After the Fall
Chapter Three
Bobby tilts his chin back, raising his eyes past the charred remains of the once-shiny stainless steel pot, three days abandoned on the counter now and no doubt ruined, to land on the blackened scorch mark marring the ceiling of his kitchen. Even more specifically, to the matching lid still firmly rooted there above his head. He narrows his eyes, not sure whether he should be irate about the damage caused or, possibly, impressed by how deeply embedded the damn thing is. He'll give Sam this much: the kid's got style.
Bobby frowns, rubbing a calloused palm across the whiskered landscape of his chin. He really should've made sure one of those two idjits climbed up there and pulled the lid loose before he kicked 'em out of the house. He's had things on his mind, though, and for quite a while now. Heavy, earthshattering, distracting things he'd never had the notion would one day be spilling over from his plate.
Demons are one thing. But the apocalypse?
Just because he's squirreled away an armory, built a panic room from blood, sweat and iron and amassed a collection of buckling shelves loaded with books full of lore and myth and story in most languages known to man, that doesn't mean Bobby Singer ever thought he'd be staring down the barrel of the actual end of the days with a way to put it all to use. Never thought he'd be one of the few working to stop it from coming to pass. But work as he might, it's still not his fight.
His boys. It's their fight.
After having long-since closed himself off to others and embraced a life of solitude, avoiding all unnecessary human contact and skirting the edges of a town in which he'd made quite am unfortunate name for himself, Bobby'd never expected to have his feelings tugged at again. And certainly not by two damn little hellions who'd dragged their feet across the threshold of his front door, no more pleased with the prospect of being there than he was of having them.
He's always worried about them, even through the stretches of time they've been apart. Dean might have been missing his brother for four long years, but it had been nearing seven since Bobby laid eyes on that skinny little handful. Without a letter, email or phone call, too. He doubts the kid ever thought about such things, but can't truly fault him for it. If there's one thing Bobby's known for, it's – well, his love of the bottle. But if there's a second thing, it's his knack for acquiring information. It'd have taken him less than an hour to get his hands on a phone number or address for Sam in Palo Alto, if he'd put the effort in. So maybe they've all got things to make up for.
Lost time, and missteps. Instincts ignored and responsibilities shirked all around, to disastrous results.
Losing John to this way of life was an inevitability. That jackass wouldn't have ever had it any other way, and any guilt his sons carry over his passing is horribly unwarranted, but they won't hear any of it. There's Dean, itching to follow in his footsteps, and Sam, driven to do anything but. And in the background, Bobby, with one hand snug on each of their shoulders, holding them back from the edge of the cliff.
And for all his worry and all his efforts, he's still seen each of them battered and bloodied, seen each of them in the heart-wrenching aftermath of a sudden, violent death, and Bobby's felt every hit as though it was his own.
And that's not taking into account that he's already taken a few of his own hits. Bobby runs the flat of his hand along the smooth arm of his wheelchair, then brings it up to rub at his tired eyes.
He hasn't been sleeping well, not for, hell, more than a year. Not since he stood in his own rusted graveyard of broken, junked cars and confronted Dean, cornered him until he admitted to just how closely he was following in his daddy's footsteps. Not since that boy told him he'd sold his soul to a demon in exchange for his brother's life. Since that day, it's just been one thing after another, without much respite between each ensuing catastrophe. It's always those boys keeping him up, though. His boys. For mistakes, for failures, for bullheaded acts of buffoonery dressed up as brotherly love. Bobby's lost count of the nights he's traded sleep for research, either as a necessity of the current gig or more simply, failed attempts at slumber that leave him gasping for breath in the aftershock of nightmares that seem all-too-real. Horrible reimaginings of things he'd never wanted to remember, or things he couldn't ever seem to forget.
And sometimes, things he couldn't ever quite make sense of. Like the dream Bobby'd had just the night before, after he'd finally given up with the books for the day. Most likely spurred on by shoving those boys out the door in various states of unacknowledged distress, it'd been about a hunt from the previous year, one that he'd all but forgotten in the mess of everything going on, but left a lingering, bad taste in his mouth.
"I'm worried about my boys, Rufus."
"Your boys?"
With a scoff and a raised eyebrow, like Bobby was an ass for even thinking such a thing, let alone speak it.
