I don't own Supernatural. Darn. I do own Asher Michaels and this story, excluding the bits from the show. My friend Shauna owns Amelia Shaw, and I am using her in my story with her permission. This fic is rated for violence, blood, language, drinking, sexual situations and, hopefully, some scary shit. I don't know how good I will be at writing scary stuff since I've never actually tried before. Enjoy the stories.

Monster Hospital, Book Three: Werewolves.
Chapter One: Distress.

The ceiling of the motel room was not interesting. It was just as uninteresting as the wall had been, as the inside of the fridge had been, as the late afternoon television had been. Sam had gone out for food, since it was his turn, and Dean wasn't looking forward to what his brother was going to bring back. The younger Winchester was determined to eat as healthy as he could, even on the road, and he had this annoying habit of trying to get his older brother to follow suit; the last time Sam had gone on a food run, he'd brought back Dean a veggie burger that had nearly made him puke.

In an attempt to occupy his mind beyond his grumbling stomach, Dean pulled out his cell phone and stared at the screen. Bobby had promised to call if he had any hot leads, but there was nothing. No messages. Dean sighed and tossed the phone on the bedside table and then laid back on the bed, listening to the drone of the television as the news anchor rattled on about some uninteresting local stories in a low, even voice. It was times like these that a tiny part of Dean wished he had a day job or something to keep him busy. There wasn't any where he could hustle poker or pool and the town was small enough that there wasn't anything other than a small strip mall that closed at five on Sunday.

Before Dean's musings could get much farther however, the rumble of the Impala's engine reached his ears and he sat up straight. A moment later, Sam appeared carrying two takeout bags and a tray with two sodas.

"What'd you get me?" Dean asked.

"Cheeseburger with bacon and fries."

Dean heaved a sigh of relief. "Thank you Sammy."

Dean eagerly pulled the contents of the takeout bag Sam had dropped on the motel bed in front of him out and set them on the flattened bag. As he unwrapped the cheeseburger with all the fixings, his younger brother Sam arranged his food on the table in the kitchenette of their motel room, his actions divulging the neater personality Sam had. Dean dug into his burger with an enthusiasm that would have suggested he hadn't tasted beef in months as he flicked through the channels on the small, old television once again, looking for something suitably distracting to watch so he could refrain from thinking about the lack of hunts they had encountered lately. Once he had found a rerun of some sitcom that was mildly entertaining, Dean settled back against the pillows and the headboard and took a long drink from his Coke; they had run out of beer and harder liquor the day before and hadn't had time to refill the stash yet.

The Winchester brothers had been in the middle of west nowhere for almost a week now, looking for some sign—any sign—of a hunt of some kind. They had chased leads around the immediate area for a while and kept their eyes on the national papers and news sites, but nothing had come to fruition, making this stretch the longest quiet one they'd had in a long, long time; it was almost as if the supernatural world had gone temporarily dead. So they'd settled into the somewhat dingy motel room with its wood-panelled walls circa 1975 and its lime green and purple colour scheme and the tacky orange appliances in the kitchenette to wait. And wait. And wait.

Both the Winchesters were tired of waiting.

Just as Dean was about to start in on his fries, his cell phone rang. He listened to his current ring tone—"Bad Company" by Bad Company—for a few heartbeats before pulling it off the bedside table and glancing at the small display screen. It read Asher Michaels. "Hey," he said around a mouthful of fried potato.

Asher Michaels—hunter, friend, newly acquired fuck buddy and werewolf—hadn't phoned in quite some time, and she usually didn't unless she wanted help with a case, she was fighting with her adopted sister Amelia or she was making a booty call. The fiery young woman and her more even-tempered sister had become part of the ragtag family the Winchesters were gathering around themselves, a group that would do anything for each other, regardless of the personal danger posed; when dealing with a werewolf, personal danger was a very real threat. Dean knew Asher's call would be important, but that didn't mean there wasn't room for levity.

