he scrolled slowly through the contacts until he found the one Dean had entered into the phone before putting it to his ear and praying he would answer.
"Um…hello?"
The deep voice made Sam gasp in relief. "Castiel. Help, please…I need your help. Dean needs your help."
"Sam?" Castiel was new to the emotions of humans but he could clearly hear the desperation in the young man's voice. "Tell me where you are." The Enochian sigils he had carved into their ribs protected them but sometimes they were as much a hindrance as a help.
"Rochester, New York." Sam closed his eyes, trying to stop the spinning. "The abandoned subway about a half mile from the East entrance. Cas…"
"Sam." Castiel's voice at his elbow startled him badly and he opened his eyes to find the Angel standing beside him.
Sam let the phone drop. "Help."
"What has happened?" Castiel took Sam's shoulder and peered at the blood still trickling from a wound just above his hairline. "You don't look well."
Sam grimaced as the Angel shifted his hair to see the wound better. "Ghosts in the subway but…I was climbing out and…there was someone." Sam dropped his head and grasped the man's arm. "When I woke up Dean was gone. Cas we have to find him now. He's in there somewhere I know it."
"Then we'll find him." Castiel said firmly. He agonized for a moment at not being able to simply heal him of his injuries as he once could. Each day he weakened a little more. "Can you stand?"
"With help." Sam nodded carefully and tried to moan aloud as the Angel pulled him quickly to his feet. "Wait…wait." He gasped as his vision tunneled in to blackness. He heard Castiel calling his name and argued with himself to stay conscious. After what seemed like an eternity he got both eyes open and suffered a moment of embarrassment to find himself being held on his feet by the Angel, his head resting on his shoulder.
"Sorry." Sam took his own weight, got his head up. "I'm ok."
"No. You're not." Castiel frowned at him.
"I will be." Sam gestured toward the passage. "Dean doesn't have time for me to go have a lay down. We need to find him."
"Very well." Castiel turned and helped Sam back through the window.
"Shotgun." Sam pointed back out to the ground as his gun. "For the ghosts." Castiel nodded and retrieved it before he climbed through the open arch. Sam didn't argue when the Angel slid one of his arms over his shoulders. "That way." Sam pointed toward the tunnel leading back to the subway.
"How do you know?" Castiel studied the darkened passageway and could see nothing to indicate where Dean had gone.
"Footprints." Sam pointed to the smudges in the dirt and dust on the passage floor clear in the moonlight. "There's three sets now." He didn't mention that the area in front of the windows looked as though a fight had taken place and if he knew his brother, it had. That Dean had obviously lost filled him with dread.
Castiel took note of the tracks and started them back down the tunnel, Sam unsteady at his side.
"Did you…did you find him yet?" Sam asked suddenly. "God?"
"No." Castiel felt a sharp emotion rush through him and thought it might be pain. He studied it for a moment and then set it aside. "I am still looking. I will find him."
Sam said nothing to that. He couldn't imagine that a God who would allow the apocalypse to start in the first place would suddenly show up to stop it. He did miss the familiar sight of the amulet on his brother's chest. It bothered him to not see it there, as though some fundamental part of him was missing. He realized suddenly his head had fallen, that he was barely moving his legs.
"Cas." Sam mumbled.
"Sam?" Castiel looked down at the soft murmur of his name. He was all but carrying the youngest Winchester and grunted as he suddenly went lax. "Sam." The Angel lowered him to the floor of the tunnel and felt concern wash over him as he tried to rouse the unconscious man.
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"Wake up, sunshine."
The voice in Dean's ear startled his eyes open. He tried to move and found he was bound tightly to a chair. "What the hell's going on?" He looked down to see rows of copper wire wrapped around his chest.
"About time you joined the party."
Dean glared up as a man walked around where he could see him. He was older, in his fifties perhaps and very much alive. He was bald with cold blue eyes that made Dean's skin crawl as he looked at him. "Who the hell are you?"
The man smiled. "An artist my son. An artist." He leaned in to Dean and adjusted some of the wires around his chest. "It has been a while so, let's have a test run shall we?"
Dean growled and struggled against the bonds holding him as the man walked away again. He was firmly tied down, barely able to even move his hands. He was still in the subway somewhere, that much was clear by the glare of the bare electric bulb burning above his head. It was a small room. He could see the dusty rails of the subway through the open door.
"What the hell do you want?" Dean demanded and twisted his head, trying to see his captor.
"Nothing." The man replied calmly.
Dean heard him flip a switch and jerked back in his restraints as electricity poured through him. He felt it burning along his arms and legs, making him twitch and the ropes bite into his flesh. He tried to gasp in a breath and shout and couldn't. His chest felt as though something impossibly heavy sat upon it, preventing him from taking a breath. He fought, his mouth opening and closing like a landed fish as he tried in vain to breathe. The pain was a huge thing, radiating out from his chest. Black spots began to dance along his vision and just as he thought he was done for the pain stopped. The current died and he dropped his head forward heaving great gales of air into starving lungs.
"Oh that went well!" The man stalked back around in front of him and knelt. "I was afraid I'd lost my touch." He grinned at Dean. "It's an interesting way to go. See, the current isn't strong enough to kill you but by wrapping the wires around your chest…" He twitched a couple of the copper wires higher and smiled. "The continuous current will force your chest muscles to contract and prevent you from taking a breath." He leaned in and tapped Dean's nose playfully. "Any breath at all. I'm told it's an excruciating way to suffocate. How did it feel?"
"Strangler." Dean gasped, realization hitting my like a freight train. "You're…the Subway Strangler."
"Bravo. Got it in one." The man grinned. "It is rewarding to be recognized for one's work even after so long. Mind you, that name was never quite accurate. It would have been more accurate to call me the Subway Suffocator but…I suppose that doesn't have the same ring to it."
"Why?" Dean said in a voice gone hoarse. "Why now?"
"Why am I back?" The man asked and waited for Dean's nod. "They're planning on renovating the tunnels. I don't think I want Rochester's finest…" He laughed and made air quotes with his fingers. "To find my children just yet."
"Children?" Dean managed to raise his head again finally though the burning in his chest had yet to leave him.
"Every artist considers his work to be his children." The man bowed and grinned again. "You should be honored I've decided to add you to my collection. I was going to take the other one." He sighed and shook his head. "Alas he was simply too big, too heavy for me to carry. I'm not as spry as I used to be you know."
Dean was never more glad in his life that his little brother had grown into a giant.
"Even getting you here was a strain." He stretched, resting a hand at the small of his back. "I'll need a chiropractor after this." He chuckled. "So, let's make this last as long as we can, hmm?"
Dean renewed his efforts to free himself as the Strangler walked out of his line of sight again. He knew what was coming now. "You son of a bitch!" He shouted. "I'm gonna enjoy killing your ass, you sick twist!"
The Strangler chuckled from behind him. "I'm afraid my death won't be on the menu today. Now, deep breath." He flipped the switch on the modified car battery he'd set up and watched cheerfully as his newest toy jerked and strained in his bonds, head arched back and frantic eyes staring at the ceiling as he fought and failed to breathe. "That's my boy."
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To Be Continued…