Everything That Rides Below the Surface, for themegalosaurus

[summergen_mod]

Title: Everything That Rides Below the Surface
Recipient: themegalosaurus
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 4,341
Warnings: none
Summary: Sam and Dean are on a hunt in Missouri, and Sam's been having these strange dreams. There's no way he can tell Dean or Dad about them…until the creature they're hunting makes it impossible to hide any longer.

A/N: Title from "Dream" by Imagine Dragons. Thanks to my beta reader for their helpful suggestions!


"Sammy, you all right?" Dean barked.

Sam gingerly felt at his cheek and then looked at his fingers. He was bleeding, and the cold night air stung his lacerated skin, but it wasn't bad. Probably just needed a band-aid, maybe a butterfly bandage to be safe.

Just like the dream he'd had last night of himself in the motel room where they'd been staying, with a butterfly bandage on his cheek.

Sam shook his head sharply and said, "I'm fine. You?"

"I'm not the one who got swiped by whatever-the-fuck that thing was," Dean retorted. He didn't look at Sam as he spoke, eyes and gun trained into the darkness where the clawed, winged creature who had attacked Sam had gone.

"The Ozark Howler doesn't fly," Sam replied. He leaned his head back against the side of the Impala, taking reassurance from her solid bulk between them and whatever was out there. "Not in any of the lore."

"Yeah, but there's something else out here that does." Dean kept his aim steady with his right hand as he reached down with his left. "C'mon."

Sam accepted Dean's hand with one hand and kept a tight hold of his gun with the other, lurching to his feet. Once upright, he turned around in a slow circle, pebbles scraping under his feet, gun at the ready down at his side. "There's nothing behind us."

"Well, that's something." Dean shifted his weight. "How do we kill these howlers?"

"They're cryptids," Sam replied. "Just animals. A regular bullet would do it. But I don't think that's what took the kids."

"And the thing that flew overhead?"

Sam touched the back of his hand to his cheek and pulled it away. Sticky, but drying. Probably just needed a band-aid. "Could just be an owl who got too close."

"When are we ever that lucky?" Dean asked.

"Something with wings could explain how the kids disappeared," Sam said. "The Ozark Howler isn't known to attack people, just scare the crap out of them."

As if on cue, a shriek suddenly split the night air. Sam gave a start, his finger tightening on the trigger but not going off. It was a high-pitched, wild cry, definitely not human or a familiar animal. "It is the Ozark Howler," he muttered. "Remember that woman who said she heard it last night, right about the time the kids vanished?"

"That didn't come from the trees," Dean replied. He was looking up, and a second later one hand was shoving at Sam's shoulder even as he aimed upwards with the other. "Down!" he shouted.

Sam stumbled to the side, legs that were still too long for him nearly folding beneath him as he tried to duck. A huge shape moved overhead. Wings blotted out the stars for a second, and the rush of hot breath he felt as it moved by had his cheek aching again.

Dean whirled and fired a few shots, but all they heard was that same piercing cry and the flap of large wings.

The moon was a thin crescent, but as the creature banked over the trees, Sam thought he saw it in profile. He blinked and then shook his head. Maybe it had clocked him on that first go-around. He saw the vertical shapes of trees through its insubstantial body, but it was the shape of that body that was giving him pause.

"Was that…?" Dean cleared his throat. "Was that a pterodactyl?"

It was clearly time to regroup.

They drove back to the Ozark Pines Motel, and Dean cleaned off Sam's face before slapping a butterfly bandage on the skin. Sam protested that it wasn't that bad a scratch, but Dean insisted. What was he going to say-that he'd had a dream he had a bandage on his face, so he didn't want the bandage there because that meant the dream was coming true?

Even though it was one in the morning, there was no way Sam was going to fall asleep. For one, the air conditioning was shot, and July in Missouri meant hot, humid nights. Besides, not knowing what they were up against always left him with an itch he needed to scratch, not to mention the two missing teenagers who were still out there somewhere. Dad was expecting them to solve this one on their own while he was chasing some kind of hunt he didn't want to tell them about in Virginia. So they would solve it on their own.

"So what do we know?" Sam asked. He'd cracked open their laptop and plugged it into the motel's ethernet connection. At least they'd had enough money this trip to stay at a place with Internet. That made so much difference for doing research, it wasn't even funny.

