ratherastory (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ratherastory) wrote2010-09-06 04:46 pm
ratherastory) wrote2010-09-06 04:46 pm
Entry tags:
Not the Demons You're Looking For (10/24)
Part 9
Part 10
Dean was out of his chair in a flash, stopped short when Sam held out a hand. “Dude, relax. I'm okay.”
His looks belied his words. He was sweating a bit, deathly pale, his whole face drawn with pain, and Dean could see his hands were still shaking, but he was upright and talking, and that was the important part. The marks where he'd scratched his face hard enough to draw blood stood out starkly against his skin, and Dean winced when he saw them. They'd have to clean those out before long, make sure they didn't get infected or scar.
“Jesus, Sab, scare a guy, why dod't you,” he kicked a chair in his brother's direction. “I thought you were goig to have a stroke or sobething.”
Sam let himself fall into the chair, leaned on the table, picked up the bottle of painkillers Andy had produced as though it was the answer to all his prayers. “You do have Tylenol. Awesome.” He glanced up as Andy handed him a glass of water. “Thanks.” He tipped four pills into his hand, swallowed them without hesitating. “You okay?” he directed the question at Dean, a glance allowing him to wordlessly take in the fact that Dean had borrowed one of his sweaters. Damn. He should have known that would be a dead giveaway.
He looked disbelievingly at Sam. “You wadt to kdow how I'b doig?” He shook his head. “Thad's rich.”
“That good, huh?”
He couldn't answer, an all-too-familiar tickle building at the back of his nose. Just awesome. Exactly what he needed to convince Sam that he was fine: another sneezing fit. He pinched his nose shut with as much force as he could muster, his eyes watering, but his breath hitched anyway, eyelids fluttering, and he began a mental run-down of every single swear word he knew, just because. “Heh... heh-ESH-uh! HEPKTSCH! Huh... huh-ISH-uh! HISCHUH!”
“Was it a... y'know, a vision?” Andy asked, and Dean could have kissed him for the distraction, except, of course, that was kind of gay, and it would be weird with someone Sam's age anyway. Sort of. Why the hell was he thinking that anyway? Had to be the NyQuil. God, being sick sucked ass.
Sam nodded carefully, as though he was afraid his head might fall off if he moved too fast. “Yeah.”
“You okay?” It was kind of cute, actually, the way Andy was dancing around the subject. Not that Dean used words like “cute,” ever, except maybe to describe puppies. Occasionally.
A careful shrug. “Yeah. Not exactly a picnic, but I'll live.” He glanced at Dean, gave him a rueful smile. “We're kind of a mess, aren't we?”
“Speak for yourself, freak-boy.” It wasn't the right reply, but damn it he felt like he'd been run over by a truck and he didn't need his giant freak of a little brother to remind him of it. Sam's face closed off, and Dean just didn't have the energy to deal with His Bitchiness tonight. Just... not after everything. Why the hell did everything have to be so complicated, anyway? “Did you see adything dew?” he asked instead, wishing the meds would kick in already.
“Actually, I did. I still didn't get that good a look at the woman, but I can probably narrow down the list some more. Also... I saw someone else there.”
That caught his interest. “Debod?”
“I don't know. Looked like a man, standing in the doorway. I could only see the silhouette, but it was definitely male. Hard to tell if he was possessed or not, though.” His face screwed up in frustration. “I still couldn't tell what was happening.” Unconsciously one hand reached up to one of the scratch marks near his temple, worrying at it.
Dean batted his hand away. “Dod't do that, you'll get it idfected.” He got to his feet, thankful that he was at least still steady on his feet. Who knew how long that would last? “Stay put. We should clead those out.”
He fetched the first aid kit from his duffle bag, hanging onto the railing going up and coming back down the stairs, feeling as though he was about eighty years old. With a long-suffering look Sam let him fuss, dabbing at the scratches with a cotton pad soaked in peroxide, while Andy looked on with a mixture of fascination, horror and admiration. Most of them were pretty superficial, but he applied butterfly sutures to the two deepest, which looked as though they would probably scar otherwise. While he was working the pizza arrived, and he was pretty sure he didn't see money exchange hands. Sam was too busy wincing under his ministrations to notice, which was probably a good thing, as otherwise both Dean and Andy would have had to deal with Bitchface # 47, which was Disapproval of the Taking Advantage of Others. It landed in roughly the same column as fake credit cards, insurance scams, and hustling pool. Dean had no problem with any of it, but it offended Sam's delicate sensibilities for some reason. Made Dean wonder just who had raised the kid to have those kinds of scruples.
