AN: Once again, this took longer to get out than I anticipated. Thank you for your patience!
Janice is fire, as the kids say. She is also a fantastic beta!
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Dean stayed up a lot longer than he should have, given the facts that they were at the beginning of a hunt and that he'd slept for only a few hours the previous two nights in the car. But he needed to work through some thoughts, and he might as well sharpen their stuff while he did instead of lie in bed staring into the darkness. He was tempted to dig out the Jack Daniels from the trunk and get a little help to sleep, but he knew his recent uptick in drinking worried Sam, who would probably wake up if he went out of the room.
So instead, he honed the edges of every blade they had in the room and ruminated a little bit about his conflicted feelings. (He was not brooding. Just thinking. And if he never admitted out loud that he sometimes thought about feelings, nobody would know about it anyway.)
It bothered Dean that someone had pulled a knife on Sam and he hadn't been able to get to his brother's side. The fact that Sam hadn't needed him was a moot point. Sort of, anyway. Sure, Sam had handled the chucklehead without much trouble (other than tripping over the chick he was trying to help, which in other circumstances would be hilarious), but Dean should have been able to have his back just in case and not allowed himself to be stopped by a couple of civilians.
It wasn't like he never saw Sam in danger. Hell, he'd just gotten his arm broken by a zombie chick while playing bait to lure her out. Danger was part and parcel with the job they did. Yet this bothered him more than monster danger for some reason. Maybe it was because danger hunting was expected and something they prepared for. Maybe it was because they were in town specifically to help people like the moron who'd pulled a knife. Maybe it was because they couldn't do anything about the assholes and abusers of the world. Or maybe it was just because people weren't supposed to be monstrous and monsters were.
It was only the reminder that the fact that Sam had more than acquitted himself so well, broken arm and all, was in no small part due to the training Dean had given him that allowed Dean to finally settle down for some shut-eye.
In any case, Dean was nowhere near ready to be awake when he heard Sam moving around and even humming softly like some morning-loving psychopath.
"Mmmm ooh mphee," Dean grumbled into his pillow, hoping his disgruntlement came through loud and clear.
"It is not too early," Sam said, correctly interpreting the grunting. "But you don't have to get up yet."
"Syurm?" Dean muttered without opening his eyes.
"My arm's fine. Go back to sleep."
Sure it was fine. Blocking a punch with a cast may have been badass, but it probably had hurt like a mother. Still, Sam hadn't seemed to be in much pain the night before, which meant that Dean could worry about it later, when the sun was a little higher in the sky.
Sam was right about one thing: Dean did not need to get up yet. They didn't have any of their interviews specifically scheduled, and it was too early to show up at people's doors or go to the library, which they needed to do to research on how long incidents had been happening and exactly where since small town newspapers tended to say things like "just north of the old Cramer farm" and "by Kearne's dump."
Dean mumbled something that he forgot immediately but made Sam laugh and fell back to sleep.
The next time Dean woke up, it was to the sound of a car door slamming and a vehicle going too fast for the pothole-pocked little road the motel was on. The room was brighter than before, but absolutely still. It was that stillness that made him sit up, pulling his knife out from under the pillow and look around the room warily. He could tell that he was alone. There weren't any signs of trouble, and Sam had probably just gone out to get coffee or a newspaper, yet the hair on the back of his neck was standing up.
Dean took a better look around. Dad's journal was on the table next to the open laptop and a yellow pad of paper covered in Sam's careful, blocky printing. There was no note saying where Sam had gone, which meant he didn't expect to be long. Dean narrowed his eyes and made his way to the door, making sure his silhouette wouldn't cross the window. He moved just enough to see past the heavy viridian curtains.
He didn't see anything out of place, just the crappy parking lot, practically empty, and the sad little road without a car on it. Still keeping out of the way of the windows, he moved to the back of the room, pulling on his boots as he went. There was nothing to see that way either, just the gravel lot and scraggly trees bordering an expanse that was half empty lot, half meadow.
Craning his neck, he saw was the Impala. Only the front half of the hood was visible, the tires cranked toward the lot and the rest of the car still hidden behind the side of the building. That reinforced all the unease Dean was feeling. He might give Sam crap for his driving, but he was actually a skilled vehicle operator and was annoyingly meticulous about parking straight. The car wasn't even really parked, just stopped in a random place, certainly not where Dean had parked it the night before.