They are his boys. He's watched them grow from children and would like to think he's played some small part in shaping the men they've become, and are still becoming. That might be a fair amount of ego talkin', seeing as they had a father when they were growing up, even if he was a distant, broody and preoccupied one. Bobby can't disagree that he might have seen and seized an opportunity to reconcile the missteps of his own father, or make up for the children he'd never have, from the first time John brought those boys through his door; Sam nosy and inquisitive, Dean quiet and wary. They've grown, but maybe haven't changed as much as they'd like to think.
Bobby's stomach looses a low, discontented growl at the thought of any taste in his mouth, and he discovers that he hasn't a clue when he last ate. It's easy to forget things like a balanced breakfast when you're counting down days to the friggin' apocalypse.
Bobby spins and points his chair in the direction of the refrigerator for a few items, then squares up to the counter to go about fixing himself a ham sandwich. He has to stretch awkwardly over the edge for the items his less vertically-challenged houseguests had pushed closer the wall without taking into account his new – current – situation. Or perhaps just not taking it into account in the moment. He doesn't want to think of them as selfish, but merely…occupied.
Like he's been occupied, each and every time he's gotten around to trying to put into words that damn hunt that'd kept him up the night before, one he'd let Rufus drag him on when he should have been searching for Lilith.
"Well, get ready to buy me a bottle of Johnny, 'cause it ain't a Baku, it's a ghost. Plain and simple."
Plain and simple. Wasn't a goddamn thing that was plain and simple about that hunt, and Bobby's still got that bottle of Johnny, note of surrender and all, lying around here someplace…hasn't ever really felt he deserved the win enough to crack it open. It's not like Rufus to admit defeat, and that jackass had been cagey as all get-out after all was said and done in Grand Rapids, looking like he'd seen…well, something strange, but he wouldn't share, hadn't allowed the subject to be breached since.
And maybe Bobby should be a little more sympathetic to that, since he's had months to try to suss out for himself just what he'd seen when he was caught…wherever the hell he was. His boys – HIS boys – dead and gone, but just a trick of his eyes, of that thing. Whatever it was. Trapped now; but not dead. And that means the job ain't done.
Bobby wipes his hands on a nearby dishtowel and drags the plate onto his lap, after a moment's pause grabbing a squat glass tumbler and stacking it precariously atop his fat sandwich. He braces the pile with one hand and rotates his chair with the other, pushes forward steadily to his desk in the library. There are too many thoughts running through his head, and he needs to lock down at least one of them and put it to good use. This unfinished job and incomplete journal entry…that ain't like him. He won't be around for his boys forever, and he'd hate to leave behind a legacy of holes and untold stories like John did.
He sets his plate on the desktop and pushes it immediately to a corner, drags open a drawer and withdraws his journal. Bobby flips back through the pages, through current notes tracking omens and occurrences that give off any stink of Lucifer, and finds that nearly blank page from last spring.
Grand Rapids, Michigan…possible ghost hunt with jackass.
Bobby sits back in his chair and drops his chin into his hand, thinks back on that hunt, and back on his dream…caught up in that house, looking at Dean, with that kid lookin' right back at him. Seeing him.
But he wasn't a kid. It was Dean all right, but not…not Dean. But not in any sort of way he can explain, and Bobby's got no point of reference for this strange feeling that overtakes him, every time he tries. Maybe he's never gotten around to putting more details on the page for the same reason he's sometimes plagued by that night in his dreams: because he's not yet found a way to make sense of what exactly happened in that house.
Now's as good a time as any, he reasons, and drags his glass closer, fingers going to work rooting around for a pen or pencil while his eyes search for whiskey.
But wouldn't you know it, soon as he's filled his glass and lays the tip of his pen to the flat of the awaiting page – one of the damn phones starts ringing in the kitchen, causing him the standard moment of startle and dread.
Bobby sighs and pitches his pen down, tosses back the two fingers of whiskey in his glass before he makes his way back toward the phone bank, knocking aside one of the chairs at the table with a muttered curse as he does. Navigating the narrow passageways of his house was a hell of a lot easier on legs. It's the house line ringing, which at least means he's off the clock. Or, as much as he ever is.
He grabs up the receiver, gets the long twisted cord tangled around his elbow as he brings it to his ear. "'Lo?"
