No spoilers, set in any season. Dean's POV.

Red Sky at Night

The sun is setting and the sky is a gaping wound, pools of red swirling out from beneath the clouds. I lay beneath it and I, too, am a mess of scarlet heat, blood rushing in my veins and head swimming in those brimming clouds. I'm trying to find my feet because I know that thing is coming back, and I know it will be angry. Problem is, I can't find the ground. I must be laying on it though because how else could I possibly be looking up at that seeping sky?

Okay so up is down. I mean, I'm down. I need to get up.

Gun.

I feel its cold metal brushing against my searching hands, trembling fingers. I feel skin that is not mine, a forearm exposed to the sinking sun.

Sam. Sam. It must be Sam.

Up. We have to get up.

I flip.

It is slow and painful and I probably make some noises I'm not proud of, but finally I am on my stomach, no longer facing that red, red sky. What's that saying? Red sky at morning, sailors take warning. Red sky at night, sailor's delight?

I'm not a sailor, and I don't need a warning. I've come to just expect the worst on a daily...or nightly basis. So far I'd say it's worked out pretty well. I'm still alive, after all. That might change though, if I don't get moving.

From this angle, it looks black, all sunken into the ground like that, but I know there is a different kind of red beneath me, a pool of it forming from the hole in my leg, the one in my side, the gash on my cheek, my forehead. A mess. I am a bleeding mess.

I think Sam is a bit better off. I can see him a little clearer from this angle on the ground (still on the ground. Get up, get up, get up). I push into the dirt with my hands, feeling it burrow beneath my fingernails until I can roll again and sit up. I look at the human-shaped lump lying on the ground beside me, shifting closer until I can find a steady pulse pumping beneath my fingers. I sigh.

Sam is fine.

Sam will be fine. Sam is bleeding but it's not bad. He got knocked out, but I clipped the thing before it could do any more damage. He's just knocked out cold.

Cold.

It is starting to get cold. Colder than it should be on a night like this. Which means…

Ghost.

It reappears with a halting flicker, like in one of those foreign films Sammy likes. Flicker, flicker across the screen; faces blurring black and white. He looks black and white, this ghost in front of me. Damon Perry was his name once, and he was a killer long before he was an angry spirit and long after he became one. Lots killed over the years before we found the story, followed the pattern, glued the pieces together and ended up here. Middle of a graveyard in a no-name town, same place we've been a million times before and it makes me wonder sometimes, this creeping thought that there's a giant hamster wheel I can't see because I'm too busy running on it, forever doomed to never move.

But I have to move. Right now. Because the millionth Damon Perry is here and he's flickering, taking shape just a few feet from where I sit on the ground. But luckily there's a gun in my hand and I get a shot off. Two shots before I hit my target, eyes squinting to find that vivid shape of a man and maybe I have a concussion because he was so close and two shots is one too many. But it works anyway and I hear his angry bellow as the rock salt finds its mark. He is gone again, at least for the moment.

Up.

This time I get up. It is a rocky, shaking ascent, but I find the support of the headstone I'd been thrown into not long ago and I make it to my feet, muscles vibrating inside my skin, gun still in my hand. One breath, two breath, another look at Sam on the ground, and I am moving for the open grave, the one belonging to one Mr. Perry, the one that still has several more shovelfuls of dirt to scoop out. It is a jagged, lilting limp of a walk, my bloody, ruined leg dragging out behind me all the while. I make it to the shovel and then down into the grave, this time a painful descent that sends shards of glass through my already shattered ankle. I force my bruised body to go through the motions I've memorized.

Dig. Dig. Dig.

I dig until I hit the casket, and I am about to open it, but suddenly my feet are no longer on the ground and I am flying again, up and out of the hole I've dug. If it wasn't so terrifying, it could almost be fun. Exhilarating. That's the word. Only problem is, there's that rule about going up and coming down, and I do not come down gently. Head meets ground and back meets terribly-placed rock and ankle flails above me and manages to meet another headstone and I cannot see past the streaming whispers of pain, the blackening tendrils of half-consciousness.

But I hear the gunshot.

Wasn't me this time, so Sammy must be awake. I listen to his heavy footfalls, those ginormous feet of his, and then here he is.

