Title: Captured in Crystal

Author: Disasteriffic Kaz

Info: Crystal City, Colorado sure sounded idyllic…until the bodies started dropping and trouble, that old Winchester friend, arrived to make the boys' lives more interesting than they generally like. Post 1x12 "Faith" hurt/comfort/awesome!Sam/Dean

Author's Note: This story was prompted by Shee 1. I'll include her original prompt at the end of the story so as not to spoil later events for my readers. I'm winging this one so no idea how many chapters we'll end up with! Suffice to say, it caught my attention because it's something I haven't written before. :D Thank you Shee 1! I hope you enjoy this!

Also: I am now a PUBLISHED AUTHOR! Please! Go to Amazon and search for "Kurrie Hoyt" or my novel, "Sereine" if you would like to buy my first novel and support a starving author while I work on the second installment! Thank you all so very much for all your support whether you buy it or not! You all helped give me the confidence to finish and put myself out there! *huggles*

Beta'd by the always awesome JaniceC678 :D– Friend and Muse's co-conspirator.

**Follow me on Facebook as "Disasteriffic Kaz" for frequent fic updates or just to chat!
~Reviews are Love~

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Chapter 1

"I'm tellin' ya, Ranger. It's right over here, down by the water! Come on!" Joe yelled and turned to see Ranger Grady following with that look on his face, like he thought Joe was making things up again. "You'll see. It's just like the others."

"Joe, it ain't that I don't believe you." Grady rolled his eyes and smiled fondly. "But the last three times you dragged me out here to see a body, there wasn't a damn thing to see."

Joe waved a hand at him dismissively and pushed through a screening of bushes and trees below the old mill. "S'right here!"

The ranger moved past Joe to look down at the river and his eyes widened in surprise. "Holy crap, Joe. You actually meant it this time." The body of some poor soul lay washed up on the rocky edge of the shallow river. Small trees and brush had been flattened around it, and his legs still dangled into the cold water. "Damn."

"Told ya." Joe grinned and watched while the ranger moved down and knelt by the body. "Now you'll listen to me when I tell ya' somethin'."

"Ok, Joe. Ok." Grady turned his attention to the body, putting fingers to the cold, slippery skin of the man's throat for form's sake. There was no pulse, as he knew there wouldn't be, and he shook his head. "You poor bastard." The man wore jeans and a sweater that was partially torn from his torso, and his face, along with what other skin he could see, was covered in bruises, as if someone had beaten him viciously over every inch of his body.

"He's like the others, ain't he?" Joe said excitedly. "I knew he was. Don't have no ID on him, though. Checked his pockets." He raised his hands when the ranger looked sternly up at him. "I swear, ranger! All I did was check his pockets! Didn't take nothin'."

"Uh huh." The ranger shook his head and bent over the body again, knowing that Joe had likely stolen whatever the poor guy had on him; Joe was like that.

"Honest. I didn't take a thing. S'wrong to take from the dead," Joe said solemnly and then frowned. "Whoop. Gotta answer a call, you get my drift. Back in a sec!" He grinned at the ranger's disgusted glance and headed back into the trees, unzipping his pants. He relieved himself on a defenseless birch tree with a happy groan and heard the ranger shout. "Hang on! Gotta give 'er a shake!" Joe chuckled and tucked himself back in his pants. He jogged back to the river, pulling up his zipper and pushed through the bushes. "What'cha need, rang…ranger?" Joe looked around, but not only was the dead body gone…so was the ranger. "Ranger Grady?" Joe stared in surprise and confusion. "Where'd you go? How'd you move the body? Ranger Grady!" His only answer was the lapping and splashing of the river as it went by. "Shee-it." Joe said softly and backed away from the shore. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end and some primal instinct told him to run and run fast.

"Sure hope you's just hidin' somewhere, ranger 'cause I'm outta here!" Joe turned and ran back into the forest away from the river that seemed to have developed a habit of collecting passers-by.

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Sam watched his brother through the motel room window. Dean had the hood on the Impala up and had been tinkering with it for two hours. Sam sighed. His big brother had been in a weird head-space since their run-in with the faith healer a week before. He took a shuddering breath, calming the knee-jerk panic he still felt when he thought about how close he'd come to losing Dean. He was still quietly furious with their father for not turning up. His eldest son had literally been at death's door and the man hadn't even called. Sam scrubbed a hand over his face and through his dark hair, pushing the anger and the fear away. Dean wasn't handling any of it well, least of all that he felt responsible for Layla not being healed. Sometimes it was easy to understand how even something as evil as what had happened could be tempting. Sam carried that guilt and consoled himself with the knowledge that saving her would have meant sacrificing his brother. That was not an option. Though he felt remorse about the guy who had died to save Dean before they knew that Roy's "power" was actually a bound reaper; in moments when Sam was totally and brutally honest with himself…part of him was eternally grateful that he HADN'T known.

