The little brown stick man crawled up onto the bed, scuttled up the bed beside the body of the man sleeping there. He got to the chest, and climbed up, settling himself down, legs splayed out on either side of his pot belly. Then he reached forward and placed his long, twiggy fingers around the man's head like a brown cage. He began rocking and crooning, with a wide grin full of teeth.
This one was delicious.
After a few minutes, the stick man leaned back, rubbed his belly, licked his lips, and hunched down to wait, curled up like a cat on the man's chest. He kept one eye drowsily open to watch for the signs.
A few hours later, the man began to twitch slightly, and the brown man popped his eyes open, leaned forward, and carefully arranged his spidery fingers again, waiting eagerly.
Really, truly delicious, he decided a few minutes later. He eyed the crack in the curtains at the window. Daylight soon. The man would probably wake up. He smacked his lips, burped quietly, scratched his head, and then slid off the man's chest and the bed, and skittered under the bed. He'd wait. It was worth the wait.
-oOo-
Even for Dean, this was ridiculous.
"Dean. You've eaten four burgers already today. Don't you think that's enough?" Sam asked. These stops for food were interrupting the flow of their investigation, making Sam grumpy.
"Dunno what it is, Sam. I'm just...hungry. Really hungry. Been hungry all day. C'mon, just let me pull in here, get another."
Sam waved an exasperated hand. "Okay, okay, sure. Get yourself more cholesterol."
-oOo-
The twig man peered out from under the bed, keeping to the shadows, rocking himself in anticipation. Tall and Taller had spent the last few hours talking, talking, talking. But now they were making the moves that meant darkness and sleep.
Taller turned out the lights. The brown man waited, and soon heard the snores. He crept out from his hidey hole, knotted his scrawny fingers in the bed coverings, and pulled himself up, knobby knees jutting outward awkwardly with each movement. His dark brown eyes shone in the dim light leaking in from the parking lot. He climbed daintily onto Tall's chest, and waited.
So yummy. He flexed his bony fingers, impatient for the start to tonight's feast.
-oOo-
Dean's jaw popped in the midst of his huge yawn. He peered drowsily through Baby's windshield, thought a moment, and pulled the car to the side of the road.
"Hey, Sam. You drive for a while. I'm dozing off, not good. And don't forget to stop at Ellie's Cafe...I'm starved."
Sam frowned. "You getting sick or something? You've been starving for a couple of days, and now you're falling asleep at the wheel?"
"No big deal, I'm fine. Just sleepy, that's all. And hungry. We should get some pie, too!" His eyes lit up. He tossed the keys to Sam, got out of the car.
"Maybe you've got a tapeworm..." Sam suggested as they traded places.
Dean shuddered. "Ugh. Don't even say that!" Worms. Ugh. But the thought of the pie at Ellie's Cafe comforted him.
-oOo-
The brown man crouched behind the headboard of the bed, frowning. Tall and Taller were talking again, about leaving. He sat there, leaning on his fingers, his knees up around his head, and thought.
This was the best he had eaten in years. He couldn't let this end. He huddled back, brown eyes reflecting the lamp light, gleaming like a beetle, picking at his lips with his thick fingernails.
So, so, so...
When the pale light of dawn started inching through the curtains, he slid off Tall's chest, off the bed, and crept toward the men's duffle bags. He chose Taller's, pried it open, peered in, then grinned his toothy grin and slipped in, worming his way between bulky items, down to the bottom. He twisted around, curled up, and rocked himself to sleep.
-oOo-
Sam drove, lost in thought. He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel restlessly, listening to Dean snore. Dean had driven for a while that morning, then started yawning, and again insisted they switch places; as soon as Sam pulled Baby back onto the road, he had fallen fast asleep, huddled up against the passenger door.
Dean started twitching and making small muttering noises. Dreaming, Sam guessed.
Something was wrong with him. That much he could tell. But what?
