The Road to Nowhere (leads to Me) -- 1/?
Rating: R
Characters: John, Sam, Dean
Pairing: No pairing
Disclaimer: I don’t own Supernatural or any of its characters. I don't own the song or the lyrics used either.
Word Count: ~7,500
Summary: A hunt goes wrong and John meets a pair of hunters who help him out.
Beta by Ghost (the one and only!)
A/N: It started like this: I wanted John. Ghosty wanted to help. So we started one of these things we do from time to time, one starts to write a 100 words and then the other jumps in and we see where it takes us. Mostly it takes us to snippets that never get finished or posted but make a lot of fun. This one got longer. And longer. And then turned into a plot-bunny. And I fell in love. And adopted it, pink ribbons and everything. It’s a WIP and I’ve decided to post it now since I’m dying to know what people think about it.
So, the first chapter was written by me and ghostfour .
As usual, all my thanks go to her, for keeping me awake at night (which is actually a good thing!), holding my hand, staying with me even through my weirder phases, for being there for me and letting me vent about the show whenever I need it. I think right now she is the only thing that’s keeping me in the fandom. Her and my new-found obsession with one particular hunter…
I love you, hun, you have no idea how much! *hugs*
Oh, I also fell in love with that song. I don’t own the lyrics, it all belongs to Ozzy Osbourne (or whatever label he is with).
There is blood.
Blood, everywhere. And the pain in his side is getting worse.
He hears the scrapping shuffle of the thing as it comes toward his corner. He clutches the gun to his chest, checking the safety by touch, and all he can think is please let the boys be alright. He shifts slightly, freezing when the movement pulls at the wound in his side and he can only barely hold back a groan.
GetupgetupgetUP
The thing is still moving closer. It shouldn’t be able to smell him or sense him in any way, the fetish is covering his presence just as the ritual said, but that will stop working soon. The thing was supposed to be dead by now.
Dead by dawn. Dean had been watching that stupid movie last week, and now the twisted demonic voice is chirping in his head, Dead by dawn! Dead by dawn! The concealment spell will end at dawn. How long until…?
Pebbles fall in a dry rattle. His eyes snap open. Damn it. He hasn’t even realized he is drifting. He looks down, and even in the dark he can see the black slowly spreading pool as he bleeds.
Too much. He is bleeding too much.
The boys… who will look after them if he doesn’t make it? Pastor Jim? Caleb? Bobby? They don’t know, they won’t know what to do if-
No.
He won’t-he can’t give up. It’s just not an option. He just has to get up and get moving, get out of the house and into the car and-
Fuck.
He can’t remember, he doesn’t know where he parked the fucking car-
Something bangs.
Fuck. He is running out of time. And running out of blood.
He pulls his jacket open, shivering in the damp dark. Where the hell is he? Why is it so damned dark? The cement of the wall scraps against his back as he tries to find the wound. Cement walls. Cement floor. Dripping water.
Oh, yeah. Basement. And the car is… not in the basement. Which means he has to get up. Because the boys aren’t there either. And he needs to-
Get up.
Right. Get up and get out.
His body groans in protest as he fights to get to his feet and he finds himself moaning right along with it as his right leg buckles beneath him and the sudden loss of balance sends him stumbling into the wall.
Pain explodes across his body. Shredded muscle scream at the fall, and his vision goes black for a few seconds.
And the thing moving about near the stairs…notices.
Black turns to white, then the broken wall he is kneeling beside gradually comes back into view and he sucks in a pained breath. He holds it, trying to listen into the darkness despite the ringing in his ears.
It is moving, closer now, getting closer and closer to him, sniffing the air, a big, dark shape in his line of sight that is growing bigger and bigger. He doesn’t know what will happen if it gets close enough to touch, he doesn’t think the fetish will protect him then, it will feel him and attack him, even though it might not be able to see him. And he is in no condition to fend it off- there’s a reason he had got the fetish in the first place. No human is strong enough to take one of these things on…and the gun would only annoy it. The ritual is his only shot at stopping this thing.
