Title: Crazy Train

Author: Disasteriffic Kaz

Info: Tag to 11x17 "Red Meat" Still on the mend from their near disastrous encounter with the werewolves, the bunker sends up an alarm that will test the Winchester's ability to function while wounded. Hurt/caring/BAMF!Sam/Dean

Author's Note: I'm feeling my way into this one. I know where I want to go but getting there without rushing it is hanging me up a bit. Lol Bear with me here. I've had this idea for over a year and only now gotten to it. I want to give a special thanks to Jenjoremy, Janice, and a few others who brainstormed this thing with me. Thanks, ladies. *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~
Disclaimer: They're not mine. The world's not mine. But Kripke is my, er, Chuck? And I worship at his altar. Heh.

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Chapter 1

Dean leaned back from the laptop, stretching his arms above his head and looked over to his brother. He snorted a laugh at the sight that greeted him. "Man, you're gonna fall over backwards and break something." Sam was propped in the chair and leaning back, tilted on two legs with his own legs resting on a second chair in a complicated and tenuous balancing act while he read one of the heavy tomes from their library.

"Am not," Sam said and gave his brother a distracted smile. "I'm comfortable. Shut up." What he didn't say was leaning back the way he was had been the only position that made the healing wound in his stomach stop aching. Dean had been hovering over him for a solid week in a fit of guilt and fear, and Sam did not want to add to it. "I have better balance than you anyway."

Dean snorted a laugh, but he studied his brother while Sam wasn't looking. He did not believe for one moment that he was as 'fine' as he kept insisting. It had only been a week since Dean had dug a bullet out of his brother's gut; since a murdering bastard had tried to suffocate him after Dean had made the mistake of trusting someone else with Sam's safety. A week since he had been sure Sam was dead... again. He shook his head and looked back to the laptop screen. He and Sam had yet to really talk about what Dean had done in an effort to get Sam back when he had thought him dead; that he had been willing to risk his own death just for the chance to bargain for Sam's life with a reaper who hated them. It wasn't something they were likely ever going to agree on, and Dean would do it all again, no matter what Sam said.

"You find us a job yet?" Sam asked as he turned a page in the old book. It was a collection of ancient banishing sigils that had fascinated him when he had found them that morning.

"Nope." Dean nudged the laptop with his knuckles. "All quiet on the monster front. Makes my teeth itch."

Sam smirked but nodded. "Yeah. Means they're going to ground and that can't be good."

"Well, when you know darkness from the beginning of time is coming to clean your clock, you hide." Dean shrugged and looked at his watch. "It's beer-thirty. You want one?" He waved a hand before Sam could answer. "You're getting one." He took two steps and stumbled as an ear-piercing alarm began to blare through the bunker. He slapped his hands over his ears and looked over in time to see his brother's feet fly up in the air as his chair went out from under him.

Sam startled so badly with the assault of sound, he lost his precarious balance in his tipped chair and went over backwards with a loud 'smack'. He was still staring up at the ceiling with the alarm wailing in his ears when his brother's face appeared above his.

"Sammy?" Dean could not help the laugh as he knelt beside his brother and shook his head. "Dude, I told you not to lean back that far. Come on. Head still in one piece?" He hovered a hand over his brother's stomach where the gunshot wound was still healing. "You gonna spring a leak?"

"Shuddup." Sam groaned as Dean shoved the chair aside and levered him up so he was sitting. He put a hand to the back of his head and winced. "What the hell is that alarm?" His stomach burned after the impact, and he worked hard to keep from letting his brother know. No reason to send Dean on another bout of mother-henning when he knew it would be fine. Thankfully, Dean let it go and smiled, taking his arm.

"Let's go find out, assuming your egg-head is still ticking over and not knocked sideways." Dean grinned at Sam's bitch-face and stood, pulling his brother along with him. He steadied him when he swayed and frowned. "Dude, you sure you're alright?"

Sam rolled his eyes and instantly regretted it. "I'm fine." He kept a hand over the aching bump on the back of his head while the siren continued to wail. "I really want that thing off."