Dean was cracking open a beer. "We know two kids are missing, which we already knew before we got there." He took a swig and went on, "We know that there's a flying dinosaur out there that nearly took your face off."

"It was a pterosaur, not a dinosaur." Sam rotated his laptop so Dean could see the picture that looked just like what they had seen: wide, leathery wings, sharply-pointed crest and longer, even more sharply-pointed beak. "Different order, same phylum." Seeing the confusion on Dean's face, he went on, "Like a dinosaur cousin."

"Okay, but how did we see a flying dinosaur cousin? They're all extinct, right?"

"Birds are descended from dinosaurs," Sam reminded him. "But yeah, the phylum is all extinct, including the pterosaur."

"Then that's not what we saw," Dean replied. "Maybe there's an Ozark Howler that flies after all."

Sam held up a finger. "There's also some local lore about pterosaurs being spotted in the Ozarks. Texarkana in 1982, Christian County in 1990…" He opened another tab and quickly typed. "That's the next county over from where we are."

"So they're not extinct?"

"Did it look solid to you?" Sam asked.

Dean frowned. "I thought I saw the moon shining through one wing. Figured it was just from it flapping, but it could have been insubstantial." His face brightened. "That means we're chasing a ghost dinosaur. That is so cool."

Sam started to correct him, then closed his mouth. The joy on Dean's face was rare enough that he didn't want to ruin it. "Could a ghost have taken away the kids, though?"

"It was substantial enough when it hit you in the face, wasn't it?"

He reached up to touch his cheek. "It could be manifesting when something comes into its territory. Maybe the kids went somewhere they weren't supposed to." Something occurred to him, and he looked sharply at Dean. "If it's a ghost, how do we get rid of it? It's not like there's a grave we can find."

"Maybe there is." Dean drained his beer bottle and thunked it down on the nightstand. "How do they know there were pterodactyls here?"

"Pterosaurs."

"Whatever."

Sam frowned but answered, "Paleontologists would have found the…" He trailed off and looked at Dean, who was grinning again. "The bones."

Dean nodded, eyes bright. "Where do you put dinosaur bones?"

"Not in a cemetery." Sam turned back to his laptop, typing away. A moment later, he was scrolling through a website. When a map flashed up on the screen, he pointed at it. "The Natural History Museum of the Ozarks. Founded in 1955, biggest collection of 'natural wonders and curiosities' in the Ozark region."

"How far away is it?"

A few clicks later, Sam had an answer. "Ninety minutes, give or take."

"We still gotta find those kids. And it's not like the pterosaur is gonna tell us where they are."

"The museum will be a lot easier to get into at night," Sam argued. "And if we take care of the ghost first, it won't be going after us anymore." Then there was the matter of his dream, which had clearly taken place outdoors and not inside a museum. He couldn't let Dean go out there alone, not with what he had dreamed would happen to him.

"So drop me off where we just were-that's the closest to where the kids were last seen, so it's probably near its lair. You go to the museum."

"The Howlers were out there too, Dean. I'm not leaving you alone out there without any backup!"

"You said the Howlers don't attack people. They just…howl."

"What if the pterosaur comes back, and you're the only one there?"

"Shit." Dean rubbed a hand over his jaw. "I can't let you salt and burn the bones alone. It's gonna come after you once it figures out what you're doing."

Normally, Sam would have been miffed at the idea that he couldn't pour some salt and lighter fluid on some bones and light a match. There wouldn’t even be any digging necessary if the bones were on display in the museum, and in a rural area like this in far southern Missouri, the security on the museum would be pretty light.

But normally, he wouldn't have had a vivid dream about Dean getting shredded by a pterosaur's claws, the same kind of dream that he knew from checking newspapers had come true on at least two other occasions. There was no way he was taking a risk on this.

"Okay, fine," Sam finally said. "Let's go."

It was more like eighty minutes by the time they pulled into the tiny parking lot of the museum. Sam checked the clip in his gun before shoving it into the back of his waistband. Dean grabbed a shotgun from the trunk and tossed the second one at Sam. "Should be loaded with salt, but why don't you double check?"

