ratherastory (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ratherastory) wrote2010-08-22 02:23 pm
ratherastory) wrote2010-08-22 02:23 pm
Entry tags:
Not the Demons You're Looking For (4/24)
Part 3
Part 4
Whatever she might have been in life, Holly Beckett hadn't been all that wealthy. She owned her small house outright, which was something, but it was just that —a small house. There was only one guest bedroom, and there was only one bed in it, which Dean scowled at. At least it was a king-sized bed, so there'd be plenty of room for his oversized baby brother to stretch out without knocking Dean off the bed. Small mercies. Sam had called an end to the conversation once it was clear they were going around in circles, and had made a bitchface when Dean had polished off a fourth glass of Jack's, obviously just itching to tell his brother just how bad it was for him to drink while he was sick. Well, screw that. The whisky felt warm going down, and just for a few minutes helped with the scratchiness at the back of his throat. He tossed his duffel on the floor, stripped unceremoniously to his boxers, and waited for Sam to get into bed before crawling in next to him, yanking the bedclothes up over his shoulders.
If he'd been hoping for a good night's sleep —what was left of the night, anyway— he was disappointed. For one, it was really, but really hard to breathe with your nose clogged. He was forced to breathe through his mouth, and that made his throat hurt more, and the air burned in his lungs a bit. For a while he tried not to cough, worried about waking Sam, but it was a losing battle. Shit. Lousy freaking timing. In fact, the timing was absolute ass. This wasn't the time to be getting sick, not with people dying in freaky ways all over Oklahoma.
He buried his mouth and nose in a corner of the bedspread. “HGKFHH!” He'd never been particularly good at keeping his sneezes quiet —that was Sam's specialty— and tonight was no different, except that Sam was right there, apparently sleeping properly for the first time in, God, it had to be weeks, and at this rate he was going to wake him. “HKPFFH!”
Sure enough, he felt Sam stir next to him. “You okay?”
Well, the cat was out of the bag, so Dean let himself sneeze properly. Maybe it'd get rid of the damned tickling once and for all. “Yeah, f-fine... HEISTCH! HISHOO! EISHOO! Huh... HAPTSCHUH!” he curled in on himself, wishing desperately for a tissue, but he wasn't convinced he was done sneezing yet. “Hih... HEISHOO! HEPTSCHUH!” he felt the bed creak and shift, and then Sam was kneeling next to the bed right by his head, holding a handful of tissues. Maybe Sam had developed mind-reading powers and hadn't told him. “Thanks.” He pushed himself upright, blew his nose before his head exploded. “Sorry I woke you.”
Sam's nose crinkled in a wry smile, and he held up a small trash can for the tissues,. “Don't worry about it.” That was what Dean liked about the night: there was no more hovering, no more fussing, just... this. Sam knew when to stop pushing, and he'd always had this weird sort of sixth sense, knowing just what to do. During the day Sam turned into an emo overprotective pussy, but that was all right, too. Just so long as it didn't get in the way of the hunt.
“You'd just have ended up kicking me in your sleep anyway.” Sam ruined the moment.
“Bitch.”
“Jerk.” Sam poked him in the arm, then climbed back into the bed, settled under the covers with a contented sigh, and was asleep again in seconds, his back radiating warmth against Dean's side.
For a while Dean managed to doze off in spite of his aching throat. It really was a comfortable bed, way more comfortable than the crappy motel beds they'd been sleeping in, and definitely more comfortable than the Impala. His baby was everything to him, but she sure made a terrible bed. Sam always woke up cramped and in pain, and even Dean was beginning to find sleeping in the car hard on his joints. He wasn't even twenty-eight, and already his body was beginning to act like he was pushing forty. The price of getting thrown around by supernatural badasses. He started awake, his eyes trying to adjust to the pitch darkness of the room. It took a moment to identify what had awoken him, but when he did he felt his heart sink. Sam was curled almost in the foetal position, shaking, sweat trickling from his hairline. He was muttering under his breath, a steady stream of denials and pleas. The luminous red numbers on the digital clock told him it was just past four o'clock, which made it early instead of late. Cold comfort. Dean turned over, propped himself up on his elbow, and rubbed Sam's shoulder.
“Hey, Sam... c'mon, wake up. It's just a nightmare.” When Sam didn't react, he shook him a little harder. “Sam! Wake up!”
Sam's eyes flew open, and for a moment Dean thought for sure that he was going to lash out at him out of pure fear and adrenaline, but his expression cleared, and he relaxed, blowing out an exhausted-sounding breath. “I guess I woke you, huh?”
“Turnabout's fair play, bitch.”
Sam rubbed at his face, trying to clear the last of the nightmare from his mind. “Yeah, well, I'm sorry anyway.”
“Looks like neither one of us is meant to get any real sleep tonight. Uh... was the dream...” Dean hesitated, still uncomfortable with the whole situation.
