Disclaimer: The usual
Language / Violence: Absolutely none. Read in confidence.
Shirtless scenes: Unfortunately, also none.
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He was chasing someone.
His breathing was ragged and shallow, and his arms and legs hurt as if he'd run a marathon.
He had no weapons. No gun, no knife; just the powerful urge to run.
Because if he didn't run, he'd die.
His chest hurt. The dark figure up ahead was outpacing him, long legs dealing easily with the rocky terrain, springing over wet grass and slick stone in lengthening strides, powering through the driving rain as if it was the lightest drizzle.
He had to catch him.
The figure ahead stopped for a second, turning to look back the way he'd come, dark hair matted to his forehead as water ran down his face in rivulets.
Then he was off again, running at breakneck speed, too fast for him to keep up.
You've got to keep running, the voice in his head told him. Run or you'll die.
So he ran.
Slipping on the sodden grass, stumbling on the jagged rocks.
Keep running.
He'd lost sight of the one in front, the rain conspiring with the inky darkness to build an almost tangible barrier between the two.
He had to run; he had to catch him.
The muscles in his legs screaming with the effort, his eyes blinded by the stinging rain, he stumbled on, the icy water running off his hair and down the back of his neck, mingling with the sweat lathering his back.
Not much further, he told himself, forcing his legs to carry him up the steep, but mercifully short incline, rounding a rocky outcropping and…
The one he'd been chasing stood looking at him.
He stopped dead, the relief of not running any more drowned out by the look of terror on the other's face as he glanced nervously behind him. He teetered unsteadily, feet shuffling ever so slightly backwards, closer to the edge.
All he could hear was the screaming of the water as it tore mercilessly at the foot of the cliff. All he could see was the look of pleading in the other's dark eyes.
"No…" the young man said quietly, barely audible over the driving rain which crashed against the cliff face in waves almost as angry as those fifty feet below. "There has to be another way…"
He could see the fear growing in his eyes; could almost taste it.
And for a second he faltered.
But only for a second.
He had to keep running or he'd die.
Not much further.
Summoning his remaining strength, he ran full tilt at the other, outstretched hands pushing through the needles of rain until they made forceful contact with his chest, almost slipping on his wet jacket as he pushed as hard as he was able.
"No!" the young man screamed as, already overbalanced, the force of the impact sent him reeling, arms flailing wildly as he lost his tenuous footing and began to fall.
Standing on the clifftop, he watched the young man plummet, the jet black waters below reaching up with icy fingers, hungrily clawing at his body as they welcomed him into their glassy depths.
"No!" he heard him scream again, as he disappeared into the seething mass of foam and darkness beneath him, swallowed by the water and the night.
He was gone.
"Sam!"
This time the voice was his own.
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"Sam?"
Dean Winchester sat up so fast his head spun.
Heart hammering against his ribs, he cast about himself wildly until his eyes came to rest on the sleeping form of his younger brother stretched out on the bed next to him.
Nightmare.
"Huh," he muttered, blinking rapidly as sweat dripped from his forehead and into his eyes. "Well that was weird…"
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Forcing the breath to leave his chest in a slower and more orderly fashion than it had for the last five minutes, Dean splashed cold water on his face before daring to make eye contact with the reflection in the bathroom mirror.
His heart still raced, and his hands shook as they gripped the sides of the chipped enamel sink.
He took a good long look at the young man staring back at him.
"Idiot," he muttered, averting his gaze from the haunted look he saw in the hazel eyes, while snatching a fraying, off-white towel from the rail next to the sink. He dried his face roughly, trying not to look at the stains that no amount of washing could ever get out of a well-used motel room towel.
"Dude," he said, plucking up the courage to look back at the mirror. "You are such an idiot."
It wasn't like he'd never had a nightmare before.
Hell, the things he'd seen, it was a wonder he didn't wake up screaming every night.
Like Sam did.
"Stupid freakin' nightmare."
He shoved the towel back on the rail, resisting the urge to squash a small spider that had unwisely chosen that moment to emerge from a crack in the sink enamel.
After all, it wasn't the spider's fault Dean had had a bad dream.
Irritably, he flipped off the bathroom light before heading back to his bed, tip-toeing around Sam in an effort to avoid waking the kid: It wasn't often he got a good night's sleep, and Dean didn't want to ruin it for him.
Eyes adjusting quickly to the early morning gloom, Dean perched himself on the edge of his bed and just sat there. Staring at Sammy.
Absently, he counted his brother's chest rising and falling, rising and falling, twenty-four times before he dared relax a little.
Dean knew it was stupid, but it was something he had done ever since he was a little kid, and he guessed it had just become habit. He remembered sitting cross-legged on the floor, watching his baby brother sleeping, happily oblivious to the whole world crumbling around his crib, while his big brother counted his little chest moving up and down, up and down, twenty-four times before he dared move from his side.