He looked over to his laptop and nodded. His attempts to draw Dean out of his funk had been fruitless and met with anger most of the time, but a job might do what he could not and take Dean's mind off it for a little while. Sam put an easy smile on his face and prepared to try and 'handle' Dean again. He grabbed two beers from the fridge and went outside.

"Hey, Dean." Sam went over and held out a beer as Dean leaned up from under the hood. "Think I found us a job."

Dean took the beer, twisted the cap off and flicked it across the parking lot before looking at his little brother with a brow raised. "A real job or is this another jackalope?"

Sam rolled his eyes and gave him a bitch face. "There was concrete lore on that one. It's not my fault."

"Uh huh." Dean smirked lightly and turned to lean against the car. Sam had sent them into the sewers under a Montana town four days ago for what he convinced Dean was an actual jackalope and turned out to be someone's lost, mangy St. Bernard. On the plus side, the owner/canine reunion was filled with tears of happiness and the huge, filthy dog practically quivering in delight at being reunited with its person so it wasn't a total loss. "Go on."

"Alright, so get this." Sam took a swig of his own beer and leaned against the wall of the motel with a smile. "Four bodies have turned up along the river in Crystal City, Colorado. All beaten, but not to death, and all drowned." He raised his hand to stop him when Dean opened his mouth. "There've actually been nine bodies reported, but it seems they have a habit of going missing if they aren't moved fast, like something's coming back to collect its dead."

"Ok; that's hinkey but not necessarily our sort of thing. Keep going." Dean took another swig of his beer and crossed his arms. "You must have something better than that."

Sam nodded. "Yesterday a ranger was taken along with another body right under the nose of the guy who found the body. And when I did some digging into the history of the area…" He raised both brows. "…Crystal City is an abandoned mining town next to the Devil's Punchbowl, and the Hopi Indians that lived there a few hundred years ago had a legend about a creature that took its victims, beat them, and drowned them."

"Huh." Dean nodded and took another draw on his beer while Sam waited. "Ok, yeah. Sounds like there's something nasty up there that needs to be ganked. It got a name?"

"Ahuizotl."

"Ahooey-what?"

Sam snorted at his brother. "Ahuizotl. It's actually Aztec in origin, I think. I need to dig into the lore some more; figure out how we kill it."

Dean finished off his beer and turned to drop the hood in place. The car didn't really need any work as much as he'd been fiddling with it, but it took his mind off things…of himself and exactly how it was he was still walking and talking. He frowned, dropping the hood carefully in place and sighed. Sam had been trying his best to manage him since his not-so-miraculous healing, and Dean couldn't figure out how to explain to him that he felt like he'd cheated…like he should be dead, no matter what that might do to Sam.

"Dean?"

Dean turned to look at him, realizing he'd been quiet too long and shook his head. "Let's pack up. We can be there by nightfall if we leave now."

Sam bit his lip, watching Dean walk past him into the room and blew out a breath. "Dammit," he whispered and followed his brother inside.

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Dean stood in the little town of Marble, Colorado and glared at his brother. "You want me to do what?"

Sam raised his hands. "Dude, we can't take the Impala up the road to Crystal City. She'd never make it." He hadn't warned his brother of this little hitch, fearing exactly this reaction. "Whole families in ATV's have gone off the cliff and died around the Devil's Punchbowl. The Impala would never get through there."

"My baby can handle a damn mountain road," Dean snarled and leaned back against his car as if protecting it. "You know how I feel about people makin' aspersions at her."

Sam covered his face for a moment to smother a laugh before looking up again. "Breaking out the big words. Wow. Did that hurt?"

"Suck it, Sam."

"Stop whining, already," Sam said and gave up, laughing as his brother landed a punch to his arm. "Jerk."

Dean glared at him again but had to admit, he didn't want to risk the Impala on a road that dangerous. He wasn't sure he even wanted to risk them on it. He groaned, rolling his eyes and stepped away from his car. "Bitch."

"Come on. The guy at the diner over there rents all-terrain vehicles, and this time of year, we can have our pick." Sam grinned, pleased at some of the old humor returning to Dean's face and started down the street. The air was chill as they walked. Winter came swiftly this high in the mountains and it wouldn't be many more weeks before Crystal city was snowed in. "The locals - and there's only, like, eight of them up there - they all bug out at the end of summer, so we'll pretty much have the area to ourselves."

Dean's brows went up. "So if shit goes sideways, help ain't exactly close at hand."

