Pivot Point

Story Name: Pivot Point

Pen Name: ElenaRoan

Disclaimer: Don't own any of them, written purely for enjoyment.

Warnings:

Summary: What if Anna decided to derail the apocalypse by intervening to help rather than trying to make the brothers never having existed.

Timeline: Season 5

Note: I'm Australian and I can't bring myself to use USA spelling, sorry.

Chapter 98: Soggy Discovery

The stretch of highway was already dark by the time Dean decided that it was time to head to a motel for the night. Sam wasn't very talkative, staring into the night out his window, so he figured he was getting tired also. He was about to say so when his little brother suddenly sat up straighter, still looking into the darkness.

"Stop the car."

"What?" Dean shot his little brother a confused and alarmed glance. He always, ALWAYS, knew if Sam was feeling under the weather. Well… maybe not always, the stuff with his abilities turning on him had surprised both of them, but that was different.

"Now, Dean."

He pulled over.

"Wha…" his question trailed off since Sam was out of the car the moment it was actually stationary. He shoved the impala in park and turned it off before getting out and joining his little brother at the boot where he had both sections open. That made more sense.

"What is it?"

"No idea." Sam handed him his gun and an angel blade before pulling out the Colt, his regular gun, and another angel blade.

"Okay… well… who's in trouble then?" Dean pocketed the weapons.

"No clue. Probably us."

If that wasn't a description of the insanity of a Hunter's life, he didn't know what was. Dean moved away from the impala and looked over at the countryside, letting his eyes adjust to the dark.

"Why don't these sons of bitches ever set up shop somewhere pleasant?" He grumbled with a grimace as he took in the swampy land they were about to traipse through with no idea what was waiting for them beyond whatever it was that his little brother had sensed.

"Attracts too much attention somewhere pleasant." Sam answered gravely as he joined him.

"Buzzkill." Dean led the way into the soggy environment.

After ten minutes of slogging through the wet ground, there'd been no sign of anything other than mosquitoes.

"If this turns out to be someone being carried off by giant mosquitoes I'm gonna be disappointed." He complained. Dean didn't need to see the look his little brother sent his way concealed in the gloom. If it was a movie whatever creature it was would have appeared in an appropriately dramatic fashion before the sound of his voice had died away, so he was a smidge disappointed when the night stayed just as still as it had been.

"Were you hoping to provoke it into appearing?" Sam asked after a moment, amusement rippling under his words.

"Shut up, Sammy." Dean grumbled, swatting at the latest mosquito that had decided he would taste nice, "I just want this over with so we can find a motel and crash."

"I'm getting a faint human signature that way if that helps." Sam gestured into the dark.

"At the very least it's someone we need to get out of the firing line." Dean agreed.

They closed cautiously, Sam, in particular, scouring the gloom trying to spot the person he'd sensed as they neared. In a massive fountain, the creature they were after burst from the watery terrain, towering over even Sam.

"What the hell is this?" Dean demanded, aiming his gun and firing as it lurched towards them.

"You're asking me?"

"You are the walking encyclopedia."

"It's as new to me as it is to you."

The creature recoiled with every shot, and Dean kept shooting in the hopes that the sheer weight of bullets would sort the problem for them. Sam moved sideways even as he added his own bullets to the mix towards where the human was.

He almost tripped over the figure when he found them so covered in mud and gunk they were. Facedown as they were, it didn't look like whoever it was could actually breathe, they couldn't have always been in that position, so Sam figured they'd been tossed there when it decided to attack. Hoping Dean could handle holding the large muddy creature off he pocketed his gun and hauled the figure's head out of the swampy sludge and gave him a solid whack on the back.

It had the desired effect, whoever it was beginning to cough up the gunk they'd breathed in.

"Easy, easy, it's okay." He soothed as he supported them while they hacked. Deciding to help out the body's mechanism, he focused his telekinesis and lifting all the foreign matter out in time with one of the harsh coughs.

They panted for a moment, catching their breath with difficulty. Then looked up at Sam, barely managing to open their eyes a slit with all the gunk on their face.