Dean slapped the back of Sam's shoulder as hard as he dared and strode down to the war room and the long control panel. "What the hell world-ending bullshit we got this time, huh?"

"I don't know." Sam rubbed his head gingerly and checked the long console and its multitude of flashing lights. He frowned, trying to figure out which panel was for what and reached out, pressing a button. He smiled when the alarm went silent. "Well, that's better at least."

"You know, I still don't know what the hell all this crap's for." Dean shook his head and leaned a hip against the panel. "I mean some of it I get, but..."

Sam nodded. "Yeah. Kevin said the place went nuts when the angels fell, so clearly a lot of this is based on some sort of binary application of science and magic and…" He stopped when he realized Dean was staring at him and grinning. "What?"

Dean laughed and scrubbed his hands over his face. "My little brother, the giant nerd. Some things never change."

Sam flushed and rolled his eyes even as he smiled, pleased at the note of pride behind his brother's teasing. "Shut up. I'm gonna go grab the manuals for this console from downstairs. Don't push anything and blow us up." He dodged the kick Dean aimed at his leg with a laugh as he left.

"So much for our quiet day," Dean groaned as he watched the lights flashing though the alarm was silent. He lifted his head and yelled when he heard Sam's steps coming quickly back up the hall. "If this is another round of dick angels headin' for the pavement, I say we make some popcorn!"

Sam huffed a laugh as Dean's words echoed through the war room. "Got them." He set the stack of manuals on the table. He had found four of them, all inches thick and sometimes more confusing than enlightening. "These things read like stereo instructions."

"Awesome." Dean grabbed one and flipped it open. "We even know what we're looking for?"

"Yeah. Hang on." Sam grabbed a pen and a note pad from the table and went to the console. He knelt beside it and wrote down the serial number on its side. "Here." Sam handed it to his brother. "Check the indexes for that number." He pulled his finger slowly down the index in the first book, trying not to let his eyes cross as he read the small printed numbers looking for a match. He set aside the first book and grabbed another and was only half through the list when his brother crowed.

"Got it!" Dean checked the page number and flicked through the four-inch-thick tome until he found the one he wanted. He sat back in one of the chairs and groaned as he scanned the first page. "This might make my eyes bleed."

"You want me too…"

"I got it. Go make coffee." Dean threw him a smirk and settled back with the book.

Sam chuckled and stood. "Yeah, ok." He smiled, watching Dean's face descend into concentration. His brother always made a point of calling himself a 'grunt' and Sam the 'brains' but in truth, Dean was brilliant and the best damn hunter Sam had ever known, brother or not. Sam wished sometimes that he wouldn't be so hard on himself but he knew that was a behavior Dean had learned early on. He shook his head at himself, feeling anger at their father even after so many years and so much hell. The apocalypse had come and gone twice over and there were still days he wished he could see dad again, both to hold him and tell him how much he missed him and to rail at him on behalf of his brother. "Stupid," Sam muttered as he turned into the kitchen and instead focused his mind on the mundane task of coffee.

By the time he returned to the war room with two steaming mugs of coffee, Dean was standing at the console; book in one hand and the other scratching the back of his neck as he stared down at it. "You figure it out?" He held out one of the mugs.

"Huh? Oh, think so yeah. Thanks." Dean took the coffee and handed the manual to Sam. "If I'm reading that thing right, this console's like a car alarm."

Sam's brows flew up. "What?"

Dean snorted and sipped his coffee. "Not for a car. It's monitoring something, and the alarms mean it's been broken into or stopped, or something."

"What's it monitoring, then?" Sam set his coffee down and started reading the entry his brother had found.

"I think it's a train." Dean shrugged as Sam gave him a perplexed look. He reached out and pressed on a flat panel at the front of the console, where the manual had showed him. The panel depressed slightly and then sprang up to reveal an old computer screen. "Check this out."

"That's a map of America." Sam leaned over and then looked back to the manual.

"Betting these are train tracks." Dean ran his fingers over the broken lines criss-crossing the map like spider-webs. "And this must be our train. But what's on it?"