Sam verified that they were salt shells before grabbing an iron poker and slamming the trunk closed.

The museum was a small building, reddish brick like the dirt of the parking lot. Dean held up a hand as they approached the front door. "See any cameras?"

Sam squinted in the moonlight before shaking his head. "Walk around to double check?"

"Meet you at the back door," Dean winked.

As soon as Sam rounded the corner of the building, he froze. The grassy hill stretching up to his right was far too familiar. It was exactly the site in his dream that he'd been trying to avoid. "We'll just stay inside," he muttered to himself. "There's no bones out here. It'll be all right."

At the back door, Dean was already picking the lock. "No sign of security at all," he whispered as Sam got closer. "Must not be much inside."

"Or it's a tiny museum in the middle of nowhere where nothing ever happens."

Dean shot him a look as he popped the lock open. "Except for three kids going missing."

Sam glared at him. "I didn't forget that."

"Good." Dean eased the door open and they waited for a moment in case any lights started blinking or alarms started sounding. After a few seconds, they slipped inside, shutting the door behind them.

They were in the back hallway, with one office on each side. "Should we look up where the bones are?" Sam said in a low voice.

"If a little town like this has a dinosaur, they're going to put it on display," Dean replied. "Let's just go to the exhibit hall."

Sam muttered, "It's a pterosaur, not a dinosaur," as he followed Dean down the hall.

The exhibit hall was one room that was maybe twice as big as their hotel room. Sam wondered if the museum staff doubled as taxidermists, given the number of stuffed and displayed animals around the room. He swung his flashlight in an arc, suppressing a flinch at the glass eyes reflected back at him.

"Gee, d'you think that's it?" Dean asked, pointing his flashlight upwards.

Hanging from the rafters was what looked like a complete pterosaur skeleton, arranged to look as if it was diving at the front door.

Sam swallowed. "Yeah, that's it."

"All right, there must be a ladder in the back. I'll cut it down and we can take it outside to burn it."

"What? No, we don't need to go outside. We can just cut it down and take care of it in here."

"Sammy, I'm not setting this building on fire. The bones are just wired together, so we can smush it together enough to get it out the door. Go get the wirecutters out of the trunk, and I'll find a ladder."

By the time Sam came back with the wirecutters, he still hadn't figured out how to keep Dean and the pterosaur bones inside. Dean had set up a tall stepladder right under the head of the creature, and he had his shotgun at his side. "You go up and cut the wires," he said, holding out the iron poker in one hand. "I'll keep watch for our dinosaur friend."

Sam climbed the ladder and eyed the wires. There were two holding up the head, one at the tip of each wing, two over the middle of the body, and one on the tail. The ladder was set up near the pterosaur's shoulder, so he should be able to reach about half of the wires at a time. Then he'd have to move the ladder, hoping that the ghost didn't realize what was going on and come for them.

Taking a deep breath, he brought up the wirecutters and snipped the wires holding up the head.

The skull pitched forward, but it was firmly attached to the rest of the body. Sam cut the right-hand wing wire next, then the one that he could reach at its back. The bones creaked and groaned as the whole thing started to fall away from the ceiling.

He eyed the rest of the wires. If he left the tail for last, the whole skeleton would swing in that direction as it fell, and there wasn't enough room for it below. He should cut the tail next, then the other wing, and leave the wire in the middle for last.

As Sam scampered back down the ladder, he suddenly saw his breath in the air. He looked sharply at Dean, who gave him a grim nod as he looked around the room, shotgun at the ready.

They heard it first, the shrieking sound from earlier tonight. Sam jumped down the last few rungs of the ladder and brandished both wirecutters and poker in the air.

"Just move the ladder and cut the rest of them," Dean barked. "I'll cover you. When you get to the last wire, let me know and I'll help you ease the thing down so the bones don't shatter into a million pieces."

Sam dragged the ladder a few yards away, barely taking the time to make sure it was steady before going back up. He heard the bark of the shotgun and looked up to see a faint, ghostly cloud already dissipating.

He knew from experience it would be back within a few minutes, so he set the poker on the top rung and leaned to the side to snip the tail wire. The pterosaur bones lurched forward, nearly swiping the ladder.

