NOCTURNE

A hunt gone wrong ... how will Dean cope with the longest, most difficult week of his life after an attack by a rare and malign faerie?

A gift for my lovely partner in drabbling Vanessa Sgroi - the second and final chapter will be posted tomorrow.

Disclaimer: I don't own these boys

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Chapter 1

Dean was a deep sleeper, even though he only needed four or five hours a night to function properly.

He was a sleep-talker, a fidgeter and a snorer who would wake up bed-headed and grumpy. Sam never thought he would miss the delight that his sleeping brother could be but now, after watching Dean struggle through his third consecutive sleepless night, he would have given anything to lie awake listening to Dean's wall-shaking snores.

The hunt three days ago had been a strange one.

The Winchesters had ventured into the moonlit forest after a Redcap; a spectacularly malevolent breed of faerie with a penchant for scalping its victims and wearing their scalps as a hat; hence its name. The hunt for the Redcap was somewhat derailed when, halfway into the forest, Dean's flashlight had picked up the ethereal form of a dark figure hiding in the shadowy cleft of a giant tree trunk. The creature had let out a blood-chilling shriek, and the next thing Dean knew, that same dark force had hurled him bodily into a nearby bush.

That was the beginning of the nightmare that he currently found himself living.

It was a Nocturne, Bobby had surmised later on; a faerie of darkness. Extremely rare and very sinister. So rare, in fact, that even with his extensive library of lore, Bobby could only find a handful of references to it.

Nocturnes, it was said, thrived on darkness; they required it to survive. Light was their nemesis. That, he explained, would have been why the thing recoiled and reacted so violently when Dean's flashlight caught it hiding away from the moonlight. Unfortunately, Nocturnes were in possession of a particularly nasty talent; they were known as sleep-stealers. The lore told of their power to deprive a person of sleep to the point that their unfortunate victim lost their mind, and maybe even died.

Based on what he had learned, Bobby had hatched a plan, but he knew the Winchesters weren't going to like it …

xxxxx

"Well, it looks like the only way to fix Dean is to kill this damn thing," Bobby explained over the phone to Sam; "I've been readin' up on them, and the key to killin' them is light," he added.

"Okay," Sam replied, his voice barely above a whisper as he looked back at the armchair in which Dean was slumped, eyes tightly closed as if he was trying to squeeze a precious few minutes sleep out of them; "what's your plan?"

"Well, me an' Rufus, we've collected some halogen lamps which we'll set up in the forest in a circle on a remote switch. We gotta try to lure the damn thing into the circle, then … 'BAM' … we switch the lights on full blast and fry the bastard…"

"Sound plan," Sam nodded down the phone.

"But …" Bobby heaved a deep sigh; "to have a chance of luring it out, we've got to do this at a time when it's most active."

"Yeah," Sam agreed; "Night-time?"

"Not just night-time," Bobby replied; "you went into the woods at night-time, and you said yourself, it was hiding in a shadow."

"Well, yes…" Sam agreed hesitantly.

"It was hiding from the moonlight," Bobby explained; "to catch it at the time when it's most active, we're gonna need to set this up on a night when there ain't hardly any moonlight."

The wheels in Sam's head turned for a moment; "new moon?" He asked.

"That's right," Bobby replied; "but – here's the bitch - the new moon's five days away."

"FIVE…" Sam snapped, instantly checking himself, mindful of Dean trying to rest behind him; "five days?" he hissed; "Dean's gone three days without sleeping already, don't know if he'll last another five days."

"I know, it stinks," Bobby replied apologetically; "but it's the way it's gotta be." He sighed,"look, you only found this thing by accident. To find it on purpose, you're basically searching the whole forest in pitch darkness for something that looks like a black net curtain hiding in the darkest place it can find. It's impossible. We gotta bring it to us."

Sam scraped a hand over his face; "but five more days, Bobby; can a person actually go without sleep for over a week? What'll happen to him?"

"That's why you gotta stay with him Sam, take care of him. He'll need your support. He's got a tough few days ahead."

"What happens if you can't kill it this full moon?" Sam mused in a small voice.

"You're a smart kid," Bobby replied; "you don't need me to answer that." The two men fell silent for a moment. "Anyway, that ain't gonna happen, right?"

Sam nodded silently and looked back to Dean shifting uncomfortably in the huge armchair. "Okay, look, thanks Bobby," he whispered; "I know you'll do your best, just please … help him."

"You know I will son," Bobby murmured regretfully; "Oh, and don't you go wearin' yourself into the ground," he added. "One of you needs to stay compos mentis, so you need to get your sleep, even if Dean can't. You promise me boy?"

Sam swallowed deeply and nodded; "Yeah … yeah, I promise Bobby," he mumbled.

xxxxx

The whole nightmare had begun four days ago on that stupid Redcap hunt. After Dean had disturbed the mysterious creature, the brothers had been too distracted by trying to figure out what it was, and whether it was dangerous (notwithstanding Dean's flying headbutt into the tree), and almost earned themselves a short back and sides courtesy of the Redcap.

