Reversed Big Bang Challenge fic: "Enter Sandman" 1/2
Art title: Hiding the Well
Prompt Number: S1081
Artist: uh_tiramisu
Art post here: http://uh-tiramisu.livejournal.com/4290.html
Fic Title: Enter Sandman
Author: dean_hugs_sammy
Fandom/Genre: SPN, Hurt/Comfort, Adventure
Pairing(s): Gen
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: ~10.000
Warnings: Hurt!Dean, Hurt!Sam.
Summary: A call from one of their dad's old acquaintances leads the Winchester brothers to Egypt, where they take on a sand monster in the Sahara desert. Set in Season 1 after "The Benders".
Author note: This has been my very first spn_reversebang challenge, and even though there've been times where I wanted to throw my laptop out of the window, it was quite fun to be a part of this experience :) It's been a real pleasure working with uh_tiramisu who didn't just turn out to be a talented artist (that surprised me with a bunch of awesome additional pieces of art for the fic), but also turned out to be a really funny and sweet person as well. I hope we'll keep in touch after this, mate - thanks for the ride! ;) I also need to make a shout-out to my good friend amberdreams who was the one to talk me into joining this challenge. She's been my Beta-reader too - as well as my personal guru through all of this. Thanks to dizzojay for stepping in at the very last minute to read through the last bit. You guys have been life-savers! ♥
Chapter 1
It had all started on a cold autumn day. The sun was setting on the horizon; its glowing orange-red and yellow colors decorated the scenery and the hood of the Impala in a colorful blaze that - combined with the rumble of the engine of his baby and the soft snores from his brother - filled Dean’s heart with a pleasant sense of calmness and happiness. It had taken quite a few miles and a change to a soft rock station on the radio for Sam to doze off (which had been Dean’s intention from the start) and his kid brother was now slumped against the window of the passenger side of the car - soundly asleep. After having been caged in an icy cell by the psychotic Benders family without as much as a jacket, Sam was battling a cold and, on top of what had happened on the Max Miller case where his nightmares had developed into something more, Dean couldn’t remember the last time Sam had had a good night’s sleep. What happened to Jess was still weighing heavily on Sam’s shoulders and, even though his brother wasn’t talking about it, Dean knew Sam still woke up in the middle of the night, gasping her name. This was the first time in several weeks that Sam had managed to sleep as peacefully as he was doing right now, so Dean continued to drive without any particular destination in mind - wanting his brother to rest for as long as he possibly could.
However, just as Dean was enjoying the peaceful moment with his brother by his side, the sudden buzzing of his phone interrupted. Letting out an annoyed sigh and eyeing Sam, who was luckily still asleep, Dean quickly dug out his phone from his pocket and snapped it open.
“This better be important.” Dean mumbled in a low voice, eyes shifting between Sam and the road, while he put the phone to his ear. “Yeah?”
Thinking back on that phone call now, Dean didn’t know what had specifically made him accept the hunt. Maybe it was the fact that the call came from an old acquaintance of John Winchester - a hunter named Irv Franklin that Dean had met a couple of times while hunting with his dad, and whom might have heard news of their missing father. Maybe it was because Dean thought that a little bit of warmth could do Sam some good and help him get rid of his cold, or maybe the reason was that he figured they both needed a change of scenery after all the crap they’d been through lately. For whatever reason it was, Dean had ended up promising Irv that he and Sam would help him out, and Sam had been more than a little aghast when Dean had told him about it after they’d checked into a motel room later that day.
“You’re kidding me?” Sam said, eyes nearly popping out of their sockets while staring at his big brother in disbelief. “We’re doing a hunt… where?”
“Egypt.” Dean repeated, a smile tucking at the corner of his lips by the look on Sam’s face.
“Egypt… as in Africa?” Sam asked.
“No, Egypt as in Michigan.” Dean said with sarcasm and rolled his eyes. “Where else would it be?”
“But Dean… This isn’t just crossing the border to Canada or Mexico in the car, you know.” Sam said. “Hell, we’re gonna have to fly! And we can’t take our weapons with us either.”
“Sam, I know this might come as a big shock to you but I’m pretty sure they have guns in Egypt too.” Dean said, making Sam huff. “Besides, when was the last time we saw anything else than the American highways, huh? Come on! It’ll be fun.”
But that was before he’d properly thought through exactly what this trip would entail. Firstly, they had to abandon his beloved Impala. Second, he had to spend more than fourteen terrifying hours thousands of feet off the surface of the earth, clamped inside a tin can with wings that sent Dean’s heart into his throat with every hint of turbulence. But, almost worst of all, was his geeky little brother going on and on about Egyptian culture, mythology and archaeology to the point where Dean had threatened to remodel Sam’s face if he didn’t shut the hell up.
When they finally arrived in Egypt, Dean had never before felt so happy about having both feet firmly planted on the ground again. Even Sam seemed happy about being out of the plane - although he wasn’t the one whose voice had turned hoarse from humming Metallica for fourteen hours straight.
The brothers met up with Irv Franklin outside Cairo airport and the hunter was, just as he’d told Dean on the phone, limping around on crutches with his broken foot in a cast. Dean had told Sam all the stuff he knew about Irv, but it was the first time the younger Winchester had met the older hunter. Sam did what he always did when meeting new people (especially hunters) - he stopped up half a step behind his big brother from where he could eye Irv from a safe distance while still being within arm’s reach of Dean. Having each other’s backs was something the brothers had always done and, by now, it was so deeply ingrained in the both of them that neither really noticed.
“Dean, good to see ya again.” Irv said and patted the older brother’s shoulder. “How’s your old man? Tried to get him on the phone but his voicemail told me to give you a call instead.”
“Well, that’s a long story.” Dean sighed and tried to hide his disappointment now that he knew that Irv wouldn’t be able to tell them more about their missing father’s whereabouts.
“He’s not in any kind of trouble, right?” Franklin asked but Dean shook his head.
“No. Let’s just say he’s out of reach right now.” Dean said and was grateful when Irv dropped the subject. He really didn’t want to talk about dad’s continued radio silence right now.
“O-kay.” Irv said and shrugged his shoulders, and Dean then saw him eye his tall, floppy-haired kid brother who was still standing a few steps behind Dean with his hands buried in his pockets. “You must be John’s other kid. Sammy, right?”
“Sam.” The younger brother corrected with a polite smile and extended his hand to Irv.
“What happened to your foot?” Dean asked while the two other hunters shook hands.
“You don’t wanna know.” The older hunter said and wiped some sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand. “But I’m no good for hiking in the desert with this gimp foot, so that’s where I need you boys’ help.”