“A vision?” Sam shook his head. “No, I'm pretty sure it wasn't. Just... the usual stuff.”
Which meant reliving Jess' death, over and over. Maybe with some extra stuff from their hunts thrown in, as far as Dean knew —Sam had stopped telling him anything about the nightmares a long time ago. Sometimes Sam talked in his sleep, and that's how he knew when he was dreaming about Jess, or about Dad, or about anything. Otherwise, he'd be in the dark completely, which alternately made him admire Sam and want to hit him, really hard, until the truth just leaked out like blood. As if Dean didn't have enough to worry about, between being Reason #1 that their father was dead, and his promise to his dying (though he didn't know it then) father that he'd look out for Sam before he turned to the Dark Side, or else... shit. He really didn't need this. He really, really wanted to hit something, but contented himself with patting his brother's stupid, stubborn head instead.
“Think you can go back to sleep?”
Sam nodded. “Yeah. It's not so bad.”
Although Dean was convinced he'd never get back to sleep, he managed to doze an extra couple of hours before his lungs seized up, forcing him out of bed before he woke Sam again. He stumbled into the hallway, coughing hard into a clenched fist, the other pressed up against his chest in a futile effort to quell the fit. Not surprisingly, he felt like ten miles of bad road, as Bobby would put it, congested and aching. A glance at his watch told him the night was pretty much done as far as he was concerned, and right now a shower sounded like the most spectacular idea in the world.
The bathroom was really nice. Holly apparently hadn't been one to skimp in that department, and Dean luxuriated in the hot water, turning it on all the way and letting it scour his skin. Good water pressure and lots of hot water were two of the things that made life worth living. He felt his neck muscles start to relax, and the fire in his lungs began to die down. The room filled up with steam, which definitely helped with the congestion. He braced himself against the tiled wall with one hand, breath hitching.
“Huh... HUISHOO! Sniff... huh... HEPTSCHUH! HISHOO! Uh... God... HEISTCH!” he wiped uselessly at his nose with the back of his wrist. “HPKTCHUH! Hiih-HISHTCHOO!” he coughed, gasping for air like a stranded fish, then finally leaned against the shower wall as the fit subsided. “This sucks,” he informed the universe.
He towelled off quickly, goosebumps forming on his skin, then wiped the steam from the bathroom mirror, and stared balefully at his reflection. Sam was going to be a real pain about this, he just knew it. He looked like he'd been hit by a truck —not literally. To hell with it. He opened the medicine cabinet, rummaged among the bottles. There were some old prescriptions, a packet of birth control pills (Andy obviously hadn't cleaned it out yet), but there was also a bottle of NyQuil, a whole lot of Tylenol and Advil, and some generic cold & sinus stuff for daytime use. He snagged the Tylenol and the generic stuff, washed them down with a drink of water directly from the tap, and figured that would at least keep Sam off his case for the next little while. He shaved, brushed his teeth, felt almost like a new man.
By the time he got back to the bedroom Sam was just beginning to stir. He tossed his wet towel at his brother's head, just for the sheer amusement of watching him thrash sleepily. “Rise and shide, Sabby!” he coughed as he pulled clean(ish) clothes out of his duffel bag, annoyed that he still sounded so damned congested. “There are bad guys out there who dod't wait for people to get their beauty sleep. Cobe od, get up! I'b buying breakfast.”
Sam threw the towel back at him and scowled. “For someone who sounds like he's got a clothes pin over his nose, you're sure in a good mood.”
“Found sobe cold pills id the bathroob. Be right as raid id do tibe... heh...” his head reared back, snapped forward again. “HEISHTCH!” He grabbed a tissue from the box Sam had left on the night stand, blew his nose. Sam was watching him intently, as though he was trying to look right through to his core, and Dean flushed with embarrassment. He tugged on his jeans, pulled a t-shirt over his head. “What? Quit looking at be like that.”
“Dean.”
There was a world contained in just that one word, and not for the first time Dean wondered where Sam acquired the ability to fit fifteen minutes' worth of lecture into exactly one syllable. It just wasn't fair, and it was annoying as hell, and so Dean decided that going on the offensive was his best defense. At least if he goaded his brother into action, he wouldn't have to deal with Sammy acting like a sollicitous stealth helicopter the whole day.
“Let's go, pridcess. Get cleaned up, we'll grab Andy, have sobe coffee, and figure out how we're going to handle this.”
Without waiting for Sam's answer, he strode back into the hall, and hammered on the door of Andy's bedroom. “Up and at 'em, Andy!” he yelled, then immediately regretted it as he doubled over in a fit of coughing. He cursed, pressed a hand to his chest, and spoke more quietly. “Let's go! Tibe's a-wastin'.”