When they stopped for lunch, Dean was irritable and snappish. He fell on his two cheeseburgers like a starving shark, taking huge bites and murmuring in pleasure around them while he chewed. His eyes darted around them, squinting suspiciously at the other diners. At one point, he leaned forward and muttered to Sam, "That guy over there..." He jerked his head in the direction of an ordinary looking farmer busy with a huge plate of biscuits and gravy.
"Hmm?" Sam said. "What about him?"
Dean leaned forward, hissed, "Vamp. I'm sure of it."
Sam's fork stopped halfway to his mouth. "What?!" He glanced at the farmer again.
"Sam. He's a vampire. Can't you tell?" Sam put the fork in his mouth, chewed thoughtfully. This was getting weird. So far as he could tell, there was absolutely nothing out of the ordinary about the farmer. "Can't you see his fangs?!" Dean added.
Sam looked again. Nope. No fangs. He frowned at Dean, thought, then abruptly stood up, fishing in his pocket for money and dropping it on the table. He motioned to his brother. "Up. We've gotta get out of here. Now. Before he notices."
Dean stood up, nodding agreement. His eyes slid back to the farmer, sizing him up. "Yeah. Yeah, you're right. We'll wait, corner him later." His voice was hard, determined.
Sam grabbed Dean's elbow, steered him toward the diner door. "Yeah, we'll do that. Let's just go."
"Dreamed about vampires in the car," Dean muttered as they left. He stopped dead in the parking lot, shook his head. "Weird. I haven't had a dream in days, then I dream about vamps, and boom! There one is. Weird."
"Yeah. Weird. C'mon." Sam seized his arm again, pulled him to the car.
-oOo-
They had found a sleazy motel nearby and checked in. Dean had started complaining about bees following them, batting at the empty air, in between various wild plans to catch the vampire farmer. He strode around the motel room restlessly, then suddenly announced he was going to take a long, hot bath, and disappeared into the bathroom. Sam's forehead wrinkled - Dean was acting very strangely today, and it was starting to worry him.
Sam opened his laptop, pulled up the browser, and did a search on the string "hunger sleepiness paranoia hallucinations". The results all pointed to sleep deprivation. Sam frowned again - Dean had been sleeping just fine, so far as he could tell.
He thought about what Dean had said as they left the diner, and slowly added the term "dream" to his search string.
The results were interesting. A few papers - not many - on the effects of REM deprivation, dream deprivation. All the symptoms were there. The researchers could account for most, as they were similar to the symptoms of sleep deprivation, but they had no clue what caused the strangest one, the ravenous hunger their research subjects reported. They speculated that REM sleep helped regulate ghrelin, the hunger hormone. No other sleep researchers had been able to replicate their results.
Sam leaned back in the chair, thinking. Then he leaned forward, added "supernatural creature", hit the return key.
"Gotcha!" he crowed softly when the results came up. A dream-eater. He shuddered. Nasty little things.
-oOo-
It was late. And dark. The little brown man could tell by peering out between the clothes. Tall and Taller were asleep; he could hear their snores. He crept out of the duffle, heaved himself up the bed, back onto Tall's chest. He was quivering, flicking his tongue out to lick his lips, excited for tonight's meal. Such delicious dreams! And they had gotten even more tasty day by day. He knew Tall was getting sick, but he just couldn't resist - so dark! So full of pain! So...just yummy, no other word for it. He squirmed around, made himself comfortable, settled in to wait for the signals that Tall was dreaming.
Suddenly he was being lifted into the air by his neck, and shaken. He squealed, chittered, twisted around. Taller! Taller had him by the scruff of his neck! He snarled, reached behind him with his twiggy fingers, grabbed Taller's arm, and swung around with his legs, twisting himself out of Taller's hard grip. He perched on the arm and reached forward with his hands, making a cage for Taller's head. While he was at it, he leaned down and sank his teeth into his arm.
-oOo-
"Shit!" Sam danced around, trying to shake the cat-sized, spider-like brown creature off his arm, his other hand alternating between batting at the dream-eater and trying to yank its scrawny fingers away from his head.
"Dean! Dean!" he shouted hoarsely. "Dean! Help!" The dream-eater squealed again, between bites.