After a short but rather crazy taxi ride through the overcrowded traffic from Cairo to the town of Giza (that had both Winchesters longing for the safeness of the Impala), they arrived at Irv’s temporary residence. After freshening up, they gathered around a table in the main room to talk about the hunt. Irv had originally, on his doctor’s orders, travelled to Egypt for a nice, relaxing vacation to rest up after a particular rough run-in with a poltergeist. However, on his arrival, he had soon heard local rumors about a monster ravaging the Western Desert (which, Sam butted in to helpfully inform them, was also known as the Libyan Desert - the western part of the Sahara desert). Irv hadn’t been able to let the matter go without checking it out first. A great number of people, both tourists and locals, had gone missing in said desert over the years, and Franklin had talked to several people who had seen some rather strange things out there. Some of them told him stories about a worm-like creature that captured people, dragged them underneath the sand dunes and swallowed them alive. Others had believed it bore a bigger resemblance to a giant scorpion, but they too had mentioned that it dragged its victims underneath the sand, never to be seen again. Irv did some more digging into the subject and found several mentions of a Mongolian death worm that was considered to exist in the Gobi Desert, but he had no idea how such a worm could come to be located in Egypt. He did, however, find local legends about giant scorpions, but he had nothing other than the word of some unreliable eyewitnesses to support that theory.
“So I set out to see if I could find traces of the so-called sand monster myself, but the desert is an unforgiving place and I broke my foot out there.” Irv explained, using one end of a pencil to scratch the itching skin beneath his cast. “Thank God I had a guide with me or else I would have probably died of dehydration, or have been eaten by wild hyenas before anyone could have found me.”
“So, what makes you think this is our kind of job?” Sam asked, flipping through the scribbled pages in Irv’s notebook. “It could as well just be a local myth - making a monster out of some ignorant tourists getting lost in the desert. A mountain out of a molehill, you know?”
“I thought so too, until one of the people I talked to showed me a short phone recording of his uncle being taken by the monster.” Irv said and Dean raised an eyebrow.
“Someone actually recorded it?” Dean asked.
“Yup. Short and blurred, but there was definitely something fishy going on.” Irv said. “And I was hoping you boys could figure out exactly what it is.”
“You can’t be serious.” Dean said, warily eyeing the ugly, mutant giraffe that was currently carrying all of their stuff on its back while a local guide dragged it along. “There’s no way this camel can run as fast as you say it does.”
“It does run that fast, and it’s not a camel, Dean - it’s a dromedary.” Sam corrected and completely missed the eye roll his big brother sent him as he studied the map Franklin had given them before they’d left town. “A camel has two humps on its back while a dromedary only has one.”
“Who cares?” Dean asked with annoyance and adjusted the black headscarf he was wearing, eyes blinking against the brightness of the sun.
Even though he knew it wouldn’t be very practical to wear his regular jeans and leather jacket in the desert, Dean was already missing his own clothes. Aside from the headscarf that had been wrapped around his head to protect him from the boiling sun, Dean was also wearing a long blue cloak-like thing - a sort of desert dress - on top of one of his t-shirts and the pair of stupid pajama pants he’d been equipped with. To complete the outfit, the older Winchester had been given a pair of brown desert shoes that, practical or not, felt like a big insult to his normally so cool image. God, why hadn’t he at least thought to bring his sunglasses with him?
Sam was wearing a similar type of outfit with the only difference that his headscarf was white and his cloak was black. And, unlike Dean, the younger Winchester hadn’t complained about his clothing but had found it both interesting and fascinating to be wearing something from a whole different culture than the one they were familiar with.
“It’s a dress, Sammy.” Dean had pointed out when Sam had shared his enthusiasm with the older brother.
“It’s a robe, Dean.” Sam had fired back, bitch-face firmly in place. “The Egyptians call it Jellabiya."
“Yeah, I don’t see the difference.” Dean had said - then smacked the back of Sam’s neck, none too gently, when the younger brother rolled his eyes at him while muttering something under his breath that Dean could only assume was insulting.
Since bringing weapons on a plane ride was a big no-no, the brothers hadn’t brought any of their arsenal with them, but Irv had assembled an impressive collection of rifles and knives during his time in Egypt, which he’d made available to them. The pick of this arsenal was now safely stowed away in the bags currently attached to the giant distorted horse - along with the rest of their gear.
The sun was burning, big and bright, emitting massive waves of heat that shimmered in the air and made the horizon seem blurry to the eye.
Sam wiped a hand across his sweaty bangs that stuck out from underneath the headscarf, and sipped some water while eyeing the sandy landscape that seemed to go on forever. Despite how fascinating it all was, Sam knew it was also a giant death trap and the young hunter shuddered at the thought of getting lost out there - at the mercy of whatever may lure in the ruthless surroundings.
“How far?” His brother’s voice asked beside him and Sam screwed the lid back on his waterskin before unfolding Irv’s map to find the area circled on it.
“I’m not sure.” Sam admitted. “Hang on, I’ll ask the guide.”
Sam walked up to the guide and showed him the map and, after he tried to communicate with the local man who understood English decently but didn’t speak it much, Sam returned to find Dean having a staring contest with the pack animal.
“You’re a fugly son of a bitch, man.” Sam heard Dean mutter with a shake of his head and his big brother wrinkled his nose as the big animal let out a breath of fetid air. “And someone should really remind you to brush your teeth.”
“So, the guide said that…” Sam started, but had trailed off as he’d looked at his older brother. “What are you doing?”
“Just having a conversation with the camel.” Dean said, matter-of-factly.
“You’re having a…?” Sam began, then cut himself off with a shake of his head, deciding it was probably better not to ask about it. “It’s still a dromedary, Dean.”
“Whatever you say.” Dean said, brushing aside Sam’s correction. “What did the guide say?”
“That we aren’t far from the right place.” Sam answered and folded up the map once more before putting it back into his pocket. “Another forty minutes perhaps.”
“Great.” Dean sighed, looking anything but pleased with that piece of news - then proceeded to mutter under his breath. “I thought you said we weren’t far from it?”
“We aren’t.” Sam said with a frown. “Forty minutes isn’t that long.”
“No, forty minutes behind Baby’s wheel isn’t that long, but out here? I’m getting frigging boiled out here in this giant oven, Sam, and my geeky little brother thinks I need a history lesson every time we pass by as much as an old stone. Stupid old Pharaohs and their big egos. Who the hell needs a whole pyramid as a tomb?”
Sam’s lips twitched in a hidden smile as he continued to listen to his brother’s grumbles, and when Dean at last dropped the subject, Sam told Dean more about his conversation with the guide.
“He said he’ll stop at a safe distance and let us continue the last bit of the way on our own.” Sam said.
“Why?” Dean asked.
“Well… He knows about the local rumors and called the land cursed.” Sam answered, once again brushing a hand through his sweaty bangs. “He’s refusing to even set foot in that area.”
“As long as he doesn’t run off with the camel and leave us to rot out here, I’m good.” Dean said with a shrug of his shoulders.
“Not a camel, Dean. Dromedary.” Sam sighed.
“Whatever.” Dean responded.
When they finally arrived at the right part of the desert, the guide led the dromedary to a shadowy spot underneath a couple of lone palm trees while the Winchester brothers each grabbed their gear and started checking out the area. It was extremely hot in the sun and both brothers were sweating profusely as they wandered around in the sand, looking for signs of the so-called sand monster. At this time of the day, after having walked through the desert in direct sunlight for hours without a break, they should have been resting in the shade for a while before continuing the task at hand, but the Winchesters had always been more concerned about getting the job done than their own well-being. Besides, they needed to get back to town before nightfall since the temperature of the desert tended to drop to freezing during the nights at this time of year, so they really didn’t want to waste any time.