"Sam?" His voice was barely there, but that didn't prevent the middle brother from recognising it.

"Vin? How did you end up here?"

"Um…" the sniper glanced around, "might help if I knew where here was, definitely not where I remember being."

With a splash, the creature either collapsed back into the marshy land or retreated, and Dean splashed over to them.

"Think I got the bastard." He declared, reloading his gun even as he reached them, "whatever it was. How's our friend?"

"Like I got belted and spat out by a goo monster." Vin answered, "hi, Dean."

"Vin? What are you doing here?"

"The two of you reading off the same script?" Vin grumbled.

Sam frowned and turned to look beyond his big brother into the darkness, "Dean… I don't think…"

The creature burst out again in another messy fountain of mud and other gunk before he got to finish the sentence. Dean spun to point his gun at it anew, while Sam quickly drew and fired himself. The creature stopped as if poleaxed, pulsed with light a couple of times, then crashed down into the swampy ground.

"Oh… forgot about the Colt." Vin mumbled.

"It's a nice get out of jail free card sometimes." Dean agreed, pocketing his gun, "were the others with you?"

"Yeah… but I was up on top of the buildings, and the others were elsewhere. Locals had called us in when that thing attacked, not sure if Josiah confirmed what it was before it clobbered me. Then I was here coughing up whatever that gunk was…"

As if mentioning it had reminded his body, he started coughing again.

"Easy, I cleared your lungs earlier. It's just sense memory." Sam reassured him, patting his back gently.

"Tell… that… to… my… body…" Vin spluttered.

"We'd better check on the others." Dean commented when the coughs finally settled down, and the sniper struggled to calm his breathing.

"Good idea." Sam agreed.

Dean pulled out his phone and looked at it for a moment, debating who to call. He eventually selected Henriksen's contact, as the most inexperienced member of the team with that aspect of their lives he was the most likely to have been put furthest from an unknown creature. Though he was hoping that no others were missing, given that Sam hadn't indicated sensing anyone else.

He chewed on his lip while it rang.

"Dean?" The FBI agent's voice was a welcome sound.

"Ah, good. You are able to answer. Did the goo critter grab anyone else?" Dean replied with relief.

"The… what?"

Right, he wasn't used to having to deal with descriptions of various creatures, especially unknown creatures.

"Big, slimy and stinky. Or was he alone when he was grabbed?" Dean pressed, hoping that would ring some bells for him.

"Huh?"

Apparently not. Dean was about to try again when the sound shifted as the phone on the other end was switched to speaker, and Josiah's voice rumbled over the line.

"Dean? Josiah here. Everything okay?"

"Yeah, we're…" Dean started to answer, only to be interrupted as Vin started up the tortuous coughing again. He turned away from the phone and looked at the two of them, "all good?"

Sam gave him a thumbs-up, and Dean turned back to the phone, "we're all good. You guys are who I was worried about, the goo critter grab anyone else?"

"Goo critter? You mean… the swamp monster?"

Dean noted that the other Hunter had indeed identified it, "oh, is that what it is?"

"What did he say it was?" Sam called out, catching the comment.

"Swamp monster." He called back.

Sam chuckled as his big brother turned back to the phone, "glad I had the Colt then. That has a long, complicated near ritual to take it out normally. Gotta catch and bind it, then dry it out, and salt and burn it."

Vin managed a shaky grin at the comment, still carefully controlling his breathing, so he didn't set off another coughing fit.

Sam frowned slightly, debating with himself, then reached out and put his hand on the sniper's chest. Vin wasn't sure whether he was imagining it or not that he seemed to feel warmth travel from the hand and further into his body. But a tightness he hadn't really been aware of relaxed.

"Be careful, Dean, it might be gone for the moment, but that thing is damn hard to kill. And fast." Josiah warned once the eldest brother turned back to the phone call.

"Yeah… no need to worry about that, it's just as vulnerable to the Colt as anything else. Sam bullseyed it." He relayed.

"Oh, good."