"Hey, Bobby. So, we're kinda stuck here."
Just like their daddy, these boys have a way of making even pleasantries sound like demands, and never seem to think to call just to say, hey, man, we made it here safe and sound. It's not his fault his heart leaps into his throat every time the phone rings.
Bobby drags his eyes past the setting sun, notes the time on his watch then digs his fingertips into his brow bone, drawing forth the details of the article he'd done little more than skim and deem a good enough excuse for getting those boys off their mopey asses and out there doing what they do best. "Young guy, died in his sleep, right?"
"What? Bobby, you sent us out here to take this case. You don't even remember what it is?"
Bobby rolls his eyes. "Yeah, 'cause I wanted you two to quit draggin' your whiny asses all over my damn property. Wasn't sure you'd actually find anything worth findin.'"
"Well, we did. So what've you got?"
Dean now, loud and clear enough to be proof Bobby's own voice is being broadcast via speakerphone, but sounding farther from the receiver and more short-tempered than he was when the two left town. And that's saying something.
Sam speaks again, but it's muffled, garbled, like he's got his hand over the phone to spare Bobby the satisfaction of hearing it as he reprimands his brother. When he comes back on the line, he sounds nearly as irritated as Dean.
"Yeah, young guy died in his sleep, and two more in the week before him, all in the same apartment complex. Coroner couldn't find any obvious cause, or evidence of physical trauma on the bodies."
Bobby glares out at the materials piled on top of his desktop in the other room before scouring the equally littered kitchen table for something to write on and something to write with. He cradles the receiver between his chin and shoulder and digs a ballpoint pen out from under a folded newspaper, flips through a coffee-stained yellow legal pad in search of a fresh page. "You've ruled out natural deaths?" Every page is covered and scrawled over, including the margins, and he flips the entire pad over with a fair amount of frustration, pen scratching across the thin cardboard backing.
"All but. There's definitely something weird about all this, and one witness said this last guy…uh, Tom Graham, was being plagued by some sort of recurring dream before he died." A pause, and a mumble in the background. "I get it, Dean. Seriously, drop it already."
With a frown, Bobby notes that on the back of the legal pad. "You thinkin' you've got another dream walker on your hands?"
"I dunno. None of the victims seem to have fallen into a coma like we saw two years ago. S'like their hearts just gave out in the middle of the night. And our witness statements all read pretty much the same. Victims – if we're going to call them that – seemed run-down, under the weather. But they were all seen the day before they died, and every death was unexpected."
"Uh huh," Bobby says in response, absentmindedly as he continues jotting short-hand notes. "No evidence of physical trauma, you say?"
"No, nothing. Well, the second guy who died was some kind of amateur MMA fighter, so we wrote off a few bruises and abrasions, but that's it."
"The hell's MMA?"
"You've got a TV, man. Turn it on every now and then."
Bobby's left with a moment to think while Sam hastens to scold his brother once more. "So what's your workin' theory?" he asks loudly.
"Well, if we had one…"
"You wouldn't be pesterin' me. Yeah, yeah." Bobby winces at his word choice, overcompensating for his concern by putting on an air of annoyance, just like Dean is. "What've you ruled out?"
The pregnant pause on the other end of the line lets Bobby know they haven't invested nearly as much time in research as Sam might be leading him to believe.
"I mean, we spent all day yesterday tracking down witness statements, and just finished up with the coroner a little bit ago, and we're still trying to organize what we've got – "
"Yeah, yeah," Bobby repeats, harshly, to hush Sam. "Could be a Baku," he mumbles distractedly, eyes drifting to the nearly-blank journal page laid open on the desktop in the library. "A'course, there's a lot of things seem like they could be a Baku."
"Dude!" Sam's exclamation is somehow more loud and sudden than the sneeze that precedes it, and brings Bobby pulling the phone away from his ear. "Tissues!" Dean mutters something indecipherable, but no doubt rude, in the background, and Sam returns a heartfelt, "Well, it's gross. That's not what your hands are for. Jesus, Dean. Take another one of those pills already."