The ritual that he’d started two floors up…
Before the rotted wood had given way. Before he’d plunged all the way down to slam into the cement basement floor. Before some random piece of floorboard had turned him into a shish kabob.
Oh, yeah… he’s bleeding.
He should really do something about that. And the car… and then get the boys and make sure the thing doesn’t get them. He should bring them the fetish so they would be safe until dawn. The boys have to be safe, he has to make sure they aren’t in danger, he has to get back to them and then they’ll just drive away in the car.
But the car isn’t in the basement and-
Something cold touches his forehead and he blinks his eyes open, struggling to focus yet again on the wall he is leaning heavily against. The thing is almost on him, but he can barely hear it over the weird rushing sound in his ears.
Damn, he needs to get his thoughts together and focus. Focus.
He can’t give up.
His jacket is open. When the hell had that happened? Doesn’t matter. Makes this easier. Taking hold of the bottom of his shirt, he pulls. The light tearing sound echoes loudly in the room. Too loud. And too close. The huge, shaggy head swings in his direction.
He stills, even holds his breath, his pulse slamming into the inside of his skull with brutal force. One second. Two.
It takes one of those slow, stumbling steps closer.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Bright lights begins to dance across his vision. The pain starts to fade as his lungs begin to clench, demanding air.
No. No no no no no. He can’t fall now. Can’t stop.
The floor shakes as the creature stumbles closer.
He has a scrap of cloth in one hand, a gun in the other. Opening it as silently as he can, he palms one of the useless bullets and throws it across the room, letting it clatter against the wall and floor.
The huge, shaggy head swings in that direction.
And he stares at the cloth in his hand for a moment, trying to remember what he had planned to do with it. He remembers a moment later, when the thing turns and moves to where the bullet had landed and he tries to move, too, away from it, and someone drives a spear through his side, squeezing the air from his lungs again.
Fuck.
Pressing the cloth to his leaking side he slowly starts to crawl back, away from it, trying desperately to remember the layout of the room, the house, to remember where the fucking exit is.
And then there is a noise somewhere in front of him, something moving in the shadows, and he freezes.
There are two of them.
No. No freaking way. These things hate each other. No way should there be two in the same place.
But there it is, snuffling around the base of the stairs. The stairs he has to get up.
It is too much. Too much coincidence, too much gone wrong in too short a time.
There is something…someone…behind this.
Now if he can only live long enough to hunt the sonofabitch down…
He wraps the cloth in a rough, thin bandage around the wound and knots it down, tight. The high, narrow gap of a window at the other side of the room is still dark, but he knows he won’t have too long until sunrise. If he isn’t out of the house by then, he won’t be getting out.
And then what will happen to his boys? They are too young to look after themselves; they need him, if he doesn’t get out, then who will?
The question wakes him up a bit. Makes him think. He is getting out of this damned house. It isn’t a wish, it is a fact, he will get out and he will get home and he will kill it.
Them.
It is hard getting back on his feet, but he makes it, leaning heavily against the wall for support. The second thing is still sniffing the floor at the stairs and doesn’t seem to have noticed him so far, and the other has finally found the bullet and is nosing it carefully, sniffing at it from all sides. Getting used to his scent he guesses. Maybe it knows about the fetish, maybe it knows about dawn making it useless… He doesn’t know, can’t really remember if they are that smart. And it isn’t important right now, he’ll deal with that if it comes up. The first thing he needs to do now is-
-find out where the voices are coming from.
He blinks, and the monsters still. Quiet. Then more voices. From up.
Upstairs. The voices are coming from upstairs.
As soon as he figures it out, so do the beasts - their snouts swing upward, and a second later they howl, a long low sound that sends a wave of vertigo through John as his inner ear aches with the sound. Then the monsters take off, scrambling in their heavy limbed, shambling way up the rickety wooden stairs, chasing after the noise.