Instincts now screaming, Dean shoved the window open, probably farther than it was intended to go. There was no screen, so he just shouldered his way out of it, in too much of a hurry to find out what had happened to even wait the amount of time it would have taken to walk around the front of the building.
The car was shut off and empty. A large cup lay on its side near Baby's back driver side door, the cover gone and dark liquid pooled around it. A second cup was on the passenger's seat next to a white take-out bag. Dean's chest tightened. The simplest explanation was that Sam had come back from fetching breakfast and been interrupted before he could get to the room. And now he was gone, right after Dean had heard a car speeding away.
A closer inspection around the side of the building revealed a few drops of what could only be blood, and a few tufts of the grass growing up through the gravel were uprooted and, farther on, a tire had dug deeply into the dirt just before the road, as if someone had spun tires in their hurry.
Dean had to force himself to keep from rushing when all he wanted to do was jump in the car and take off after whoever had taken Sam, but that wouldn't get him anywhere until he had some idea about where to go. After a moment's thought, Dean rounded the front of the motel and went into the little room masquerading as an office.
The kid behind the low counter looked up from the 13" tv he'd been staring at and jumped to his feet, knocking over the folding chair he'd been sitting on, his mouth dropping open and his eyes going comically wide in shock. He could just as well have announced, "I had something to do with the shit that went down."
Dean flicked the lock on the door and pulled his gun, taking his time to let the implications of both actions sink in. "I take it you know who I am," he said, advancing on the shaking twenty-something. "Which means you probably know why I'm so pissed off. Tell me where my brother is, who took him, and why, and you'll walk out of here without any new holes."
The kid, a pudgy guy with lanky, greasy hair falling to his chin, looked like he was about to pee in his pants. He couldn't seem to stop staring at Dean's gun. "Th-th-they didn't say an-anything about t-taking –"
Dean forced himself to take half a step back so the kid could at least calm down enough to talk. "What did they say? And who are they?" He looked at the kid's nametag. "Answer me, Carl."
Carl flinched at the sound of his name. Or maybe at the growl in Dean's voice. "I – they just said to let them know if you left and what direction you went," he whimpered. "Please don't shoot me! I don't know anything else."
"Who told you?" Dean demanded.
"I – uh – oh shit – I can't," Carl babbled, cowering against the wall.
Dean raised the gun to point right at Carl's stupid, sweaty face, making the guy whimper piteously. He wasn't in a pitying mood, however. No, he was pissed and determined. "Listen, dipshit, whoever you're working with took my last living family member, and I will do whatever I have to to get him back. Shooting you wouldn't bother me in the slightest." He adjusted his aim to point at Carl's leg. "And there are a lot of places that I could shoot you that wouldn't kill you, then ask again. Who are you supposed to tell if I leave? What do they want with my brother?"
"It's Chet and Linda," Carl burst out. "Don't shoot me! I don't know what they want. I didn't know that they were going to grab him. Or why. Or anything. They came in like ten minutes ago with guns and said if I did it they wouldn't tell the cops that I sell drugs! I don't know how they knew about that."
Dean's lip curled up as the scumbag wet himself. Unfortunately, his claims not to know much about the abduction rang true. "Chet...and Linda? They're together?" He wanted to beat his head against the wall. The barfight had been a set-up, that much was clear. "Do they – do this? Take people?"
"They're married. I dunno. They're weird – really private. I hardly know 'em." Carl covered his face with his hands. "Please don't shoot me!"
"Tell me where they live, what they're driving, and any place they might go, and I won't," Dean promised. "Unless they hurt Sam. Then I'll come back and kill you," he finished matter-of-factly. (He wouldn't, of course. Probably. But Carl didn't know that.)
It took the cowardly Carl a few moments to recover from that threat before he could answer coherently. They had a big, black Ford SUV with dark windows. He didn't know exactly where the couple lived, only the general area "out on the bluffs" and some stuttered directions on how to get there. The bluffs were carved-out cliffs overlooking the river that ran north of town, and it was by all accounts a large, inhospitable area dotted with caves and hidden corners and hardy scrub pines. "I don't even know if they have a house or straight up live off the grid eating bark and raccoons and shit. They're those survivalist types. I'm scared of 'em."
Carl also knew the asshole who'd picked a fight with Sam – a local ne'er-do-well whose primary motivation seemed to be to drink his way through his entire inheritance. The only connection he could think of with the dynamic duo is that he and Chet both were known to do odd jobs for cash occasionally.