Sam almost regretted not staying in the shade though. He felt extremely hot inside the headscarf and had to pull it off several times just to feel like being able to breathe again. It didn’t help matters that he’d left his waterskin in one of the bags the dromedary was carrying. Sam had wanted to ration the water for later use, but hadn’t realized how fast he became thirsty without it.
“I think this is a safe enough distance from Ramses over there.” Dean said, nodding in direction of the guide and then put down his bag to grab a rifle that he swung onto his shoulder in case of unwelcome company. “I can barely see him and the camel from here.”
“Dromedary.” Sam corrected automatically and dropped his bag to grab a rifle of his own. “Speaking of Ramses, did you know that Ramses the second, who was also known as Ramses the Great, was the first king in history to sign a peace treaty with his enemies?”
“Oh my God, Sam, stop.” Dean said, pinching the bridge of his nose as if in pain.
“What?” Sam asked, zipped up his bag and looked up at his older brother with a dewy-eyed look on his face.
“Let’s just focus on the hunt before I melt out here, all right, Joe College?” Dean asked and Sam shrugged his shoulders with a huff.
As he straightened back up, Sam winced as the thigh-muscle of his right leg started twitching involuntarily for a few moments and he let out a soft groan while rubbing the sore muscle. Dean, never one to miss anything where Sam was concerned, looked at his younger brother with a frown on his face.
“You okay?” He asked.
“Yeah, just a cramp.” Sam answered and Dean raised his eyebrows.
“A cramp?” Dean asked, incredulously - then grinned. “Dude, I know we’ve walked for hours but that’s just pathetic. You’re getting out of shape there, little brother.”
“Oh, shut up.” Sam muttered and trotted past his chuckling brother.
As Sam scouted the sandy landscape, something caught his attention in the distance. Sam stopped in his tracks, screwed up his eyes and used his hand to shield them against the brightness of the sun as he tried to make out what he had spotted.
“Dean,” Sam said without moving his head.
“What?” Dean asked as he caught up with his younger brother. “Another cramp, Samantha?”
“No, there’s something out there.” Sam said and pointed his finger.
Face immediately turning serious, Dean copied Sam’s posture, shielded his eyes against the sun and looked in the direction Sam had pointed out. From the distance, Sam had caught sight of what seemed like a flock of birds that was circling above something on the ground, but he couldn’t make out the details. His big brother seemed to have the same problem since Dean quickly found a pair of binoculars in his bag and used them to take a better look at the birds in the distance.
“Son of a bitch…” Dean then said.
“Are those… vultures?” Sam asked and Dean nodded grimly.
“Yeah, and I’m betting the carcass they’re circling above doesn’t belong to an animal.” Dean said and Sam winced.
“So, someone definitely died out here,” Sam concluded, exchanging a look with his brother as Dean removed the binoculars; “but how?”
“Only one way to find out,” Dean said and together the brothers headed in the direction of the carcass.
When they got closer, they could clearly make out the big, black-and-white colored birds that were either circling above the corpse, or pecking and nipping at its flesh. A terrible stench of decay filled the warm air, making both Winchesters cough into their sleeves as they reached the mangled body.
“Shoo! Get out of here, you damn flying rats!” Dean shouted, and waved his arms at the vultures to chase them away.
“Oh Geez…” Sam muttered, crouched down next to the cadaver, and gagged a few times as he took in sight of the stinking and torn body.
The torso and lower part of the body looked like it’d been ripped half-apart - a big chunk of the chest was missing and the other half had been torn open all the way into the bones. Both eyes were missing in their sockets, which Sam assumed was the doing of the vultures, and the rest of the face was one big wound. A few fingers and the left foot were also missing and the whole body was covered in a layer of sand. From the look of the scratches on the guy’s back and the marks on the legs, it seemed like the victim had been grasped by something large and sharp and then dragged.
“Dude.” Sam groaned, gagged once more and took off his headscarf to cover his mouth and nose with it.
“Either this poor sucker was the victim of a seriously vicious animal attack…” Dean said with a wrinkle of his nose - though managing to look more composed than Sam did right now while he examined the dead body. “... or else I think we’ve found a possible proof to the existence of this sand monster.”
“Yeah,” Sam said, swallowed down bile and pointed at a mark on the guy’s body. “This looks kind of odd... like some sort of sting - only incredibly large.”
“Like a giant scorpion stinger, perhaps?” Dean suggested in that unamused tone he always used when they discovered something that led them in a direction he didn’t like going, and Sam nodded.
“Yeah, could be,” Sam agreed.
“Fantastic.” Dean said with sarcasm and threw up his hands - then made another discovery. “Hey, check this out.”
Sam got up from his crouched position, winced a bit as his thigh muscle once again started cramping for a few seconds, but he bit down the sound of pain so Dean wouldn’t have another reason to tease him. He then caught up with his older brother to see what Dean had found; a wide, flat trail in the sand - looking almost like an enormous rolling pin had rolled through the desert and flattened out the area.
“What kind of creature leaves tracks like that?” Sam asked, looking at the giant trail.
Before Dean could answer, the brothers both stopped up as the trail suddenly ended in a huge, dark hole in the ground.
“Something tells me that whatever it is, Sammy, it’s down there.” Dean said.
The brothers decided to return to the place where they’d left the guide and the dromedary, to rest up in the shade a bit while discussing what their next move should be. Judging by the ginormous hole they had discovered in the ground, they were up against a larger creature than anything else they’d ever hunted before, and they needed a plan.
On their way back, Dean noticed Sam was looking rather pale - despite the fact that the sun was coloring his cheeks in a rosy color. Dean couldn’t blame him though. Regardless of all the disgusting things they had seen over the years that had toughened them both up, the mangled corpse they’d found in the desert had been a particularly nasty sight. Combined with the terrible stench of decay, even Dean had had trouble keeping down his lunch, and his kid brother was the one who had the more sensitive stomach of the two of them after all. But as they walked through the burning hot sand, Dean noticed that Sam was also sweating profusely - a whole lot more than Dean was, and to the point where it was literally pouring off his face - and when Sam soon began to stagger a bit in his steps, Dean realized something was completely off with his brother.
“Dude,” Dean said as he grabbed a hold of Sam’s arm to steady him. “What’s going on with you?”
“I just…” Sam started, then clenched his eyes shut and swallowed a couple of times as if fighting the urge to vomit. “I don’t feel so good.”
As if to emphasize that statement, Sam swayed a bit, and Dean quickly tightened his hold of him.
“Whoa!” Dean exclaimed. “Talk to me, Sammy. What’s wrong?”
“I think… it started with the cramps,” Sam mumbled, pain lines visible around his eyes when he opened them back up to look at Dean; “then came the headache.”
“And dizziness? Nausea too?” Dean asked, and sighed when Sam nodded. “Okay, that’s it. We’re getting you out of the sun now before this turns into a heatstroke, geek boy.”
Without letting go of his kid brother, Dean guided Sam the last bit of the way back to where the guide and the smelly camel waited - then sat him down on a shadowy spot underneath a palm tree, before going through one of the bags to fetch Sam’s waterskin.
