Author's Note: Sorry for taking so long to post this new chapter, just finished moving. :-) Hope everyone likes it.
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Chapter 9. Getting Prepared
Dean stepped out of the bathroom feeling a lot more refreshed, the dream and his conversation with Sam still very much on his mind.
Once dressed Dean gathered up the clothes he had changed out of and grabbed a hold of the door handle. He took a deep breath and then opened the door prepared to face another day.
Upon entering the room Dean saw that Sam was sitting up in his bed reading emails on his phone. That phone had too many functions and too many buttons if you asked Dean but Sam seemed to love it.
Sam looked up from his phone and watched as his brother plunked down on his own bed, running a hand through his still damp hair. Sam would be lying if he said he still wasn't concerned for his brother. He didn't particularly want to go up against a possible Manticore if Dean wasn't feeling up to it either. He would have to judge that for himself because Dean would kill himself before he would admit that he was anything but fine.
In fact Sam was counting himself lucky that he had gotten Dean to open up as much as he had. He thought he was right before when he had called Dean double standard. He had always been like that; it was okay for Sam to express his feelings or show weakness but not Dean Winchester. Dean was brought up to believe that protecting his little brother was his most important responsibility. So it had been, through their whole childhood. To the point that Dean did a lot of the raising of Sam himself, since their father was away too often on one supernatural hunt or another. A lot of the time Sam thought that generally Dean was way too hard on himself and for that Sam blamed mostly on their father for putting too much responsibility on too young shoulders.
Looking at Dean now he looked a little better, having had the time to refresh himself. Unfortunately though, Sam realized by looking at Dean's face, it had also given him time to put the walls he had carefully constructed back up. There would be no more chick flick moments this morning or that day for that matter.
"Are you okay?" Sam asked thinking it couldn't hurt to ask anyway.
"I'm fine Sam." Dean answered in the exact way Sam had thought he would.
Dean moved to sit back against the head board on the still unmade bed "So what are we gonna do about this Manticore thing?" he asked, directing the conversation somewhere else.
"Well," Sam began; getting up off the bed and walking over to the table with all the information he had printed out, "It says here that Manticore's usually live in underground sewers, caverns, crypts or ruins."
Sam walked over to his brother's bed with the papers in his hands and sat down on the edge of the bed, handing Dean some of the handouts.
"Manticore's mate for life and usually live in a pride of up to five Manticore's. There are rarely two males in one pride."
"One male with all those females," Dean commented "lucky guy."
Sam rolled his eyes but otherwise chose to ignore the fact that his brothers mind was more often than not in the gutter.
"Now they rest in shifts of eight to ten hours however there is always one awake, sort of like on watch or something." Sam continued.
"What about the victims?"
"Well they are usually eaten where they are killed unless there are cubs in a pride. If that's the case then the kill is brought back to their camp."
"Nice."
"Yeah," Sam agreed "Now the fact that, so far people have been going missing every two weeks also makes me believe that we might be dealing with a Manticore."
"That's how often they feed." Dean theorized.
"Exactly,"
Dean nodded and flipped through the rest of his brother's research.
"Did you find anything that might help us in fighting and killing the damn thing?" Dean finally asked?
Sam closed his eyes and shook his head in the negative.
"Well that sucks."
"I did find out that its skin apparently repels all known charms, it has wings and it can't really fly but it can leap and glide down on its prey for the kill."
"Well that sucks even more. How the hell are we supposed to kill it?" Dean asked not liking the sound of this.
"Well I searched and searched and searched some more but all I could find was that in some ancient tribes apparently people used to hunt the cubs and smash their heads in with rocks before they could grow old enough to be a real threat."
"So your saying that it can be killed any normal way but it just might be a bit hard if we're dealing with an adult?" Dean asked, hope coming back.
"I honestly don't know, maybe, hopefully. There was really nothing I could find on how to kill it."
"Maybe Dad might know." Dean suggested.
"Yeah well even if he did. It's not like that's an option anyway. The man never picks up his phone or answers his voicemail." Sam said bitterly.
Dean just nodded, having no real come back because it was the truth. If it wasn't for the occasional text message of co-ordinates then they wouldn't even know if the man was alive.
Dean pulled his legs over the edge of the bed and stood up, bumping Sam purposely on his way.
"What do you wanna do?" Sam asked as he tried to keep his balance on the edge of the bed.
"Well I say that we head up to the area where these people have gone missing and check it out for ourselves." Dean told him and walked over to the coffee maker and poured himself and Sam a cup each.
"Sounds good to me, but what if we do happen to run into the Manticore?"
"Well I'm thinking we pack enough arsenal with us to fight a small war. If a cub can be taken down by a beating to the head then maybe with enough firepower we can take down the Mummy and Daddy." Dean said, saying the last part with his usual sarcastic spirit.
