EVOLUTIONS 31

A/N Here we are at a mini-case fic. This takes place between Route 666 and Nightmare.

Before we get into this one though, I want to address a comment I received from a guest who they did not like the last chapter because it was basically the dialog and for that you can go to the show. And they were not wrong.. Chapter 30 was an important exercise for me. I know now what I don't want to do. From now on, unless there is a major change in the actual plot and outcome, I will likely not do a re-do of specific episodes. I think I'm more likely to do a BM moment after the episode (or a "missing scene") than just update dialog from a few scenes. I'm not saying I will never rewrite all or part of an episode, but if I do it will be much more like what I did in Chapter 29 than Chapter 30. Having said that, don't stop telling me what you do and don't like!

I will try to get Chapter 32 up sooner, rather than later, but it might not be until late March — I'm in the process of redoing my entire bedroom/office setup, and that's going to eat a LOT of my time, in addition to some late night projects for work.

I appreciate you hanging in there with me!

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Berkshire-Tarnowski Forest

Carroll County, IN

Saturday

5:13 a.m.

"GO! GO! GO!" Sam yelled at his brother's retreating back, holding his shotgun both at the ready and slightly in front of him as a barrier to the shrub and tree branches that kept hitting him in the face.

He could feel it coming up behind him, the sudden wind from the great wings kicking up dirt and leaves, blowing his hair into his face. Something hit him square in the back and he fell to the ground with a grunt.

"SAM?!"

He looked up to see Dean starting to turn back to him. "I'm good!" he yelled back. "Go! GO! Start the car! I'm right behind you!"

Dean hesitated until he saw his brother scramble to his feet, apparently none the worse for wear, and turned around, to see the —- thing —- hovering about 3 feet in front of him, 10 feet in the air. He ducked as the thing swooped down towards him, wincing as something (and he was trying not to think what) brushed against his hair.

He heard the boom of Sam's shotgun, saw the thing fly higher into the trees and kept running to his baby, trusting that Sam was behind him.

He unlocked the passenger door — it was closer — and threw himself onto the front seat, scrambling over the seat to shove his keys in the ignition. He was still shifting around to sit properly in the driver's seat as he started the car.

Seconds later, Sam was diving into the car, slamming the passenger door closed.

"Go! GO! GO! DRIVE!" Sam yelled.

Dean slapped the car into reverse, twisted to look out the back window and floored it, sending the back end fishtailing into a bush before straightening out to back down the rough fire road they'd found into the heart of the forest where seven people had gone missing in the last three weeks.

Something hit the roof of the car and Dean winced, taking his foot off the gas.

"I got it," Sam said grimly as he rolled down his window. "Just get us out of here!" he added as he pulled his head and shoulders through the passenger window and aimed his shotgun at the creature.

The shotgun's retort ricocheted through the car like thunder. Dean didn't even wince, just kept backing up as quickly as he could manage without wrecking them.

Another blast from the shotgun and he saw Sam slide back through the window.

"Well, I think we can safely say that while it doesn't enjoy iron, it doesn't actually hurt it, either," Sam frowned as he started reloading his shotgun from cartridges in a box at his feet.

"Salt just pissed it off," Dean noted, without taking his eyes off the back window, and Sam dropped the cartridges he'd picked up with a sigh.

"Did you try silver?"

"Go for it," Dean advised and Sam put the shotgun on the seat between them before pulling his Taurus from his waistband and checking the clip to be certain he was loaded with the bullets he thought he had.

"It's coming back!" Dean warned.

"On it," Sam nodded and pulled himself back through the window until he was sitting on the door's window frame, pressing his feet against the door interior to brace himself as best he could, knees splayed wide for extra balance.

Dean could see the end of the fire road now, and the paved road it dead ended into.

He could hear Sam emptying his clip into the thing that was now between them and the road and heard an unearthly screech as they neared the intersection and the creature flew up and — presumably — over the car.

"Get back in here!' Dean yelled and when Sam didn't move fast enough to satisfy him, he lifted his foot momentarily off the gas to lean over and grab his brother's waistband, dragging the kid back through the window.