“Too much sun,” Dean explained to the guide who was looking puzzled, but whether or not the guide understood what Dean was talking about, he had no idea. Dean didn’t care to elaborate though - especially not since his attention was on Sam as his kid brother started cursing.
“Shit…” Sam groaned and Dean saw him clasping his legs.
“Cramps?” He asked, returning to Sam’s side.
“Yeah, both legs.” Sam hissed out between gritted teeth before Dean batted his hands away.
“Here. Drink,” Dean ordered, shoving the waterskin into Sam’s hands and lifted up one of Sam’s legs to gently stretch the cramping muscles. “You need to cool down and hydrate, buddy.”
“I know,” Sam panted, tearing off his head-covering and shaking his sweaty, shaggy hair. “Dad drilled it into us like a million times.”
“Yeah, and now you’re pretty glad he did, huh?” Dean said with a pointed look.
Sam responded with a huff and, deciding that now wasn’t the ideal time to discuss father issues, Dean changed the subject.
“Hey, I bet this stuff would never have happened if you were born a camel,” Dean said, nodding in direction of the butt-ugly creature. “How much water did you say it could drink?“
“53 gallons in three minutes,” Sam responded, unbuttoned his cloak and poured water on himself to cool down; “and it’s still a dromedary, Dean!”
“Or a very tiny dinosaur.” Dean responded and continued when Sam shot him an unamused look. “No, think about it; it’s ugly as hell, it smells, it’s a giant hairy freak of nature - oh wait, maybe we should name it Sam.”
“Very funny.” Sam said dryly, then drew a sharp intake of breath as Dean put down his leg and switched to Sam’s other cramping leg to stretch that one out too.
“Take it easy.” Dean said in a soft voice, watching Sam with barely masked concern as he gently stretched and massaged the tightening muscles with his fingers.
Even though Sam was still sweaty and pale, he at least didn’t look to be on the verge of passing out on Dean anymore. Dean was glad he had reacted quickly when Sam had started to feel bad, so that his little brother hadn’t developed an actual heat stroke - that was a condition to be reckoned with and could, in worst case, be fatal.
“Here.” Sam said and handed Dean the waterskin back. “You need fluids too.”
Dean accepted the waterskin and discovered as he took a sip that it was almost empty. He made a mental note to remember to check how much water they had left. With Sam succumbing to the heat before they even took on the sand monster, it could be necessary to go back to town or find a waterhole somewhere before they ran out. For now, every drop was precious.
Just as Dean was about to suggest this to his brother, the guide, whom Dean had almost forgotten about while taking care of Sam, started yelling. As he turned around, Dean saw the guide with one of their rifles in hand, shouting at them in Egyptian while gesturing wildly with his hands.
“The hell…?” Dean started - then noticed Sam’s open bag in the sand where their notable arsenal of rifles and knives was clearly on view.
Dean must have forgotten to zip up the bag again in his search for Sam’s waterskin and, for whatever reason, the guide had discovered the weapons and had freaked out.
“Hey,” Dean started and took a step towards the guide, “it’s not what you think. We…”
Before Dean could finish his sentence, the guide fired off the rifle into the sand, very close to Dean’s feet, and Dean froze on the spot.
“Whoa! Take it easy, man,” Dean said, slowly lifting his hands in the air in a defensive manner. “I won’t come closer.”
“Dean?” Sam called warily from behind him.
“I’m good, Sam.” Dean said and, without taking his eyes off the freaked guide in front of him, he signaled with a hand for his brother to stay put, and addressed the guide again. “Listen, we’re not looking for trouble. There’s something out there, some creature on the cursed land, and we’re here to stop it. That’s what we need the weapons for.”
But the guide didn’t seem to be listening to Dean’s explanation, or maybe he didn’t understand what Dean was saying. He continued to yell in Egyptian and waved the rifle at them, and Dean discreetly moved closer to his brother - shielding Sam from the potential line of fire. Even though his kid brother hated when Dean put himself at risk, Sam was still unwell, and sitting on the ground he was in a much more vulnerable position than Dean was in the moment. Besides, Dean’s need to protect his little brother had always been bigger than his need to protect himself, and no matter what Sam thought of it, that would never change.
“Wait, hang on.” Dean said when the guide, while still aiming the rifle at them, grabbed their bags and the reins of the camel and started dragging it away from them. “Hang on! That’s our stuff! You can’t just…”
When Dean tried to follow him, the guide fired off more rounds into the sand to stop him as the guide backed away from the brothers - while continuing to shout at them in Egyptian.
“Is he leaving us out here?” Sam asked in disbelief.
“Yeah, but he’ll soon run out of bullets and when he does, I’ll…” Dean started - then stopped as he felt a low rumble beneath his feet; a rumble that seemed to move underneath the sand as it grew louder and louder, and made the grains of sand dance. It felt like a small earthquake.
“Dean,” Sam said and Dean turned around to see Sam, back on his feet, staring wide-eyed at him; “the guide.”
Dean stared puzzled at Sam for a few seconds, but then his eyes widened as he realized what Sam had already guessed. This wasn’t an earthquake - this had to be the sand monster moving!
The brothers went after the fleeing guide to stop him from endangering himself. However, the guide was done making warning shots, and Dean and Sam had to throw themselves behind a ridge of sand to avoid being hit by flying bullets. It was flimsy protection at best.
“Stop!” Sam shouted, peeking over the pile of sand to catch a glimpse of the guide. “You don’t understand!”
“You’re gonna get killed, you idiot!” Dean added, but the guide wasn’t listening.
The rumbling under the ground suddenly came to a stop and everything went quiet around them. Even the guide stopped shooting the rifle and instead looked in confusion from side to side, while still holding on to the reins of the camel. The silence was eerie and Dean exchanged a look with Sam - both brothers appeared to be asking the same question; was the sudden silence a good thing or a bad thing?
Unfortunately, it turned out to be the latter. The ground exploded as the biggest creature, Dean had ever seen shot up from the sand. The sand monster’s body, which seemed to be at least fifty feet long and sixteen feet wide and almost had the same color as the sand, looked like the body of a giant worm. However, it had two large claws up front, and its body ended up in a narrow, segmented tail with a giant stinger that reminded Dean of a scorpion. As the sand monster opened up its massive mouth to capture the escaping guide, Dean also saw a pair of pointed fangs pierce the guide’s mid-section, before the creature started dragging the screaming man back into the hole in the ground.
“Son of a bitch!” Dean shouted as both he and Sam got back on their feet and looked on in horror at the scene unfolding in front of them.
“Come on!” Sam said and started moving towards the sand monster.
“Sam, no.” Dean said, grabbing a hold of Sam’s upper arm and pulled his brother back.
“Dean, we gotta help him!” Sam exclaimed. “We can’t just…”
“It’s too late.” Dean said without letting go of Sam’s arm.
“But…” Sam started when Dean cut him off again.
“I saw his neck snap,” Dean revealed with a grim expression; “and you saw what it did to him with those fangs - he could never have made it, Sammy. He’s gone.”
Sam visibly deflated in front of him as realization set in, and Dean let go of Sam’s arm, before both brothers turned around to see the last bit of the sand monster disappear into the ground with the now dead body of the poor guide.