First he is only relived that they are leaving, and leaving him alone…but slowly it sinks in.
There are people upstairs. People who have no idea what is coming for them…
No way, he won’t allow that to happen.
He pushes himself off the wall and limps toward the stairs, eyeing the top step wearily. All he needs to do now is to get up there and-
Everything falls silent.
From one second to the other not a sound can be heart, no talking upstairs, no creatures moving over rusty floor boards, no sniffing. And that is… not good.
He doesn’t know how he manages to climb the stairs, at one point there is a fleeting memory of his leg groaning in protest, but he ignores that, not stopping until he reaches the top and can see a long hall in front of him. He turns-and stops, he has no idea where the creatures have gone, and now that he can’t hear anything he can’t tell where the people are.
And then one of the shadows moves…
Shadows. Dim, grey, but real shadows. The window at the end of the wide hall in front of him is pale blue, not black.
It is dawn.
And across from him, the monster snarls, stepping out into the hazy light and looking straight at him.
“Well, hell,” is all he has time to mutter before it is charging.
He braces himself, but there is no where to go, and his body won’t be able to dive like that, even if he does. The open basement stairwell is behind him, and the walls of the hallway block him from both sides. The thing is going to take him down. And it leaps -
Something hits him, hard and from the side, yanking him sideways and pressing him to the wall. The monster leaps over them, falling with a hard crunch on the stairs, and landing with a decided thud on the hard floor below. The figure leaps off him with a curse, slamming the basement door shut. Leaning against it.
There is blood on his back from three long gouges. His face is in the shadows and kind of blurry, but John thinks that has something to do with how his head is reeling after the ‘attack’. Breathing hurts, for a moment he can’t even draw a breath at all, still too busy trying to get the world back to its correct angle.
“You hurt?”
The voice drifts toward him and it takes him a moment to understand it is indeed a language he is familiar with. Hands reaching for the wall to steady himself he doesn’t trust himself enough to be able to shake his head and not face-plant after it, and he merely grunts what he hopes sounds like a negative. He has no idea who the stranger is and he won’t give any information away, let alone about possible weaknesses on his side.
“’m fine…” he manages to rasp out, forcing the stinging pain into the back of his mind.
The stranger opens his mouth to say something, but suddenly the door behind him is slammed forward, nearly breaking under the weight of the thing crashing into it. The man is thrown off his feet, but is upright a second later, throwing himself back against the splintered wood, another curse rolling off his lips before he raises his voice.
“Need some help down here!” he shouts, and John has a moment of wondering if he isn’t just guiding the other creature toward them with all the noise he is making.
There is thumping, running from the dark end of the hall, and he forces himself to stand up, to be ready, only to be passed by another guy, who throws himself against the door with the first.
“What the hell is up with this thing? It’s like on monster ‘roid rage!” He grunts as the upper part of the wooden door begins to splinter under their hands. “Problem. Door’s coming apart.”
“Thanks for the observation, Sherlock,” guy number one pants. He hisses as skin catches on the pinching, stabbing wood.
“We have to find him and get the hell out.”
“Corner,” guy number one grunts, blood dripping from his back. He nods toward John. “I think he took a blow to the head. I’m pretty sure he’s bleeding.”
Number two turns and looks at John, face unreadable in the shadows. “Sweet. Okay. Time to go.”
They are moving too fast for him to track, one moment both of them are standing at the door, keeping it closed, the next, one of them is next to him, pulling his arm over the shoulder. And jarring his injured side which decides to send white, hot pain through his chest. This time he can’t hold back a groan, sagging heavily against the supporting shoulder.
“Fuck, he’s hurt,” says a voice somewhere next to his head and he is pulled upright, then leaned against the wall as unfamiliar hands try to pull his jacked away from the wound. He wants to protest, wants to yell at him to let him the fuck go, but he can’t find enough breath-or voice-and ends up groaning something unintelligible.
