dean-centric fic & art meme #8
So that fantastic, all-expenses-paid weekend getaway you had planned--you cancelled that, right? You're ready for this? BECAUSE I AM READY FOR THIS. MY BODY IS READY FOR THIS. In anticipation of S9, let's pour some chum in the waters. Bring on the Dean!pain (and comfort!). >:D
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It sounds like someone shooting.
In his head.
Dean jerks awake, same as last time, his hand grabbing for the nearest weapon before he can register that, oh yeah, this has happened before. He knows what this is. He relaxes his grip on the gun on his bed side table, eases himself back down onto the pillow and tries to will his heart to stop pounding so he can go back to sleep.
That's what this is, after all. It's just his stupid, fucked up head telling him he's not sleeping enough. The only thing to do about it is just to, as SLJ and that children's book so helpfully put it, go the fuck to sleep.
DEAN.
He shoots up again, hand slamming back down on the grip of his pistol. That wasn't any fucking "sleep start". That wasn't a random banging in his head, that was his name, and it was being called really fucking urgently.
In his head.
Hand still on the gun, he eases sideways, reaching for the switch for his bedside lamp. The trouble with a bunker is, so much of it is underground. His room doesn't have any windows, and thanks to the 1950s chic decor, it doesn't even have a friendly digital clock to break the gloom.
Too much gloom. If he hits the light switch, it'll just blind him first, and then he won't be able to see whatever the fuck it is coming. His hand goes to his phone instead, and closing his eyes for a moment to keep from blinding himself when he wakes it out of sleep mode (does the phone get head explodey? fuck, he's still way too asleep, here if he's wondering about that) and aims it at the door.
It could just be the way the dim light of the cellphone's home screen fucks with the shadows -- it's really probably just fucked up shadows -- but for a split second, Dean could swear he just saw someone fucking standing in his doorway.
*
By the time Sam gets up in the morning, Dean's searched the entire bunker by the light of his cellphone and is camped out in the library with his three favorite guns and the fucking scimitar.
*
"It's not just explosions," Sam says. "It can be any noise, really. It's just sudden and loud and most importantly, it only exists in your head."
"Yuh-huh," Dean says. He's still holding the scimitar. "Because there's always a totally rational, wiki-able explanation when something fucked up suddenly starts happening to us."
Sam sighs and starts clicking away at the laptop again. "Would it make you feel better if I slept in your room tonight?"
"Jesus, Sam, I'm not five. I don't need to spend the night with Mommy because I heard a scary noise."
"So . . . yes, then."
Fuck.
*
"I just want you to know, I find the fact that your security blanket is a 1911 Colt pistol to be both disturbing and adorable."
"I hate you, Sam."
*
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"Fuck!" He starts so hard his feet slam against the library table. Charlie lets out a startled squeak, and even Sam ends up going for his gun, while Dean shoves himself back from the table, burying his head in his hands. "Fuck. Sorry. Fuck. Did you guys just hear -- no, of course you didn't. Fuck."
". . . Dean?" Sam asks. Dean can't see it -- he still hasn't developed the ability to see through his own hands -- but he's pretty sure Charlie is staring at him all tight concern lip and girl-puppy eyes.
"The fucking." Dea gestures around the top of his head. "Thing. Like someone dropped a metal chair. From the Space Needle." He glances up, and sure enough, Charlie is looking between Sam and Dean in full worried little-sister-figure mode. Sam just looks . . . pissed.
"Dude. You fell asleep in the middle of research?"
"What?" It's Dean's turn to look annoyed. "Fuck no, jesus, Sam."
"It's a sleep start, Dean. That means it happens when you're falling asleep."
"Yeah, well, then that isn't what the fuck this is, then, is it."
"Auditory hallucinations could be the sign of a lot of things," Charlie offers. "Strokes or tumors or mental illness. . . ." She trails off as both Sam and Dean turn to stare at her. "Or, you know, curses or evil demons or things you guys can go smash on."
Dean rubs both hands over his head, linking his fingers against the nape of his neck and squeezing, trying to stave off the headache he already knows is coming. "It's not hellhounds," he says, because there's no mistaking the noises they make. "And it's not ghost sickness." He's not itchy or coughing up mysterious materials and they've miraculous avoided coming into contact with the bodily fluids of dead people for weeks, now. "And it sure as hell better not be angel radio."
The look on Sam's face says he still thinks it's Dean taking a stealth nap, but he nods anyway. "Okay," he says. "We'll get it figured out."
*
DEAN.
Dean sits at the end of his bed. It's 4:17 AM according to his cellphone, and he isn't even pretending to try to sleep.
"What?"
A crash. DEAN.
"Yeah, I'm listening, okay? What?"
His ears start ringing. It almost sounds like Ave Maria as played in electronic feedback. Dean pulls his feet up onto the bed and rests his arms on his knees, and tries to think about anything but the noises in his head.
*
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Sam looks up from the sprawl of books. "Dude. You look like shit. How long has it been since you slept?"