Satisfied that Sammy wasn't going to stop breathing any time soon, Dean would pad over to wherever his Dad had crashed out – bed, sofa, chair, occasionally the floor – and repeat the whole process from start to finish. Twenty-four times, in out, in out, before he could settle to sleep himself.
Twenty-four was an arbitrary number, he knew that. But it held some kind of magic for the little boy: It had been the highest number his Mom had taught him to count to before she had left him. There were twenty-four hours in every day, she had told him, sitting counting off the numbers on his little fingers as she rocked him on her knee. He remembered the number and remembered the words, and in his head each breath represented another hour that his Dad and his baby brother would be with him tomorrow. Twenty-four breaths for twenty-four hours, and then the whole cycle would repeat itself. If Daddy and Sammy were still breathing now, then they would still be breathing this time tomorrow, and that would be another day that Dean didn't have to be alone.
Sam muttered something in his sleep, turning with a grunt that jarred Dean out of his reverie.
"Dude," a voice came out of the darkness. "I swear to God, if you were watching me sleeping, I'm going to stuff your head into a pillowcase."
Dean started at the sound of Sam's voice, shifting awkwardly. "I – I wasn't – " he stuttered, pushing himself up further onto his bed as if he hadn't just been sat there staring at his kid brother. "I didn't – ". The tone of uncertainty in his voice melted into forced gruffness, as it always did in these situations. "I thought you were asleep. Why are you awake?"
Sam raised himself up on one elbow, looking quizzically over at his big brother. Reaching out, he snapped on the bedside light, causing both of them to squint uncomfortably. "Someone woke me," he said testily, taking in Dean's pale complexion and the spooked look about his eyes.
Dean looked away, embarrassed. "Uh, sorry," he muttered in a very un-Dean kind of way, pulling the blankets over his legs as if he had been innocently getting back into bed all along.
Sam had at least expected an insult.
"You OK?" he asked tentatively, suddenly struck by the fact that this was Dean's line, usually uttered in concern after Sam had woken in a cold sweat, some hideous nightmare still tugging at his subconscious.
Dean shrugged noncommittally, as Dean always did when he didn't want to admit that something was bothering him.
"Dean?" Sam pressed.
Dean looked away, as if embarrassed. "I had a – a – "
Sam frowned. Dean lost for words. Now he knew something was wrong. "A what?" he asked. Dean finally made eye contact with him, and it hit him like a thunderbolt. "A nightmare?" he said, eyebrows disappearing into his hair. "You had a nightmare?"
Dean averted his gaze, cheeks colouring. "Yeah, so what, I had a nightmare," he muttered. "You don't have the copyright on the damn things you know."
Sam nodded slowly. "OK…" he began, a placating tone in his voice.
Dean was apparently too busy examining the evil green and yellow pattern on his quilt cover to look up at him. "Lots of people get bad dreams," he asserted, picking irritably at one particularly hideous part of the pattern. "It doesn't mean anything."
Sam frowned. "I didn't say it did…"
Dean cut him off, suddenly looking up at him. "We can't all be like you," he snapped, the bitterness in his voice causing Sam to recoil slightly.
"Huh." Sam's frown deepened as the realisation slowly began to dawn on him: Dean was jealous. Oh my God, Dean was jealous of his brother's brain-splitting, sleep-depriving, hell-on-earth nightmares! And he was studiously looking away again, which pissed Sam off even more.
But Sam didn't need to say anything else for Dean to know he'd upset him. He shook his head and sighed, running his hand through his hair wearily. "Yeah, I know," he said, resignedly. "I'm an idiot. I've been telling myself that for the last fifteen minutes."
Sam nodded, the resentment that had been starting to bubble in his chest evaporating instantly. "Yeah," he agreed testily. "You are an idiot."
Dean looked up at him then and grinned weakly. Sam returned a grudging smile.
"So," the younger brother said, swinging his legs over the side of the bed as he realised neither of them would be getting any sleep until they had this thing out. "What did you dream about?"
Dean looked at him uncomfortably, before following his lead until the two of them were sat facing each other, a chipped nightstand and a green carpet almost as hideous as the quilt covers all that separated them. "You," he replied at length, fighting the almost overwhelming urge to break eye contact again.
Sam continued to frown. "OK," he said. "Ordinarily, I'd be kinda touched that you were dreaming about me." He flashed his brother a mischievous grin. "But seeing as we're talking nightmares here…"
Dean, if it was possible, looked even more uncomfortable. For a second, Sam thought he seemed on the verge of spilling his guts, which would have been most unlike Dean. Not without a fight, anyway. But then, predictably, he seemed to change his mind, clamming up completely.