But it wasn't Asher's voice that came over the phone.

"Dean?" Amelia sobbed loudly.

He immediately pulled the phone away from his ear and put it on speaker phone and Sam took the hint to come closer so he could hear. "Amelia, what's wrong?" he asked.

"It's Asher... I-I-I can't find her. She ran away. I don't know where she is!" Amelia's voice cracked under the weight of emotion and sobbed again. Nearing the point of hyperventilation, the boys heard Amelia take several deep breaths, but nothing seemed to calm her down. "I don't know what to do!" She dissolved into hysterics of a level so intense that Sam and Dean weren't sure what to make of it. "Ash... Ash..." The repeated mumbling of her sister's name was all they could make out.

Dean looked up at Sam, who shrugged, a worried look on his face, and then said, "Amelia, take a moment and then tell us what happened."

They waited in silence, listening to the ragged inhalations of the distraught hunter on the other end of the line. After a moment, she began speaking and Dean could picture her pacing, running her fingers back through her blonde hair or maybe playing with the brim of her cowboy hat. "Three nights ago, we rolled into Beaver Falls chasing a lead that sounded a lot like werewolves. It was stupid, so close to the full moon... but we came. Ash insisted..." Amelia sobbed loudly, but brought herself under control before she dissolved into hysterics. When she continued speaking, her voice was shaky, like she was still crying, but she wasn't sobbing outright anymore. "That night, Asher said she felt like she was going to change, so I went and got the chains to tie her to the bed—it's weird because she doesn't normally doesn't have to be chained until the moon is actually full, not a night or two before... Anyways, just as I was getting the chains hooked up, she... She attacked me!" Her voice broke then. "She attacked me and jumped out the window and ran away."

Dean and Sam shared another look, their faces both grim, but there was an edge of something else... grief or rage or both in Dean's. "Where are you?" he asked roughly. Asher would never attack Amelia, not under the power of her own mind.

Once they had secured the address of the motel from Amelia, Dean started moving around the motel room in a determined flurry, gathering up his clothes and weapons and other belongings that had somehow spread over the entire room. Sam had his bag packed much quicker than his brother, so he began to clean up the garbage, more than a little alarmed when he found the rest of Dean's food untouched, including the pie; Sam racked his brain, but he couldn't recall another situation where Dean hadn't eaten his pie.

The Impala tore out of the parking lot twenty minutes later. It would have been sooner, but Sam had insisted on doing an once-over of the room to make sure they weren't forgetting anything. Dean had honked the horn the whole time Sam was checking the room, but he hadn't turned on the music when they'd started driving—another fact that had Sam a little worried.

"Dean," he asked once they were moving down a fairly deserted highway; it was nearly eleven at night so traffic was pretty minimal. "You seem to be taking this... hard."

"It's Asher, Sam," he snapped. When he turned his head to look at his brother, his hazel eyes were alight with fire. "This isn't just some girl—I know that's what you're thinking—this is Asher. This is someone who had risked her life for us and will continue to do so. She's in trouble and we... we have to help."

"And if... if she's beyond help?"

Dean gave his brother a ferocious glare, but he replied in a calm voice, "If that's the case... Then I should be the one to finish it." He clenched his jaw at the very thought, but it was true.

He might not have thought so as recently as four months ago, but the time spent with Asher at Bobby's, as they worked on her truck and she watched him rebuild the Impala, the time spent talking and wandering around the junk yard, salvaging parts... it had brought them closer, playing off the bizarre chemistry that had always existed between them. Asher—and by extension, Amelia—had stayed at Bobby's until Dean was finished with the Impala and was ready to continue hunting and face his father's death, and then the girls had taken off in the middle of the night without a goodbye. Dean owed her for the support she'd given him and if he could get her out of this werewolf debacle without having to put a silver bullet through her heart, he would consider the debt repaid, and he would be glad to not have to lose a friend.

