Title: Death from Within
Author: Disasteriffic Kaz
Info: The Monster of the Week turns out to be more than the boys bargained for within an abandoned hotel in the Nevada desert. post 1x09 "Home" hurt/comfort/awesome!Sam/Dean
Author's Note: Time to up the danger quotient I think. :P tee hee!
Beta'd by the Always Awesome JaniceC678 - Friend and Muse's co-conspirator
**Follow me on Facebook as "Disasteriffic Kaz" for frequent fic updates or just to chat!
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Dean aimed them out of Vegas again. He wanted to call it a night and go back to their motel but if the man they'd saved had woken once, he could wake again and they might only have hours before he told someone where he really was and the Goldfield would be crawling with cops; cannon fodder, he thought to himself as whatever was doing the killing was clearly vicious.
"I wish he'd told me his name," Sam whispered while he poured alcohol over his hand, letting it run down onto the floorboard. He clenched his teeth at the sting and then started wrapping a fresh bandage around it. "I checked his pockets. No ID."
"Hey, he made it that far." Dean smiled at Sam. "The guy's a fighter."
"We have to find his friends." Sam tossed the alcohol and gauze back in the bag. "One way or another, he should know what happened to them." He settled a hand over his stomach and the lingering ache there while they drove.
"We'll find them." Dean's eyes were firmly on the road but his thoughts were ahead with the old hotel and how they were going to find something in a place that big without one of them becoming lunch.
Chapter 3
Dean watched the hulk of the Goldfield rise like a dark shadow against the sky as they neared. He parked the pickup truck in front of the hotel and got out with his brother, having to blink to let his eyes adjust to the near total darkness of the Nevada desert as there were no street lights there, at least none working. He walked back to the Impala and ran a hand along her black hood in an almost subconscious gesture of affection. "I'm gonna move her over behind that empty hardware store two doors down," he told Sam when his brother walked over with the weapons bag on his shoulder. "If the cops do show up, I don't want them finding her sitting out here with these two."
"Good idea," Sam nodded, set the bag down on the sandy sidewalk and drew his gun. "I'll wait here."
"I'll be quick. Don't go in there without me," Dean said severely. "I mean it, Sammy. We're not splitting up this time."
"Don't worry." Sam looked up at the hotel. "I'm all for sticking together this time." He didn't ever want to find out what it felt like to lose a limb and thought of the poor man they'd left at the hospital with a shiver.
"Good." Dean slid behind the Impala's wheel and turned the engine on, watching the beams from his headlights wash over his brother as he backed up and then turned around.
Sam watched him go, following the lights as Dean pulled away down the road and then turned out of sight. He pulled his jacket closed with his sore left hand and then froze at the sound of a bump from behind him. He spun on his heel, bringing his gun up and stared at the side of the silver van. A moment later, he heard another soft thump and went quickly to the side door. Sam took hold of it, took a deep breath, and yanked it open.
"No! No! Please, God. No! Don't kill me!"
Sam whipped his flashlight out of his pocket and flicked it on. He stared in surprise to find a young man cowering in the back of the van. "Hey. Hey, it's alright. I'm not gonna hurt you." He waited until the man's wide, terrified eyes rose up from behind his arms to meet his and smiled. "We're here to help, alright? Are you…are you Joe?"
"I…yeah." Joe scrubbed a bloody hand through his hair as if unaware of it and tried to catch his breath.
"Are you hurt?" Sam moved into the side of the van and shined his light down Joe's body.
"Matt…Matt's dead, and Ellie is…oh, my God. I didn't even…oh, God!" Joe buried his face in his arms again. "I ran! I ran, and my truck was just…it was gone, and Matt…didn't have the keys for his van!"
"Hey, take it easy." Sam put his gun away and leaned in to put his free hand on Joe's shoulder. He scowled when he saw the bleeding wounds on the man's arms. "Matt's alive. We found him and took him to the nearest hospital, and I'm sorry." Sam spoke softly to try and calm the distraught man. "We took your truck to get him there." He pulled the sleeve of Joe's t-shirt up higher and his brows rose. There were clear claw marks on his bicep. They were deep and looked like something mean had held onto him. "Can you tell me what did this? What attacked you? What did it look like?"
"Death," Joe gasped and shrank further back into the van. "I…it didn't have…it didn't have any skin!" He shouted it and gripped a sudden hold on Sam's left hand, oblivious to the pained wince Sam gave at the action.
"Alright! It's ok. You're safe now. We'll…" Sam stopped when Joe's eyes suddenly shot wide and looked over his shoulder. An icy chill flowed down his spine, and he knew it wasn't his brother behind him.
"Sorry. I'm sorry. I can't…" Joe shoved Sam away from him and screamed in terror while a dark shape rose up behind the tall man. Joe put all his weight behind the sliding door and slammed it shut just as something heavy struck the side of the van from the outside, and then there was only silence and the sound of his panicked breathing.