Sam recognised that look only too well. He'd seen it plenty growing up, usually when he and Dad were in the middle of yet another blistering fight and he'd looked to his big brother for support. Dean had never given it, instead retreating into a stony silence that Sam knew he would never break as long as it meant saying a word against their father. Sam called it Dean's 'Brick Wall Face', because that's how it always made Sam feel when it descended: like he was hitting his head against a brick wall.
Sam sighed. "Come on, man!" he said. "You can't leave me hanging like that! What sort of brother are you?"
Dean considered that for a second. "Hopefully not the sort who would push you off the top of a cliff," he managed eventually, fixing Sam with an apologetic gaze. He didn't know why he felt he needed to apologise; it wasn't as if he'd actually pushed Sam off a cliff, after all…
Sam sat in shocked silence for a second, the little tape player that was his memory hitting rewind and play several times in quick succession, just to check he'd not misheard. "You pushed me off a cliff?" he echoed finally, trying to wipe the goofily disbelieving grin off his face without much success.
Dean frowned at him. "What's so funny?" he demanded, Sam's response to his awkward revelation not exactly what he'd expected. "I killed you, Sam!" he reiterated, wondering if somehow his brother had misunderstood what he'd just said.
Sam was grinning even more broadly. "I know!" he burst out. "How cool is that?"
Dean shook his head as if to clear his ears. "In what freaky alternate universe would my killing you ever be described as 'cool'?" he demanded, more than a little perturbed by his kid brother's attitude. He could at least pretend to be taking this seriously.
"Dean," Sam reached out and put a hand on his brother's shoulder. "You said it yourself: It was just a nightmare."
Dean shrugged. "You wouldn't be saying that if you'd had it…" he muttered.
Sam's smile faltered. "No," he agreed. "Maybe not." Then a sudden thought occurred to him. "You don't think that…?"
It was Dean's turn to laugh, although he didn't sound quite as convinced as he had intended to. "What are you, nuts?" he exclaimed. "You're Psychic Vision Boy, remember? I'm just Devilishly Handsome Sidekick."
Sam relaxed slightly, allowing the smile to return to his face. If Dean could joke about it, then he couldn't really be concerned. "So," he continued, leaning back on the bed. "This cliff. How big did you say it was?"
"I didn't," Dean returned. Then, "But it was way big, little brother. Even bigger than you. And it had some nasty, choppy water and big rocks at the bottom, just to complete the whole Nightmare Cliché look."
"And you did this why?" Sam dared to ask.
Dean frowned. "I dunno," he said truthfully. "I was chasing you. Then I pushed you."
Sam nodded thoughtfully. "That's pretty weird," he commented.
"That's exactly what I said," Dean agreed. He shuddered slightly, as if mentally shaking himself.
"Soooo…" Sam continued. "Maybe we should try to forget it. Get some more sleep." He glanced at his watch: 3.42am.
Dean nodded. "I guess," he agreed, almost reluctantly.
Neither of them moved.
"You first," Sam urged. "I don't want you watching me sleeping again."
Dean grimaced. "I was not watching you," he insisted, hoisting himself back into bed. "Besides, if I wanted to watch something pretty, I'd go look in the mirror."
Sam sniggered. "Go to sleep."
"OK, Grandma," Dean said, snapping off the light. "Have it your way. But there's no way I'm getting back to sleep now…"
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Three hours later, Dean awoke to the sound of computer keys insistently tapping out of time with artificially peppy voices and irritatingly catchy jingles for breakfast cereal.
Opening one eye warily, Dean immediately located the source of the tapping: Sam sitting on his bed with the laptop open on his knees, eyes flickering between the computer screen and the dilapidated old TV set in the corner. The ceaselessly chirpy anchorwoman was providing an inappropriately upbeat voiceover to accompanying scenes of hot, sweaty-looking locals lugging bottles and buckets to makeshift standpipes where they appeared to be queuing for water.
"…As the drought in the South Western states intensifies," the anchorwoman fairly sang. "Water rationing has become a daily fact of life in this small Nevada town…" she rambled on some more in her cheerily sing-song voice as images of bone-dry riverbeds and half-empty reservoirs flashed across the screen.
Dean tuned the TV out as he turned his attention back to his brother. "Don't tell me," he said, scratching his head as he stifled a yawn. "Multitasking, right?"
Sam didn't even look up from the computer screen. "New gig," he replied, bringing up a webpage and spinning the laptop in Dean's direction. "Take a look at this."
Dean squinted at the screen as he swung his legs out of bed and rubbed his eyes. "Sam," he said, glancing at the clock in the bottom right of the screen. "Only geeks of the highest order are up at 6.30 in the morning to check out the Weather Service website…"
Sam ignored the comment. "Weather map for Nevada," he said, bringing up what looked like a big orange splodge in the middle of the screen.