He bounced down the stairs, settled in the kitchen with a glass of orange juice to wait for Sam and Andy. No way was he going to let a freaking cold get in the way of doing his work.
Part 5
Part 4
Whatever she might have been in life, Holly Beckett hadn't been all that wealthy. She owned her small house outright, which was something, but it was just that —a small house. There was only one guest bedroom, and there was only one bed in it, which Dean scowled at. At least it was a king-sized bed, so there'd be plenty of room for his oversized baby brother to stretch out without knocking Dean off the bed. Small mercies. Sam had called an end to the conversation once it was clear they were going around in circles, and had made a bitchface when Dean had polished off a fourth glass of Jack's, obviously just itching to tell his brother just how bad it was for him to drink while he was sick. Well, screw that. The whisky felt warm going down, and just for a few minutes helped with the scratchiness at the back of his throat. He tossed his duffel on the floor, stripped unceremoniously to his boxers, and waited for Sam to get into bed before crawling in next to him, yanking the bedclothes up over his shoulders.
If he'd been hoping for a good night's sleep —what was left of the night, anyway— he was disappointed. For one, it was really, but really hard to breathe with your nose clogged. He was forced to breathe through his mouth, and that made his throat hurt more, and the air burned in his lungs a bit. For a while he tried not to cough, worried about waking Sam, but it was a losing battle. Shit. Lousy freaking timing. In fact, the timing was absolute ass. This wasn't the time to be getting sick, not with people dying in freaky ways all over Oklahoma.
He buried his mouth and nose in a corner of the bedspread. “HGKFHH!” He'd never been particularly good at keeping his sneezes quiet —that was Sam's specialty— and tonight was no different, except that Sam was right there, apparently sleeping properly for the first time in, God, it had to be weeks, and at this rate he was going to wake him. “HKPFFH!”
Sure enough, he felt Sam stir next to him. “You okay?”
Well, the cat was out of the bag, so Dean let himself sneeze properly. Maybe it'd get rid of the damned tickling once and for all. “Yeah, f-fine... HEISTCH! HISHOO! EISHOO! Huh... HAPTSCHUH!” he curled in on himself, wishing desperately for a tissue, but he wasn't convinced he was done sneezing yet. “Hih... HEISHOO! HEPTSCHUH!” he felt the bed creak and shift, and then Sam was kneeling next to the bed right by his head, holding a handful of tissues. Maybe Sam had developed mind-reading powers and hadn't told him. “Thanks.” He pushed himself upright, blew his nose before his head exploded. “Sorry I woke you.”
Sam's nose crinkled in a wry smile, and he held up a small trash can for the tissues,. “Don't worry about it.” That was what Dean liked about the night: there was no more hovering, no more fussing, just... this. Sam knew when to stop pushing, and he'd always had this weird sort of sixth sense, knowing just what to do. During the day Sam turned into an emo overprotective pussy, but that was all right, too. Just so long as it didn't get in the way of the hunt.
“You'd just have ended up kicking me in your sleep anyway.” Sam ruined the moment.
“Bitch.”
“Jerk.” Sam poked him in the arm, then climbed back into the bed, settled under the covers with a contented sigh, and was asleep again in seconds, his back radiating warmth against Dean's side.
For a while Dean managed to doze off in spite of his aching throat. It really was a comfortable bed, way more comfortable than the crappy motel beds they'd been sleeping in, and definitely more comfortable than the Impala. His baby was everything to him, but she sure made a terrible bed. Sam always woke up cramped and in pain, and even Dean was beginning to find sleeping in the car hard on his joints. He wasn't even twenty-eight, and already his body was beginning to act like he was pushing forty. The price of getting thrown around by supernatural badasses. He started awake, his eyes trying to adjust to the pitch darkness of the room. It took a moment to identify what had awoken him, but when he did he felt his heart sink. Sam was curled almost in the foetal position, shaking, sweat trickling from his hairline. He was muttering under his breath, a steady stream of denials and pleas. The luminous red numbers on the digital clock told him it was just past four o'clock, which made it early instead of late. Cold comfort. Dean turned over, propped himself up on his elbow, and rubbed Sam's shoulder.
“Hey, Sam... c'mon, wake up. It's just a nightmare.” When Sam didn't react, he shook him a little harder. “Sam! Wake up!”
Sam's eyes flew open, and for a moment Dean thought for sure that he was going to lash out at him out of pure fear and adrenaline, but his expression cleared, and he relaxed, blowing out an exhausted-sounding breath. “I guess I woke you, huh?”
“Turnabout's fair play, bitch.”
Sam rubbed at his face, trying to clear the last of the nightmare from his mind. “Yeah, well, I'm sorry anyway.”
“Looks like neither one of us is meant to get any real sleep tonight. Uh... was the dream...” Dean hesitated, still uncomfortable with the whole situation.
