Authors note: If you're reading this it means I am satisfied with this chapter enough to put it up on the web. If you've checked my profile you will know (maybe) that I am writing this story in advanced and will post when it is near completion. Unfortunately it is not as finished as I want it to be when I post this chapter, but I don't want people to get discouraged.
If you want updates on my progress with the story or to give me ideas you can check my profile because I usually update it.
So that's my note that says don't give up hope, and thanks to all you people that have hoped.
Disclaimer: What do you think?
Warning: Spoilers for All Hell breaks loose part 2. Mild language, nothing you wouldn't see in the show. Sorry if the characters are off, I have a little trouble with that, can never tweak then quite right.
This was originally going to be titled: Dean vs. Bram Stoker, Carl vs. Strange People.
"Dean," Sam said softly, still caught in his own disbelief, "He's Van Helsing."
Dean stared at Sam for a few seconds, processing what he had just heard.
"…Who?" Dean asked, shrugging. Sam lifted his hand about to explain, and then dropped his arm with a wave, dismissing it as a lost cause. Dean was about protest when Van Helsing cut him off.
"As charming as this little guessing game is," He said in a deep voice that had a small hint of a growl to it, "I believe we would find it wise to get away before the villagers find themselves with better arms and decide to come back."
"Seriously, who is he?" Dean whispered leaning towards Sam, Van Helsing had turned with the monk to walk towards one of the larger buildings.
Sam opened his mouth to say something when Van Helsing called back to them, "Are you coming?" The brothers looked at each other for a second, Sam shrugged.
"I think we better go with him, safety in numbers you know." He muttered turning to follow Van Helsing. Dean blinked and ran after him, grabbing his shoulder, and spinning him around.
"What do you mean 'safety in numbers'? All this guy did was prevent some yahoo from clobbering you with a giant stick, and now you want to trust our lives to him, who is this dude?" Dean hissed as they shuffled through the doorway of what appeared to be an inn.
"Dracula…"
"He's Dracula?!"
"Will you shut up for a minute and let me finish. He's not Dracula, he killed Dracula, at least I think, I don't know where we are in the story." Sam muttered as he started up the stairs, Dean grabbed Sam's shoulder and spun him around again.
"Whoa, hold on a second, story?"
"Van Helsing is one of the main characters in the novel 'Dracula' by Bram Stoker," Sam looked at Dean to see if he was getting anywhere, "Come on Dean, this is what we do for a living. Dracula inspired practically everything that came after it; Van Helsing is the most idolized hunters ever written about. Well besides Buffy, but we all know how realistic that was," Sam finished as they came to the room both Van Helsing and the Monk had disappeared into. Dean let out a low whistle as he saw the weapons collection laid out on one of the beds.
"Carl, go down to the stables and get our horses ready, and see if you could find a pair for, Sam and Dean?"
"Uh yeah, I'm Dean and this is my little brother Sam. Winchester, Sam and Dean Winchester," Dean answered as Carl scurried past them.
"Like the gun," Van Helsing stated holding up a Winchester rifle of his own before stuffing it along with many other weapons into a leather packs similar to their own; he finished up by stuffing a large crossbow into its own bag.
"Where do you come from? Your clothing and weapons a different than what we normally see around here. It was probably what convinced the people you were Warlocks," Van Helsing asked as he steered past them and down the stair in the same direction of Carl.
"We're from the Americas, Kansas originally, we've done a lot of traveling," Sam answered for them as they started down the stairs after the pair, "Who's Carl, I mean I've heard of you but never a Monk." He asked steering the conversation always from them, Van Helsing let out a quick bark of laughter.
"Carl's not a Monk, he's only a Friar, and very proud of it. If he catches you calling him a Monk he's likely to do something very brash to assure us all that he isn't a Monk," He explained happily turning out a door that led into an open air stable, Dean looked at Sam questioningly, this world was getting stranger by the minute.
"Between the three of you the inn manager was more than happy to give up two horses for a fair price, they seem to be in good condition to," Carl called as he led a large mahogany colored horse out of a stall, Dean jumped backwards as it snorted loudly.
"No way in hell I'm I getting on a frickin horse, man," Dean hissed shifting under Sam's gaze and scratching the back of his head.
"It's not that bad, just keep cool Dean, if we're gonna try and pull off anything we have to try and blend in," Sam muttered under his breath as he watched Van Helsing and Carl load their packs onto a pair of large black horses. "We don't even know if we'll be able to get back to our own time, so just try and adapt a little will you." Sam seemed to plead a little in the last bit before he moved towards the horses.
sVs
Sam couldn't help but laugh at the disgruntled look on Dean's face, part pain, part hatred, pure misery. He had gone horseback riding with Jessica once, it had been pure hell, but like everything else in his life, he adapted.
They had been riding out of the small village for about two hours, the ride had been mostly quite with only a few incidents. Dean had started with his humming therapy until Sam had reached over and smacked him on the shoulder, but other than that, nothing. Mostly it had just been time to think.
How the hell they were going to get out of here, if they couldn't get out what they would do, exactly how much they should trust Van Helsing with. Eventually after a few twists and turns his mind had come to rest on something darker, the hunt.