"Ooohkay…" Dean said slowly, scratching his head. "And I would be interested in this why?"
Sam pointed to a blue-green dot in the middle of the screen. "Because of this," he replied.
Dean frowned. "Bloodsucking vampire dot?" he asked. "Maniacal poltergeist dot? Dot possessed by the spirit of axe murderer…?"
Sam shook his head. "Rainfall," he explained, again choosing to ignore his brother's comments.
Dean shrugged. "My explanation was better…"
Sam continued as if Dean hadn't interrupted, indicating the orange area of the map. "Nevada hasn't seen any rainfall in three months," he said. "There's a major drought going on around there."
Dean shrugged, glancing back at the TV, which had cut to an interview with some ecology specialist who seemed to be prophesying the End of Days. "Not entirely unknown for Nevada," he said. "That's why they call it the desert."
"Right," Sam agreed, nodding. "But take another look at the Vampire Dot of Doom…"
Dean sniggered. Sam was so serious most of the time that when he actually let his dry sense of humour see the light of day it often took his brother by surprise. "OK, I'm looking," Dean obliged. Then, "So, what am I looking at again?"
"Stillwater, Nevada," Sam explained, pausing for effect before adding, "Where it hasn't stopped raining for five weeks."
"Huh," Dean nodded thoughtfully, squinting at the blue dot some more. "Five weeks?"
Sam nodded enthusiastically. "Five weeks," he confirmed. "While the surrounding area suffers its worst drought in fifty years." He waved in the vague direction of the TV, which was currently showing aerial photographs of a seriously depleted-looking Hoover Dam.
Dean raised a sceptical eyebrow. "I know we deal with freaks all the time," he said. "But freak weather? I dunno, Sammy. What makes you think this is our sort of thing?"
Sam raised a finger, like an over-excited professor. "This," he said, bringing up another webpage, this time for a Nevada news site, where the headline read, 'Third man dead in spate of drownings'. Toggling to another page on the same site, the Stillwater Herald proclaimed, 'Power company chief fourth victim of freak flooding'. Sam indicated this last report. "Six people in all," he said. "Two more after the guy who ran the local power plant."
Dean shifted himself so as to be able to read the copy of this last report. "The body of Thomas Bradshaw," he read aloud, "49, Chief of Operations at NevTech Power and Water, was today dredged from the bottom of Stillwater Creek, only a mile from the reservoir that he had struggled so hard to maintain over the last six years… yada yada yada…unconfirmed reports claim Mr Bradshaw may have jumped from Churchill Bridge… pressure of work… recent wide-scale drought… miraculous rainfall…". Dean continued to scan the page, before looking up at Sam who was waiting, expectantly.
Dean shrugged. "Guy threw himself off a bridge," he said. "Still doesn't make it our kind of deal."
"Six guys, Dean," Sam corrected. "Two found in the same stretch of river as Bradshaw, another two in the local reservoir, and another who seems to have just walked off of the dam…"
"Ouch," Dean said. "That's gotta hurt." He continued to gaze unseeingly at the webpage while his brain tried to wrap itself around possible causes of such weird behaviour, before looking back up at Sam. "So, you're thinking maybe some kind of vengeful spirit?" he asked. "Like the one at the lake in Wisconsin?"
Sam glanced at the computer, where a photograph of Thomas Bradshaw, a distinguished-looking African American man with an air of authority about him that just jumped out from the screen, stared back at him solemnly. "Maybe," he said, noncommittally.
"Nessie?" Dean offered, grinning.
Sam gave him an exasperated schoolteacher look while he tried to stifle a snigger. "It's got to be something to do with the weather," he said, thoughtfully. "It's too much of a coincidence. Six people drowned in the one place within a couple hundred miles that isn't baking on an open fire, the one place where it's not stopped raining since July…?"
Dean nodded, slowly. "OK," he agreed. "Pretty weird, I'll grant you." His eyes drifted back to the computer screen, where a photograph below the one of Thomas Bradshaw showed a wide-angled shot of a rain-soaked little town nestled in the middle of rocky hillsides, a swollen reservoir just about visible in the background, and he was for a second uncomfortably reminded of his dream of the night before.
I dream of rain, I get rain, he thought to himself, for one ridiculous moment tempted to bundle Sam into the Impala and drive as fast and as far away from Stillwater, Nevada as he possibly could, just in case he should be tempted to shove him off one of the cliffs in the area.
"Idiot," he muttered to himself, standing purposefully. "OK," he said, this time for Sam's benefit. "Nevada, here we come." He headed towards the bathroom, before stopping and turning back to face his brother with a wicked grin on his face. "I suppose a little detour to Vegas is out of the question…?"