Dean figured he'd wrung everything he could from the man. "You keep looking at the phone," he remarked before leaving. "Go ahead and call the cops when I go if you want. Of course, you'll have to tell them why I threatened you and what Chet and Linda had over your head." Dean pretended to think about it. "You ever watch any of those police shows that are on every channel, Carl?"
Carl nodded, a bit of confusion breaking through the fear in his expression.
"Good. Then you've heard the term accessory. On top of your little drug operation, you're an accessory to assault and kidnapping." If possible, Carl went even paler. "Or maybe you want to call your buddies. I'm sure they aren't the type of people to do something drastic to you when they hear that you gave them up or anything." Dean nodded and walked out the door. "Have a nice day, Carl."
He hurried back to the room, watching for anything out of place. He wouldn't put it past two "survivalist types" to have someone keeping an eye on him just in case Carl didn't come through. He didn't see anything as he hurried back to the room and hastily packed it all up into the car just in case Carl called the cops after all.
Centering himself and banking his rage, Dean took one more good look around for any clues. There wasn't anything new to see, so he got in the car and headed out toward "the bluffs," vowing to find Sam no matter how long it took.
WINCHESTER * WINCHESTER
Sam slept fairly well despite the ache in his arm. Like usual, once he woke up, there was no point in trying to get back to sleep, though it was early. He'd distantly registered Dean staying up well into the night and could tell just by looking at him that he was nowhere near ready to get up. After reassuring his brother that he was fine (and laughing at Dean's sleepy comment that only weirdos got up that early), Sam researched quietly for a while.
He was lucky – the library had an excellent compilation of newspaper articles in its digital archives and a poor excuse for a firewall. In addition to the few people who'd gone missing, there were many more reports of missing cattle and pets, and hikers and hunters (the kind who went after animals) occasionally stumbling across a bloody scene, sans body or even bones or drag marks. A few times, the blood was tested and inevitably found to be animal. To Sam, that all sounded like evidence of one or more lapsae. Interestingly, though the disappearances were rare, they stretched back as long as the library's history. There was no way to know how many of the disappearances were precipitated by more mundane causes, but it certainly seemed like an unusually high number of people went missing in a relatively small area over the years. All were far enough from town that people had probably deluded themselves into thinking it was just wild animals and accidents.
Then Sam found something even more interesting. It seemed that there was some very, very old art that had been found in the area, specifically rock paintings. Rock paintings that depicted people interacting with human-sized winged creatures. Most were fairly degraded by age, but the large creatures appeared over and over again.
When the paintings had first been discovered, people had speculated that they depicted pterosaurs of some kind. But once science revealed that such creatures had gone extinct before humans began to walk upright, theories changed. Some thought they illustrated mythical beings like rocs or thunderbirds, some thought they must show a now-extinct bird like the Argentavis magnificens, which Sam was impressed to learn had been about the size of two-seater airplane.
Sam had a different theory. He wanted to get started on talking to witnesses, since there rarely were any to the disappearances. And he kind of wanted to call Bobby and talk it out with him and Dean, but it was too early for any of that. He decided to pick up breakfast to kill a little time.
Since the motel was on little nothing road with nothing else in sight but a still closed bait and tackle shop and boarded up building with aging signs blaring Cash for Gold, Sam figured he wouldn't find anything within walking distance. He walked around the motel, noting that there were strange gouges in the uneven and cracked pavement that he hadn't noticed before but not thinking much of it.
He easily found Lou's Eats and ordered breakfast and coffees to go. Somebody gasped behind him and practically ran out the door, but the waitress bringing his order distracted Sam and he didn't turn to look.
I should look, he thought. That must be who told...wait. None of this was happening. It was a memory of the morning. What had happened next? He really needed to remember before opening his eyes, so he went back to the memory.
Driving back to the motel, grabbing a sip of the weak coffee on the way. Then...that's right. A van was parked behind the motel and pulled in front of him, making him have to hit the brakes hard and nearly spill the coffee.
"Turn off the car and get out, and don't make any noise," said a hard voice, and Sam looked to his right to see Linda aiming a shotgun at him through the open passenger's window. She held the weapon like it was an extension of herself and her expression said she'd follow through on the unspoken threat if he didn't comply.
It was a perfectly-planned ambush. Sam's gun was in the glove compartment and the motel hid them all from most of the road and worse, from the room where Dean was sleeping. Hopefully was sleeping and not already snatched.
"I take it you didn't appreciate – or need – the help last night?" Sam asked the armed woman sardonically, but he shut off the car as ordered. He pulled the keys out of the ignition and got out with them in one hand and the coffee in the other, as if he'd simply forgotten to set the latter down.