"There's a card catalogue number here." Sam put his coffee down and headed for the library. "I'm starting to get the feeling we just unearthed another Men of Letters ticking bomb."

"Yeah." Dean sighed, looking at the small, blinking, yellow light on the map. "This is only about three hours out from here, maybe four." He picked up both their coffees and followed Sam into the library, setting his brother's mug on the table while he flicked through index cards. "If this is another Werther box, we're leaving it alone." He spoke firmly and quirked a brow when Sam's eyes rose up to his. "We are not donatin' more blood for some twisted booby trap."

"Pretty sure that was a one-time thing, Dean." Sam shook his head and pushed away the vivid memory of nearly bleeding out to get the codex and knowing Dean was the only reason he was still alive to feel guilt for everything that came after. "Got it." He pulled one of the cards out of the index and easily found the shelf he needed on the other side of the room.

"Have you memorized this whole damn room?" Dean asked with a laugh.

"Shuddup." Sam ran his fingers along the spines of the books, reading the numbers of the decimal system and plucked out the one he wanted with a smile. "I'm just glad these guys were anal about cataloging the books if nothing else." He brought it over to the table and sat down, taking a sip of his coffee before he opened the book and started searching.

Dean shoved his chair closer and leaned over to look when Sam seemed to find what he was looking for. He read the words along with him and felt his brows slowly rise up his forehead in surprise. "Are you kidding me?"

Sam sighed. He had been hoping that it wouldn't be something potentially deadly and was unhappy to find out those hopes were gone. "So." He pushed the book over to Dean so his brother could finish reading it and ran his hands through his hair. "The Men of Letters had all kinds of cursed crap that was too dangerous to keep in one place and instead of destroying it, they packed it all up onto some train cars, spelled the crap out of them, and set them on an endless trip around the country? How is that better that salting and burning it all?"

Dean turned to the next page and gave a derisive snort. "I know this handwriting. It's that Werther asshat. Bet you money, he was hoping he could figure out how to use some of it and talked the other idiots into this train bullshit."

Sam pulled the book back from his brother and continued reading, turning pages as he scanned the paragraphs. "So get this, one of the objects on the train has the ability to bend the space around it if left in one location for too long which is why the train always has to be moving." He set the book in front of his brother and tapped one paragraph and a collection of hand-drawn magical symbols beside it. "They basically cursed the cars. No one remembers seeing them, and they'll just be shunted from train to train according to the pattern set into this spellwork forever. And you have to know the pattern to actually get on the train."

"And have the bunker key." Dean nodded, seeing that line of information before Sam turned the page again. "Ok, so we know where it is and how to get into it…"

"Yeah. But what set off the alarms?" Sam got up and went back to the console and the manual.

"Well, it's stopped for one thing. That'd be my guess. That light's not moving." Dean flipped through several pages and found the start of a manifest of the contents of the box cars. "There's three of them, all double-decker cars." He turned to the next page and snarled, running his fingers down the torn edges of a good twenty pages. "And someone's torn the damn manifest out of here."

"I think it's not just that it's stopped." Sam frowned, checking the numerical lines at the bottom of the map on the console against the manual. "I think something's gotten out. Or been taken out. I don't know. There's no way to tell from here, but these codes mean that containment's been breached."

Dean closed the book with a snap and tossed it to Sam. "Bring that and let's saddle up. May as well go clean up their mess again." He shook his head as they strode down the hall to their rooms. "You know, if those assholes had just had a couple hunters around, this shit wouldn't have happened. Friggin' know-it-all morons."

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Sam leaned back as far as he could in the front seat of the Impala, trying to ease the strain on his healing stomach without his brother noticing and held up his phone. "So, get this; there are police reports of weird shit happening in the area where that train is stopped."

Dean scowled. "Define 'weird shit'."

"We've got people claiming to have seen monsters - no description on what kind; just your usual hysterical type of witness. Couple people talking about ghosts, and one guy…" Sam chuckled and turned the phone back to his brother to show him the mug shot of a man with wiry blonde hair in a halo around his head and wide eyes. "… who says an invisible alien picked him up, threw him across the street, and stripped him. Cops caught him streaking the railyard, and he had a blood-alcohol content higher than yours after the season finale of Dr. Sexy."