Dean parked the Impala and ran a hand over her steering wheel. "Sorry we left you, baby," He said fondly and then climbed out into the alley. He locked the car up and took off at a jog. As he neared the front of the old shop, he heard a man's voice scream that chilled him to the bone. "No," Dean breathed and broke into a run. He couldn't see a damn thing and pulled his flashlight out with one shaking hand while he drew his gun with the other. He sprinted the block and a half back to where he'd left Sam and slid to a stop beside the van where the weapon's bag and Sam's flashlight lay on the ground, still on with the beam pointing toward the hotel's entrance.
"SAM!" Dean bellowed it into the night and listened for a response. His heart was thundering in his ears, and it took a moment to realize he could hear sobbing from inside the van on his left. Dean knew every sound Sam made when hurt or scared or panicked, and he knew that, whoever it was in the van, it wasn't Sam. He tore the door open. "Hey!" He yelled and aimed his light at the head of the man cowering in the back.
"Took him. Took him," Joe muttered in between sobs as he rocked back and forth and curled around himself.
Dean glared and reached in to grab one of the man's arms. "HEY! Look at me!"
Joe's head snapped up and he realized the door was open and the tall man was back. He gasped in shock and lurched forward to grab his arms. "You're alive? But…it took you! I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!"
Dean listened to the delirious rambling for a second and put it together in his head, and the picture he got made his stomach churn with fear for his little brother. Sam must have found this man, and whatever had attacked the man they'd saved had come out after Sam…or this guy. Dean pulled his arms free and dragged the frantic man out of the van. He slammed him against the side without pity because he knew, from the rambling the guy was doing, that he'd watched Sam be taken and done nothing. There was no worse offense in Dean's book; it was as good as hurting Sam yourself.
"No, no, no! Not out here. Please!" Joe tried to pull away, but the tall man had a fierce grip on the neck of his shirt. He blinked and realized suddenly that it wasn't the same man. His hair was different…lighter. "Who…"
"What happened to my brother? He tried to save you, didn't he?" Dean leaned in to his face. "And you watched him be taken." He narrowed his eyes when the man's face paled in the beam of his light. "You shut the van door on him, didn't you? You left him to whatever the hell hurt your friends."
Joe quailed at the cold, dangerous tone in the tall man's voice and shook his head. "I couldn't…I had to!"
"Tell me everything. Now!" Dean gave his back an extra thump into the van. "You're Joe, aren't you?"
Joe nodded furiously and held onto the man's forearm. His eyes darted between the dark face and the darker hulk of the hotel behind him, waiting for the horror to come out after him again. "Please, please let me go. Please!"
"Not until you tell me what you saw. What happened?" Dean moved so that he could still stare Joe down but still keep his peripheral vision on the hotel. "What did this?"
"I…It's riding a…some kind of dead…dead looking horse or something." Joe swallowed hard. "But it…it has no skin, man! And there's….it…I can't. I can't!" Joe shouted and twisted mightily until he was able to free himself. He threw himself back in the van. He'd reached the end of his rope and had nothing left but the need to hide.
Dean let him go. Joe couldn't tell him anything more, not in his condition. "Son of a bitch!" Dean kicked the side of the van as Joe slammed the door shut again. "Alright." He grabbed the weapons bag and put it over his shoulder and headed for the doors. "I'm comin' for you, Sammy."
He stalked into the hotel and played his light over the floor. Dean was grateful now that the place was slowly being reclaimed by the desert and that sand and dust covered almost everything. He could see clear drag marks on the floor. Dean frowned as he followed them. There were only drags marks; only the sign of someone dragging both feet as often as he could to try and make a trail. There was no sign whatsoever of what was dragging his brother. It left no tracks or prints of its own.
"Crap," Dean shook his head and walked faster. It narrowed the list of possible suspects but he didn't have a supernatural encyclopedia in his head like Sam did. Just to be sure, he pulled the EMF meter out to check again since spirits were number one on the list of things that don't leave footprints, but it remained frustratingly silent, and Dean shoved it impatiently back into his pocket. The trail led to the stairs and Dean ran up them. "Sam!" he called at the top on the second floor. Dean found more scuffs in the dust. They weren't solid drag marks anymore; it looked more like the thing, whatever it was, was carrying him and Sam was only managing to get a foot down to the floor intermittently. Dean couldn't understand why, if Sam was conscious enough to leave a trail, he didn't make some noise and call out. It scared him. He wondered if the son of a bitch was choking his little brother, and the last thing Sam needed was to be strangled again so soon after the last. The bruises on his throat from the lamp cord had yet to fade.
Dean tossed caution out the window with his brother in danger. If he was lucky, the thing would turn around and come back for him. "SAM!" He bellowed his brother's name again and it rang in the silence. "Sam, answer me!" He strode at a near run down the hall, following the broken trail and jerked in surprise when he heard the muffled pop-pop of gunshots. "SAM!" They had come from the floor above and Dean ran for the next flight of stairs. Dean tore up them, ignoring his burning lungs and the stitch in his side as he reached the top and burst into the hall.
