Hello again! Thank you so much to everyone who reviewed, particularly Spooky Claire and Ani-Maniac494, who are still my favourite people:) I wasn't sure about that last chapter, so your support was very welcome.
Oh, and I just realised I'm supposed to do this, so: I don't own Supernatural, any of its characters etc. And I didn't when I wrote the other chapters, either.
000000000000000
After Sam left, Dean slumped back into his pillows, exhausted, rubbing a hand against his face. He ached all over, and his chest felt unpleasantly raw, as though it were still open for the entire world to see, not to mention full of stitches. Even with the pretty nurse's frequent visits, Dean thought the unchanging view of green walls and white ceiling would drive him insane if he had to look at it much longer. He closed his eyes to avoid it, and it was replaced swiftly by his father's face, contorted with hatred, eyes glowing yellow. His eyes flew open again, and he swallowed hard, pressing his palms against his eyelids.
Dean turned his head sideways, watching an unlucky night-shift nurse wandering past his room like a sleepwalker in the dimly lit corridor. There was little activity in the hospital at this time of night. He knew that he should be sleeping, that he needed to sleep in order to heal, but he was reluctant to make himself vulnerable to more unwanted dreams.
Reaching onto the small table beside his bed, he searched for reading material, and found a long outdated car magazine left behind by the room's previous inmate. It was dull, the kind of magazine which suggests practical family cars rather than describing anything exciting or interesting. Dean opened it, but he reached the bottom of a page without absorbing the subject of the article. He scanned back, wondering if he'd missed anything interesting, straining his eyes to read by the dim light filtering in through the blinds. After several minutes, he gave up, and slumped back down in the bed, wondering whether he could risk sleep. His eyelids were heavy.
The light from the corridor flickered, making the shadows on the bed move as if alive, and Dean was fully awake in an instant, looking around frantically. But now the light was back to normal. He frowned, reproaching himself for being so jumpy. Those damn fluorescent tubes flicker all the time. Nevertheless, he checked that his cell phone was easily within reach on the table before wriggling back down into the bed, wincing as the movement aggravated his fragile chest.
The light flickered again, and he jerked, startled. Then, for several seconds, he lay still, trying to will his heart rate to return to normal. All the time…there's no need to assume that it's…
A shadow moved, up in the corner of the room. Dean's head swung round abruptly, but there was nothing there. He exhaled slowly. Pull yourself together, Dean…
For several minutes, he lay tensed and unmoving, his eyes wide-open, watching the room for any further signs. Nothing. He swallowed. Then took a deep breath, told himself sternly to stop behaving like a girl, and decided to risk sleeping.
000000000000000000000
While his brother struggled to sleep, Sam was struggling not to sleep. Once again stationed in front of the laptop in the dingy motel room, Sam was gazing distractedly at a page of pagan blessings, his eyelids creeping downwards only to be forced open again. He groaned, blinked, and tried to focus.
A few minutes later, Sam was slumped forward over his keyboard, typing a long line of random letters into the search engine with his sleeping head.
000000000000000000000
Dean was asleep in his hard hospital bed, breathing evenly but not without effort. His face, lit by the split light filtering through the blinds, looked pensive, rather than peaceful: he was frowning slightly, as if he were dreaming.
Hisexpression seemed tochange suddenly, but it was just the effect caused by the light moving. Flickering, in fact. It continued to flicker, past the point where a normal fluorescent tube would have sputtered out.
In the doorway, the shadows started moving as well as the light, pulling together into one dense shadow, such thick darkness that it was almost tangible, like smoke. The smoke gathered even closer together, and formed into a shape – a figure – dark, hunched, and bizarrely solid for a man who, until recently, had been only a shadowy mist. Out of its eye sockets burned a sickly, yellow light.
The figure moved forward to stand over Dean, watching him intently. Dean stirred, his frown deepening, then opened his eyes a crack. Then he opened them all the way, drawing back in shock. And the figure laughed.
00000000000000000000
Sam jerked awake with a strangled yelp, springing to his feet. He took a moment to take in the implications of what he had just seen. His panicked gaze fell on the computer screen, which was still showing a variety of ancient pagan blessings and rituals.
And within five minutes, he was driving like a maniac, on his way to the hospital.
