Not the Demons You're Looking For (19/24)
Part 18
Part 19
Dean wasn't sure how long he slept. What he was sure of was that he was running a fever, which meant that Sam was right (again), and that he was never going to hear the end of it. The only thing that sucked worse than being sicker than the proverbial dog was having Sam be right about how sick he was. He couldn't remember feeling this bad in years, at least not from something that wasn't rooted in the supernatural. He'd broken bones, had more than his fair share of concussions, been electrocuted and nearly died, had had pretty much every manner of injury you could think of doing a job like this, but illness was something that just didn't happen to him. If he'd had the energy, he would have felt kind of insulted at being so very thoroughly knocked on his ass by a virus. He'd had colds, of course, and they had an annoying habit of morphing into sinus infections (and Sam was right about that too, damn him), but he usually managed to shake them off without too much trouble. This whole business of having to go to bed before it was even dark out was a lot for his pride to take.
He dozed on and off, plagued with fever-dreams that had him wandering in circles in the dark, trying frantically to find Sam, who he was sure had been with him only moments before. Other times he was ten years old again, still looking for Sam, whom he'd lost in a forest. Every time, though, he grew more and more frightened, convinced that there was something evil waiting for them both not far away, and as long as he wasn't with Sam he couldn't protect him. After the fourth time he came awake with a start, sweat drenching his borrowed pajamas as well as the sheets, heart hammering, he forced himself up, sitting on the edge of the bed, breathing as hard as if he'd just run ten miles. Andy slipped into the room just as he tried to tug off the pajama top, and hurried over.
“Hey, you shouldn't be up just yet.”
He shook his head, regretted it when the room swam. “Dot gettig up. Too hot.” He fumbled with the buttons, swore under his breath, sneezed wetly into his hands. “HHISHOO!”
“Bless. If I help, do you promise not to rip my arms out of their sockets?”
Dean looked up at him, felt his face break into a grin in spite of himself. “Ab I thad bad?”
“Pretty much,” Andy took his cue, unfastened the buttons and helped him out of the damp fabric. He nudged Dean gently back onto the bed, and his expression was so like Sam's -all focussed and worried- that Dean decided not to fight him on it. The raging headache was something of a motivating factor, too. Andy pressed more Tylenol into his hand, handed him a glass of water, watched expectantly until he swallowed all of it. “Well, you're not being nearly as difficult as Sam said you might, so I suppose I should be thankful.”
“Sbartass. I'b goig to kill hib.” He turned his head to sneeze into the crook of his elbow, his hands being otherwise occupied with the water and Tylenol. “HHEISHH!”
“Bless. Always with the violence. Bad for the blood pressure, you know. Hang on,” he disappeared through the door for a few moments, returned with a wet facecloth and perched next to Dean. “Don't fight me on this, 'kay?” He folded the cloth in half, then in half again, then carefully placed it on his forehead. “It'll help keep your fever down, keep your brain from boiling like an egg.”
Dean squirmed a bit as water trickled into his hair, but he had to admit it felt good to have something counteract the heat and headache, and he felt himself relax with a soft sigh. He didn't even bother moving away when Andy picked up the washcloth again and wiped the sweat from his face, although he did mutter about the cold.
“It's meant to be cold. Hold still.” Andy worked the washcloth down over his neck and shoulders, trying to keep the fever at bay. “Didn't anyone ever do this for you before?”
“Sab, sobetibes.”
“I'm guessing you don't cooperate nearly as nicely with him.”
“He's dot as good with his hads,” he said, enjoying Andy's furious blush and look of discomfiture. He laughed, immediately regretted it as his lungs protested. “You bight be eved bore of a girl thad he is. Relax. I'b kiddig. Jeez.”
“Stop talking. You're making my throat hurt just listening to you.”
“Jusd l-ligke S-Sab... HEPTSCHUH! Hih... HEKSCHUH!”
“Bless. Please try to sleep. Sam will kill me if I let you get any worse, and while he's not as scary as you, he's still like three feet taller than me.”