Part 2
Prompt Number: S1081
Artist: uh_tiramisu
Art post here: http://uh-tiramisu.livejournal.com/4290.html
Fic Title: Enter Sandman
Author: dean_hugs_sammy
Fandom/Genre: SPN, Hurt/Comfort, Adventure
Pairing(s): Gen
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: ~10.000
Warnings: Hurt!Dean, Hurt!Sam.
Summary: A call from one of their dad's old acquaintances leads the Winchester brothers to Egypt, where they take on a sand monster in the Sahara desert. Set in Season 1 after "The Benders".
Author note: This has been my very first spn_reversebang challenge, and even though there've been times where I wanted to throw my laptop out of the window, it was quite fun to be a part of this experience :) It's been a real pleasure working with uh_tiramisu who didn't just turn out to be a talented artist (that surprised me with a bunch of awesome additional pieces of art for the fic), but also turned out to be a really funny and sweet person as well. I hope we'll keep in touch after this, mate - thanks for the ride! ;) I also need to make a shout-out to my good friend amberdreams who was the one to talk me into joining this challenge. She's been my Beta-reader too - as well as my personal guru through all of this. Thanks to dizzojay for stepping in at the very last minute to read through the last bit. You guys have been life-savers! ♥
Chapter 1
It had all started on a cold autumn day. The sun was setting on the horizon; its glowing orange-red and yellow colors decorated the scenery and the hood of the Impala in a colorful blaze that - combined with the rumble of the engine of his baby and the soft snores from his brother - filled Dean’s heart with a pleasant sense of calmness and happiness. It had taken quite a few miles and a change to a soft rock station on the radio for Sam to doze off (which had been Dean’s intention from the start) and his kid brother was now slumped against the window of the passenger side of the car - soundly asleep. After having been caged in an icy cell by the psychotic Benders family without as much as a jacket, Sam was battling a cold and, on top of what had happened on the Max Miller case where his nightmares had developed into something more, Dean couldn’t remember the last time Sam had had a good night’s sleep. What happened to Jess was still weighing heavily on Sam’s shoulders and, even though his brother wasn’t talking about it, Dean knew Sam still woke up in the middle of the night, gasping her name. This was the first time in several weeks that Sam had managed to sleep as peacefully as he was doing right now, so Dean continued to drive without any particular destination in mind - wanting his brother to rest for as long as he possibly could.
However, just as Dean was enjoying the peaceful moment with his brother by his side, the sudden buzzing of his phone interrupted. Letting out an annoyed sigh and eyeing Sam, who was luckily still asleep, Dean quickly dug out his phone from his pocket and snapped it open.
“This better be important.” Dean mumbled in a low voice, eyes shifting between Sam and the road, while he put the phone to his ear. “Yeah?”
Thinking back on that phone call now, Dean didn’t know what had specifically made him accept the hunt. Maybe it was the fact that the call came from an old acquaintance of John Winchester - a hunter named Irv Franklin that Dean had met a couple of times while hunting with his dad, and whom might have heard news of their missing father. Maybe it was because Dean thought that a little bit of warmth could do Sam some good and help him get rid of his cold, or maybe the reason was that he figured they both needed a change of scenery after all the crap they’d been through lately. For whatever reason it was, Dean had ended up promising Irv that he and Sam would help him out, and Sam had been more than a little aghast when Dean had told him about it after they’d checked into a motel room later that day.
“You’re kidding me?” Sam said, eyes nearly popping out of their sockets while staring at his big brother in disbelief. “We’re doing a hunt… where?”
“Egypt.” Dean repeated, a smile tucking at the corner of his lips by the look on Sam’s face.
“Egypt… as in Africa?” Sam asked.
“No, Egypt as in Michigan.” Dean said with sarcasm and rolled his eyes. “Where else would it be?”
“But Dean… This isn’t just crossing the border to Canada or Mexico in the car, you know.” Sam said. “Hell, we’re gonna have to fly! And we can’t take our weapons with us either.”
“Sam, I know this might come as a big shock to you but I’m pretty sure they have guns in Egypt too.” Dean said, making Sam huff. “Besides, when was the last time we saw anything else than the American highways, huh? Come on! It’ll be fun.”
But that was before he’d properly thought through exactly what this trip would entail. Firstly, they had to abandon his beloved Impala. Second, he had to spend more than fourteen terrifying hours thousands of feet off the surface of the earth, clamped inside a tin can with wings that sent Dean’s heart into his throat with every hint of turbulence. But, almost worst of all, was his geeky little brother going on and on about Egyptian culture, mythology and archaeology to the point where Dean had threatened to remodel Sam’s face if he didn’t shut the hell up.
When they finally arrived in Egypt, Dean had never before felt so happy about having both feet firmly planted on the ground again. Even Sam seemed happy about being out of the plane - although he wasn’t the one whose voice had turned hoarse from humming Metallica for fourteen hours straight.
The brothers met up with Irv Franklin outside Cairo airport and the hunter was, just as he’d told Dean on the phone, limping around on crutches with his broken foot in a cast. Dean had told Sam all the stuff he knew about Irv, but it was the first time the younger Winchester had met the older hunter. Sam did what he always did when meeting new people (especially hunters) - he stopped up half a step behind his big brother from where he could eye Irv from a safe distance while still being within arm’s reach of Dean. Having each other’s backs was something the brothers had always done and, by now, it was so deeply ingrained in the both of them that neither really noticed.
“Dean, good to see ya again.” Irv said and patted the older brother’s shoulder. “How’s your old man? Tried to get him on the phone but his voicemail told me to give you a call instead.”
“Well, that’s a long story.” Dean sighed and tried to hide his disappointment now that he knew that Irv wouldn’t be able to tell them more about their missing father’s whereabouts.
“He’s not in any kind of trouble, right?” Franklin asked but Dean shook his head.
“No. Let’s just say he’s out of reach right now.” Dean said and was grateful when Irv dropped the subject. He really didn’t want to talk about dad’s continued radio silence right now.
“O-kay.” Irv said and shrugged his shoulders, and Dean then saw him eye his tall, floppy-haired kid brother who was still standing a few steps behind Dean with his hands buried in his pockets. “You must be John’s other kid. Sammy, right?”
“Sam.” The younger brother corrected with a polite smile and extended his hand to Irv.
“What happened to your foot?” Dean asked while the two other hunters shook hands.
“You don’t wanna know.” The older hunter said and wiped some sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand. “But I’m no good for hiking in the desert with this gimp foot, so that’s where I need you boys’ help.”
