Author's Note: Yay! I got an applause!
Hope you like this chapter, newXmoonXfox, and yes, there will be Wincest. It's one of those eventual things, but in a couple of chapters or so…not sure exactly how many. Thanks to all who reviewed and alerted/favorited me!
Chapter Nine: Den of Despair
Everything was dark. The only light came from their helmet/visor lights, and the cave was pretty much everything that Sam and Dean had expected it to be. Extremely rocky, vast, and rough, like out of some nature film.
What they didn't really consider or find all that appealing was what Carl calling shaft climbing. There was this narrow opening at the end of the path that Carl had led them down after climbing up a rock wall for almost an hour. The opening was just big enough to allow some one Sam's size, but not much bigger or wider. Dean could feel his shoulders being squished just looking at the hole.
Carl just kept up with his talking as well. He explained that they would crawl through the shaft, only a hundred or so yards, until reaching the other side and the largest junction in the caving system. All while telling them about his childhood puppy, Chichi.
They had officially branded the man as crazy. And learned very quickly that there was no off switch to the human ear. Dean was annoyed enough that he looked like he could have turned some of the rocks into sand…using his teeth.
It had been nearly three hours of searching and learning the 'ropes' of climbing and navigating the map and shafts before Sam decided that enough was enough.
"Carl, I think that we're done for the day," he announced, wanting to laugh at the nearly ecstatic expression Dean wore.
"Oh, that's too bad; I was ready to keep going. I thought that we were going to keep looking until we found something," Carl said, disappointed. But he perked up moments later while telling them more about the history of the cave's changes and the founding of Mammoth as a recreational national park. Normally Sam might have found the tour-guide lecture somewhat appealing, but he was just plain tired of hearing Carl's voice at that point.
The sun was not too far down in the sky, and Dean checked his watch. 3:40.
"Thanks for all your help. We'll look more around the forested area for now, and call you if we need to go back in the caves." Sam was saying.
"No problems at all, call me if you need anything. I actually do know the surrounding woods pretty well-"
"I think we can manage," Dean said with a tight, forced smile.
"Great! Hope to see you soon," Carl bid them farewell and walked back to his car.
"God damn, he's worse than you were when you were four, learning how to read," Dean shook his head.
"We've met demons less excruciating than that man," Sam agreed.
"Hey, did all the spelunkers who went missing pay to have a guide?" Dean asked.
"No, I think about two-thirds of them were professionals or just experienced. Why?" Sam countered.
"Cause I'm beginning to think that the guy who broke his leg did it on purpose. Hell, I was ready to jump off one of the ledges."
Sam laughed, "I might've had to join you on that. You'd leave me to deal with that walking nightmare alone?"
Dean sighed, as if put-upon, "Some sacrifices must be made. You were going to be my distraction as I ran for it,"
Sam rolled his eyes and shoved Dean playfully. "Don't abandon me with that weirdo! Anyway, we need to go back in there,"
"What?!" Dean looked ready to jump out of his skin at the suggestion.
"We needed to get rid of him to actually hunt, Dean," Sam said, "As fun as it would be to watch that guy get offed by a ghost or whatever would be, he probably would just get in the way." Sam reasoned.
"So you just sent off the guy who knows how to work all this gear and navigate the caves and shit so we could get ourselves in a fuck load of trouble?"
"Dean, we can do this by ourselves. I figured out the map, there's markings and posts everywhere so we won't get lost, and we can handle the stupid climbing gear. We're good." Sam assured him, "Unless you have some great hidden fear of caves that you're just now letting me know about."
"No, I'm more worried that we'll screw up bad and get hurt without a chance of getting any real help and starving to death or something fun like that," Dean groused.
"I realize that I'm not the happiest person to be around sometimes, but has anyone told you that you're a fantastic optimist?" Sam raised an eye brow, and Dean stuck his tongue out at him. "We'll watch out for each other and kick ass just like usual. The EMF meter didn't show anything, so we don't have to worry about invisible attacks. We'll be fine,"
Dean just grumbled and followed his freakishly tall and calm brother back into the caves, trying not to wonder about all the things that could go horribly wrong.