"Careful!" Dean called, but Sam was already reaching for the left wing wire. With most of the wires gone, those that were left were holding much more weight than normal, and he had to use both hands on the wirecutter to sever the wing wire.

He had just cut it when his breath fogged the air again. That time, he saw it almost right away, wings spread wide in the small space of the exhibit hall and coming straight at him. With a yelp, he picked up the poker and swung it.

The ghost vanished, but Sam had forgotten he was standing on a ladder. His swing had been too wild, and he dropped the poker to hang on to the top step of the ladder with both hands, willing himself to keep his balance.

"Sam!" Dean shouted, racing to the base of the ladder. "You okay?"

"I'm good," Sam replied, feeling his heart thump. He was about twice his own height above the ground, and while a fall from that distance probably wouldn't be fatal, it would certainly suck. So would telling Dad how exactly he'd been injured. Thankfully, he'd kept his balance.

"Here!" The wirecutters had fallen to the ground, too, and Dean had them in one hand, ready to throw.

Sam put out his hands to catch them, but the pterosaur's cry rang out in the room again. Dean flipped the wirecutters up and whirled around, shotgun already firing over Sam's head.

But that wasn't where the creature was going. It was diving at Dean, claws extended, and before Dean could change his aim, it plowed into him.

"Dean!" Sam shouted as he watched his brother fly backwards and hit the wall. Bloody scratches lined his forearms from when he'd dropped the shotgun and thrown up his hands in self-defense.

Sam was gripping the wirecutters, and he looked at the one remaining wire. The pterosaur had vanished, but he was sure it was only coming around for another try. Leaning forward, Sam put all his strength into the wirecutters, shoving the handles together to cut that one last, heavy wire.

He heard the pterosaur shriek a second before the wire gave. The bones went crashing to the ground, many of them shattering on the spot.

He looked around frantically, expecting to see the pterosaur already coming at him, now that he was weaponless. But to his horror, it was aiming at Dean, who was still slumped unmoving against the far wall.

There was no way Sam could make it down the ladder in time to get to the poker, or to his shotgun, sitting on the museum's front desk. With nothing else to do, Sam threw the wirecutters at the pterosaur. They passed right through its ghostly body, obviously doing nothing.

All he could see were razor-sharp claws, seconds away from shredding Dean, just like in his dream. The location had changed, but the end result was going to be the same.

With an anguished cry, Sam reached out in Dean's direction, willing something to happen. "Dean, wake up! DEAN!"

A moment later, something heavy hit his palm.

He looked down in shock to see his fingers curled around Dean's shotgun. Without hesitating, he lifted the weapon and pulled the trigger.

The pterosaur's claws snagged on Dean's flannel shirt before it disappeared.

Sam leaned back against the ladder, panting for breath, a pit suddenly forming in his stomach. He didn't look at the shotgun he still held-he couldn’t look at it. There was no possible way for it to have gotten into his hands.

On the ground, Dean was looking up at him. "Sam?"

He had the absurd thought of putting the shotgun behind his back. "You okay?"

"Why do you have my gun?"

Sam swallowed. "It knocked you out. And then it was coming back for you."

"That's not what I-" Dean frowned. He looked completely bewildered.

"Look, I'll explain later," Sam said, hoping he could think of an explanation in the meantime. "Right now, we have to burn the bones before it comes back again."

"Yeah. Shit. We're gonna have to have to burn them in here anyway. Too many tiny pieces."

Even a fraction of a bone could keep the spirit tethered here, Sam knew. And now it was going to be pissed.

He went down the ladder and handed Dean's gun back to him. "I'll get the lighter fluid," he muttered, turning away.

Ten minutes later, they were standing beside the Impala, backed up to the street to get away from the heat, watching the museum go up in flames. "Too bad about the building," Dean said.

"I'm sure they can build another one," Sam replied.

"Yeah, and those other exhibits looked creepy enough that we might well have killed more than one bird with that stone." Dean shivered.

"Yeah. So, uh, we should get out of here, right? There's no trees close to the building that might catch, and someone might have called the fire department."

"There's no one around here for miles, Sam. We gotta make sure the bones are completely burned."

"Yeah, okay." Sam folded his arms and leaned back against the car. "We should start figuring out where the kids are. If you were a ghost pterosaur, where would you hide your prey?"