Chet and another man of a similar age got out of the van, both holding handguns. "Hand over the keys and drop the coffee," Chet instructed far too calmly for someone doing this for the first time. "Take it easy and follow our instructions and nobody has to get hurt."
Sam gave him a look that clearly conveyed that he knew the reassurance was complete bullshit. He reached out a hand toward the man he didn't know as if he was actually going to hand over the keys. He looked slightly less competent than the other two, though he was compact and muscular like Chet.
"Got the whole kidnapping shtick down, huh?" Sam asked. "Are you garden-variety psychopaths, or do you have something to do with the lapsae?"
When the guy opened his mouth to answer, Sam threw the coffee in his face and the keys onto the roof of the motel. (Hey, he knew just how protective Dean was of his baby. Might as well make it hard for his kidnappers to steal her.)
Sam was diving forward even before the keys landed, throwing an elbow at the face of the closest man. He fell backwards and Sam pivoted so his body spoiled Linda's shot. He jerked the man's gun out of his hand –
Then what had happened? Sam thought harder. There had been a flash of movement. Probably Chet, smacking him on the back of the head. Dammit. Another second and he'd have been armed. And clearly, it was high time he woke up and figured out what was going on around him and why he'd been taken.
As Sam swam his way back to consciousness, pain shot down his broken arm and he couldn't stop the pained hiss from escaping. He got his eyes opened to find himself hanging from his wrists and Chet fastening the rope the held him to a hook in the wall. Sam blinked hard.
"Son of a bitch," he ground out as he tried to get his feet under him and his weight pulled harder on his wrists for a moment. "Are you feeding me to the lapsae?"
He was in a large cave, the front of which was brightly lit by the sun through the massive opening maybe fifty feet away. There were hooks embedded various places in the ceiling and closest wall, and clear blood stains in several places on the floor, which dropped off steeply behind him. He was pretty sure he could make out part of a human rib cage farther back where the sun couldn't quite reach, and there were a lot of gouges on the rocky floor. Gouges that looked remarkably like the ones near the motel room. So...the lapsae had been there too?
"I am sorry for the pain," Chet said with a rueful smile. "We try to keep them away from people. But I cannot let you simply kill them. They deserve a chance to live too. They really are magnificent." He spoke with a certainty that said he wouldn't be swayed from his position. "And you are a Hunter, right?"
Sam grimaced at the plural. Great, not just one mothman. He finally got to his toes and took some of the weight off his poor arm. As he did, he put together what seemed so familiar about Linda, from the way she carried the shotgun to the ease with which she'd run the con...and he knew how they'd been spotted so quickly. "Yeah. And so are you, aren't you, Linda?"
Her brows went up in what looked like reluctant admiration. She and the unknown man, who had a hell of a black eye, stood at a slight distance with weapons held casually. "I was," she admitted. "I came here years ago for the lapsae. One found me and had the chance to kill me and instead killed a bear that was on my tail. He saved me, and I couldn't kill him. Then I met these two." She shrugged, but Sam caught the quick but loving glance she cast toward Chet. So, she'd fallen in love and started helping wrangle the monsters instead of killing them. The next big question was why.
"Bear is their favorite meal," Sam responded dryly. He surreptitiously tested the ropes, finding there was no give at all. "It wasn't saving you on purpose, just eating something else first. You're trying to control it – them – right? But they're still monsters, and now you're murderers."
Linda snorted and the stranger looked away guiltily, but Chet just looked apologetic. "It won't take long," he said as if that made it better.
"You need to tell us how you kept him out of your room," Linda said, now pointing the shotgun at Sam again. "They've never failed to get someone we gave their blood to, until you two."
It was Sam's turn to snort, ignoring how it made his head ache. He had no idea what had kept the lapsae out, but the only thing he could think of was salt. Except, wouldn't Linda have had tried that if she truly was a former Hunter? Maybe it was holy water or something else that they happened to be carrying, though most of that type of stuff was in the car and not their motel room. He was about to tell them to figure it out themselves (or possibly do something else to themselves) when Chet stepped close.
"We are sorry," he said calmly. "You don't understand, I know. Our family is pledged to protect the lapsae. If it weren't for people like us, your Hunters would have them all extinct."