It's no surprise that the kid had worn himself down to the point of being susceptible to a cold, but Bobby knows better than to worry, knows that if the past is any indication, it'll prove more annoyance than hindrance before it runs its course. It takes a lot more than a case of the sniffles to hold Dean back. Bobby sighs, drags his trucker hat from his head and scrubs at hair in dire need of a wash while he waits to come back into play. Now his eyes move from the journal to that half-shot bottle of whiskey standing at attention next to the open book. He wonders if he could wheel to the other room and back to fetch the bottle before Sam remembers he's here on the line.
"Hey, Bobby, didn't you mention something about a hunt you did with Rufus last year? Kid fell into a weird coma in the middle of the night? Or something like that?"
Too late. Bobby shakes his head, returning his hat to its perch. "You two dumbasses have some of the most selective hearing of anyone I've ever met."
"Huh?'
Exactly. Still, it's strange Sam would mention the very hunt that's been plaguing his own mind. With another sigh, Bobby stares longingly at the bottle.
"Don't tell me he's got nothin', Sam. That man writes more notes than a teenage girl."
For the second time, Bobby lets it slide. He's not typically one to sit idly by and allow himself to be a casualty of Dean's misdirected ire and frustration, but at the same time he can't quite bring himself to admonish him, when he's hurting like he is. There are times he'd throttle that boy, if he hadn't literally been through Hell and back, and if Bobby didn't know exactly what the son of a bitch was doing. And if he didn't have the backside of a legal pad scrawled all over just from this brief conversation, proving the kid every bit of right. He gives the pad a shove, sends it scraping across the tabletop, and tosses his pen atop it. "If you two are done?"
"Yeah, Bobby. Sorry. Go ahead."
"It's not a lot to go on, but I've a got a coupla things I can look into for ya." His eyes make a circuit of the stacks of books that line the walls of the library. "And I probably have better resources than you do," he concedes. "You boys just…take the night off, I guess."
"Thanks, Bobby."
His mouth is open when the call cuts out, but he couldn't be sure what he was going to say next. Bobby pulls the receiver away from his ear and stares at it a long moment, listening to drone of the dial tone. "You're welcome," he says with another sigh.
He hangs up the receiver and pushes through the house back to his desk, passing discarded items strewn where's he's left them to do what's needed for Dean and Sam. Because he'll always drop everything, and do what's needed for Dean and Sam.
"Oldest rule of hunting, Bobby. You can't save everyone."
Bobby's never been much of one for rules. He's going to save his boys. From themselves, if nothing else.
Dean's been hovering near the short, narrow counter of the kitchenette in their room for going on fifteen minutes now, alternately flipping the same handful of bottle caps into the small sink and staring daggers at Sam. He subjects his brother to five more pings against the bottom of the basin before he finally sighs. "What're you doin'?"
Sam returns the sigh and squares up to the laptop, keeping Dean in his periphery but refusing to grant his sniffling, sneezing, irritable and irritating big brother the higher ground by making direct eye contact. "Just because we're waiting on a break in this case doesn't mean we're off the hook."
Dean sneezes grotesquely, almost on cue. "Dude, what the hell?" he demands of his brother, almost as though Sam is personally responsible for his ongoing allergies. "I haven't seen a cat in days." He leans back against the edge of the counter, drags a hand through his hair and rubs at the back of his neck. He looks drawn, pale and weary, gone too long without a good night's sleep. "Anyway, Bobby's on it, and you heard the man." He sniffs, makes a face, and starts looking around the room for something better than beer. "We've got the night off."
Sam hates that he can read that intent in his brother's expression and movements. He rotates in his seat, draping an arm over the top of the chair. "We've had too many nights off lately. And in case you've forgotten, this isn't the only job we're working, Dean." There was once a time that the idea of being on the job was enough to deter Dean from hunting for the nearest, fullest bottle of whiskey. A time before death and deals and Hell.
Having gotten his hands on what he was looking for and already poured a quick glass, Dean slams the bottle of whiskey against the countertop, rattling the line of last night's empty beer bottles. One tips from the impact and lands on the floor with a soft thud. "Sam. I'm not saying this again. You are not getting near Lucifer. I'm not gonna…" He drags his lower lip between his teeth, shakes his head. "Nothing."
Sam swallows, feels sweat gathering on his palm where it's wrapped around the back of his chair. I'm not gonna lose someone else. That's what he was gonna say; Sam's all but sure of it. "Dean…"
"Shut up, Sam." Dean turns back to the counter and pours a second glass, walks it over and sets it on the table without looking Sam in the eye. "Sit there, drink your whiskey, and speak only when spoken to."