"Kiss my ass, Sammy," Dean snarled even as he flushed with embarrassment. "That shit's stressful."

Sam laughed and tucked his phone in his jacket. "You want to start with witnesses or head right for the train?"

"Witnesses. I don't wanna walk up to that thing blind if there's something hunting around it." Dean turned in toward the small town outside the railyard and cursed the afternoon traffic as they were slowed to a crawl. "What the hell? There's like nine buildings in this Podunk town!"

"Look." Sam pointed to a banner strung between two of the taller buildings. "Today's the local arts and crafts festival." He sighed. "That means more potential victims."

"Cop shop." Dean nodded ahead of them and waited for a break in the oncoming traffic to whip the Impala through the break, chuckling when his little brother slapped a hand out to the dash in self-defense at the sharp turn.

"Jerk," Sam muttered as he got a very close look at the grill of the pickup truck Dean had cut off before they shot into the parking lot.

"Bitch." Dean grinned over at him as he pulled in.

Sam pulled the cigar box with their false ID's from the glove box and fished two out, handing one to his brother. "Figure we'll go in as reporters. They should be used to that by now."

"Tabloids are probably goin' nuts with this, yeah." Dean got out and straightened his flannel, quickly tucking in his t-shirt to look less like he had just rolled out of bed. He strung the lanyard of his identification over his head and gave Sam a nod. "Let's go charm the locals." He strode up to the station with Sam in tow and pushed through the doors. The squad room was small, as he expected for a small-town precinct. There were a handful of metal desks and one lone officer manning the front desk. Dean saw the moment the officer noticed the identification around their necks and rolled his eyes.

"Help you, gentlemen?" The officer's voice was anything but welcoming as he eyed them.

Dean put his smile in place and leaned a hip against the counter. "Look, we know you don't wanna answer anymore stupid questions about the crazies. Hell, we don't wanna ask 'em!" He waved a hand between him and his brother. "But the boss tells us to jump, we ask how high or they send someone else and we're lookin' for a new job." He gave a friendly shrug as the officer's attitude seemed to cool off slightly. "Give us a break, man. We're just doing our jobs."

Sam smiled as well and hoped his expression radiated the sincerity he was trying for. "We just need to get the bare bones, names of the witnesses, and we'll be out of your hair." He rolled his own eyes. "Story like this isn't exactly a big paycheck, you know?" He saw the moment the officer bought their story in a loosening of the man's shoulder and a sympathetic, half-smile.

"Yeah, alright." The officer ran a hand back through his brown hair and then waved it to his right. "Go on in the conference room over there and I'll bring you the reports. You're lucky. The chief and the rest of the guys are out for the festival crowds or you'd never get to look at them."

"Thanks, man." Dean grinned and gave him a nod while he and Sam headed for the door he had gestured to. He stepped inside with Sam at his back and blew out a breath. "Thought we were gonna have to do a lot more tap-dancing to get a look at those files."

Sam nodded. "Lucky us. Now we just have to hope there's something useful in them."

An hour later, as they left the precinct and climbed back into the Impala, Sam shook his head and dropped his notes on the seat. "Except for the witness' names, that was a monumental waste of time."

"It's like they weren't even trying." Dean rolled his eyes as he pulled back out into the snarl of festival traffic. "At least no one's dead yet."

"That we know of," Sam said darkly. "It's a train yard. That means some sort of vagrant population. Odds are no one who cares has missed them yet."

"I hate when you're all doom and gloom before we even get there, Sammy." Dean grabbed a notebook from his brother's lap and looked at the address on the first page. "The 'invisible aliens' dude only lives two blocks from the yard. Let's start with him, and we can go have a look while we're at it."

Sam twisted to reach into the backseat and grabbed the book they had found on the train in the bunker's library. He leafed through it, hoping to find more information. "There has to be more to getting on that train than just the bunker key."