0000000000000000000
Somewhere in the back of his head, Dean knew he was dreaming. That he could open his eyes, and see the hideously coloured walls of his hospital room. That this had already happened, and fear was irrational, and the pain he felt was only remembered pain, so it shouldn't really hurt like this.
But his sleeping mind didn't listen to logic, so it hurt like hell, just as it had the last time.
'Dad, please…' he heard himself plead, before another spasm wracked his bleeding body and he slumped forward.
The part of him that knew he was dreaming knew also what ought to happen next, so it was surprised when, instead of fading back to their familiar dark brown, his father's eyes glowed a stronger yellow, and instead of whispering 'Stop it,' the face before him laughed.
It was that same part of his mind which warned Dean that it was time to wake up, and fast.
Dean had learnt reliable instincts from twenty-two years of dangerous living, and a feeling of wrongness filled him before he had even tried to open his eyes. As soon as he did, he was met with a view full of darkness, glowing at the centre with two point of yellow light. Oh, shit…
Automatically, he curled into himself protectively, drawing away from the creature as far as he could, but realising quickly that, once again, he was helpless before it, with nowhere to run, and no guarantee that he could run even if there were. The demon saw fear shining in his eyes and laughed softly, echoing the sound he had dreamed.
'This looks familiar,' smiled the thing, speaking hoarsely through lips which were a corpse-like shade of grey.
Dean shifted sideways, willing to fall out of bed if it would put some distance between him and this… thing. Its cold hand grasped him by the shoulder, and he shuddered at its clammy touch, trying futilely to pull away.
'Stop trying to escape: it's so pathetic, it's embarrassing,' hissed the demon into his ear, much too close to him, so that Dean could smell the stench of death on its breath.
'Why…' Dean asked it vaguely, stalling, his eyes searching for a panic button.
It laughed again, humourlessly. 'Because it's fun. Because you killed my children…' It leaned even closer, and Dean shrank away. 'And because we both know Sammy will be mine within a week without his big brother to keep him grounded.'
Dean growled wordlessly, and lashed out with a fist, anger adding strength which he shouldn't have had, considering the number of stitches holding his chest together. Not enough, though: the creature caught his arm easily in an icy hand.
Something constricted around Dean's throat, although the demon still appeared to be standing over him, unmoving. He gasped weakly, his windpipe burning, and his chest exploding with agony as it contracted desperately for air. Beside him, a monitor began beeping frantically, but Dean hardly noticed, lost in pain, black spots dancing in his vision. The night-shift nurse appeared in the doorway, looking horrified.
'Sir, what are you…?'
An invisible force pushed her away, and she staggered back, then stood swaying for several seconds and promptly fainted.
Oh, fantastic, Dean thought.
000000000000000
Sam didn't even stop to slam the car door when he arrived at the hospital. He ignored a shout telling him that he couldn't park there and sprinted into the reception area. A sleepy secretary told him that visiting hours were long over, and called after him angrily when he ran past her without word. Along the corridor, he heard a nurse's startled voice, cut off abruptly, and he rounded the corner in time to see her collapse.
Dean was choking, his eyes half closed, hands clawing at some invisible assailant at his throat. And the demon stood over him, smiling cruelly.
'Hey!'
It turned, lips curving into another grin. 'Hello, Sammy'
'Get away from him,' Sam ordered, advancing into the room, trying hard not to tremble violently enough for it to notice.
'Or what?' it asked sweetly. Dean made a wheezing sound; hisgasps were getting feebler by the second.
Sam produced a small bottle from under his jacket and unscrewed the lid swiftly.
'What makes you think that will work any better than it did last time?' sneered the demon.
Sam said nothing, but curled his lip in a grimace and stepped forward, splashing water over the creature's face.
An unpleasant blistering sound filled the air, and the demon hissed in rage. Dean stopped struggling, and gasped in a mouthful of air.
The demon stepped towards Sam with murder in its eyes, but he threw the last of the blessed water over it, and it stopped, twisting its mouth in fury, and dissolved into it's black smoke. Gone. For now.
000000000000000000000000
I'm very sorry, my chapters keep getting shorter. But, at least something happened in this one! Please review, say what you like, but say something!