Dean – "
"Ah!" Dean spins and holds up a hand. He raises his eyebrows and waits for Sam to nod his reluctant consent before backing away to settle against the headboard of his bed. He takes the bottle with him, dropping it and his glass to the faded surface of the bedside table with a pair of thunks, and flops atop the covers, crossing his arms over his chest.
It's bright, but overcast. Wind whipping and the cover of clouds pooling daunting and heavy overhead, threatening rain, but Dean knows it won't fall. He's been here before, almost every time he chances closing his eyes for over two weeks now, and the rain never falls.
He takes stock, heartbeat and breath catching as his eyes skim over Ellen and Jo wearing matching uneasy expressions. Hunter's instinct warning of danger but not yet knowing what that really means, not like he does. Sammy appears strong and determined next to him, and the Colt in Dean's hand is a welcome, comforting weight.
But an overall irrelevant one.
"There you are."
Dean spins on his heels as she's speaking, knowing she's here before the others do. She's always here. His gut clenches around a mass of fear and loss and helplessness, because he's run this through in every way he can think of, trying something different each night, but the outcome is always the same.
Sometimes he lets her and Sam go back and forth, sometimes he rushes her. Usually he goes down shoving Sammy or Jo out of the way of an oncoming attack. Never once has he turned tail and run.
Nothing he does ever seems to matter.
They always lose – he always loses. Bloody.
"Meg," Sam says, sounding like Dad as he steps forward. Gruff and unthreatened. Closing ranks.
Dean can see through the girl to the demon beneath. She shakes her head, tsking arrogantly, the same ol' piece of shit he sent back to Hell, just in a shiny new wrapping. "Shouldn't have come here, boys."
First night Dean found himself back here he'd taken the shot at this moment, without warning, just to see what the element of surprise would get them. She flung him before the bullet hit her, straight through a storefront window, cracks of glass and bone mingling seamlessly and shocking him awake twisted in blankets on the dusty hardwood of Bobby's library with the screams of Sam, Ellen and Jo fading away as he got his bearings.
Now, Dean lets her run that bitch mouth a little longer, eyes scouring the otherwise deserted street for something that's so far gone unnoticed to jump into possible play. Anything to make this time go differently. A dark, winged shape moves ethereally through the storefront windows. It doesn't belong here, and he's never noticed it before, but he can't make out the figure. He swallows roughly. "Hell, I could say the same thing for you." The Colt knocks against his leg but he doesn't raise it, heart already thumping and stuttering at the thought of the hounds at her side.
Even if he hadn't lived this before, in reality and in a dozen dreams, he'd know those bitches were there, somehow. One of those things he can't make enough sense of to bring to his brother's attention.
She rocks on her heels as a knowing smile creeps across her face, lifting the corner of her mouth. "Didn't come here alone, Dean-o."
A massive, unseen paw splashes a puddle next to her boot, a throaty growl slices the air between them, and this is as far as Dean ever gets while still thinking clear-headedly.
No one else moves, or at least, not enough to show that they know there is real danger near. They have books, picture and stories, but no one knows Hellhounds like he does.
It's not Option A for her to kill them. She's just the messenger, just here to collect them and drag them to Lucifer, but that's one scenario Dean won't ever think to entertain. Winchesters don't run, but they don't lie down and die either. He doesn't lift the gun, just turns, eyes drifting over his brother's face and landing pleadingly on Jo's. "Go. Now."
She balks, eyes narrowing and grip tightening on her gun. "What?"
"Run." His voice breaks on the order and he gives Sam a rough shove for good measure.
Sam stumbles to a stubborn stop, because he won't run away any more than his brother will, and he won't even listen to sense in Dean's dreams. "Dean, what – "
"Hellhounds," he grits, not caring if Meg hears him.
He doesn't see it come at him from the side, driving him to the asphalt and stealing the air from his lungs with the impact against an unforgiving ground. Dean grunts a protest as the Colt goes skittering out of play against the curb, and Meg's laughing the whole damn time he's scrabbling, and failing, to regain his feet.
"Yeah, Dean." It's glee in her voice, pure as virgin snow. "Your favorite."