"Dean, you okay?" he asks, kneeling down, fingers brushing along the seams of my jacket, eyes wide and worried even as he holds his gun like a soldier, even as his gaze never stops scanning for the threat.

"Finish it," I growl, because I know I'll live and the job isn't done. He fusses for an extra moment, pushes his fingers into one of the gashes along my side until I let out a whimper, slapping his hand away.

"Sorry," he says.

"Sam, go finish it," I repeat, and he hesitates again even though he knows I'm right. He leaves my side reluctantly, just as the rest of my muddled vision rushes back to me, accompanied by a pounding headache. Definitely feels like another concussion. I roll onto my stomach and away from that red sky again, and I breathe deep with my forehead pushed into the soft earth, fingers digging in and breaking off uneven tufts of stubborn grass that won't quite release at the root. I am about to roll back the other way because I want to see the sky again, but suddenly there are strong hands pulling, pulling me up from the ground in a tangled mess of grunted huffs. He smells like smoke.

Smoke.

It is filtering out from that open grave, filtering out into crisp, open air. Damon Perry reemerges just in time to join that smoke, one more animalistic howl before he is lost, gone, done, vanished. Flicker flicker.

I hope it hurt.

"Come on now, come on," Sam pleads, and I realize it's not the first time he's asked. I am pinned to his side, almost a dead weight, but at his words I straighten as much as I can, try my best to carry some of the burden. No weight allowed on the mangled left foot, but we can move now. So we do, pushing past the gravestones, clinging to each other like that grass to the ground.

There is a fire behind us and there is a fire still burning in that red, red sky.

"Dean, come on," Sam says again when I turn to gaze up at it, blinking past the sticky remainder of blood that has settled and dried against my lashes. Red sky at night, hunter's delight.

Finally, I stop staring and start limping again, digging my fingers a little deeper into Sam's shoulder as we make our way back to the waiting Impala, a slow and steady and painful crawl. I collapse against the sleek, black frame of the car and Sam grunts as he pulls against my descent, trying to keep me upright as the last dregs of sunset pool out beneath our shadows. There is a motel not far away with two waiting beds and a static-y television set, and there is a first-aid kit that will get another use, and I think of that giant hamster wheel in the sky again, forever turning.

"Not our best work," Sam comments as he guides me into the passenger seat, shutting the door and making his way to the driver's side as soon as I've clambered clumsily inside. I reach for the keys in my jacket but Sam already has them, probably snaked from my pocket on the walk over in the likely event that I would still insist on driving. This time though, I don't. I just close my eyes at the familiar turn of the engine when Sam slides the keys into the ignition.

"Ghost is gone. Usually we call that a win," I shrug.

"Yeah well, usually a salt and burn doesn't end with a broken ankle," Sam chides, shifting into reverse.

"Just sprained, Sammy." That's probably a lie, but I don't feel like checking because said ankle has shifted from agonizing to just numb, and it's the best I can hope for at this point. I settle against the window, leaning my head against it and letting the coolness of the glass calm the pounding in my skull. Sam looks over at me and clucks his tongue.

"What?"

"Concussion too, huh?"

I roll my eyes, which sets off an unwelcome bought of nausea that pretty much answers that question. Sam nods, mostly to himself, and pulls the car back out onto the street, sliding easily in amongst the intermittent cars that qualify as evening traffic in this small town. The motel is only a few miles south and I welcome the thought of a familiar, thin mattress and a salt-lined door. Strange, the things I long for in these moments, so small and maybe sad by other people's standards of living. But it's what I'm used to, what I have always known. Wheel turning, turning. Sam looks at me again.

"You okay?" he asks.

I roll my head lazily in his direction, catching the final rays of the day's light as they reflect and then disappear inside his eyes. His hands latch easily onto the wheel as he drives and I know he is watching the road, but he is also watching me. Red sky at night...

I grin, letting my head tilt a little further towards the driver's side.

"Yeah, Sammy. I'm good," I say. I think I really mean it.

I must, because Sam nods again and he's smiling too.

He drives.

I keep my eyes open so that I can watch the world bleed out around us.

Just another one that's been sitting around for far too long, so I decided to post it at random. Hope the hiatus is treating everyone well. Happy Belated New Year! Reviews always appreciated.