"Maybe,"
Sam got up from his seat on the bed, grabbed the offered coffee out of Dean's hand and grabbing a change of clothes along the way, headed for the bathroom, "I'll go get ready."
Dean nodded and watched as his brother went into the bathroom. As soon as the bathroom door closed a smirk appeared on his face. He was rewarded a few minutes later when he heard the shower start, followed by a yelp coming from the bathrooms occupant.
Dean chuckled to himself as he heard his name being cursed behind the closed door. He hadn't truly meant to use all the hot water but when he really thought about it, it was Sam's fault anyway for making him talk about his dream. /Don't know if Sam would agree with that logic/ Dean thought as a he smiled into his coffee.
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Almost an hour and a half later the boys were coming up on the Ranger Station once again.
Before they had left on their drive Sam had made Dean stop and buy the newspaper. He wanted to read the paper to see if the authorities had made anymore leads but also so he wouldn't have to speak to his brother. He couldn't help but notice the smirk on Dean's face when he had emerged from the bathroom shivering.
Sam hated having cold showers. It was always a rule in their little family that their Dad got the shower first, then Dean and then Sam. It used to infuriate Sam as teenager when Dean would purposely leave him no hot water. It was no different now, years later, especially when he saw that Dean got such a kick out of pulling pranks on him. In fact their pranks always ended up being mini wars that eventually their father would have to step in. Sam could still remember the time when Dean had put Nair in his shampoo. He had to go school bald for what seemed like forever. He had nearly killed him for that one.
Sam looked over at his brother and saw that he looked so bored. Now that they were on that winding road Dean was once again forced to slow his driving down.
Looking back down at the paper he noticed something that caught his eye.
"Hey listen to this."
"Oh you're finally talking to me. You know it was just a little bit of cold water Sammy …"
"Just shut up and listen." Sam interrupted, no anger in his voice.
"Okay." Dean said quietly, eyes going back to the road.
"Due to the recent amount of missing people, Pikes Peak National Forest is closed to tourists and all camping excursions are canceled until the matter is under control …" Sam read from the article.
"Well that's good. I mean, no-one else is going to go missing," Dean said "This gives us time to sort this out."
"I don't think we should go as far as the Ranger Station. I have a map. It shouldn't be too hard to find the area by ourselves."
"I'm one step ahead of you Sammy." Dean told him smugly as he turned into a narrow forest road.
"I saw this on the way up here yesterday," he said pulling the car off to the side, shutting off the engine and snatching Sam's map out of his hands.
"We should be able to get there from here and the car will be hidden and most importantly safe. We will just have to walk a bit further."
"Yes heaven forbid your precious car not be safe." Sam said exiting the car.
"Just admit it Sammy if something ever happened my baby you would be upset to." Dean told him following suit.
"First of all, for the last time it is Sam not Sammy and it's a car, I think I would live."
"They say you don't know what you miss until it's gone. But you're lucky, you won't ever have to worry about that because nothing bad is ever going to happened to this baby while I'm around." Dean responded walking around to the back of the Impala and opened the trunk, taking out a bag he had packed before they had left the motel.
Sam shook his head. His brother really was nuts. If he was honest with himself he couldn't picture his life with out the Impala in it somewhere. It was an extension of Dean in a way and he would be a little tiny bit sad should something happen to the old Chevy. Not that he would ever admit that to his brother.
"What did you pack?"
"Shotguns with real ammo, a couple of Beretta's real ammo again, a couple of machete's incase we need to chop the fugly bastards head off, amongst other things." He listed off as he handed Sam the bag.
"What's in the second bag?" Sam asked hefting the back of weaponry onto his shoulders.
"Just some basic provisions, you know, like bottles of water, rope, peanut M&M's."
Sam looked at him like he had really gone mad now, "Peanut M&M's are provisions now?"
"Yeah Dude. They helped you find my trail when that nasty Wendigo captured me didn't they? Those things can be life savers." Dean smirked.
"Strangely true." Sam laughed, remembering now when he had traveled with Dean to Blackwater Ridge, Colorado in search of their elusive father only to encounter a Wendigo. When Dean and that girl Hailey had been captured by the Wendigo Dean had left a trail using his M&M's for Sam and Hailey's brother Ben to find them.
"Only this time I'm not planning on leaving them all over the forest floor." Dean said interrupting Sam's trip down memory lane.
"It's okay Dean if you do get caught by the Manticore it won't keep you alive like the Wendigo did. They eat their prey straight away." Sam told him as Dean shut the trunk and then locked the Impala.
"Well that's not a comforting thought."
"It wasn't meant to be." Sam laughed as he followed Dean up the short forest side road.
TBC ...
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