"Hang on," Dean warned and said a small prayer that no one was on the road at 5:30 a.m. on a Saturday morning, because getting t-boned by a minivan was not on his list of things to do this hunt. Or anytime, really,

Sam pressed himself back into the seat, watching out the windshield as the creature dove at them, talons first, aiming directly for Sam.

"Hurry, hurry, hurry!" he urged and hit his head on the roof of the car as they hit pavement and Dean quickly backed onto the road frantically turning the steering wheel so they ended up more or less in the correct lane facing the correct direction. He spun around in his seat to face forward.

"Where is it?" Dean demanded, checking the rear view and side view mirrors.

Sam turned in his seat, half facing Dean, half looking out the back window. "It…it's still in the forest," he reported, and turned around in his seat, frowning. "It was right on us and then it stopped. I-it's like it can't leave the forest."

"Good to know," Dean nodded decisively. "Maybe we can get the idiot sheriff to declare the forest closed until we can gank that…thing."

"You can't close a forest, Dean!"

"Why not? They close beaches! It's worth a try, if it keeps that…thing…from taking more people."

"Yeah, I guess," Sam shrugged, and leaned his head back against the seat, closing his eyes, trying to slow his breathing as the adrenaline rush slowly drained away.

"What the fuck was that thing, anyway?" Dean demanded. " 'Cause it sure as hell wasn't no Harpy."

"No," Sam agreed, shifting slightly in his seat — something was pressing against his back, he realized, and mentally shrugged it off. Probably picked up some seed pods on their mad dash out of the forest. "No, it was not."

"Yeah," Dean sighed, as he turned off the side road and onto the two-lane highway that led back to their motel. "Not enough feathers and way too much dick to be a Harpy."

Sam opened his eyes and looked, incredulous, at his brother.

"That's what convinced you?" he marveled. "The dick? Not the horned head, or the snarling dog's mouth, or the scorpion's tail, It was the dick."

"Hey, snake-headed dick," Dean defended. "Fucker hissed right in my hair," he shuddered and ran a hand over his head, checking — belatedly — for anything that might have been left behind. (If something were in his hair, every inch of him hoped it would be snake venom.) "Knocked your ass down, too," he pointed out.

"Not with its dick, it didn't," Sam laughed. "One of the wings just clipped me, that's all."

"You sure?" Dean probed, glancing quickly at his kid and away again before Sammy could get all defensive about Dean being overprotective and Sammy being a grown man. "Cause you went down like a sack of bricks, dude."

"And got right back up," Sam pointed out. "I'm fine, Dean. But did you see the size of that thing?"

"A good two feet," Dean shook his head in amazement.

"Two—it was…"

"And what the fuck was with the snake head?"

"Oh, for — not the size of the dick, you pervert. Let that shit go," Sam snapped. "I was talking about the wingspan on that mother."

"Had to be a good ten feet," Dean nodded.

"More," Sam insisted. "When I was a junior at Stanford, bunch of us drove down the PCH to this California Condor preserve. I saw a couple of them, pretty close. Condors have an eight- or nine-foot wingspan, some up to ten, and that was nothing compared to that thing. I'd put it at fifteen, easy, probably more like twenty. And the way it maneuvered through the trees was amazing. Honestly, I've never seen a bird's wing move like that! The articulation of the joints was incredible!"

"Dude!" Dean scolded as he pulled into the motel parking lot and rounded the building to park by their room. "How many times do I have to say it?" he wondered, putting his baby in Park and removing the key, "Don't geek out about shit that's trying to eat us, man!" He was shaking his head as the brothers exited the car. "It's just weird."

Sam laughed and headed for the trunk, easily catching the keys Dean tossed him. "Get inside, I'll be right there."

Dean nodded and unlocked the door, leaving it open behind him as crossed to collapse on his bed (closest to the door, as always, even if Sammy was a 'grown man').

Sam entered a few minutes later, dropping the weapons bag and a stack of four or five books on the little table by the window, kicking the door closed behind him. "We need to figure out what we're dealing with," he said and sat at the table, his back to his brother.

"Just Google snake-headed dick," Dean suggested, not opening his eyes. "I bet it comes right up."