"Don't see why not. That's all we needed to get into the bunker." Dean shrugged. "I looked over some of the blueprints." He glanced over and saw Sam's brows go up curiously. "What? I get bored when I can't sleep and I get nosy. Shuddup. Anyway, the bunker's like Fort friggin' Knox without the key. The spellwork in there locks the place up tight from the outside. Train's probably set up the same way."

Sam nodded. "You're probably right." He set the book on the seat between them as Dean turned into a rundown neighborhood of ramshackle homes in various states of decay. "If I'd been them, I think I'd have put the whole bunker on wheels in the first place. Would have been a hell of a lot harder for Abaddon to break in if they had." He warmed to the idea as he thought about it. "Plus, you could literally move the whole thing where you needed it the most. Not that they liked hunters much, but it would have been really handy that way."

"And easier to lose," Dean pointed out. "You imagine if we'd had to search every train track in America to find the place?"

Sam chuckled. "Yeah, alright. Maybe not. That's it." He pointed to a house on their right that was little more than a shack, but the numbers were clear on the mailbox. "Geez, this guy's practically homeless himself."

Dean parked and got out. "Train yard's that way," he said, nodding toward the shack. "Let's see if Close Encounters is home."

Sam smirked as they crossed the overgrown lawn. "Play nice, Dean."

"I'm nice!" Dean protested. "Dude said aliens, Sam. You know those crazies are always, well, crazy."

"Your face is crazy," Sam muttered and grinned as Dean punched his arm. He strode up the three steps and tried to ignore the ominous creak as their combined weight caused the planks beneath them to shift. Sam reached out and knocked on the door and groaned as it swung inward several inches. "Well, that's never a good sign." He drew his gun in unison with his brother and pushed the door the rest of the way open as he eased inside, Dean a silent presence at his back. "Mr. Granger?" Sam called, but there was no response in the silent house.

Dean stepped around his brother and into a small living room, taking in the state of things with a tense gaze. "It looks like he was nesting in here." A bookcase had been shoved in front of the small window, the couch was pulled into the middle of the room, and, as Dean stepped around it, he saw a pile of ratty blankets atop a small, stained mattress beside an ancient television set on the floor. "Feel like we're gonna need shots after we get outta here. Yo! Bill!" Dean's voice rang through the house, and he smiled with a shrug when Sam stared at him. "Just makin' sure he's not passed out with Captain Morgan somewhere in this place."

Sam shook his head fondly for his brother's antics and went to the end of the narrow hall. "Got the kitchen." He grimaced at the rotting food left on the three-legged, chipped, formica table and the dishes piled in the sink. "Definitely not touching anything in here." His eyes caught on the back door, noting that it was open as well, and he skirted the sketchy table to get to it. He managed to hold in his yelp as several, large roaches skittered across the floor. He gave himself a shake and felt his skin begin to itch in reaction. "This whole house is like one big health code violation. Geez."

"You should see the rat I just freaked out in the living room." Dean chuckled and followed his brother out the back door. The porch had long since fallen and both men dropped down several feet onto bare earth. "If he was so scared of the damn aliens, why would he go back to the train yard?" Dean nudged Sam's shoulder and gestured to the ground with his gun; a fresh trail of footprints led away from the house through the dirt and toward the trains.

Sam swallowed hard against the pain the jump down had caused in his gut and nodded. "Maybe he wanted proof." He hoped his voice didn't give him away, and though Dean's eyes cut to him suddenly, his brother said nothing, and Sam counted that as a win.

"Like those asshat Ghostfacers. Awesome." Dean gave a long-suffering sigh and started across the yard. "Let's go have a look."

"I really wish we knew what we were walking into," Sam muttered. "Dean, hang on." He grabbed his brother's shoulder ahead of him and pulled him to a stop. "Let's get the weapons bag first."

Dean frowned but he nodded, seeing the logic. "Your Spidey-senses tingling?"

Sam shrugged and started around the house, rather than going through it again. "I don't know. Just a bad feeling."

Dean looked over his shoulder at the line of trees screening their view of the rail yard. "Always go with your gut." He trusted his brother's instincts as well as his own, perhaps more, knowing that Sam had always had a little something 'extra' in the psychic department, demon blood or not.

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To Be Continued…