"We should start talking about what happened in there," Dean said, pointing at the flaming building. "How you grabbed my gun and went back up the ladder in about two seconds flat. That's not possible, Sam."

He tried scoffing out loud. "You hit your head, Dean. You were out for longer than that."

"I don't think so." Dean turned to face him, hands on his hips. "Why did you want to burn down the whole building along with the bones?"

"I didn’t! I wasn't thinking. I saw you hit the ground and I panicked and kept cutting the wire instead of trying to lower the whole thing to the ground so we could take it outside."

"You don't panic, little brother. Not you."

"Maybe this time I did!"

"Maybe so. Or maybe you're panicking right now."

Sam spread his arms wide. "Are you interrogating me, Dean? Am I a suspect in something?"

"Jesus, no. Calm down. I'm just trying to figure out what's going on. I need to know I can count on you."

"You think you can't count on me? Dean, I did that to save you. I would never do anything to put you in danger."

Dean's voice dropped. "What did you do, Sam?"

Too late, Sam realized the admission he'd made. Dean wasn't going to let this go, not even with a building burning next to them and three missing kids to find. He looked down at the asphalt and the firelight flickering over it, trying to think of what to say.

He heard Dean draw breath to make another demand, and then he heard another sound. Whirling around, he saw, at the far end of the grassy area next to the museum, a tool shed. The door was being pushed open, and three short figures stepped out.

He exchanged a look with Dean. "It's them!"

They raced across the field, shouting the kids' names. They were confused and starving, but unharmed despite having been missing for three days. They had been on a hike when they went missing, and they had been carrying enough water and snacks to sustain them. That didn't mean they weren't thrilled to see Dean pull a bag of peanut M&M's out of the trunk.

Sam recognized the expression on their faces when he and Dean gently asked what had happened to them. They knew something strange had happened, something that no one would ever believe. So they said they didn't remember, or said they were thirsty, or asked to see their parents, or anything but try and explain that the ghost of a pterosaur had taken them away and that its second death had released them.

In the end, Dean drove them back to their respective houses. Even though it was three in the morning, Sam was happy to knock on the doors and watch the joy light their parents' faces when they saw their missing children right in front of them. Sam shrugged off the thanks and returned to the car, dreading the moment when the last child would be gone.

It wasn't until they were back at the motel that Dean asked, "Does Dad know?"

Sam whirled to face him. "You can't tell him anything. Please, Dean."

"I don't even know what I'd tell him!" Dean flung his hands out from his sides. "It's not like I saw anything happen. Just-you were up on the ladder with a gun you couldn't possibly have gotten so fast."

Sam said quietly, heart pounding, "It was coming right at you, and I had to save you. I reached out and it was in my hand. That's all I know."

Dean rubbed a hand over his jaw, eyes darting away from Sam's. "That's not enough."

"It's all I have. Please, Dean. Just forget about it. It's never happened before. I won't do it again."

Sam waited, holding his breath, to hear what Dean would say. Would he demand they tell Dad? Would he call Sam a freak? Would he demand Sam repeat what he'd done to try and figure out how he did it?

Dean dropped onto his bed. When he spoke, his voice was heavy. "I don't know what to say, Sam."

"Then don't say anything. Just forget about it. Like those kids-they know something happened, but they're not gonna talk about it. They're just glad they made it home." Sam took a step towards his brother. "I'm just glad you're okay."

Dean raised his head, his expression stricken. "Yeah, but are you okay?"

Sam set his jaw. "I'm fine, Dean. There's nothing wrong with me."

"Would you tell me if there was?"

He bit back thoughts of the dream that hadn't quite come true this time. "I just did, didn't I? I told you all that I know."

Dean looked at him for a long moment. Sam tried to look as honest and scared as he could, and it must have worked, because Dean scrubbed his hand over his hair and then bent down to take off his boots. "All right. Fine. I won't say anything to Dad."

"Thank you." Sam clasped his hands in front of him. "Seriously, Dean. Thank you."

"I guess I owe you one for saving my bacon," Dean said with a weak smile.

They didn't talk about it anymore that night, just drifted off to sleep in the few hours before dawn. Nor did they talk about it the next day, or the one after that.

But three days later, Sam started researching colleges.