After a short but rather crazy taxi ride through the overcrowded traffic from Cairo to the town of Giza (that had both Winchesters longing for the safeness of the Impala), they arrived at Irv’s temporary residence. After freshening up, they gathered around a table in the main room to talk about the hunt. Irv had originally, on his doctor’s orders, travelled to Egypt for a nice, relaxing vacation to rest up after a particular rough run-in with a poltergeist. However, on his arrival, he had soon heard local rumors about a monster ravaging the Western Desert (which, Sam butted in to helpfully inform them, was also known as the Libyan Desert - the western part of the Sahara desert). Irv hadn’t been able to let the matter go without checking it out first. A great number of people, both tourists and locals, had gone missing in said desert over the years, and Franklin had talked to several people who had seen some rather strange things out there. Some of them told him stories about a worm-like creature that captured people, dragged them underneath the sand dunes and swallowed them alive. Others had believed it bore a bigger resemblance to a giant scorpion, but they too had mentioned that it dragged its victims underneath the sand, never to be seen again. Irv did some more digging into the subject and found several mentions of a Mongolian death worm that was considered to exist in the Gobi Desert, but he had no idea how such a worm could come to be located in Egypt. He did, however, find local legends about giant scorpions, but he had nothing other than the word of some unreliable eyewitnesses to support that theory.
“So I set out to see if I could find traces of the so-called sand monster myself, but the desert is an unforgiving place and I broke my foot out there.” Irv explained, using one end of a pencil to scratch the itching skin beneath his cast. “Thank God I had a guide with me or else I would have probably died of dehydration, or have been eaten by wild hyenas before anyone could have found me.”
“So, what makes you think this is our kind of job?” Sam asked, flipping through the scribbled pages in Irv’s notebook. “It could as well just be a local myth - making a monster out of some ignorant tourists getting lost in the desert. A mountain out of a molehill, you know?”
“I thought so too, until one of the people I talked to showed me a short phone recording of his uncle being taken by the monster.” Irv said and Dean raised an eyebrow.
“Someone actually recorded it?” Dean asked.
“Yup. Short and blurred, but there was definitely something fishy going on.” Irv said. “And I was hoping you boys could figure out exactly what it is.”
“You can’t be serious.” Dean said, warily eyeing the ugly, mutant giraffe that was currently carrying all of their stuff on its back while a local guide dragged it along. “There’s no way this camel can run as fast as you say it does.”
“It does run that fast, and it’s not a camel, Dean - it’s a dromedary.” Sam corrected and completely missed the eye roll his big brother sent him as he studied the map Franklin had given them before they’d left town. “A camel has two humps on its back while a dromedary only has one.”
“Who cares?” Dean asked with annoyance and adjusted the black headscarf he was wearing, eyes blinking against the brightness of the sun.
Even though he knew it wouldn’t be very practical to wear his regular jeans and leather jacket in the desert, Dean was already missing his own clothes. Aside from the headscarf that had been wrapped around his head to protect him from the boiling sun, Dean was also wearing a long blue cloak-like thing - a sort of desert dress - on top of one of his t-shirts and the pair of stupid pajama pants he’d been equipped with. To complete the outfit, the older Winchester had been given a pair of brown desert shoes that, practical or not, felt like a big insult to his normally so cool image. God, why hadn’t he at least thought to bring his sunglasses with him?
Sam was wearing a similar type of outfit with the only difference that his headscarf was white and his cloak was black. And, unlike Dean, the younger Winchester hadn’t complained about his clothing but had found it both interesting and fascinating to be wearing something from a whole different culture than the one they were familiar with.
“It’s a dress, Sammy.” Dean had pointed out when Sam had shared his enthusiasm with the older brother.
“It’s a robe, Dean.” Sam had fired back, bitch-face firmly in place. “The Egyptians call it Jellabiya."
“Yeah, I don’t see the difference.” Dean had said - then smacked the back of Sam’s neck, none too gently, when the younger brother rolled his eyes at him while muttering something under his breath that Dean could only assume was insulting.
Since bringing weapons on a plane ride was a big no-no, the brothers hadn’t brought any of their arsenal with them, but Irv had assembled an impressive collection of rifles and knives during his time in Egypt, which he’d made available to them. The pick of this arsenal was now safely stowed away in the bags currently attached to the giant distorted horse - along with the rest of their gear.
The sun was burning, big and bright, emitting massive waves of heat that shimmered in the air and made the horizon seem blurry to the eye.
Sam wiped a hand across his sweaty bangs that stuck out from underneath the headscarf, and sipped some water while eyeing the sandy landscape that seemed to go on forever. Despite how fascinating it all was, Sam knew it was also a giant death trap and the young hunter shuddered at the thought of getting lost out there - at the mercy of whatever may lure in the ruthless surroundings.
“How far?” His brother’s voice asked beside him and Sam screwed the lid back on his waterskin before unfolding Irv’s map to find the area circled on it.
“I’m not sure.” Sam admitted. “Hang on, I’ll ask the guide.”
Sam walked up to the guide and showed him the map and, after he tried to communicate with the local man who understood English decently but didn’t speak it much, Sam returned to find Dean having a staring contest with the pack animal.
“You’re a fugly son of a bitch, man.” Sam heard Dean mutter with a shake of his head and his big brother wrinkled his nose as the big animal let out a breath of fetid air. “And someone should really remind you to brush your teeth.”
“So, the guide said that…” Sam started, but had trailed off as he’d looked at his older brother. “What are you doing?”
“Just having a conversation with the camel.” Dean said, matter-of-factly.
“You’re having a…?” Sam began, then cut himself off with a shake of his head, deciding it was probably better not to ask about it. “It’s still a dromedary, Dean.”
“Whatever you say.” Dean said, brushing aside Sam’s correction. “What did the guide say?”
“That we aren’t far from the right place.” Sam answered and folded up the map once more before putting it back into his pocket. “Another forty minutes perhaps.”
“Great.” Dean sighed, looking anything but pleased with that piece of news - then proceeded to mutter under his breath. “I thought you said we weren’t far from it?”
“We aren’t.” Sam said with a frown. “Forty minutes isn’t that long.”
“No, forty minutes behind Baby’s wheel isn’t that long, but out here? I’m getting frigging boiled out here in this giant oven, Sam, and my geeky little brother thinks I need a history lesson every time we pass by as much as an old stone. Stupid old Pharaohs and their big egos. Who the hell needs a whole pyramid as a tomb?”
Sam’s lips twitched in a hidden smile as he continued to listen to his brother’s grumbles, and when Dean at last dropped the subject, Sam told Dean more about his conversation with the guide.
“He said he’ll stop at a safe distance and let us continue the last bit of the way on our own.” Sam said.
“Why?” Dean asked.
“Well… He knows about the local rumors and called the land cursed.” Sam answered, once again brushing a hand through his sweaty bangs. “He’s refusing to even set foot in that area.”
“As long as he doesn’t run off with the camel and leave us to rot out here, I’m good.” Dean said with a shrug of his shoulders.
“Not a camel, Dean. Dromedary.” Sam sighed.
“Whatever.” Dean responded.
When they finally arrived at the right part of the desert, the guide led the dromedary to a shadowy spot underneath a couple of lone palm trees while the Winchester brothers each grabbed their gear and started checking out the area. It was extremely hot in the sun and both brothers were sweating profusely as they wandered around in the sand, looking for signs of the so-called sand monster. At this time of the day, after having walked through the desert in direct sunlight for hours without a break, they should have been resting in the shade for a while before continuing the task at hand, but the Winchesters had always been more concerned about getting the job done than their own well-being. Besides, they needed to get back to town before nightfall since the temperature of the desert tended to drop to freezing during the nights at this time of year, so they really didn’t want to waste any time.