"Dean!" Sam's voice echoed through the hall.
Dean started running again and swallowed the fear. Sam didn't sound right. He sounded hurt. He slid into a wall and turned the corner into a wide area that had once been some sort of sitting room. There were several ratty chairs along the walls, and his little brother lying on the floor and blinking in the beam from Dean's flashlight.
"Sammy?" Dean skidded to a stop and dropped to his knees next to him while his eyes scanned the space with his light but there was no sign of what had taken him. "You alright? Are you hurt?"
"A little." Sam grasped Dean's arm and tried to catch his breath. "It's not bad…I don't think."
"Lemme look at ya'." Dean aimed the light at him while Sam pulled himself up to sit with Dean's arm. There was a bloody, malformed handprint across the bottom half of Sam's face and Dean knew then why he hadn't been able to yell; the creature had muffled him.
"Right arm…chest. Scratches on my neck." Sam gasped for breath and brought his left hand up to hover over a bloody spot on the chest of his shirt. The creature had grabbed him in a steely grip and dragged him into the hotel. Sam had tried to cry out when he felt claws digging into his right pectoral muscle and it had slapped that slick, bloody hand over his face to stop him. He shuddered slightly with the visceral memory of being held by a skinless monster. It stank and the smell had burned his eyes and nose. There had been something vaguely sulfuric about it and it had made it hard for him to focus on anything but the feel of the thing holding him, but Sam was sure it had been tall, tall enough to nearly keep his feet from the floor.
"Did you see it?" Dean pulled his brother's ruined shirt away from his chest and shone the light on the wounds. Four long claw marks crossed the right side of his chest like something had held on to him.
Sam shook his head. "No. Too dark. Crap," He groaned and curled over himself.
"Sammy?" Dean dropped a hand to the back of his neck and thought maybe his brother was starting to run a fever.
"I'm ok," Sam said quickly, though he didn't try to straighten himself. "Dizzy mostly…maybe debating throwing up on your shoes."
Dean gave a relieved smile. "So, you shot the thing and it dropped you and took off.
Sam shook his head again. "N…no. It dropped me and then I shot it." He remembered the rotted smell of its breath as its mouth had come down to his face, as sharp teeth had grazed the skin of his neck and then it had growled and dumped him to the ground. "Not even s-sure I hit it. Couldn' see a damn thing."
"Ok. I gotcha now. We're gonna get outta here." He put the light back on Sam and bent to see his face. Sam was pale and shaking and Dean didn't like that one bit. "Take a breath."
Sam nodded but didn't say anything. He felt weak over the whole of his body and he ached everywhere. It was making him dizzy. "Be better…in a minute." A feverish feeling was overtaking him and he couldn't help but feel like it was centered in his neck and moving out from there.
Dean frowned as he felt Sam's skin grow warmer under his hand. "Ok, that's it. Come on." He stood and shone his light through the room again, and Dean took an involuntary step back as it played over something too large for comfort and glistening red. "Shit!" He brought his gun up and aimed his light at the thing. "Sam!"
Sam rolled his head and startled badly at what he saw. The creature stood a good seven feet tall and it was gruesome; more gruesome than he'd even imagined. It was indeed skinless. Veins pulsed black all over its body, and its body was…disturbing. There was a vaguely man-like upper body with two obscenely long arms and a head with a wide mouth, but he had no legs. He looked as though he grew directly out of the misshapen horse beneath him, right out of its back, and the 'horse' was skinless as well with the veins pulsing black blood. Black eyes in the horse's head and the man's followed Dean's movements warily as his brother aimed at the thing.
Dean shook himself and stepped hastily around Sam, putting himself between his brother and the creature. "Holy crap, you are one ugly son'bitch," Dean said softly. "Any ideas what it is?"
"N…no," Sam said between heavy breaths. "Maybe…I dunno."
"Great." Dean rolled his shoulders as the thing took a step toward them. "Uh-uh." He fired twice into its head and it screamed. The sound ricocheted in the dark hall while Dean fired another round into the half-man's chest and then yet another into the horse's chest. The creature roared, staggered back, and then fled, thundering down the hall and out of the reach of Dean's flashlight. "Ok. Time to go."
Sam nodded and tried to stand but his body wasn't cooperating. "Dean."
"I've got you." Dean pulled Sam up with one arm, and once he had him weaving on his feet, he took his brother's arm and tipped him over his shoulder. "Sorry, buddy, but we need to get the hell out of here."
Sam groaned but couldn't argue. Walking was nearly beyond him at that point, let alone running. As Dean carried him down the stairs in a fast, bouncing stride through the dark, Sam wondered if Dean's face had looked that way all those years ago when he'd carried an infant Sam away from his burning nursery. He'd caught a glimpse in the flashlight's beam before Dean picked him up, and he wondered if his big brother's face had held that same mixture of fear and determination, if Dean's eyes had screamed then, as they had now, that death wasn't allowed to have his little brother.
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To Be Continued…