Sam shook his head. "No. But there's a whole abandoned town up there. Well, I say 'town." He snorted. "It's more like four long buildings and a couple sheds, but the guy I spoke to at the diner there, he says they leave medical supplies and stuff up there in case people get stranded or lost in the winter while the roads are out."

"Ok, better." Dean looked at the line of four vehicles as they stepped up onto the diner's porch and decided a couple of them looked decent. He glanced up at the sky before they stepped inside and decided they were going to wait until tomorrow. It was too close to dark to risk such a dangerous drive in the dark.

"Hey, Sam. This that brother you mentioned?"

Dean looked over as a middle-aged man with a head of curly blond hair and glasses smiled at them from behind a counter. "Older and better lookin'," Dean said with an easy smile and made him laugh.

"I'm Ethan. Now, I know you boys aren't plannin' on drivin' up the mountain tonight." Ethan smiled. "Happens I got a room you can borrow for the night out back. I rent it durin' tourist season, but we're past that so you go on and stay 'til tomorrow."

"Thank you." Sam smiled and shook his hand. "Now, about the car we're going to use."

"Car, hell. Those things I got out there are pretty much tanks on four wheels." Ethan chuckled and stepped out from behind the counter. "Come on. Let's find ya' one and then I'll feed ya'."

Sam hung back and let Dean talk 'car' with Ethan, smiling fondly for his gear-head brother. He looked around the little town and at the mountains all around them. It was beautiful, and if either of them liked camping, it would have been a hell of a place to wander off into for a while. He snorted softly. They'd spent too many colds nights in the dark in the woods for a job, usually on edge and often injured, to ever consider it a way to relax.

"Sammy." Dean came over and slapped his brother's arm lightly. "Dude says he makes homemade cherry pie."

Sam chuckled at his brother's grin and followed Ethan back into the diner. "You're gonna make yourself sick, aren't you?"

Dean nodded and rubbed his hands together. "Only if I'm lucky."

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Sam jerked awake and sat up in the darkened room. A noise had woken him and he looked around the room, his eyes coming to settle on his brother. Dean twitched in the moonlight from the small window over the beds, and, as Sam watched, his brother gave a strangled moan of distress. It broke his heart a little. He wasn't used to Dean being the one tormented in his sleep, and he understood now what made Dean look at him with that tight, worried expression some mornings.

"Dean," Sam said softly. He swung his legs off the bed and reached across the space between to tap his brother's shoulder. He stayed carefully out of range, knowing full-well how Dean could sometimes wake from a nightmare, and sure enough, Dean lurched awake on a gasp with his favorite knife coming out from under his pillow defensively. "Dean. Take it easy."

"Sammy?" Dean blinked a few times and slid the knife back. He rubbed a hand over his face, a little mortified to feel the damp of tears there and relieved the darkness would hide them. Layla and the rawhead had followed him into his dreams again. "You ok?"

Sam rolled his eyes. "Yes, Dean. I'm fine." He slid his legs back under the blanket and flopped back.

"Don't wanna talk about it," Dean said, cutting Sam off before he could try to have another heart-to-heart. It wasn't Dean's style, and airing his own feelings didn't do anyone any good anyway. They weren't important.

"I wasn't going to say anything, Dean," Sam said softly and rolled away. He sat back up quickly at the sound of shouting outside. "What the hell?"

Dean groaned and got up. "It's only, like, six in the morning. S'too early for this shit." He shoved the curtain aside to look out and whistled softly. "Get dressed. I think this is us."

Sam climbed out of bed and looked for himself while Dean flicked the light on. He blinked, adjusting his eyes and watched the parade of townspeople following behind a large, big-wheeled jeep as it drove into the center of town and out of sight around the diner. "Damn. Has to be another body."

Dean nodded and yanked his jeans on. He dragged a shirt over his head and was out the door along with his brother. They jogged around the diner to the front as the vehicle came to a stop and went to stand next to the diner's owner. "Ethan. What's going on?" Dean asked.

Ethan shook his head sadly. "They found the ranger. Grady." He nodded to two boys, looking barely old enough for college who climbed down out of the jeep. "They were swimming in the punchbowl and said…they said his body came right over the falls at them." He shrugged miserably. "Just like the others, and…they said his arm…he's missin' an arm like it was tore right off."

"God," Sam breathed sorrowfully as several townsfolk pulled a shrouded body out of the back of the jeep. He met his brother's eyes and got a short nod; Dean remembered him saying the local ranger had gone missing.

Ethan turned to look at them. "Not so sure you boys oughta go up there."