Sam almost regretted not staying in the shade though. He felt extremely hot inside the headscarf and had to pull it off several times just to feel like being able to breathe again. It didn’t help matters that he’d left his waterskin in one of the bags the dromedary was carrying. Sam had wanted to ration the water for later use, but hadn’t realized how fast he became thirsty without it.
“I think this is a safe enough distance from Ramses over there.” Dean said, nodding in direction of the guide and then put down his bag to grab a rifle that he swung onto his shoulder in case of unwelcome company. “I can barely see him and the camel from here.”
“Dromedary.” Sam corrected automatically and dropped his bag to grab a rifle of his own. “Speaking of Ramses, did you know that Ramses the second, who was also known as Ramses the Great, was the first king in history to sign a peace treaty with his enemies?”
“Oh my God, Sam, stop.” Dean said, pinching the bridge of his nose as if in pain.
“What?” Sam asked, zipped up his bag and looked up at his older brother with a dewy-eyed look on his face.
“Let’s just focus on the hunt before I melt out here, all right, Joe College?” Dean asked and Sam shrugged his shoulders with a huff.
As he straightened back up, Sam winced as the thigh-muscle of his right leg started twitching involuntarily for a few moments and he let out a soft groan while rubbing the sore muscle. Dean, never one to miss anything where Sam was concerned, looked at his younger brother with a frown on his face.
“You okay?” He asked.
“Yeah, just a cramp.” Sam answered and Dean raised his eyebrows.
“A cramp?” Dean asked, incredulously - then grinned. “Dude, I know we’ve walked for hours but that’s just pathetic. You’re getting out of shape there, little brother.”
“Oh, shut up.” Sam muttered and trotted past his chuckling brother.
As Sam scouted the sandy landscape, something caught his attention in the distance. Sam stopped in his tracks, screwed up his eyes and used his hand to shield them against the brightness of the sun as he tried to make out what he had spotted.
“Dean,” Sam said without moving his head.
“What?” Dean asked as he caught up with his younger brother. “Another cramp, Samantha?”
“No, there’s something out there.” Sam said and pointed his finger.
Face immediately turning serious, Dean copied Sam’s posture, shielded his eyes against the sun and looked in the direction Sam had pointed out. From the distance, Sam had caught sight of what seemed like a flock of birds that was circling above something on the ground, but he couldn’t make out the details. His big brother seemed to have the same problem since Dean quickly found a pair of binoculars in his bag and used them to take a better look at the birds in the distance.
“Son of a bitch…” Dean then said.
“Are those… vultures?” Sam asked and Dean nodded grimly.
“Yeah, and I’m betting the carcass they’re circling above doesn’t belong to an animal.” Dean said and Sam winced.
“So, someone definitely died out here,” Sam concluded, exchanging a look with his brother as Dean removed the binoculars; “but how?”
“Only one way to find out,” Dean said and together the brothers headed in the direction of the carcass.
When they got closer, they could clearly make out the big, black-and-white colored birds that were either circling above the corpse, or pecking and nipping at its flesh. A terrible stench of decay filled the warm air, making both Winchesters cough into their sleeves as they reached the mangled body.
“Shoo! Get out of here, you damn flying rats!” Dean shouted, and waved his arms at the vultures to chase them away.
“Oh Geez…” Sam muttered, crouched down next to the cadaver, and gagged a few times as he took in sight of the stinking and torn body.
The torso and lower part of the body looked like it’d been ripped half-apart - a big chunk of the chest was missing and the other half had been torn open all the way into the bones. Both eyes were missing in their sockets, which Sam assumed was the doing of the vultures, and the rest of the face was one big wound. A few fingers and the left foot were also missing and the whole body was covered in a layer of sand. From the look of the scratches on the guy’s back and the marks on the legs, it seemed like the victim had been grasped by something large and sharp and then dragged.
“Dude.” Sam groaned, gagged once more and took off his headscarf to cover his mouth and nose with it.
“Either this poor sucker was the victim of a seriously vicious animal attack…” Dean said with a wrinkle of his nose - though managing to look more composed than Sam did right now while he examined the dead body. “... or else I think we’ve found a possible proof to the existence of this sand monster.”
“Yeah,” Sam said, swallowed down bile and pointed at a mark on the guy’s body. “This looks kind of odd... like some sort of sting - only incredibly large.”
“Like a giant scorpion stinger, perhaps?” Dean suggested in that unamused tone he always used when they discovered something that led them in a direction he didn’t like going, and Sam nodded.
“Yeah, could be,” Sam agreed.
“Fantastic.” Dean said with sarcasm and threw up his hands - then made another discovery. “Hey, check this out.”
Sam got up from his crouched position, winced a bit as his thigh muscle once again started cramping for a few seconds, but he bit down the sound of pain so Dean wouldn’t have another reason to tease him. He then caught up with his older brother to see what Dean had found; a wide, flat trail in the sand - looking almost like an enormous rolling pin had rolled through the desert and flattened out the area.
“What kind of creature leaves tracks like that?” Sam asked, looking at the giant trail.
Before Dean could answer, the brothers both stopped up as the trail suddenly ended in a huge, dark hole in the ground.
“Something tells me that whatever it is, Sammy, it’s down there.” Dean said.
The brothers decided to return to the place where they’d left the guide and the dromedary, to rest up in the shade a bit while discussing what their next move should be. Judging by the ginormous hole they had discovered in the ground, they were up against a larger creature than anything else they’d ever hunted before, and they needed a plan.
On their way back, Dean noticed Sam was looking rather pale - despite the fact that the sun was coloring his cheeks in a rosy color. Dean couldn’t blame him though. Regardless of all the disgusting things they had seen over the years that had toughened them both up, the mangled corpse they’d found in the desert had been a particularly nasty sight. Combined with the terrible stench of decay, even Dean had had trouble keeping down his lunch, and his kid brother was the one who had the more sensitive stomach of the two of them after all. But as they walked through the burning hot sand, Dean noticed that Sam was also sweating profusely - a whole lot more than Dean was, and to the point where it was literally pouring off his face - and when Sam soon began to stagger a bit in his steps, Dean realized something was completely off with his brother.
“Dude,” Dean said as he grabbed a hold of Sam’s arm to steady him. “What’s going on with you?”
“I just…” Sam started, then clenched his eyes shut and swallowed a couple of times as if fighting the urge to vomit. “I don’t feel so good.”
As if to emphasize that statement, Sam swayed a bit, and Dean quickly tightened his hold of him.
“Whoa!” Dean exclaimed. “Talk to me, Sammy. What’s wrong?”
“I think… it started with the cramps,” Sam mumbled, pain lines visible around his eyes when he opened them back up to look at Dean; “then came the headache.”
“And dizziness? Nausea too?” Dean asked, and sighed when Sam nodded. “Okay, that’s it. We’re getting you out of the sun now before this turns into a heatstroke, geek boy.”
Without letting go of his kid brother, Dean guided Sam the last bit of the way back to where the guide and the smelly camel waited - then sat him down on a shadowy spot underneath a palm tree, before going through one of the bags to fetch Sam’s waterskin.
