By Minim Calibre<\/p>\n
Notes: this was originally written in email last Thursday night, and I’m finally getting around to posting… Tuesday. Heh. Such is my stupidly busy life of stupid business. Gen.<\/p>\n
The water’s lukewarm on his face, lukewarm and tinged with rust and dirt, smelling too much like the sweat of someone who’s crawled his way out of his own grave. Not exactly what he was going for there. Trading one nightmare for another’s not his idea of a deal.<\/p>\n
“Hot water tap’s busted,” he tells Bobby when he gets back to the table. “May want to look into that.”<\/p>\n
“Damn thing’s been dripping for years now, Dean. Never bothered you before.”<\/p>\n
“Yeah, well, it bothers me now.” And there’s an edge to it, a tone he didn’t mean to take but couldn’t help.<\/p>\n
“Look, boy, just because some thing claiming to be an agent of God pulled you outta hell, don’t mean you get to bitch about my plumbing when you’re taking up my spare room and emptying my fridge nightly.”<\/p>\n
“Forget it.” Dean shakes his head, hoping that’ll clear it and knowing it won’t. “You dig up anything new on our buddy Castiel?”<\/p>\n
“Nothing you haven’t already heard before. Got a few leads on some books, though.”<\/p>\n
“Leads. That’s… good.”<\/p>\n
“Dean, you feeling all right?”<\/p>\n
“Yeah, I’m fine. Just tired is all.” Sam’s gone out. Research, he said. Took the car. Four months. A lot can happen in four months. Something’s happened to Sam during those four months, only Dean’s still not sure what, and Sam’s sure not saying, and Dean’s not sure he wants to know. Hell, he’s not sure he wants to know what happened to him during that time.<\/p>\n
Not sure he has a choice in the matter, either. The flashes come more often now, every couple of hours. Nothing that makes sense, just disjointed images and bone-deep fear.<\/p>\n
He excuses himself after the next one hits, mutters that he needs to get some rest. Bobby just nods. They’ve been running on next to no sleep since they left (were left by) Castiel.<\/p>\n
The water’s still lukewarm, still doesn’t clear the last afterimage from his retinas. Nothing could, short of someone burning his eyes out.<\/p>\n
But that’s not going to happen. Dean closes his eyes and sees it again, the only thing that scares him more than the glimpses of what it was like in Hell: a mess of light and sound, bright and horrible, smothering and suffocating him like so many pounds of dirt caving in, as its shadowed wings unfurl.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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