"Did you find Vin?" Chris cut in, sounding like he'd only waited until hearing the confirmation of the creature dealt with before asking.

"Well I'm not sure… but I'm pretty sure that's him under all that goo." Dean joked, though could almost swear he heard a growl at the humour, before continuing seriously, "that is why I called. Wanted to know if we should just hose him off and jump in baby to you, or hunt around for anyone else."

He almost held his breath as he waited for confirmation of either a good or bad outcome. He was really hoping there wouldn't be anyone else missing.

"He was the only one taken." Josiah stated, and Dean could breathe again.

"Refrain from cleaning him up just at the moment though." Ezra's cultured voice came over the line before anything else could be said, "Mr Tanner disappeared in a rather high profile manner, and there is an active search and rescue effort in order to locate him. It would probably be advisable if your connection to us was concealed as well as giving a plausible reason for why he wasn't located earlier."

Dean tried to sort through the wordy explanation for a moment before giving up. Sam was the one who was good with words, "what?"

"Don't clean him off." JD explained after a moment of consternated silence from the southerner, "there's an active search and rescue hunt for him, and it'll probably be good to keep your connection to us unknown as well as giving a reason for why he wasn't found earlier."

"Got it." Dean replied, now that the words weren't in fancy wrapping with a bow tied on each one, it was more than understandable, "where was he taken from?"

He called Sam and Vin over even as he switched to speaker. His little brother pulled up a map of the area on his phone as the young tech exactingly detailed the location of the town, and where the sniper had disappeared from.

"It's small, but there's actually a tributary leading into this marsh." Sam noted, pointing at the location on his map once he'd located all the points of interest.

"I take it I'm not getting a shower any time soon?" Vin asked with a cough, sounding more than a little disgruntled.

"You okay, Vin?" Nathan interrupted before anyone answered the question.

"Yeah." The sniper replied with another cough, "Sam cleared the gunk out, just my body doesn't seem to have figured it out yet. He calls it sense memory."

"Probably got every last trace out then, likely would still be a good idea to…" the medic started, sounding worried.

"I did check for physiological responses." Sam reassured him gently, drowning and near-drowning could do some crazy things to the body so it wasn't hard to follow what his concern was, "shouldn't be an issue. But a hospital won't know that. I'm guessing you'd like us to drop him off at a hospital as if we found him on the side of the road?"

It hadn't taken much for him to figure out what was being suggested. Especially after the earlier incident in Sioux Falls if they kept turning up even the densest member of law enforcement would connect them. And they'd be lucky if they came within spitting distance to the truth with the conclusion they'd draw.

"Closest hospital is in a different town to where he was taken, would you prefer we go there?" Dean added, he never seemed to even need to think about stuff like that.

"Yes." Ezra answered, "the state's rescue service will find that more believable."

"Rescue service? How long have I been gone?" Vin asked, shooting a surprised look at the brothers.

"Three days, more or less." Came the unexpected answer from JD.

"How long did you think you'd been gone?" Chris asked.

"Didn't feel like any time had passed between the slimy bastard clobbering me and waking up here with these two peppering it with bullets."

"And you feel okay?"

"A little tired, about it. Other than the gunk anyway."

"We can make it look worse than it is." Sam added, the sniper was definitely doing better than what anyone with any experience would expect after three days lost in the wilderness with no tools or supplies.

"That would be good." Ezra agreed.

"Don't fret, I won't put him in danger." Sam reassured all of the Hunters on the other end of the line.

They rang off.

"This isn't going to be fun, is it?" Vin asked with resignation.

"Let's get back to the car first." Sam replied, gesturing in the right direction. He continued as they walked, "but I'm thinking just knocking you out. Without you being able to talk and on your feet they won't notice you're doing better than what they'd expect for three days lost in a swamp."

"What is with that, anyway?" Dean asked, "monsters don't generally do anyone any favours, and if this was a friendly they wouldn't have taken you like that."

"At a guess, maybe what they're using as a food source." Sam suggested.

"And what would that be?" Dean retorted.

"No idea, I barely even know about Swamp Monsters in general, just a tiny entry in one of Bobby's books about how difficult it was to get rid of them." Sam replied.