“Too much sun,” Dean explained to the guide who was looking puzzled, but whether or not the guide understood what Dean was talking about, he had no idea. Dean didn’t care to elaborate though - especially not since his attention was on Sam as his kid brother started cursing.
“Shit…” Sam groaned and Dean saw him clasping his legs.
“Cramps?” He asked, returning to Sam’s side.
“Yeah, both legs.” Sam hissed out between gritted teeth before Dean batted his hands away.
“Here. Drink,” Dean ordered, shoving the waterskin into Sam’s hands and lifted up one of Sam’s legs to gently stretch the cramping muscles. “You need to cool down and hydrate, buddy.”
“I know,” Sam panted, tearing off his head-covering and shaking his sweaty, shaggy hair. “Dad drilled it into us like a million times.”
“Yeah, and now you’re pretty glad he did, huh?” Dean said with a pointed look.
Sam responded with a huff and, deciding that now wasn’t the ideal time to discuss father issues, Dean changed the subject.
“Hey, I bet this stuff would never have happened if you were born a camel,” Dean said, nodding in direction of the butt-ugly creature. “How much water did you say it could drink?“
“53 gallons in three minutes,” Sam responded, unbuttoned his cloak and poured water on himself to cool down; “and it’s still a dromedary, Dean!”
“Or a very tiny dinosaur.” Dean responded and continued when Sam shot him an unamused look. “No, think about it; it’s ugly as hell, it smells, it’s a giant hairy freak of nature - oh wait, maybe we should name it Sam.”
“Very funny.” Sam said dryly, then drew a sharp intake of breath as Dean put down his leg and switched to Sam’s other cramping leg to stretch that one out too.
“Take it easy.” Dean said in a soft voice, watching Sam with barely masked concern as he gently stretched and massaged the tightening muscles with his fingers.
Even though Sam was still sweaty and pale, he at least didn’t look to be on the verge of passing out on Dean anymore. Dean was glad he had reacted quickly when Sam had started to feel bad, so that his little brother hadn’t developed an actual heat stroke - that was a condition to be reckoned with and could, in worst case, be fatal.
“Here.” Sam said and handed Dean the waterskin back. “You need fluids too.”
Dean accepted the waterskin and discovered as he took a sip that it was almost empty. He made a mental note to remember to check how much water they had left. With Sam succumbing to the heat before they even took on the sand monster, it could be necessary to go back to town or find a waterhole somewhere before they ran out. For now, every drop was precious.
Just as Dean was about to suggest this to his brother, the guide, whom Dean had almost forgotten about while taking care of Sam, started yelling. As he turned around, Dean saw the guide with one of their rifles in hand, shouting at them in Egyptian while gesturing wildly with his hands.
“The hell…?” Dean started - then noticed Sam’s open bag in the sand where their notable arsenal of rifles and knives was clearly on view.
Dean must have forgotten to zip up the bag again in his search for Sam’s waterskin and, for whatever reason, the guide had discovered the weapons and had freaked out.
“Hey,” Dean started and took a step towards the guide, “it’s not what you think. We…”
Before Dean could finish his sentence, the guide fired off the rifle into the sand, very close to Dean’s feet, and Dean froze on the spot.
“Whoa! Take it easy, man,” Dean said, slowly lifting his hands in the air in a defensive manner. “I won’t come closer.”
“Dean?” Sam called warily from behind him.
“I’m good, Sam.” Dean said and, without taking his eyes off the freaked guide in front of him, he signaled with a hand for his brother to stay put, and addressed the guide again. “Listen, we’re not looking for trouble. There’s something out there, some creature on the cursed land, and we’re here to stop it. That’s what we need the weapons for.”
But the guide didn’t seem to be listening to Dean’s explanation, or maybe he didn’t understand what Dean was saying. He continued to yell in Egyptian and waved the rifle at them, and Dean discreetly moved closer to his brother - shielding Sam from the potential line of fire. Even though his kid brother hated when Dean put himself at risk, Sam was still unwell, and sitting on the ground he was in a much more vulnerable position than Dean was in the moment. Besides, Dean’s need to protect his little brother had always been bigger than his need to protect himself, and no matter what Sam thought of it, that would never change.
“Wait, hang on.” Dean said when the guide, while still aiming the rifle at them, grabbed their bags and the reins of the camel and started dragging it away from them. “Hang on! That’s our stuff! You can’t just…”
When Dean tried to follow him, the guide fired off more rounds into the sand to stop him as the guide backed away from the brothers - while continuing to shout at them in Egyptian.
“Is he leaving us out here?” Sam asked in disbelief.
“Yeah, but he’ll soon run out of bullets and when he does, I’ll…” Dean started - then stopped as he felt a low rumble beneath his feet; a rumble that seemed to move underneath the sand as it grew louder and louder, and made the grains of sand dance. It felt like a small earthquake.
“Dean,” Sam said and Dean turned around to see Sam, back on his feet, staring wide-eyed at him; “the guide.”
Dean stared puzzled at Sam for a few seconds, but then his eyes widened as he realized what Sam had already guessed. This wasn’t an earthquake - this had to be the sand monster moving!
The brothers went after the fleeing guide to stop him from endangering himself. However, the guide was done making warning shots, and Dean and Sam had to throw themselves behind a ridge of sand to avoid being hit by flying bullets. It was flimsy protection at best.
“Stop!” Sam shouted, peeking over the pile of sand to catch a glimpse of the guide. “You don’t understand!”
“You’re gonna get killed, you idiot!” Dean added, but the guide wasn’t listening.
The rumbling under the ground suddenly came to a stop and everything went quiet around them. Even the guide stopped shooting the rifle and instead looked in confusion from side to side, while still holding on to the reins of the camel. The silence was eerie and Dean exchanged a look with Sam - both brothers appeared to be asking the same question; was the sudden silence a good thing or a bad thing?
Unfortunately, it turned out to be the latter. The ground exploded as the biggest creature, Dean had ever seen shot up from the sand. The sand monster’s body, which seemed to be at least fifty feet long and sixteen feet wide and almost had the same color as the sand, looked like the body of a giant worm. However, it had two large claws up front, and its body ended up in a narrow, segmented tail with a giant stinger that reminded Dean of a scorpion. As the sand monster opened up its massive mouth to capture the escaping guide, Dean also saw a pair of pointed fangs pierce the guide’s mid-section, before the creature started dragging the screaming man back into the hole in the ground.
“Son of a bitch!” Dean shouted as both he and Sam got back on their feet and looked on in horror at the scene unfolding in front of them.
“Come on!” Sam said and started moving towards the sand monster.
“Sam, no.” Dean said, grabbing a hold of Sam’s upper arm and pulled his brother back.
“Dean, we gotta help him!” Sam exclaimed. “We can’t just…”
“It’s too late.” Dean said without letting go of Sam’s arm.
“But…” Sam started when Dean cut him off again.
“I saw his neck snap,” Dean revealed with a grim expression; “and you saw what it did to him with those fangs - he could never have made it, Sammy. He’s gone.”
Sam visibly deflated in front of him as realization set in, and Dean let go of Sam’s arm, before both brothers turned around to see the last bit of the sand monster disappear into the ground with the now dead body of the poor guide.
Part 2