The hound shifts above him and he's suddenly pinned beneath it, weight perfectly balanced so that freeing himself is an impossibility, unless he's looking to be ripped to shreds. It wants him to. Wants Dean to struggle, wriggle, and attempt to throw the beast off of him. He feels the needlepoint prick of claws through layers of fabric, sharp and stinging but not stabbing. Not tearing.
Not yet.
"Dean!"
There's one mutt on him but Meg didn't bring one, she brought two, or three, and there are hot tears of a pain not yet felt welling in Dean's eyes as he cracks and begins to struggle vainly beneath the bulk of the hound's massive front paws on his chest. "No, Jo, don't – "
But she listens just as well as Sammy. They're hunters. The wind tosses her long hair as she advance, and the shotgun bucks in her hands as she fires at the space above Dean's head.
The Hellhound leaps away with a shrill, wounded yelp and Dean crabs back quickly, feels Sam's big hands pawing at his shoulders and encouraging him to find his feet, and his mouth goes dry and worthless. The order to get to safety twists his lips but no sound escapes.
Behind them, Meg laughs on.
It's different every time, and it comes at a different time each dream, but this moment always happens, and it's always the same. This moment of worthlessness and reckless abandonment of training and instinct and preservation of the people he's supposed to protect.
Dean's scared in a way he'd never thought to prepare for, and he fucks up. Every time.
He hears the angry snarl of the second hound as it leaps at Jo from its watchful perch on the sidewalk. Dean shoves up off of the street and launches his body at the empty space next to her, colliding solidly with something hot and heavy and he drags that snarling son of a bitch away from her, takes it all the way to the ground.
It spits and writhes and ends up on top before Dean can blink. The back of his head cracks against the asphalt and even if the blow didn't steal his vision he wouldn't be able to see it, but he can feel it, and its breath is a moist, fetid furnace blast against the side of his face as he turns away from invisible snapping jaws. He's weaponless in a laughable way, head spinning and arms shaking from the strain as he tries desperately to hold the hound at bay.
Above him, there's screaming and shotguns going off, and the beast jerks and whimpers each time it's hit, the panicked, furious death throes of its claws raking trenches in Dean's chest and side, and he howls to beat the hounds.
He wakes with a start and a gasp, to Sam leaning over and shaking the shit out of him, screaming hoarsely in his face.
"Wake up! Dammit, Dean, wake – "
"What?" Annoyance is first, but pain follows in a close, close second. Dean tenses and grits his teeth, the pain fiery and intense, rolling over his body like a succession of crashing waves as opposed to being currently isolated to any particular spot. He moves away from Sam, presses his cheek against the cooler comfort of a flattened pillow in an attempt to escape the agony but it follows. It grabs him, pulls him under and swallows him whole.
Sam grips his upper arm, tight and rough and dragging him back to the surface, where it's brighter, harsher, and it hurts like hell. "Dean, where is this…dude, hey, Dean. You're…you're bleeding, man. Stay still."
Dean squeezes his eyes shut, hauling in short breaths with a high-pitched hum and Sam won't let go of his arm. And then the sheet of pain finds a place to set up shop, as his brother is suddenly sticking hot pokers beneath his ribs.
"Dammit, Sam," Dean forces through clenched teeth and shallow, ragged breaths that are starting to leave him feeling light-headed. The shadows on the walls look like dogs, like claws and teeth closing in and Dean lets his eyes fall closed once more. Instinct and reflex and pain drag his fingers to feel out the source, but Sam is right there, grabbing his hand forcefully but not ungently and holding it at bay.
"Stop moving and let me…Dean, where the hell did this all come from?"
The initial worry in Sam's voice fades away, replaced immediately by something frantic and appalled, but at the same time eerily calm. Taking charge and assessing the situation and triaging, because something's clearly not right and he's trained to deal with all manner of things not right.
Understatement. Dean's hand moves blindly, once again drifting up to the spot where the pain seems the worst and flapping weakly when it finds his brother's slick fingers blocking the way.
Sam's hand twists easily away and he grips Dean's wrist tightly, wrenching his groping fingers away from the spot of contention, the spot where it feels like he's been ripped apart, flesh split and muscle torn and none of it feels nice. "Dude, seriously. What the hell – " Sam gives up on questions, sucks in a harsh breath and releases Dean's arm.