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"Found something!" Dean yelled out, two hours later, twitching as he heard his voice echo. So the cave creeped him out, okay? What ancient place didn't have a fucking monster in it? It was the whole cave-ins possibility that was fucking with his brain.
"That's…something I never wanted to see in my entire life," Sam's face twisted as he saw the detached shouldered arm, muscle and nerve ends torn and the skin…chewed on?
"Yeah, I think I could have gone another three lifetimes with out seeing that either," Dean noticed something in the thing's hand, and grimacing, he went to pick it up.
"I'd say there's a monster here…what is it?" Sam looked at the object in Dean's hand.
"A…what's that thing called? A climbing clip? It's pretty nice…" Dean admired the steel.
"Must have been one of the professionals," Sam shook his head at the severed appendage. "I'll look further in; you…go ahead and play with the dead person's clip…" Sam wanted to laugh bitterly at the fascination his brother had in all things shiny and manly. Case-in-point: the Impala and his guns and knives.
"That sounded really wrong, dude," Dean scowled at his brother's fading chuckle. He focused his light beam on Sam's form as Sam squeezed through a wide fissure in the rock wall that they had not seen before.
He came closer to the opening to peer inside after Sam, not wanting his brother to be alone for a second now that they were sure that it was something supernatural at work.
Sam moved his head around slowly as he strained his eyes to look for any more signs of carnage. Truth be told, he was probably as freaked out about the cave as Dean was, but he had taken the initiative as the 'comic relief' this time around, as Dean had done some many times. It was stunning how the two of them operated, pushing and pulling at each other's strings and picking up the slack that the other left behind. The role reversal in this situation was done so smoothly that neither noticed nor minded; their focus on the gruesome and stomach-churning case.
Sam's mini spot-light landed on what looked like a wet rock, dark and uneven, but Sam went in closer to see it because something seemed off about the 'rock'. Once he was about two yards from it, he realized what the weird thing about it was. The dark blob was bleeding, and Sam cursed every biology class he had ever taken.
It was a human liver, fleshy and torn, attached to what he knew to be intestines.
"Fucking hell…" Sam said aloud, taking one step closer so as to not fall over in disgust and surprise.
"Sam?" Dean asked when Sam spoke, trying to look where Sam's light fell, but couldn't discern neither heads nor tails of whatever it was. Sam moved forward, and dropped out off sight with an indignant yelp.
"Sam!" Dean pushed himself through the fissure and ran toward where Sam had fallen through. The edges around the hole that Sam had missed with his first search were crumbling, and Dean had to stay a good few feet back to ensure that he would not meet the same fate as Sam.
"Sam!" He called out again, laying his whole body flat to the ground and army crawling closer, like he had been told to do with weak ice over water. He was able to poke his over the edge and look down.
"I'm alright," Sam called up, his eyes squinting against the light that his brother's head light shone down in his face. "It wasn't that much of a fall, and there's an underground well or pond here…fuck its cold!"
"I can imagine," Dean chuckled, albeit hysterically, "I'll get some rope. You watch out alright? I don't remember seeing anything about an underground lake on the map…"
"Yeah, yeah," Sam said, standing in thigh-deep water as he pulled out his gun, just in case. "Just hurry up, already,"
His head whirled around when heard the first splash, not liking the idea that he wasn't alone in the murky water. His head light had somehow survived the water, but didn't provide him with much visibility.
"Shit," He muttered under his breath, pleading in his mind for Dean to hurry the hell up.
The next splash was considerably closer, and this time when Sam turned, he came almost nose to nose with the monster of the cave. A grey face with pale, pupiless eyes and jagged bared teeth growled at Sam from only three inches away.
He fired as first instinct, and the thing was down. It didn't get up.
"Hey! Get the hell offa me!" Sam heard from above, as well as more splashing around the lake.
No, there couldn't have been just one of these things down here; we had to stumble into a freaking nest of them!
Sam's thoughts were split between asking the ultimate pessimistic and ironically optimistic question what the hell else could go wrong and worrying over Dean, who he heard fire at least three shots.