Sam sighed. "Really, Dean? Is that really something you want to put into a search engine? Do you wanna see those results? Cause I definitely do not. Remember what happened when you couldn't think of the word Harpy, and you insisted on searching for 'birds with breasts'?"

A slow, lascivious smile spread across Dean's face. "Oh, yeah," he nodded. "Good times."

"You're such an ass," Sam shook his head and opened the first book of lore. "You gonna help me with this, or what?"

"Can I just what?" Dean wondered idly, and rolled himself to the side of the bed to sit up.

"No, get over here," Sam laughed and pushed a book towards the empty chair at the side of the table.

Dean grinned. "Yeth, Mathter," he drawled in a bad Igor voice and stood, stooping over to one side to give himself a fake hump before he turned to start dragging himself over the table. "Holy SHIT!" he barked and straightened, rushing to his brother's side.

"What?" Sam looked up at him, his blue-green eyes reflecting his surprise.

"Jesus, Sammy, why didn't you say something?" Dean demanded and pushed his kid roughly forward to get a better look at his back.

"What are you talking about?"

"What am I..? Come here," Dean demanded and grabbed Sammy by the elbow, pulling him to his feet and into the bathroom. He spun Sammy around in front of the small vanity so his back was reflected in the mirror. "That!" he pointed dramatically at the mirror. "I'm talking about that!"

Sam looked over his shoulder and gaped.

His shirt— and presumably his back— was nearly shredded. Eight wide parallel gouges ran down from just below his neck to the top of his jeans, another eight running in a diagonal from his right shoulder to his left hip. "I…" he blinked at his reflection and slowly turned to look at Dean, who was returning from the bedroom, their big first aid kit in hand. "I don't…I don't feel anything," he said quietly. "I mean, it doesn't hurt," he amended quickly as Dean looked up, quickly, from the supplies he was laying out on a towel on the bathroom floor.. "Honestly, Dean," he insisted when Dean just frowned at him skeptically. "I didn't know."

Dean blew out a breath. "Well, you know now," he shook his head in disgust. "Go sit on the edge of the tub," he ordered, and for once Sam simply obeyed.

Dean settled himself beside his brother, straddling the tub's edge so he could more or less face him, while still having Sam's back over the tub itself.

"Man, from the size of these, you should've damn near bled out by now. So, let's see what we've got here," he said and gently probed one of the gashes with his forefinger. "That hurt?"

Sam shook his head. "No. Just feels like you touching my back, is all. And there's a little — it's like somebody stretching a rubber band across my skin. But it doesn't hurt at all."

"Can't decide if that's good or bad," Dean admitted and grimaced as he pulled his hand back, finding his finger covered in some tar-like substance. "Ewww. What the fuck is this?" he wondered and Sam turned his head to look.

"Let me see."

Dean held his finger up for him to examine, and Sam leaned closer, sniffing lightly. He took a deeper breath and pulled back quickly. "Ugh. Smells like week-old roadkill," he reported.

Dean took a sniff, and pulled back, grimacing. "You are not wrong," he agreed and rubbed the black, viscous stuff between his forefinger and his thumb. "Looks like ectoplasm," he noted, "but feels more like…tar. Or blacktop. You know, like the shit they put in potholes? Except without the lumps."

"Huh," Sam responded. "We should be able to find out what excretes that pretty easily," he decided and moved as if to stand.

"Hold up there, geek boy," Dean snarked and put a hand on Sam's shoulder. "You can research to your heart's content after we get this shit off you and get you cleaned up."

Sam settled on the side of the tub again. "Okay," he agreed.

Dean leaned forward again to inspect the wounds once more, picking up a tweezer from the towel on the floor to probe delicately at a strip of…something. "Damn, Sammy," he said softly. "I can't tell what's you, what's your shirt, and what's this tar shit."

"Rinse it off?" Sam suggested.

"Yeah," Dean nodded and reached down to put the tweezers back.

"Dean!" Sam grabbed his wrist. "Your finger."

Dean looked down and saw that the tar-stuff had slightly spread without him noticing.