An explosion of light steals the rest of his senses as Sam presses without warning against his chest, which is suddenly a mess of ice and fire with no distinguishing the two. A roar that sounds like howling picks up in his head and he holds his breath to keep from puking. His fingers dig into the mattress beneath him, clinging for all he's worth to what little consciousness he's managed to keep ahold of.
The light behind his eyes burns out, leaving everything dark and quiet but no less painful. Sam's tapping the side of his face, gripping Dean's jaw and forcing his head toward himself. The movement ratchets up the nausea, and his brother's fingers leave something hot and wet smeared across his cheek and neck. "You with me?"
"Yeah." Dean blinks, and on the third try his vision clears. Or, well enough.
Sam's face is white and his hair askew, eyes wide and shoulders high and tense. Dean grits his teeth and lifts his head enough to follow the rigid line of his brother's arms to where they end at those massive mitts pressing a wadded towel against Dean's chest. And he's pretty sure motel towels are white, or close enough, but this one appears patterned and red. Bloody smears mark Sammy's cheek and forearms, and when Dean swallows, he feels the tacky residue pull and shift on his own face and neck.
Calmed down a bit, but in no less amount of pain, Dean scrubs at his hot, itchy eyes with a cold, shaky hand, huffs out in an equally shaky voice, "son of a bitch."
"You're tellin' me." Sam gives him a gentle jostle with his elbow, not enough to increase his pain, but encourage his ongoing consciousness. "What the hell, dude?"
"I don't…I don't know." And he doesn't, because this doesn't make a lick of sense, and Dean's having a hard time thinking clearly. Where he was, where he is, what the hell's happened to him…it's all blending into a bloody, confusing, incredibly agonizing blur.
The pressure against his side eases, and Sam hisses. "Okay. I'm gonna have to close this, Dean. And sorry, man, but you're gonna feel it."
Dean swallows, already steeling himself for what he knows from a truckload of experience is gonna hurt like hell. "Awesome."
"Yeah." The pressure's back, and then Sam's grabbing and molding Dean's hands around the damp, sticky towel balled against his chest. "Hold this a sec."
"What? Where're you – "
"I gotta run out to the car, man. We didn't bring the thing in." There's a hysterical bark of a laugh on the heel of Sam's words. There was no need to for the first aid kit. They were in for the night, taking some time off in the middle of a probably-nothing hunt while Bobby searched for some answers.
Dean only blinks, or so he thought, and suddenly Sam is back, a warm, strong weight along his side that jolts his eyes open. "What happened?" he breathes. The pain is really starting to pick up steam now, sharp and hot and demanding all of his attention, even as he struggles to focus on anything else. The sounds of Sam rummaging for supplies, for some bandages, for the goddamn motherfucking needle he's about to become best friends with. Scissors first, sliding cool and hesitantly against his skin as Sam gets the obstruction of his shirt out of the way of his workspace.
"You tell me, Dean." Sam tosses the scissors aside on the bed and jerks his head toward the table under the window, where the laptop is open, where the chair is knocked to the floor and a spilled glass of cheap whiskey is still dripping over the edge to the carpet. "You fell asleep, and I was just sitting over there, and then all of a sudden you were screaming, and…"
Dean winces as Sam presses against an aggressively tender, particularly deep spot. "Was just a dream, Sammy."
"What was?" Sam's swift in his work and his questioning, all business now, grown right the fuck up into a kind of man Dean never saw coming out of that chubby little nerd. Taking command with a no-nonsense, war-torn attitude that he isn't used to seeing in his little brother.
An attitude he doesn't want to get used to seeing.
Dean clenches his jaw against the sting of antiseptic against open skin and everything exposed underneath, draws a bead on the water-stained ceiling and refuses to look down at the mess of himself. When he feels up to forming words again, he says the first thing that comes to mind, no matter how asinine it sounds. "Thing was takin' a swipe at me when you woke me up."
Sam swallows, throat visibly working. Like he knows the answer before he asks the question, because if Dean's side looks anything like it feels, there's only one thing in this world or any other that leaves these kinds of marks. "What thing?"
"Hellhound."
Sam's head bobs as he digests that, and the next block of time passes in a bloody, tense, mute sort of way.
To be continued...