Dean smiled and patted his shoulder. "We'll be fine." He waved a hand and Sam came after him as they headed back toward the diner. "We should pack up and get moving. It'll be daylight by the time we hit the punchbowl and maybe we can find tracks or something.""

Sam nodded. "Hope there's no one else up on the trail now."

They pulled out of town in the oversized, retired army jeep Dean had chosen. Dean had a small, happy smile on his face as they headed up the mountain road and the big tires ate up the dirt with the suspension bouncing them gently along at each turn. "You know I'd never trade in my baby, but this is fun."

Sam chuckled and stretched his legs out. He loved the Impala too but it was damn nice to, for once, have the room to actually stretch without bumping his knees on the underside of the dash. The sun was only just starting to rise as they gained elevation and followed the weather-beaten signs to the Devil's Punchbowl. "You know they call it the Devil's Punchbowl because of moonshiners?"

Dean couldn't spare him a glance as he navigated a particularly steep part of the trail but he snorted. "Not the actual devil?"

"Moonshiner's were said to do the devil's work." Sam smirked. "There used to be stills all up in these mountains, and they'd come to the Punchbowl to get fresh water for them."

"How…do you even know this stuff?" Dean chuckled. "Geek."

Sam glanced over and saw his brother's eyes wandering the countryside and he laughed. "You're hoping we find a still now, aren't you?"

"Shuddup." Dean tossed back at him and smiled ruefully, because he'd been thinking exactly that. The banter dropped away as the land began to drop away along one side of the trail and rise up on the other. The all-terrain jeep quickly became a tight fit between the two, and Dean spent a nerve-wracking amount of time easing it around sharp turns, sometimes barely keeping all four wheels on the ground. He eased it up into a wide area along the top of the Devil's Punchbowl, and both he and Sam heaved sighs of relief. "Hope that's the worst of it. Wow."

Sam shook his head. "It's not. It's the next section leading up to Crystal City where people routinely go off-road and die."

Dean groaned and rolled his eyes as he shoved his door open. "Awesome."

Sam reached into the back and pulled out two silver long-knives. He climbed down out of the jeep and handed his brother one of the knives. His research had been a little vague on killing an ahuizotl except for it being weak against silver, and, at some point, its heart needed to be burned.

"You loaded?" Dean asked him, patting a hand over his own pistol at his back, loaded with silver rounds.

Sam nodded. "Yeah, I'm good. The waterfall's over there, I think." He gestured toward the punchbowl's rim where he could hear water rushing. They strode carefully along the edge, looking at the hard, rocky ground as they went for any sign of tracks, human or otherwise.

Dean stepped a little closer and took a look out and over the edge. It was a good twenty feet and just high enough to make his fear of heights kick in. "Whoa."

Sam grabbed his elbow and tugged him back. "If you fall over, I'm not fishing you out."

Dean snorted and started walking again. "You will too." He grinned. "I have the keys."

Sam chuckled and walked as wide of him as he could to cover more ground. He wished they could have taken the marginally safer road up to Crystal but it didn't pass the punchbowls. He stopped as he reached the edge of a narrow creek, a run off from the Crystal River, he knew, and eyed the haphazard stone bridge that had been laid across it. "Well, that doesn't inspire confidence."

"It's lasted this long." Dean shrugged and knelt at the edge of the creek where it gushed over the side. He dipped a hand in the water and shivered. "Crap, that's cold."

"Runoff from higher up the mountain," Sam said and looked up at the mountains looming above them where snow had already settled in the high passes. "Gonna get damn cold at night up here."

"Lucky for us there's a whole empty town waitin' on us, then." Dean shook his head and stood. "There's nothing here. Wherever the ranger's body went in the water, it wasn't here. Come on. We'll check the other side of the creek and then head up." He went to the stone bridge and across, jumping up and down in a couple places to check its stability and was relieved when it didn't shift even a little.

Sam chuckled and went past him, hopping down to the ground. "Some animal activity here. Thinks these are….wolf prints."

Dean came up beside him and knelt, tracing the outline of the paw prints with his fingers. "Yep. Big ones. Eyes open, dude."

"No, Dean. Really?" Sam rolled his eyes with a smirk and headed down the bank of the creek toward the punchbowl while Dean followed it the other way. He reached the lip of the small cliff and the waterfall and sighed, finding nothing. He heard a loud growl from somewhere behind him and spun to find Dean backing slowly toward him twenty feet away. "Dean?"

"No sudden moves, Sam," Dean said softly. He slid the silver long knife into his belt and took out the pistol. It was loaded with silver rounds, which would be just as lethal as iron, but only at a close range. Ahead of him, two large, gray wolves slinked out of the trees with their bodies held low to the ground and snarling. "Think I know what happened to the ranger's arm."

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To Be Continued...