The brother's looked at each other. "Holy Water," they said in unison.

"Be right back," Dean assured his brother with a gentle pat on his shoulder before sprinting out of the bathroom. A minute or so later, and he was back with two large jugs full of water, each with a rosary resting serenely at the bottom.

Sam twisted to watch as Dean held his hand over the tub and poured a little of the Holy Water over it, watching as the black goo steamed, sizzled, and popped, then thinned and dripped away into the tub.

Sam sighed and turned to face away from the tub again, setting his shoulders as he braced himself. "This is gonna suck," he predicted.

"Probably," Dean agreed, watching as the goo remnants trickled down the tub to disappear down the drain, leaving a faint black haze behind. "Maybe you should get in the tub," he suggested.

Sam sighed. "Yeah, okay," he agreed and stood before turning to step over hte porcelain lip of the tub.

"Hey, no, no," Dean stopped him. "Pants off."

"Seriously? Why?"

Dean nodded at the residue in the tub. "I think this crap'll stain fabric," he explained reasonably, "and dude, you've only got two pairs of jeans. No sense in ruining one."

"Right," Sam sighed and quickly shed his jeans, kicking them to a corner of the bathroom. He paused, looking at the stain in the tub, then back at his brother. "What do you think?" he wondered and nodded down at himself.

Dean frowned for a moment, then his eyes grew wide. "What, you mean…the Full Monty?" he wondered, surprised Sam would suggest it.

Not that Sammy getting naked bothered him, of course — he used to change the kid's diapers, used to bathe him every day, sometimes more than once a day, when he was little (his prissy little brother had not been a neat eater as a baby or a toddler, often wearing as much of his meal as he swallowed). But Sammy tended to be a little body-shy, even around him, sometimes. Which was just weird — the kid had a body Dean had seen women literally drool over, since so far as Dean was concerned, if you've got it, flaunt it. He certainly did, as often as possible.

Sam shrugged. "I've only got a couple pairs of underwear right now, too," he admitted. "And we can't exactly afford a shopping spree, especially not at a real store."

Dean nodded. Jeans, shirts, coats, hats, even shoes, were fine from a thrift store. Underwear…not so much. Even knowing they'd almost certainly never even been worn, it still skeeved him — and apparently Sam — out to think about even the remote possibility of wearing some other guy's tighty-whities.

"Okay," Dean agreed and reached over to grab Sam another towel, handing it too him without looking.

He heard Sam moving behind him, waited until he heard the soft "okay" before turning back around.

For Sam's modesty. Obviously.

Sam was kneeling in the tub, back towards the faucet and drain, holding the towel tightly about his waist.

Dan sighed and sat on the edge of the tub, and picked up one of the jugs. "You ready?"

Sam took a deep breath, rolled his shoulders slightly, and nodded.

Dean started to slowly pour the holy water over his brother, wincing at the steam that rose and the bubbling, hissing sound from the wounds.

Sam's only reaction was to tense his shoulders, bow his head slightly and breath in once, sharply, through his teeth.

After a few seconds, the black goo started to dissolve, and Dean stopped, setting the jug on the floor. "Okay," he said, "I think I can get your shirt off you, now."

He reached for the shirt, then stopped, taking in the way Sam had hunched in on himself, the slight trembling of the over-large hand that was now gripping the side of the tub, while the other hand was closed in a tight fist, pressed against the tile wall on the other side of the tub.

"Sammy?"

"I don't know what that shit is," Sam forced out, his voice tight with pain, "but it apparently contains some kind of pain killer. Because I'm starting to feel this, now. It is not pleasant."

"You okay?"

Sammy nodded quickly. "Can we put it back?" he wondered, forcing a laugh. "Motherfucker."

"Aw, Sammy…"

" 'Sokay," Sam assured him. "Let's get the shirt off and get this done."

Dean nodded and reached again for the collar, while Sam reached up to unbutton his shirt.

Dean froze when Sam cried out in pain as the muscles in his back rippled with the movement of his arms.