It sounded like a pretty good idea, all told. He let his eyes close, felt Andy pull the blankets back up, and leave the washcloth folded over his eyes. Part of him was still protesting that he was fine, that he didn't need any of this, that he should probably be sucking it up and going to help Sam, but the rest of him just wanted to become part of the bed and never move again. He didn't hear Andy leave, didn't even realize when the Tylenol kicked in again and let him fall asleep.
Andy came and went like a ghost. Not the nasty vengeful-spirit type of ghost, thank goodness, but more like Casper-the-friendly-ghost, all helpful and considerate. Mostly he left Dean alone, but every so often he'd nudge him awake to take more Tylenol, and once he made him sit up and drink a whole mug full of some nasty-tasting lemon-flavoured crap, which actually felt pretty good going down. The fever spiked later in the evening, and Andy started the whole process with the washcloth again while Dean sweated and cursed under his breath, his chest tight with congestion, unable to find a comfortable spot in the bed.
“Sam told me I should let him know if you got worse. Are you sure you don't want me to call him?”
He shook his head. “Dothig he cad do. It's fide.”
“Fine isn't the word I'd use. You sound like a nineteenth-century sanatorium.”
“Your bedside madder sugks,” he wheezed, turned to sneeze into his pillow. “HPKSHH!”
“Bless. And I never said I was Florence Nightingale. Go back to sleep.”
He did slide back into a restless sleep after that, plagued by more nightmares, barely aware of when Andy came in to check on him, tossing uncomfortably and wishing very hard that every part of his body didn't ache quite so much. Reality blurred into his dreams, people and faces appearing and disappearing with alarming regularity. Once he thought he caught sight of his father standing at the foot of the bed, which shocked him so thoroughly that he was on his feet and on the other side of the room before he realized it wasn't real, heart hammering against his ribs, sweat trickling down the sides of his face. He caught himself on the wall, suddenly light-headed, barely kept himself from falling over before he made it back to the bed. Awesome. This was going really well. He collapsed back onto his pillow, coughing and generally praying for a quick death. Dead people didn't feel this crappy, he was sure of it. He threw an arm over his face, willing himself back to sleep, and eventually his thoughts stopped spinning out of control and sank into darkness.
The next thing he knew he was back at Lesley's, standing on the front lawn, the rain pelting down in sheets.
“I know you're here!” he yelled, eyes scanning the area. “Come on out!”
There was a faint tremor of laughter, but the yellow-eyed demon stayed frustratingly invisible. Dean broke into a run, searching outside the house, screaming at the yellow-eyed bastard to show himself, to quit running and hiding like a pussy, the rain all but blinding him. A flash of light came from one of the windows, and his blood ran cold as he realized that it must have broken through Sam's defences, that it was even now in the house. He sprinted toward the front stairs, taking them two at a time, and threw himself against the door, shouldering it open. The baby was wailing at the top of its lungs, and above the high keening he heard the sound of a woman shrieking in terror. He made it halfway up the stairs to the nursery when he was driven back by a wall of flame, and he threw a hand up in self-defence, kept trying to force his way past the flames, to no avail.
“Sam!” he shouted, blinded by the fire. “Sam!”
He came awake with a jolt, nearly knocking over Andy, who'd materialized at his side somehow without his ever realizing it. “Woah! Easy, there. It's a bad dream, that's all,” Andy put out a hand to steady him. “It's okay.” Before Dean could react, he put his hand up to feel his forehead. “Jesus, you're burning up. How are you even upright?”
He sucked in a painful breath, trying to sort out what was nightmare and what reality, became aware that he was shaking as though he was palsied. “We have to go.”
“What? No.” Andy tried to push him back down onto the bed. “You're delirious. You have a fever, and we don't have to go anywhere, I promise. It's just the fever making you not think straight, okay? Fever. Lie back down, please. Please!”