After they had finally got the upper hand and ended the fugly faerie asshole, Sam hadn't appreciated Dean's cocky pun about the hunt being 'a close shave'. He knew that Dean's bullshit wasn't fooling anyone, and the older Winchester was just as spooked as him by the dark and sinister entity.

Dean had never been what you might call a ray of sunshine in the mornings, but even by his low standards, Sam had been shocked to see the wreck of his brother sitting in the bunker's kitchen the following morning.

"I didn't sleep a goddamn minute," Dean had snorted around the rim of his coffee cup, his unfocussed, red-rimmed eyes staring miserably through Sam at an indeterminate spot somewhere on the other side of the kitchen.

Sam had known it was serious as, after an unproductive day's research, he'd watched Dean preparing a cup of hot milk, fortified with enough whiskey to anaesthetise a cow, to take to bed with him.

The following morning, again, Sam's brother had emerged from his bedroom as a hollow-eyed, miserable, yawning shell of a man. Sleep had once again totally eluded him, and didn't Sam know it.

Hot milk hadn't worked, alcohol hadn't worked, so Dean had spent the day attempting to elicit exhaustion as a last desperate attempt to grab some shut-eye.

During the day, he'd deep cleaned the bunker's kitchen, washed Baby, given her an oil change and flushed out her radiator, baked some bread, and carried out all or any chores that he could think of, pushing his already fatigued body beyond endurance until he was practically crawling on his hands and knees back to his bedroom. Sam's misgivings that this was probably a really, really bad idea had been, as expected, overlooked and ignored, so he had taken the opportunity to discuss the problem with Bobby.

And now, here they were, day four.

Sam heard the click of Bobby disconnecting the call, and took a deep breath as he tried to imagine how to tell his brother that he had five more days of this unspeakable torment to face.

xxxxx

Dean was slumped in the big chesterfield armchair at one end of the Bunker's great hall. His eyes closed, his head lolling limply to one side. For a brief moment, Sam dared to hope that Dean had managed somehow to catch a few moments sleep, but the rational side of him knew that they couldn't be so lucky. Sam knew his brother well enough to be able to gauge his breathing and could tell when he was sleeping. The rise and fall of Dean's chest now was ragged and sharp; and the giveaway was the crease of tension between his brows.

Sam was about to speak up when Dean saved him the trouble.

"If you're gonna stand there staring at me all day, I'm gonna have to start charging," he grumbled, his broken voice completely devoid of his usual cockiness.

Sam managed a wry smile, as Dean yawned and stretched.

"I was hoping you managed to grab a few minutes sleep," Sam replied quietly.

"Nah," Dean replied glumly, knuckling his still-closed eyes; "was just restin' my eyes. Feel gritty an' sore."

As he lowered his hands, and opened bleary, bloodshot eyes, Sam noticed the displaced tears glistening on his pale cheeks. He chose to ignore them.

xxxxx

I've just spoken to Bobby," Sam began; "squatting down beside Dean's chair; "he's figured out what that thing was and how to kill it."

"Cool," replied Dean flatly; "what do we have to do?"

"WE don't have to do anything," Sam replied bluntly; "Bobby's dealing with it."

Dean looked at him through misty, unfocussed eyes.

"Bobby? Why?"

"Dude, really?" Sam exclaimed; "Do you really think you're up to hunting right now?"

He took Dean's silence as a tacit agreement.

"Look, this thing, it's called a Nocturne," Sam continued; "it's a faerie that lives only in darkness, and it has a particularly nasty magic – it steals sleep."

He waited for the wheels to turn foggily in Dean's head; "So are you saying that this thing is the reason why I can't …"

"Yeah," Sam interjected; "as long as that crappy thing is alive, you won't be able to sleep Dean."

There was a moment's silence and Sam reflected on how slow Dean's reactions were already becoming.

"Well, I hope Bobby can do his stuff soon Sam, otherwise I'm gonna go stark freakin' crazy," Dean replied, his voice cracking as it rose in panic.

Sam swallowed deeply; "Dean, the thing is, Bobby's got to wait until the darkest night so he can to get a shot at catching this thing. That's the new moon," he explained. He paused for a moment, regarding Dean's face looking at him; sincere, frightened, stripped of all bravado.

"The new moon is five days away."

Sam sat back on his haunches and waited for a reaction. He waited for the cursing, the shouting; he waited for the chair to be kicked over, or the wall to be punched.

Instead he got Dean, staring at him, those hooded eyes, sunk deeply into the dark shadows around them, gazing levelly at him.

"The new moon?" Dean whispered; "what's … why…"

Sam pulled in a shuddering breath.

"The new moon dude, Bobby can't catch and kill the Nocturne until the new moon. You're not going to be able to sleep for five more days."

There was a long silence between the two men as that news sunk in.

A single tear that slid down Dean's gaunt, expressionless face was his only response.

xxxxx

to be continued /...