"Okay, okay," Dean soothed. "Hold still, Sammy. Just hold still. Shirt's nothin' but rags, anyway," he decided and bent down to get the surgical scissors he'd set on the towel beside a row of gauze. "Okay, hang on," he warned, and, starting at the ripped and tattered bottom hem, cut up the back of Sammy's shirt to the neck, leaving two shirt halves which Dean carefully pulled away from torn and bloody skin.

"Okay, it's all right," he promised and shifted the back end of the tub. "You gotta sit up for me buddy, you think you can do that?"

Mutely, breathing deeply into his nose and slowly out of his mouth, Sam nodded, and slowly straightened, closing his eyes as he forced himself to uncurl a few inches.

A soft, pained little whimper escaped him and Dean set a hand gently on his shoulder. "Okay, okay, never mind, Sammy. Just stay like you are, okay? I'll do all the work, okay?"

"Yeah," Sam agreed, the word little more than a hard exhale.

Gently, Dean grabbed the cuffs of both sleeves, and slowly pulled until the fabric hung limp in his hands. His eyes widened at the black remnants on the torn edges of the former shirt, which had started to spread to the rest of the fabric.

"Okay, Okay," he said calmly and returned to Sammy's side, picking up the nearly empty jar of holy water again. "I gotta finish cleaning this, Sammy. I know it hurts, but…"

"Just do it," Sam panted out.

Both brothers braced themselves as Dean began to pour the holy water again, biting his own lips at the small, barely audible keening noises coming from his baby brother. "I know, I know," he soothed, gently stroking Sammy's too-long, now matted hair with his free hand. "It's okay. It's okay, Sammy, we're almost done, almost done."

And they were. The fizzing and steaming had stopped, and the water cascading down Sam's (frankly ruined) back was no longer running black.

The first jug was drained, and Dean picked up the second, rinsing Sam one more time. Finding no more reaction, he nodded and set the jug of holy water aside.

"Okay. All that crap's out, buddy. Let's get you lying down so I can take a better look at this, okay?"

Sam nodded, and straightened up with a pained grunt, reaching blindly for Dean's hand.

Dean wrapped his right hand, closest to his brother, around Sam's offered left, slipping his left arm across Sammy's chest to help him stand.

Dean held him steady in the tub, neither of them noticing the now blackened towel lying at Sam's feet, or the way the stain slowly crept across the fabric. Towards them.

After a moment of alarming swaying, Sam lifted his head and nodded at his brother.

Carefully, Sam and Dean worked together, to get Sam out of the tub and to his bed. Neither spoke, and the only sound in the little motel room was the cycling of the fridge, the sound of Sam's Sasquatch feet dragging over the cheap carpet, and Sammy's pain-filled breathing.

They made it to Sammy's bed — closer to the bathroom, but further from the door — and Dean helped Sam lie down, face-first, on the bed.

"All right, Sammy," Dean said quietly, carding his fingers gently through Sam's hair in the way that always soothed both brothers. "You just rest here, little brother, and I'm going to get the med kit, fix you right up, 'kay?"

"'Kay," Sam agreed into his pillow.

Dean was just in the doorway of the bathroom when Sam gave a strangled cry of pain…

…and began to bleed.

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A/N

The Berkshire-Tarnowski Forest in Indiana is a real place, but I've never been there, so I make no promises about geographic or horticultural accuracy.

PCH is the Pacific Coast Highway, also known as California Highway 1. It covers about 655 from Orange County to Mendocino County, about 3/4 the length of California, hugging the coast.

Igor is a stereotypical sidekick for mad scientists. He is usually hunchbacked, often has a limp or drags a leg, and for some reason speaks with a pronounced lisp,

The Full Monty is a British slang term for "everything". A 1997 comedy movie The Full Monty used it as a euphemism for stripping completely, which is what Dean is referencing here.

Most popular thrift stores in the U.S. (the big two are Goodwill and the Salvation Army) will not take used underwear.

Tighty-Whities is slang for men's briefs. I believe in the UK they are known as Y-fronts. Traditionally white in color, they tend to cling tightly to a man. (Please hold a moment while I picture the Winchesters so clad)

Interested to hear what you think about my monster. I'll give more info in the next chapter. Also, I'm taking some liberties with the