He threw off the covers, swung his legs over the side of the bed, leaned heavily on his hands, head down as he fought aside a wave of dizziness. “Doh, I'b okay. Okay, I'b dot exactly okay, but I'b dot delirious. Help be up. We have to go, trust be od this.”
“Okay, no. A minute ago you were out of your mind, raving about demons and fire and yelling for Sam. You also nearly broke my nose with your flailing. You're sick. You need to stay put.”
He shook his head, frustrated. “You're dot listedig. Sobethig's wrogg, I cad feel it.”
Andy shoved at him ineffectually. “Please don't make me whammy you back into bed. I want to keep living, and the minute you're back on your feet you're going to rip my liver out past my tonsils.” When Dean ignored him he tried a different tack. “Okay, okay. Please please please just don't get up,” he wheedled. “I'll go get the cordless phone from the bedroom, and you can call Sam and he'll tell you he's fine. How about that?”
Dean let his head sink into his hands. “Okay. Just... hurry up.”
Andy scrambled out of the room, and Dean heard him picking up the phone and dialling. There was a pause. “Hey, Sam? It's Andy. Yeah, look,” he came back into the room, “uh, Dean kind of... no, no he's fine. He just... he got worried, so I thought I'd call so you can talk to him, okay? … Yeah, okay. Hang on, I'll give him the phone.” He handed the receiver to Dean. “He's fine.”
“Sab?”
“Dean, what's wrong?” Sam sounded worried.
“You okay?”
“I'm fine. It's taking longer than I thought to get things secured here. Seriously, are you okay?”
“Yeah. Look... sobethig's dot right. I'be got a bad feelig, ad I hate it whed I get bad feeligs, it dever beads adythig good. Are you dearly dode?”
“What do you-” there was a pause, and Dean heard something in the background that he couldn't quite identify. “Dean, I have to call you back.”
“Sab? Sab! What's goig od? Sab, adswer be! Sab!” he broke into a fit of coughing, and when he caught his breath all he could hear on the other end of the line was a muffled shout.
Then the line went dead.
Dean almost dropped the phone in his haste to get up. “Addy! We have to go dow!”
Part 20
Part 19
Dean wasn't sure how long he slept. What he was sure of was that he was running a fever, which meant that Sam was right (again), and that he was never going to hear the end of it. The only thing that sucked worse than being sicker than the proverbial dog was having Sam be right about how sick he was. He couldn't remember feeling this bad in years, at least not from something that wasn't rooted in the supernatural. He'd broken bones, had more than his fair share of concussions, been electrocuted and nearly died, had had pretty much every manner of injury you could think of doing a job like this, but illness was something that just didn't happen to him. If he'd had the energy, he would have felt kind of insulted at being so very thoroughly knocked on his ass by a virus. He'd had colds, of course, and they had an annoying habit of morphing into sinus infections (and Sam was right about that too, damn him), but he usually managed to shake them off without too much trouble. This whole business of having to go to bed before it was even dark out was a lot for his pride to take.
He dozed on and off, plagued with fever-dreams that had him wandering in circles in the dark, trying frantically to find Sam, who he was sure had been with him only moments before. Other times he was ten years old again, still looking for Sam, whom he'd lost in a forest. Every time, though, he grew more and more frightened, convinced that there was something evil waiting for them both not far away, and as long as he wasn't with Sam he couldn't protect him. After the fourth time he came awake with a start, sweat drenching his borrowed pajamas as well as the sheets, heart hammering, he forced himself up, sitting on the edge of the bed, breathing as hard as if he'd just run ten miles. Andy slipped into the room just as he tried to tug off the pajama top, and hurried over.
“Hey, you shouldn't be up just yet.”
He shook his head, regretted it when the room swam. “Dot gettig up. Too hot.” He fumbled with the buttons, swore under his breath, sneezed wetly into his hands. “HHISHOO!”
“Bless. If I help, do you promise not to rip my arms out of their sockets?”
Dean looked up at him, felt his face break into a grin in spite of himself. “Ab I thad bad?”