Dean frowns down at his empty coffee mug. "Uh. What day is it?"
DEAN.
"Shut up," Dean says to his left.
"I didn't say anything," Charlie says. She's surrounded by her own sprawl, hers of electronic screens.
"That's it," Sam says. "I'm getting you sleeping pills."
Dean nods. "Okay."
"No arguing, Dean. I mean it."
Dean sighs. "I said okay, Sam."
"Oh." Sam has the grace to look a little sheepish. "I thought maybe you were answering something else."
*
Dean's dreams are filled with explosions. Dirt and fire flying all around him as he struggles forward through sand slicked with blood. It's like the opening sequence of Saving Private Ryan, only he's the only soldier on the beach, the only thing the enemy's aiming at. And someone keeps shouting his name, demanding it, over and over and he can't see them through all the smoke and blood and debris and he just wants to wake up, he has to wake up, before the bombs actually hit him, before the wailing of the incoming cannonballs playing Bach drive him deaf and insane.
"What?" he screams, an insignificance against the buffeting wall of sound coming at him from every angle. "WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?"
And just like that, it all goes silent. The ground still fountains upwards with the impact of incoming artillery, and smoke keeps pouring down from shells exploding in the air above him, and the world still shakes beneath him with the same bass beat of whatever was calling his name, but everything is blessedly, terrifyingly silent.
Dean can't hold himself up against the combined relief not to be battered by the noises any more and the creeping horror that he's gone completely deaf. He sinks to his knees in the sand. With his eyes closed, he can't feel the bursts of displaced air any more. He doesn't feel the world shake. It's just quiet, and dark, and still.
*
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Dean wakes slowly, really slowly, for the first time since he stopped taking the painkillers for his busted leg back when they were still trying to figure out what the leviathans were up to. His mouth is dry, and the air smells like gun oil and burnt sage. It's dim, but not dark, a faint red glow comes through his eyelids, and it takes several moments before he figures out that he can hear himself breathing.
He hates that, normally. Once he notices it, he can't stop listening to it, the faint whoosh of air through his nostrils, circulating around in his sinuses. Not until something comes along to distract him. It's almost as bad as when he realizes he can hear Sam breathing -- not at night, not when he's worried, just every day, when it's quiet in the car or they're at a diner waiting for food. At least when it's his own breath, he can hold it for a little while.
He can hear Sam breathing.
"I know you're awake, Dean," Sam says. "Holding your breath is kind of a giveaway."
Dean blinks his eyes open slowly. "Wasn't tryin' to preten'," he says. It's hard -- his tongue is faintly sticky, the way it gets when he has a cold and has to sleep with his mouth open. His whole face feels thick, and he knows it's the remains of the sleeping pill, slowing everything about him down. "Shouldn' let you drug me."
"Yeah," Sam says. "Even Charlie realized that wasn't a good sign." He pats Dean on the arm once, then leaves his hand there, a great comforting weight on Dean's bicep, like a thick, warm blanket. "Gave us time to figure it out without you yelling all the time, though."
"Fuck was it?"
"Spirit," Sam says. "Must've latched onto you on that last hunt. Not sure how it got through all the protections the Men of Letters setup, but Charlie smudged the place while I went and did the salt and burn, and it seems to have done the trick." He tips his head at Dean, worry dragging on his eyebrows. "Right? No more exploding head?"
Dean nods, closing his eyes again, "No more exploding head. Think I noticed, even. Ave Maria."
"He was an opera singer," Sam says. "Get some rest, man. I'll be right here if you need me."
Dean nods again, not bothering to reopen his eyes. It's quiet, even with noticing his and Sam's breathing, and it feels so good after days of yelling and crashing and feedbacked tenors that he can already feel himself sinking back into sleep.
He can tell Sam the other part later. About how the voice calling his name, that insistent beat of DEAN. DEAN. DEAN. wasn't any dead opera singer.
That that voice Dean had recognized immediately.
It was Sam's.
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There are few things I dislike as much as not being able to get to sleep and having it be because things are exploding in my head would move it to the top of my dislikes list. Poor Dean. Still..."Yuh-huh," Dean says. He's still holding the scimitar. "Because there's always a totally rational, wiki-able explanation when something fucked up suddenly starts happening to us." LOL.
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I totally have exploding head syndrome, and it's actually nbd, but maaaaaan it's fun to play with in a fictional environment (and it is SUPER creepy when the explosion takes the form of actual words).
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I'm glad you liked it! And thanks for the prompt that got me writing 2300 words of fic at 4-freaking-AM. ;D
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"Yeah, I pretty sure most people who get this don't just assume the world's ending. That part's probably just you. oh, boys
This was amazing and creepy for real, like, woah--maybe it's because when I'm falling asleep I very frequently hear weird half-dreamt music followed by somebody yelling for me? PROJECTION! :P For real, though, this was excellent.
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Stupid sunrise, being all red and such. . . .
I'm glad you liked it!
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Cheers?
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LOVE THIS FIC.
MADE ME FEEL A LITTLE CRAZY.
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