“Easy,” the voice says, and he finds himself relaxing despite the continuing heavy blows to the door. There is something about the voice that is…familiar. Though he can’t help the flinch as cold hands tug at the lame attempt at a bandage. The voice curses softly. “He’s bleeding.”
“How bad?” calls the one still leaning against what is left of the door. Each new hit bounces him away from it, and John can see bloody tracks where his back pressed.
“Bad enough to need sewn up, but not hospital bad.” John’s wrist is taken in a deft grip and pain flares white and hot as his arm is laid over a steady shoulder. “Let me get him outside, and I’ll go finish the ritual. I found it upstairs. Can you hold on that long?”
“Do I have a choice?” The other hisses, straining.
“Not really.”
“Just go.”
And John finds himself being pulled forward, toward the door. And that is good, he is getting out and away from this place. But there is something… he is forgetting something. Something important has gotten lost in the shuffle and pain that is his head right now. Something necessary.
There is a growl from the darkness in front of them.
Oh, yeah. “There’s two,” he mutters. And malevolent eyes glitter at them from the shadows.
He almost expects the other to flinch, to shy back, to react how any normal, sane person would react when faced with creatures like this, but he doesn’t. The man simply straightens up, eases John’s arm off his shoulder and takes a step forward, between him and the dark shadow John can see looming in front of them.
“Stay behind me…” The man mutters softly, and that’s when it hits John, the two of them aren’t normal people, they are like him, hunters. They know what they have to do, how to get rid of the creatures, and for a moment he feels himself relax slightly, relieved that the situation will be dealt with. He dimly wonders how they found him, he can’t remember telling anybody he’d taken this hunt so he doesn’t really expect to find backup, but that thought is gone pretty much as soon as it comes up.
Because the hell with staying behind like some civilian. This is his freaking fight.
He pushes away from the wall. Shaky but, by god, standing. Stands shoulder to shoulder with the other hunter for the first time in a very long time - and is glad of the company, though this is not his choice to make such a stand.
The man glances sideways at him, and then nods. It isn’t hopeless. It is never hopeless. He tells his boys that often enough and he believes it. But this is about as close to hopeless as it gets.
The monster growls, its shoulders lowering as its haunches bunch. It barley fits in the wide hall, its flanks scraping at the plaster on both sides. It is going to charge them, and it will plough through them like…well, like a lion through raw meat.
“Hey!” barks the one at the door and the other glances back. Something brief and quick flashes between them, a hunting pair so tight that they can plan without words- and the man next to John nods, taking his arm. “Get ready,” he says low, eyes pinned on the beast.
The beast charges, thumping down the hall. Behind them, the other thumps at the door.
John tenses again, ready for the death blow…
“Now!” Someone shouts, and John is pulled down to the ground.
Behind them, John hears a huff, as the young man steps aside, letting the door give way as the monster in the basement surges again. The beast and the monster both overshoot the mark, slamming into each other and falling in a yelping heap.
“Go!” More shouting and John is yanked up, stumbling, all running for the door.
For a moment he forgets all about the lancing pain in his side or the way he just can’t get enough air into his lungs to keep him upright, the need to get out of there, get back home has him follow them as best as he can. Behind him the beasts are growling and scrambling to get back on their paws, but he doesn’t-can’t pay attention to that, his eyes are fixed on the door. He can’t remember why, but once they make it out of the door he knows they will be safe.
“Look out!”
One of them is shouting too close to his ear and his head whips around, just in time to see one of the beasts getting ready to jump at them, but the next second his feet cross the threshold and cold, freezing air hits his lungs, making them clench painfully and doubling him over.
“Come on, keep moving!”
He is dragged along then, a shoulder appearing at his uninjured side and forcing him to rise from his hunched, protective posture. It is the final straw, his side seizes up on him and he can feel his breath getting caught in his throat. He doesn’t even have the time to groan as everything around him turns black.
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chapter 2
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