“Pretty much,” Andy took his cue, unfastened the buttons and helped him out of the damp fabric. He nudged Dean gently back onto the bed, and his expression was so like Sam's -all focussed and worried- that Dean decided not to fight him on it. The raging headache was something of a motivating factor, too. Andy pressed more Tylenol into his hand, handed him a glass of water, watched expectantly until he swallowed all of it. “Well, you're not being nearly as difficult as Sam said you might, so I suppose I should be thankful.”
“Sbartass. I'b goig to kill hib.” He turned his head to sneeze into the crook of his elbow, his hands being otherwise occupied with the water and Tylenol. “HHEISHH!”
“Bless. Always with the violence. Bad for the blood pressure, you know. Hang on,” he disappeared through the door for a few moments, returned with a wet facecloth and perched next to Dean. “Don't fight me on this, 'kay?” He folded the cloth in half, then in half again, then carefully placed it on his forehead. “It'll help keep your fever down, keep your brain from boiling like an egg.”
Dean squirmed a bit as water trickled into his hair, but he had to admit it felt good to have something counteract the heat and headache, and he felt himself relax with a soft sigh. He didn't even bother moving away when Andy picked up the washcloth again and wiped the sweat from his face, although he did mutter about the cold.
“It's meant to be cold. Hold still.” Andy worked the washcloth down over his neck and shoulders, trying to keep the fever at bay. “Didn't anyone ever do this for you before?”
“Sab, sobetibes.”
“I'm guessing you don't cooperate nearly as nicely with him.”
“He's dot as good with his hads,” he said, enjoying Andy's furious blush and look of discomfiture. He laughed, immediately regretted it as his lungs protested. “You bight be eved bore of a girl thad he is. Relax. I'b kiddig. Jeez.”
“Stop talking. You're making my throat hurt just listening to you.”
“Jusd l-ligke S-Sab... HEPTSCHUH! Hih... HEKSCHUH!”
“Bless. Please try to sleep. Sam will kill me if I let you get any worse, and while he's not as scary as you, he's still like three feet taller than me.”
It sounded like a pretty good idea, all told. He let his eyes close, felt Andy pull the blankets back up, and leave the washcloth folded over his eyes. Part of him was still protesting that he was fine, that he didn't need any of this, that he should probably be sucking it up and going to help Sam, but the rest of him just wanted to become part of the bed and never move again. He didn't hear Andy leave, didn't even realize when the Tylenol kicked in again and let him fall asleep.
Andy came and went like a ghost. Not the nasty vengeful-spirit type of ghost, thank goodness, but more like Casper-the-friendly-ghost, all helpful and considerate. Mostly he left Dean alone, but every so often he'd nudge him awake to take more Tylenol, and once he made him sit up and drink a whole mug full of some nasty-tasting lemon-flavoured crap, which actually felt pretty good going down. The fever spiked later in the evening, and Andy started the whole process with the washcloth again while Dean sweated and cursed under his breath, his chest tight with congestion, unable to find a comfortable spot in the bed.
“Sam told me I should let him know if you got worse. Are you sure you don't want me to call him?”
He shook his head. “Dothig he cad do. It's fide.”
“Fine isn't the word I'd use. You sound like a nineteenth-century sanatorium.”
“Your bedside madder sugks,” he wheezed, turned to sneeze into his pillow. “HPKSHH!”
“Bless. And I never said I was Florence Nightingale. Go back to sleep.”
He did slide back into a restless sleep after that, plagued by more nightmares, barely aware of when Andy came in to check on him, tossing uncomfortably and wishing very hard that every part of his body didn't ache quite so much. Reality blurred into his dreams, people and faces appearing and disappearing with alarming regularity. Once he thought he caught sight of his father standing at the foot of the bed, which shocked him so thoroughly that he was on his feet and on the other side of the room before he realized it wasn't real, heart hammering against his ribs, sweat trickling down the sides of his face. He caught himself on the wall, suddenly light-headed, barely kept himself from falling over before he made it back to the bed. Awesome. This was going really well. He collapsed back onto his pillow, coughing and generally praying for a quick death. Dead people didn't feel this crappy, he was sure of it. He threw an arm over his face, willing himself back to sleep, and eventually his thoughts stopped spinning out of control and sank into darkness.