“A vision?” Sam shook his head. “No, I'm pretty sure it wasn't. Just... the usual stuff.”
Which meant reliving Jess' death, over and over. Maybe with some extra stuff from their hunts thrown in, as far as Dean knew —Sam had stopped telling him anything about the nightmares a long time ago. Sometimes Sam talked in his sleep, and that's how he knew when he was dreaming about Jess, or about Dad, or about anything. Otherwise, he'd be in the dark completely, which alternately made him admire Sam and want to hit him, really hard, until the truth just leaked out like blood. As if Dean didn't have enough to worry about, between being Reason #1 that their father was dead, and his promise to his dying (though he didn't know it then) father that he'd look out for Sam before he turned to the Dark Side, or else... shit. He really didn't need this. He really, really wanted to hit something, but contented himself with patting his brother's stupid, stubborn head instead.
“Think you can go back to sleep?”
Sam nodded. “Yeah. It's not so bad.”
Although Dean was convinced he'd never get back to sleep, he managed to doze an extra couple of hours before his lungs seized up, forcing him out of bed before he woke Sam again. He stumbled into the hallway, coughing hard into a clenched fist, the other pressed up against his chest in a futile effort to quell the fit. Not surprisingly, he felt like ten miles of bad road, as Bobby would put it, congested and aching. A glance at his watch told him the night was pretty much done as far as he was concerned, and right now a shower sounded like the most spectacular idea in the world.
The bathroom was really nice. Holly apparently hadn't been one to skimp in that department, and Dean luxuriated in the hot water, turning it on all the way and letting it scour his skin. Good water pressure and lots of hot water were two of the things that made life worth living. He felt his neck muscles start to relax, and the fire in his lungs began to die down. The room filled up with steam, which definitely helped with the congestion. He braced himself against the tiled wall with one hand, breath hitching.
“Huh... HUISHOO! Sniff... huh... HEPTSCHUH! HISHOO! Uh... God... HEISTCH!” he wiped uselessly at his nose with the back of his wrist. “HPKTCHUH! Hiih-HISHTCHOO!” he coughed, gasping for air like a stranded fish, then finally leaned against the shower wall as the fit subsided. “This sucks,” he informed the universe.
He towelled off quickly, goosebumps forming on his skin, then wiped the steam from the bathroom mirror, and stared balefully at his reflection. Sam was going to be a real pain about this, he just knew it. He looked like he'd been hit by a truck —not literally. To hell with it. He opened the medicine cabinet, rummaged among the bottles. There were some old prescriptions, a packet of birth control pills (Andy obviously hadn't cleaned it out yet), but there was also a bottle of NyQuil, a whole lot of Tylenol and Advil, and some generic cold & sinus stuff for daytime use. He snagged the Tylenol and the generic stuff, washed them down with a drink of water directly from the tap, and figured that would at least keep Sam off his case for the next little while. He shaved, brushed his teeth, felt almost like a new man.
By the time he got back to the bedroom Sam was just beginning to stir. He tossed his wet towel at his brother's head, just for the sheer amusement of watching him thrash sleepily. “Rise and shide, Sabby!” he coughed as he pulled clean(ish) clothes out of his duffel bag, annoyed that he still sounded so damned congested. “There are bad guys out there who dod't wait for people to get their beauty sleep. Cobe od, get up! I'b buying breakfast.”
Sam threw the towel back at him and scowled. “For someone who sounds like he's got a clothes pin over his nose, you're sure in a good mood.”
“Found sobe cold pills id the bathroob. Be right as raid id do tibe... heh...” his head reared back, snapped forward again. “HEISHTCH!” He grabbed a tissue from the box Sam had left on the night stand, blew his nose. Sam was watching him intently, as though he was trying to look right through to his core, and Dean flushed with embarrassment. He tugged on his jeans, pulled a t-shirt over his head. “What? Quit looking at be like that.”
“Dean.”
There was a world contained in just that one word, and not for the first time Dean wondered where Sam acquired the ability to fit fifteen minutes' worth of lecture into exactly one syllable. It just wasn't fair, and it was annoying as hell, and so Dean decided that going on the offensive was his best defense. At least if he goaded his brother into action, he wouldn't have to deal with Sammy acting like a sollicitous stealth helicopter the whole day.
“Let's go, pridcess. Get cleaned up, we'll grab Andy, have sobe coffee, and figure out how we're going to handle this.”
Without waiting for Sam's answer, he strode back into the hall, and hammered on the door of Andy's bedroom. “Up and at 'em, Andy!” he yelled, then immediately regretted it as he doubled over in a fit of coughing. He cursed, pressed a hand to his chest, and spoke more quietly. “Let's go! Tibe's a-wastin'.”
He bounced down the stairs, settled in the kitchen with a glass of orange juice to wait for Sam and Andy. No way was he going to let a freaking cold get in the way of doing his work.
Part 5