The pizza was a meat-lovers' with extra cheese, and in spite of the fact that Dean couldn't taste much, it was warm and greasy and didn't hurt too badly when he tried to swallow it. By some unspoken accord they stopped talking about the case, mostly stopped talking entirely. Sam was somewhere else, Dean's throat hurt too much to really want to hold a long conversation, and Andy seemed pretty content not to talk. After two slices, Dean's stomach let him know just how much it didn't enjoy the combination of alcohol, pizza and NyQuil, and he called it quits, knowing that Sam was watching him anxiously. He wanted nothing more than to snap at him to quit it, already, except that Sam would give him that kicked-puppy look, and and then he'd feel even crappier than he did now. Snarling at Sam when Sam was already hurting was a guaranteed one-way trip to Guilt Town, population: Dean.
“I'g goig to turd id. We cad pick up where we left off toborrow,” he shoved his chair back under the table with maybe a little more force than was strictly necessary. At least the decongestant was starting to take effect. He felt a little light-headed, but that wasn't going to be an issue in a minute, when he'd be in bed, which was sounding awfully inviting right about now.
The stairs looked steeper than he remembered. He rolled his eyes at himself, jogged up without stopping just to prove he could, and regretted it when he doubled over in a fit of coughing, catching hold of the wall so as not to face-plant. Awesome. He sat down on the bed without bothering to switch on the light, scrubbed his hands over his face, sneezed wetly into the sleeve of Sam's hoodie. He allowed himself to list to the side, to put his head on the pillow, just for a second before he got ready for bed, he told himself.
The next thing he knew hands were prodding at him. Under normal circumstances he'd have had his knife buried up to the hilt in the offending party, but for one he felt sluggish and oddly disconnected from his body (stupid NyQuil), and for two he was pretty sure it was Sam. He tried to bat his baby brother's stupid gigantic hands away, grumbling a protest that he didn't think was very coherent, but there was no resisting Sam when he got determined. Sam manhandled him like he was little more than a rag doll, and the thought was vaguely insulting, only he didn't really have the energy to care. He let Sam pull his sweater and t-shirt over his head, shivering a bit as his bare skin came into contact with the chilly night air, balked at letting Sam take off his pants —some things a man really had to do for himself— didn't resist too hard when Sam tucked the blankets around him and then climbed into the bed next to him.
He sank back into his exhausted stupor, except that now he was partially awake and very aware of just how badly he was congested and just how hard it was to breathe. His whole body ached, his head and throat worst of all, and he wished he'd had the foresight to put a glass of water next to the bed. He tried not to cough too hard, knowing Sam needed sleep just as badly as he did if not more so, but his lungs had very different ideas on the subject. After twenty minutes of this he concluded that it was ridiculous to keep doing this, and he slipped out from under the bedclothes, grabbed a spare blanket from their gear, was about to sneak out of the room when Sam's voice stopped him.
“Where you going?”
Busted. “Sofa. Doh use id both of us speding the dight awake.” His breath hitched as he spoke, as though to illustrate his point. “HEPTSCHUH!”
Sam sat up, pulled back the bedclothes. “I'm up anyway. Don't be stupid. You'll freeze with just that blanket, and then you'll get even sicker.”
“I'b going.”
“Dean...”
He paused, not sure what he was hearing in Sam's voice. “It's just a cold, Sab.”
Sam was plucking at the blanket with one hand. “Would you... would you just stay? Please?”
The puppy dog eyes were not supposed to work if he couldn't see them in the dark, damn it. “I'll k-keep you up... hih... HEISHH! I'b hacking up a lung, here.” It sounded half-hearted, even to him.
“It's fine. I don't care.”
Sam sighed, obviously hesitating over something, and Dean suddenly had the firm conviction that if he didn't do something right now he was going to have to deal with his little brother insisting on some emo chick flick moment, and that was just about last on his list of things he wanted to do at that moment. He took the blanket with him, crossed the room back to the bed.
“Fide. But you dod't get to bitch toborrow that I wrecked your beauty sleep, got it? Shove over,” he nudged at Sam's legs with a foot, and his brother obligingly slid further away on the bed. He settled back down, pulled the new blanket around him, wedged himself against Sam's back, enjoying the warmth seeping from him. It was like having a living hot water bottle, which right now was just about the best thing ever.
He still slept badly. Somewhere around one in the morning the NyQuil stopped working, and he coughed and wheezed miserably until Sam got up, poured two glasses of water into him and fed him more decongestants, and he was too groggy to resist much. He tried to be quiet, but it was next to impossible, and if the cold wasn't bad enough he felt a pang of guilt with every cough that he was keeping Sam awake, Sam who'd all but had a stroke the previous day, who never got an unbroken night's sleep under normal circumstances, and then he felt even more wretched. He curled into a ball, closed his eyes, and prayed for the night to be over.
