It was well into the afternoon before Dean woke for the third time in that 24 hours.
He was halfway through his first cup of shitty motel coffee before it occurred to him how weird it was that he didn't have a hangover.
It was only when he went to shower that he remembered the previous evenings' events.
It was weird, the details hazy enough that Dean couldn't be certain he hadn't dreamed it all. But the feelings he had—about seeing that creature, attacking it, being knocked down, almost killed, and then miraculously saved by those two Brits—it was like getting mad at someone in a dream: the fear and rage persisted, even though he was awake and the dream was over.
And then he took in his bloody, tied-up shirt.
He felt his belly, over the knotted sleeves, and felt nothing out of the ordinary. He undid the knot and let the ragged and bloody flannel fall to the floor. His tee shirt was still ripped, the long gash in it going from just under his left rib and down towards his right hip. Underneath, a bright red line ran across the center of the tear: the angry, tender skin of a new scar. It looked weeks old, and he might have assumed it was that old, if he hadn't still been wearing the ruined shirt.
So, something did happen last night. But I'll be damned if I know what.
Somewhat gingerly, he set his salt lines to protect the place while he was gone before slowly making his way back to the bar where he'd left the Impala the night before. Dean was feeling plenty shaken from the night's events, but seeing his Baby gleaming confidently in the corner of the lot did wonders for his mood.
He switched on the radio as soon as he started her up, skipping past the talk and hellfire-preacher stations until he landed on something with actual music, some kind of classic rock/hillbilly combo station. He could deal with it. At least they managed to play one Zepplin tune between the bar and the nearest good diner on the other side of town.
The place was the best kind of greasy spoon, and after ordering the all-day breakfast special (ham and eggs over easy, loaded hash browns, toast, and hopefully better-than-motel coffee), Dean got to work.
It was what they always did, whenever they started a case. Lay out the facts. What do we know? What his brother had always done.
Dean pushed through the ache in his chest, pulled out a beat-up spiral-bound notebook from his back pocket, and started sketching the creature.
He was about half done with it when the waitress brought over his meal, taking a mostly incurious peek at his notebook. "Story idea," he mumbled by way of explanation, which earned him a shrug and a half-hearted "You need anything else, holler."
Dean turned to his meal, reviewing the facts in his mind:
he was definitely attacked last night
he had no idea what by
he had definitely been wounded
the wound was way more healed than it should have been
those Brits showing up was entirely too convenient
Not recognizing a creature was rare by this time of his life, but not impossible. Dean was an experienced hunter, and if there was anything you learned in the Life, it was that shit could always get weirder: Get complacent and you end up dead. So that was 1) and 2).
His shirts proved he'd been injured, at least a little, so that was support for 3). As for 4), Dean was no stranger to fast wound healing. With angel mojo it was pretty much instantaneous and painless, but this was definitely a different process.
Which left him at 5). The woman—and then her friend—had shown up a very short time after he'd gone down—it was dark the whole way back to the motel, so too much time couldn't have passed—and yet they found him, wounded, in a clearing in the woods, just in time to save his life. Though he hadn't been on speaking terms with most of the heavenly host over the years, they could still be keeping tabs on him, for whatever reason.
And yet. The possibility of those two Brits being literal angels seemed off somehow—no angel he'd ever met had sounded English—but he couldn't exactly rule it out, either.
As he sopped up the remaining egg yolk with the last of his toast, the bell on the diner door rang as it opened, prompting the hostess to greet a new customer. But in the brief moment before the door closed, Dean caught a snatch of conversation outside on the street, in a rather familiar pair of accents.
"...shouldn't be necessary. He seemed convinced it was a dog."
"I don't know, Harry. There was something off about..."
Dean took a last swig of coffee, laid a twenty on the table, picked up his notebook and left the diner without a word.