"Huh… Josiah only knew of them from a book on difficult to deal with monsters also when he mentioned them as a possibility." Vin commented.

"Do I want to know how difficult it is normally?" Dean asked.

"First, you have to catch and bind them." Sam explained, flashing a grin at his brother, "which I'm sure you realise isn't easy."

"Catch? That son of a bitch? You're shitting me."

"I thought the same thing when I saw it too, was sure it wasn't a Swamp Monster given it topped some of the warehouses on the riverbank." Vin inserted with a chuckle, he had a better idea of its height since he'd actually had something to compare it to, "catch and bind something that big? Had to be impossible. Gotta admire the Hunters who figured it out, can't have had even half the stuff we do."

"Though there's also knowledge that has been lost. Look at how Samuel Colt made the Colt, something we can't figure out, let alone replicate." Sam pointed out, "who knows how much else has been lost over the years, there's a lot of gaps in the books Bobby's been able to get. And many of them only have one copy, would be really easy for an accident to happen and there's no way to retrieve that information."

"Not a reassuring thought." Dean commented, "and you said that was only the first step. I'd bet the rest aren't any easier."

"Given the size of it, I'd guess keeping it secure long enough to get it somewhere to dry it out would be the difficult part." Sam answered.

"Josiah said what he'd read specified iron shackles. Since we didn't have time to find a Hunter aware blacksmith we were hoping our cuffs would substitute." Vin added.

"Somehow, I don't think standard cuffs would fit." Dean noted.

"Me either. Didn't think old-style shackles would be big enough either." Vin agreed. He didn't need to specify that that was part of what made him think it had to be something different, that type of reasoning through stuff was part of what being a Hunter was all about.

As they reached the impala Dean stopped in his tracks.

"Son of a bitch." The eldest brother grumbled as his eyes darted back and forth between Vin and his beloved car.

"What?" Vin frowned, he couldn't see any damage to the vehicle.

Sam just chuckled and opened the boot. He dragged a blanket out of one corner then opened up the weaponry section and deposited what he was carrying.

"Oh." Vin commented as the middle brother wrapped the blanket around him.

"Now he can't get pissy about the seats getting muddy." Sam confirmed with a grin, "besides, it is what someone would do to someone they'd just found on the side of the road after having dragged themselves through swampy ground."

"We're close enough that it would probably be more efficient if we arranged you properly and go straight there rather than stop at a rest stop just outside of town and get sorted." Dean noted.

Vin nodded in acceptance, though he frowned a bit as he looked at the back seat. He trusted the brothers, he more than trusted them even, he just hated the idea of being out for the entire trip in case something happened in between the two locations.

"Okay." Sam nodded, "I'll get in the back and carry him as if he was out. Won't actually knock him out until we reach the hospital though. No sense playing with fire even if I'm not sensing any danger."

"You read my mind." Vin told him with a relieved look.

"Not literally." Sam replied, with a chuckle, "just considered what I'd be uncomfortable with in the same situation."

Dean shook his head, it was weird that that actually needed to be specified. He opened the back door.

"Ready?"

"As I'll ever be, how will…" Vin started, then gave a small yelp as Sam picked him up as if he weighed no more than one of their duffel bags. He wasn't a human mountain like Josiah or Buck were, but he wasn't light either. Not that the middle brother gave any indication of that.

"Figured this would be easier. If I have to rearrange you to get you out, it might be noticed and remembered." Sam explained with a grin.

"Makes sense." Vin agreed though he couldn't keep from tensing as the taller brother carefully manoeuvred both of them into the back. Dean closed the door once they were settled and got into the driver's seat.

They talked about inconsequential things until the big blue H was visible through the window.

"Okay, night night. Give us a call when you can?" Sam told him, waiting only to get a nod of agreement before tweaking a particular nerve that sent the sniper into unconsciousness harmlessly.

Then it was just carrying him into the emergency department and detailing the carefully edited facts of how they found him. Then slipping back out into the night once they had no further questions.

10