The boys were forced to stop about three hours outside of the approximate location of Beaver falls because they could not keep their eyes open—they had changed drivers after about six hours, but neither of them had been able to sleep while the other drove. They parked the Impala outside a very, very sketchy motel and grabbed a room for the night. Combined with the tension and panic of having one of the friends in a potentially dire situation, the dilapidated beds under the thin brown comforters didn't offer much sleep, but they took what they could manage. After only about three hours they were back on the road, the engine of the Impala sounding louder than usual in the early morning world which was quite deserted.

Beaver Falls turned out to be a small hamlet of a place, more in the middle of nowhere than the boys had been before and the sign welcoming to the sleepy little place proclaimed a population of around five hundred. Dean slowed the Impala in an attempt to keep the rumbling engine from disturbing anyone, but also so he and Sam could keep an eye out for the side road that would lead to the motel. They passed a couple small boutique shops, both specializing in antiques and handmade products, as well as two mom-and-pop restaurants, a gas station, grocery store, and drug store. There wasn't a lot of activity around anywhere, but the side road turned out to be pretty easy to find, so, uncharacteristically, Sam and Dean didn't need any help to find the motel they were looking for.

The Three Pines motel was typical-looking, single storey and arranged in an L shape with the office located at the front. There were five vehicles in the parking lot, one by the office and the other four parked in front of various doors. Asher's black truck was parked in front of room fifteen. Dean pulled the Impala into the spot beside the truck and he and Sam climbed out of the vehicle, grabbing their bags before approaching the door.

Amelia didn't answer when they knocked.

Bags slung on their shoulders, Dean and Sam drew their handguns. Amelia was a hunter and she knew Sam and Dean were coming, but she was hysterical. Something could have happened. Dean tried the knob and found it unlocked and proceed first, gun pointed and ready and Sam right behind him; the younger Winchester shut and locked the door behind him as soon as Dean had determined there was nothing in the room aside from the young woman curled up on the floor, asleep and the phone by her head. The room was otherwise dark—the curtains were pulled over both the small windows—and there was a pile of takeout food wrappers and bags on the floor by the garbage bin as well as several empty bottles of beer scattered around the kitchenette. A faint smell of sweat, alcohol and blood hung around the room; the source of the blood was the coil of high silver content chains on the floor beside one of the beds.

Sam dropped to the floor beside Amelia as Dean went to the bed that had obviously been Asher's. She hadn't taken any of her things: her beautiful sawed-off shotgun was on the floor under the bed where she slept with it and her handgun was under her pillow. Asher would never go anywhere without her weapons and she would not leave them unattended. By the time he turned around, Amelia was awake and wrapped around Sam, sobbing loudly with her face pressed into his chest. From what Dean could see, Amelia's hair was a mess and her clothes were wrinkled and a little stained. As she was so usually put together, especially for a hunter, her disrupted state really set the boys one edge.

"Something's happened to her," Amelia blubbered after a moment. "I can feel it."

Dean sat on the end of Asher's bed and leaned forward, putting his head in his hands.

"We'll find her, Amelia," Sam said. "I promise."

Jaw set and eyes slightly narrowed, Dean looked up at his brother and his friend. "Tell us everything that happened, Amelia. Then we'll come up with a plan so we can find her."

Author's Note.

SUPERNATURAL IS BACK ON!

DEAN IS BACK, BABY!

*runs around screaming for a bit*

Okay, I'm done, but I am seriously, seriously excited about Supernatural being back. Something just feels right in the world when I have Dean and Sam to look forward to every week, and it's even more exciting because Lisa kicks ass and Dean is back to being Dean! *can't stop smiling*

Anyways, when it comes to my fic, I'm excited to write this book and I have some things to figure out with Asher, but we'll see where I end up. I have a while to go before I get to season six, but I'd like to know where I'm headed.

Enjoy!

Next Chapter: Panic.