The next thing he knew he was back at Lesley's, standing on the front lawn, the rain pelting down in sheets.
“I know you're here!” he yelled, eyes scanning the area. “Come on out!”
There was a faint tremor of laughter, but the yellow-eyed demon stayed frustratingly invisible. Dean broke into a run, searching outside the house, screaming at the yellow-eyed bastard to show himself, to quit running and hiding like a pussy, the rain all but blinding him. A flash of light came from one of the windows, and his blood ran cold as he realized that it must have broken through Sam's defences, that it was even now in the house. He sprinted toward the front stairs, taking them two at a time, and threw himself against the door, shouldering it open. The baby was wailing at the top of its lungs, and above the high keening he heard the sound of a woman shrieking in terror. He made it halfway up the stairs to the nursery when he was driven back by a wall of flame, and he threw a hand up in self-defence, kept trying to force his way past the flames, to no avail.
“Sam!” he shouted, blinded by the fire. “Sam!”
He came awake with a jolt, nearly knocking over Andy, who'd materialized at his side somehow without his ever realizing it. “Woah! Easy, there. It's a bad dream, that's all,” Andy put out a hand to steady him. “It's okay.” Before Dean could react, he put his hand up to feel his forehead. “Jesus, you're burning up. How are you even upright?”
He sucked in a painful breath, trying to sort out what was nightmare and what reality, became aware that he was shaking as though he was palsied. “We have to go.”
“What? No.” Andy tried to push him back down onto the bed. “You're delirious. You have a fever, and we don't have to go anywhere, I promise. It's just the fever making you not think straight, okay? Fever. Lie back down, please. Please!”
He threw off the covers, swung his legs over the side of the bed, leaned heavily on his hands, head down as he fought aside a wave of dizziness. “Doh, I'b okay. Okay, I'b dot exactly okay, but I'b dot delirious. Help be up. We have to go, trust be od this.”
“Okay, no. A minute ago you were out of your mind, raving about demons and fire and yelling for Sam. You also nearly broke my nose with your flailing. You're sick. You need to stay put.”
He shook his head, frustrated. “You're dot listedig. Sobethig's wrogg, I cad feel it.”
Andy shoved at him ineffectually. “Please don't make me whammy you back into bed. I want to keep living, and the minute you're back on your feet you're going to rip my liver out past my tonsils.” When Dean ignored him he tried a different tack. “Okay, okay. Please please please just don't get up,” he wheedled. “I'll go get the cordless phone from the bedroom, and you can call Sam and he'll tell you he's fine. How about that?”
Dean let his head sink into his hands. “Okay. Just... hurry up.”
Andy scrambled out of the room, and Dean heard him picking up the phone and dialling. There was a pause. “Hey, Sam? It's Andy. Yeah, look,” he came back into the room, “uh, Dean kind of... no, no he's fine. He just... he got worried, so I thought I'd call so you can talk to him, okay? … Yeah, okay. Hang on, I'll give him the phone.” He handed the receiver to Dean. “He's fine.”
“Sab?”
“Dean, what's wrong?” Sam sounded worried.
“You okay?”
“I'm fine. It's taking longer than I thought to get things secured here. Seriously, are you okay?”
“Yeah. Look... sobethig's dot right. I'be got a bad feelig, ad I hate it whed I get bad feeligs, it dever beads adythig good. Are you dearly dode?”
“What do you-” there was a pause, and Dean heard something in the background that he couldn't quite identify. “Dean, I have to call you back.”
“Sab? Sab! What's goig od? Sab, adswer be! Sab!” he broke into a fit of coughing, and when he caught his breath all he could hear on the other end of the line was a muffled shout.
Then the line went dead.
Dean almost dropped the phone in his haste to get up. “Addy! We have to go dow!”
Part 20