The fairies were long gone and he knew it, he knew Dean knew it to, and that wasn't what was troubling him.
He had read Dracula when he was in one of many high schools. At the time he thought the over exaggeration of the great vampire's powers had been funny, he was no longer laughing. He was a great being that had no apparent weakness, and was a hundred times more powerful than the vampires he had went up against. A vampire from their own modern world had almost taken his life; he would hate to have to go against one of the powerhouses of this world.
Vampires weren't the only ones with powers that were greater in the stories, Sam shuddered slightly at the thought. Van Helsing was said to have killed all types of monsters, some which made his usual hunts look like child's play. Sure, they had taken out the Yellow Eyed Demon. After I died and Jake opened the gate to hell then we had to have Dad's ghost help us and we used the last bullet from the colt, yeah.
"Hey, Sammy" Dean whispered beside him, leaning towards him off the horse to be heard. Sam snapped to attention taking a few seconds to come to the real world. "What Dean?"
"Did they have toilets in medieval land?" Sam blinked at him for a few seconds wondering if he was actually being serious.
"Dean, we're in the middle of the woods, do you think there are going to be any toilets?"
"No."
"Then stop asking stupid question."
"Gosh, what crawled up your ass and died?" Dean muttered under his breath, Sam glared at him.
"Dean, I'm trying to concentrate on more important thing, like what the hell we're going to do if we can't get back." Sam hissed back leaning over with a scowl. Dean scowled back for a couple of seconds before letting his face fall to something a little softer.
"Yeah, I'm trying hard not to think about it. Then it's kind of hard not to considering the fact that we haven't seen any non fuzzy life forms in the past two hours, and that instead of sitting in the Impala, I'm sitting on a horse," Dean muttered as he tried to shift into a different position in the saddle but only managed to hit sore spots.
"I'm sure we'll figure something out, we always do," Sam tried to say reassuringly.
"Yeah," Dean smiled back, bluffing just as hard.
vSv
"What are they saying? Can you hear them?" was Carl's most recent stream of questions about the two brothers that had stumbled into their lives earlier that afternoon.
"Their plotting to kill us Carl," Van Helsing answered dryly, "Their planning on slipping mushrooms into our food while we're sleeping, or maybe even before that," he added, pleasuring in the small rise the Friar gave before realizing the sarcastic joke.
"That's not funny; you already said they have something strange going on about them. I don't want to be left in the dark when that strangeness decides to murder me!" Carl ranted, reaching the higher tones of his voice range. Van Helsing took one of the deep therapeutic breaths that Carl was always urging him to take and turned to face his friend.
"They're not going to try and kill us, the strangeness I was talking about was the fact that their hunters. I'm sure about it now. The darkness is mostly just residue from coming in contact with so many evil things," Van Helsing explained, Carl had the decency to look slightly ashamed for not trusting his friend. Carl rode quietly for a few moments before his head snapped back up.
"What do you mean mostly?" Van Helsing kept quiet for a long moment considering whether or not to tell Carl his suspicions.
"I don't think Sam is entirely human. The darkness is a little bit more deep seeded in him but it seems faded, like he's recovering from something." Van Helsing said slowly as Carl's brows furrowed.
"Like what?" Carl asked.
"Something demonic possibly."
"Like possession?" Carl asked reverting into research mode.
"No, it would be something a lot stronger than possession for it to be at the level it is now." Van Helsing answered cooling scanning the sides of the road.
"How do you know all this stuff?" Carl questioned, already knowing most of the answer, months in the field had changed his opinion of the man he once thought was a barbarian.
"Not now Carl."
"I'm just saying, it's very creeping, almost like a sixth sense." Carl muttered.
"I'll need it were we're heading." Van Helsing grumbled back as he reined his horse off to one side of the road and started to steer him into the dense woods.
"Are we going to take them along with us?" Carl looked behind him to see a slightly annoyed looking Sam explaining something to Dean who was nodding along as he listened. Carl turned his attention back in time to duck a low branch as he followed Van Helsing down the now visible deer trail that led towards an opening in the woods.
"If they follow us." Van Helsing answered as he dismounted in the small clearing about a hundred yards off of the main road.
"Do you think they'll follow us?" Carl's question was answered as he heard a crash behind him and he heard Dean let out a string of curses and other foul words and curses that Carl had never heard before. Turning around he saw Sam trying hard to suppress laughter as Dean rubbed the side of his head; it looked as though he had failed to notice the low hanging branch while he listened to his brother. Carl turned back to Van Helsing with a heavy sigh.
"So, you'll tell them what we're doing now?"
So what do ya'll think? I have the overall arch planned out but I could still use some bits and pieces to fill in the holes around the middle part.
Sorry to any Buffy fans that I might have offended, I've never actually seen any episodes of Buffy.
I hope to have the next chapter up by the end of the week, again hope. I may be wrangled into the world of no WiFi before I can update, at that point I will work hard on the upcoming chapters (as I will be doing anyway.)
Anyway, Reviews? Anybody? Questions, comments?