Sam ignored the placatory insanity, busy measuring how far away the man was. Without warning, he kicked out, sending Chet to the ground and his gun flying. It wasn't a strategic move as much as one designed to show them just what he thought of their demands and apologies. "If your pet monsters don't end up killing you, my brother will," he snarled, pain and helplessness making him angry. "We came here to try to help you people, maybe save some lives. And risk our own doing it. So you can take your 'I'm sorry" and shove it up your ass!"
"Chet!" shouted the unknown man, totally ignoring Sam's tirade. Linda at least finally looked uncomfortable, though the gun never wavered.
As the man helped Chet to his feet, Sam now realized he resembled Chet a great deal – probably his brother, given Chet's comment about their twisted family legacy.
"I'm okay, Archie," Chet stated, brushing himself off and looking for his gun, only to sigh when he discovered that it had gone flying down into a big depression in the floor. Sam couldn't see how deep it was, but he'd heard the gun hit the bottom, and the fall had taken a good second, meaning it was at least sixty feet. "There are...things you don't understand," he told Sam.
A flapping sound reached Sam, echoing in a way that made it seem like it was coming from every direction at once.
"They're coming!" Linda announced. "Time to get the hell out of here."
Chet nodded almost formally to Sam, and he, Archie, and Linda all melted away into the depths of the cave without another backwards glance.
Something with big, big wings appeared from a small opening high in the wall in front of Sam. It launched itself in the air and drifted down in lazy circles as Sam redoubled his efforts to get free, pulling so hard on the ropes that his eyes crossed from the pain in his arm but still with no success.
As the lapsae landed and hissed at Sam, drool dripping from its mouth, another jumped from the ledge. Then another. And another...
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AN: The Argentavis magnificens is believed to be the heaviest bird that ever lived capable of flight. It was estimated to weigh like 150 – 160 lbs and have a wingspan of like 23 feet. Yikes!
DearHart: What makes you think anybody's going to get hurt? LOL. Okay, yes of course. Trying to update regularly!
Timelady66: No comments on the little cut. LOL. I have a thing for them in bar fights, too, I fully admit it. I almost went back and made it last longer, but that wasn't really what the story warranted, sadly. Yay for you writing more!
Christine: When I wrote about information being so important to what Hunters do, I thought about when Sam and Dean were in that secret detention center and Cas when on a hunt but couldn't figure out what it was because he didn't have enough practice seeking out info. I'd love to hear your thoughts on Dean's specific ethics because you're very insightful. And, yeah, the bar fight was a presage of things to come.
sylvia37: It's never nothing, right? LOL.
muffinroo: Some blood? Well, that's not ominous at all, right? I mean, it's not like they could have bad motives or anything. Or would want to kidnap our sweet Sammy. Heh.
sfaulkenberry: Would I do such a thing to Sam? Yeah, of course I would. But in this case, I also had him kidnapped by crazies a la the Benders. Why not? We all live for that. LOL.
Colby's girl: No nice slow start this time! It was fun to write Sam kicking serious keister, though I kind of wish I'd made the fight longer. And yes, things got complicated pretty fast. By the way, the reminder about Epsom salts couldn't have come at a better time. I always have some around because I use it for fertilizer. I mixed in some lavender and I took a long bath in it. Aaaaaah!
bagelcat1: Aw, thank you. You are so sweet and supportive! You are also a really intelligent and intuitive reader...the townspeople were definitely up to no good. It's always something more! And you like 'protective yet bloodthirsty Dean'? Yeah, here's a whole bunch more of that.
scootersmom: Thank you! I so so so love kick-ass Winchesters.
stedan: Right? Nothing bad is going to happen...unless you count being kidnapped at gunpoint and strung up in some cave. LOL.
Shazza: I appreciate it! And very good call on the blood – it's exactly what the people wanted. I like the nobility and protectiveness of the Winchesters. And I love writing a fight!
ncsupnatfan: You have been leaving such kind reviews for me! I read a bunch of them today and I appreciate each and every one. Yeah, the townspeople are on the mothman's side! Oops.
Jenjoremy: I hope you like it. LOL at getting all tingly. I probably laughed at that comment three times. Dean is so good at reading people – he caught on right away.
Guest: Thank you! The garden is coming along, albeit slowly. And now I'm planting an indoor herb garden since I've apparently insane.
Kathy: I like the time period too! Early season Winchesters are one of my weaknesses. Who am I kidding? Winchesters in general are my weakness.
Natylop: Muchas gracias. Eres muy amable! Y ese es todo del Español tengo para ti. (And it was probably terrible! LOL!) You are so kind and I am so glad to have you reading. I appreciate it.