Part 11
Part 10
Dean was out of his chair in a flash, stopped short when Sam held out a hand. “Dude, relax. I'm okay.”
His looks belied his words. He was sweating a bit, deathly pale, his whole face drawn with pain, and Dean could see his hands were still shaking, but he was upright and talking, and that was the important part. The marks where he'd scratched his face hard enough to draw blood stood out starkly against his skin, and Dean winced when he saw them. They'd have to clean those out before long, make sure they didn't get infected or scar.
“Jesus, Sab, scare a guy, why dod't you,” he kicked a chair in his brother's direction. “I thought you were goig to have a stroke or sobething.”
Sam let himself fall into the chair, leaned on the table, picked up the bottle of painkillers Andy had produced as though it was the answer to all his prayers. “You do have Tylenol. Awesome.” He glanced up as Andy handed him a glass of water. “Thanks.” He tipped four pills into his hand, swallowed them without hesitating. “You okay?” he directed the question at Dean, a glance allowing him to wordlessly take in the fact that Dean had borrowed one of his sweaters. Damn. He should have known that would be a dead giveaway.
He looked disbelievingly at Sam. “You wadt to kdow how I'b doig?” He shook his head. “Thad's rich.”
“That good, huh?”
He couldn't answer, an all-too-familiar tickle building at the back of his nose. Just awesome. Exactly what he needed to convince Sam that he was fine: another sneezing fit. He pinched his nose shut with as much force as he could muster, his eyes watering, but his breath hitched anyway, eyelids fluttering, and he began a mental run-down of every single swear word he knew, just because. “Heh... heh-ESH-uh! HEPKTSCH! Huh... huh-ISH-uh! HISCHUH!”
“Was it a... y'know, a vision?” Andy asked, and Dean could have kissed him for the distraction, except, of course, that was kind of gay, and it would be weird with someone Sam's age anyway. Sort of. Why the hell was he thinking that anyway? Had to be the NyQuil. God, being sick sucked ass.
Sam nodded carefully, as though he was afraid his head might fall off if he moved too fast. “Yeah.”
“You okay?” It was kind of cute, actually, the way Andy was dancing around the subject. Not that Dean used words like “cute,” ever, except maybe to describe puppies. Occasionally.
A careful shrug. “Yeah. Not exactly a picnic, but I'll live.” He glanced at Dean, gave him a rueful smile. “We're kind of a mess, aren't we?”
“Speak for yourself, freak-boy.” It wasn't the right reply, but damn it he felt like he'd been run over by a truck and he didn't need his giant freak of a little brother to remind him of it. Sam's face closed off, and Dean just didn't have the energy to deal with His Bitchiness tonight. Just... not after everything. Why the hell did everything have to be so complicated, anyway? “Did you see adything dew?” he asked instead, wishing the meds would kick in already.
“Actually, I did. I still didn't get that good a look at the woman, but I can probably narrow down the list some more. Also... I saw someone else there.”
That caught his interest. “Debod?”
“I don't know. Looked like a man, standing in the doorway. I could only see the silhouette, but it was definitely male. Hard to tell if he was possessed or not, though.” His face screwed up in frustration. “I still couldn't tell what was happening.” Unconsciously one hand reached up to one of the scratch marks near his temple, worrying at it.
Dean batted his hand away. “Dod't do that, you'll get it idfected.” He got to his feet, thankful that he was at least still steady on his feet. Who knew how long that would last? “Stay put. We should clead those out.”
He fetched the first aid kit from his duffle bag, hanging onto the railing going up and coming back down the stairs, feeling as though he was about eighty years old. With a long-suffering look Sam let him fuss, dabbing at the scratches with a cotton pad soaked in peroxide, while Andy looked on with a mixture of fascination, horror and admiration. Most of them were pretty superficial, but he applied butterfly sutures to the two deepest, which looked as though they would probably scar otherwise. While he was working the pizza arrived, and he was pretty sure he didn't see money exchange hands. Sam was too busy wincing under his ministrations to notice, which was probably a good thing, as otherwise both Dean and Andy would have had to deal with Bitchface # 47, which was Disapproval of the Taking Advantage of Others. It landed in roughly the same column as fake credit cards, insurance scams, and hustling pool. Dean had no problem with any of it, but it offended Sam's delicate sensibilities for some reason. Made Dean wonder just who had raised the kid to have those kinds of scruples.