Dean sat bolt upright in bed, automatically reaching under his pillow for his pistol. What the hell was going on?! He heard high-pitched squealing, and thumping that seemed to be from Sam banging into things. He reached out and put on the light, to see Sam struggling with the ugliest damned thing he had ever seen - and that was saying a lot. Brown glittering eyes; brown, twig-like, long arms and legs with knobby joints; a small, fat body; and teeth...lots and lots of sharp, pointy teeth. Blood was dripping from Sam's arm, and the creature had Sam's head wrapped in incredibly long fingers.
"Holy shit!!" Dean surged out of bed, tripped on the blankets wrapped around his legs, staggered up again. "Jesus! Sam, what the fuck is that thing?!"
Sam had managed to wrestle the creature off his arm, had it held away from his body by his hands, but the creature's fingers were still caging Sam's head, and seemed to be attached by some kind of suckers. Sam's eyes were wide and unfocused, his face twisted in a grimace of disgust and fear.
"Dream-eater - " Sam gasped. His eyes rolled back, showing only the whites and he sank down to his knees. "Kill it! Get it off me!" His voice was fading.
"How?! Dammit, Sammy, how the fuck do I kill it?!" Dean was frantic.
"Silver - sugar - " Sam muttered, then he fell completely to the floor, his hands weakly losing their grip on the dream-eater. The creature swiveled its frog-like head toward Dean and bared its bloody teeth, but didn't release its grip on Sam's head. It chittered again, sounding triumphant.
Dean scrabbled desperately in Sam's duffle, searching for the demon knife. His hands closed around the antelope horn hilt. He pulled it out, then sent his eyes searching for a source of sugar. Sugar?! Really?! His eyes landed on the room's coffee maker and associated condiments. He strode over and pawed through the packets. Pink packet - nope. Yellow packet - also nope. There - a brown packet of Sugar In The Raw. He grabbed it, ripped it open.
Now what? Sprinkle the thing with the sugar? Rub the knife with it? He shook his head impatiently, decided to do both.
He pounced on the creature, stretching it out, and shook the packet of sugar over its body. Nothing happened. He bared his teeth with a frustrated snarl, then quickly licked his thumb, dragged it down the demon blade to moisten it, and scattered the remainder of the sugar on it. Then he stabbed down at the fat abdomen with a hoarse, angry cry. The blow punctured the dream-eater's belly, and it squealed in anger and pain. Dean found himself stabbing it over and over again with disgust, grunting with each blow.
Finally, the squeals tapered off, the gleam died out of the creature's brown eyes, and the suckers let go of Sam's head. Dean grabbed the body, now covered with sticky brown ooze, and flung it into a corner of the room, shuddering. Then he turned to Sam, grabbed his head, patted his cheek sharply again and again.
"Sam! Sammy! Dammit, Sammy, so help me God, I'll kill you if you don't say something!" he shouted.
"Ugh...what do you want me to say...?" Sam said weakly. Dean sat back, slumping in relief, blowing out a huge breath.
"Don't scare me like that. How'd you know that...that disgusting thing was in our room?"
"Didn't. Hoped we had left it behind, at our last stop. But I kept awake, kept an eye on you, just to be sure. Think it hitched a ride with us. It's been feeding on your dreams for days."
"Holy shit." Dean shivered, and his stomach spasmed. He controlled it, but his mouth filled with vile-tasting saliva. "That thing was - was - eating my dreams?!"
Sam nodded, running his hands through his hair. He dropped them wearily back to the floor on either side of his body, sighed. "You were acting so weird these past few days. Always hungry. Sleepy. Then you started getting paranoid about the farmer in the diner, and that was strange. And you started seeing bees that weren't there. The kicker, though, the thing that sealed it, was you said you hadn't dreamed for days. Googled it, came up with dream-eaters. Nasty, nasty things."
"No shit. I get the heebie-jeebies just thinking of that thing wrapping its fingers around my melon..." He shivered again, then took a good look at Sam. "Okay. Let's get you cleaned up, stitched up, then burn that mother-fucker's body."
Sam nodded weakly.