Dem Bones
It started out as a patch of darker shadow under a tree as they dug up a grave in the pouring rain in a cemetery just outside Seattle. Dean only caught it out of the corner of his eye and when he turned his head it was gone. He stood there for a moment, ankle-deep in mud, hunched over his shovel, blinking water out of his eyes.
"Dean?" Sam asked, pausing to check on his brother. Dean shrugged, chalked it up to too many sleepless nights and not enough caffeine, and went back to digging. By the next morning, clean and dry and with coffee pooled warm in his stomach, he forgot completely about it.
Two weeks later they were in Arizona, hunting down a malevolent dust storm spirit. They spent most of the night tramping through the desert, searching for the chindi, and the whole time Dean could have sworn he heard footsteps clicking over the stones behind them. It drove him to such distraction that he completely missed the chindi's approach and ended up in the middle of a choking dust funnel until Sam managed to get the thing with a flint knife. But when Sam demanded to know what was going on, Dean just waved him off. Maybe it was nothing.
Maybe the hunting was finally getting to him.
There was a Baba Yaga in northern Michigan. It'd already snatched four kids by the time they arrived, and two more went missing the day after they arrived. They hunted her down to a long-abandoned hunting lodge deep in the woods and just before they entered, Dean thought he heard a voice back in the trees. He almost went to investigate when one of the kids screamed from inside and they burst through the door, staked the hag down, and set the place on fire before splitting with the kids.
Dean tried to convince himself it was nothing, that he wasn't going crazy, but it kept happening. A glint from nonexistent metal in Nebraska, the swish of cloth in Montana, and the reflection of glowing blue eyes in a shop window in Indiana. Every time a shiver of cold would pass down his spine, and he'd mumble some excuse when Sam looked at him funny. But Dean was starting to lose sleep over it, and his work was slipping.
It was in a motel somewhere in the ass-end of Nowhere, Idaho that Dean jerked out of a light doze to the intense feeling that they were not alone. He slanted his eyes sideways and could just see Sam sprawled over the other bed, one arm dangling over the edge. Dean slid his hand under his pillow, fingers curling around the cool metal of his favorite .45. He spun into a sitting position, pistol aimed squarely at the figure seated in the chair across the room. His jaw fell open.
The figure, if standing, would top seven feet and was swathed head to toe in an ebony cloak. The face that was framed by a deep hood was bleached bone, teeth bared in a permanent grin. Pinpoints of glowing blue burned in the empty eye sockets. It looked up mildly.
In a voice like tolling funeral bells, it said, DON'T MIND ME. I BROUGHT A BOOK. It lifted a paperback in bone fingers for emphasis. Next to the chair, leaning against the wall, rested a scythe, its curved blade touching the ceiling.
"You have got to be kidding me," Dean whispered through stiff lips.
The skeleton turned a page in its book. I AM TOLD I DO NOT HAVE A SENSE OF HUMOR, it commented. Dean lowered his gun and reached up to rub his eyes.
"I'm dreaming," he muttered.
SORRY, BUT NO, replied the midnight-cloaked intruder. Dean lowered his hand and stared at the apparition in front of him.
"This can't be real. You—you're the fucking Grim Reaper."
The anthropomorphic personification so named sighed and tucked his book into his voluminous sleeve. YES. THOUGH I GO BY "DEATH" FOR SHORT. HOW DO YOU DO?
Dean blinked at him. "How do I—" he sputtered. "What the hell are you doing here?" His eyes narrowed. "Am I about to die?" An even worse scenario occurred to him. "Is Sam about to die? Because I swear to God I'll—"
NEITHER OF YOU ARE IN ANY DANGER OF EXPIRING, Death assured him patiently.
Dean blinked at him again. "Then why—" Death sighed once more and shook his head, bone gleaming in the dim light.
ARE YOU FAMILIAR WITH THE PHRASE, "DEATH WAS HIS CONSTANT COMPANION?"
Realization dawned on Dean's face.
"Oh, shit."