The pizza was a meat-lovers' with extra cheese, and in spite of the fact that Dean couldn't taste much, it was warm and greasy and didn't hurt too badly when he tried to swallow it. By some unspoken accord they stopped talking about the case, mostly stopped talking entirely. Sam was somewhere else, Dean's throat hurt too much to really want to hold a long conversation, and Andy seemed pretty content not to talk. After two slices, Dean's stomach let him know just how much it didn't enjoy the combination of alcohol, pizza and NyQuil, and he called it quits, knowing that Sam was watching him anxiously. He wanted nothing more than to snap at him to quit it, already, except that Sam would give him that kicked-puppy look, and and then he'd feel even crappier than he did now. Snarling at Sam when Sam was already hurting was a guaranteed one-way trip to Guilt Town, population: Dean.
“I'g goig to turd id. We cad pick up where we left off toborrow,” he shoved his chair back under the table with maybe a little more force than was strictly necessary. At least the decongestant was starting to take effect. He felt a little light-headed, but that wasn't going to be an issue in a minute, when he'd be in bed, which was sounding awfully inviting right about now.
The stairs looked steeper than he remembered. He rolled his eyes at himself, jogged up without stopping just to prove he could, and regretted it when he doubled over in a fit of coughing, catching hold of the wall so as not to face-plant. Awesome. He sat down on the bed without bothering to switch on the light, scrubbed his hands over his face, sneezed wetly into the sleeve of Sam's hoodie. He allowed himself to list to the side, to put his head on the pillow, just for a second before he got ready for bed, he told himself.
The next thing he knew hands were prodding at him. Under normal circumstances he'd have had his knife buried up to the hilt in the offending party, but for one he felt sluggish and oddly disconnected from his body (stupid NyQuil), and for two he was pretty sure it was Sam. He tried to bat his baby brother's stupid gigantic hands away, grumbling a protest that he didn't think was very coherent, but there was no resisting Sam when he got determined. Sam manhandled him like he was little more than a rag doll, and the thought was vaguely insulting, only he didn't really have the energy to care. He let Sam pull his sweater and t-shirt over his head, shivering a bit as his bare skin came into contact with the chilly night air, balked at letting Sam take off his pants —some things a man really had to do for himself— didn't resist too hard when Sam tucked the blankets around him and then climbed into the bed next to him.
He sank back into his exhausted stupor, except that now he was partially awake and very aware of just how badly he was congested and just how hard it was to breathe. His whole body ached, his head and throat worst of all, and he wished he'd had the foresight to put a glass of water next to the bed. He tried not to cough too hard, knowing Sam needed sleep just as badly as he did if not more so, but his lungs had very different ideas on the subject. After twenty minutes of this he concluded that it was ridiculous to keep doing this, and he slipped out from under the bedclothes, grabbed a spare blanket from their gear, was about to sneak out of the room when Sam's voice stopped him.
“Where you going?”
Busted. “Sofa. Doh use id both of us speding the dight awake.” His breath hitched as he spoke, as though to illustrate his point. “HEPTSCHUH!”
Sam sat up, pulled back the bedclothes. “I'm up anyway. Don't be stupid. You'll freeze with just that blanket, and then you'll get even sicker.”
“I'b going.”
“Dean...”
He paused, not sure what he was hearing in Sam's voice. “It's just a cold, Sab.”
Sam was plucking at the blanket with one hand. “Would you... would you just stay? Please?”
The puppy dog eyes were not supposed to work if he couldn't see them in the dark, damn it. “I'll k-keep you up... hih... HEISHH! I'b hacking up a lung, here.” It sounded half-hearted, even to him.
“It's fine. I don't care.”
Sam sighed, obviously hesitating over something, and Dean suddenly had the firm conviction that if he didn't do something right now he was going to have to deal with his little brother insisting on some emo chick flick moment, and that was just about last on his list of things he wanted to do at that moment. He took the blanket with him, crossed the room back to the bed.
“Fide. But you dod't get to bitch toborrow that I wrecked your beauty sleep, got it? Shove over,” he nudged at Sam's legs with a foot, and his brother obligingly slid further away on the bed. He settled back down, pulled the new blanket around him, wedged himself against Sam's back, enjoying the warmth seeping from him. It was like having a living hot water bottle, which right now was just about the best thing ever.
He still slept badly. Somewhere around one in the morning the NyQuil stopped working, and he coughed and wheezed miserably until Sam got up, poured two glasses of water into him and fed him more decongestants, and he was too groggy to resist much. He tried to be quiet, but it was next to impossible, and if the cold wasn't bad enough he felt a pang of guilt with every cough that he was keeping Sam awake, Sam who'd all but had a stroke the previous day, who never got an unbroken night's sleep under normal circumstances, and then he felt even more wretched. He curled into a ball, closed his eyes, and prayed for the night to be over.
Part 11