Chapter Text
NOW:
Flickers of gray and white took shape. Female. Ghost.
Smooth skin, long dark hair flowing down to waist length. Her clothing was minimal, not much more than a few strips of fabric covering a form that, if this were a bar, and her eyes weren’t pits of deep glowing black, Dean would consider buying her a drink.
“Hello,” She said, then smiled, and the thoughts of rotting corpses and disintegrating forests filled his head. The loveliness of her features was now covered by a gaunt, starved face, nearly skeletal. Her wrists were bone, and her ankles-- one had the markings of a rope tied around it. Oh definitely not Dean’s type.
The spirit flickered, and suddenly she was inches away from his face.
Dean tried to take a step back, get away-- the smell of molding flesh was intense-- but found himself rooted to the spot. Not good. And the others were too far away.
“Such memories,” She breathed into the fog around Dean’s face, forcing him to inhale, “You think you’re invisible, abandoned, but--”
Her lips brushed his, chill, and dry and ugh... Dean wanted to yell, to run, but--
“You have people who will come for you. Or at least, you did.”
The wicked grin returned, hollow eyes fluttering closed, as she seemed to dissolve into the night.
Dean took a deep breath, exhaled noisily. What the fuck.
The sudden bolt of darkness hit him without warning. Burned through him, making him fear, for just a moment, that he’d become just another case of spontaneous combustion. Knives of ice carving away the heat, leaving him empty inside, and…
It was gone.
Dizzy, he staggered away from the little clearing, trying to make a mental note about coming back with help to burn that bitch, but as soon as the thought came into his head, it left in a swirl of nausea that brought him to his knees beside the asphalt of the road.
Already?
All Dean had to do now was get to the car and call the others to get out of the freakin’ woods. They needed a better plan, and they needed to do some more research to figure out who this ghost was. Actually, he probably should have called them already. Or they should have called him.
He managed to pull out his phone and look at it without yacking. Dean squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them again to focus on the numbers. Yeah, someone should have been calling him by now. Considering that somehow he’d managed to lose a couple of hours between finding the clearing, and stumbling to the road.
Thumbing to his contact list with one hand, Dean tried to shake off the uneasy cold-hot sensation that was firmly in his memory.
“I’m fine.” He told the night. “I’m fine. I just have to--”
Staggering to his feet, Dean took a look around, trying to see how close to where they’d parked the Impala he’d exited the trees. Then realized, with a sinking feeling, that the landmarks were familiar, and if he checked about ten feet up the road, he’d find the tracks where he’d pulled the car over far enough to not be in danger of traffic or discovery.
But no Impala.
“Hello?” the phone in his hand shouted at him, and Dean raised it to his ear. “Hello? Who’s--”
“Sam, where the hell are you?”
“Who’s this?” Dean pulled the phone away to check the number he’d dialed out of instinct, more than conscious thought. Yes, that was Sam’s voice. Yes, that was Sam’s number. “Is this a prank call? Because I gotta say, it’s pretty lame.”
“Very funny, Sam. Unless you’re bleeding out, get your overgrown ass back here and pick me up. We got more research to do, that ghost is a real bitch, and I don’t think it’s gonna be an easy salt and burn.”
“Seriously, who the hell are you, and how do you know my name?” Sam sounded completely sincere. A little spooked, even. “I mean--”
The call was muffled for a moment, and Dean could hear a muttered conversation on the other end of the line. The only words that were clear were ‘Prank’ and ‘Some guy’.
Another wave of vertigo hit Dean, and he almost fell.
“C’mon, Sammy,” Dean plead. “Stop screwing around. Either you or Cas can come back to this freaking woods and pick me up, or I’m walking home, and eating that Reeses stash you think I don’t know about in the library bookcases when I get back to the Bunker.”
“How did-- “ The background conversation stopped abruptly. “I don’t know who you are, but you’d better not be playing games.”
“You’re one to talk about games. What is this ‘Who are you’ crap?”
“Dude, I have no idea who you are.” Sam was on the move. Good. And Baby’s growl in the background told him that, at least, someone was coming for him. And there was Cas’ low voice in the background asking another question.
“Ha ha. It’s just as funny as when you were four, and throwing a tantrum in public. ‘Make Dean look like he’s kidnapping his own brother’. C’mon, man.”
“You’re Dean, then?” Sam said quietly, “I… uh.. I don’t have a brother.”
“What the fuck…” Ice and fire ran through Dean’s veins, and that sinking feeling came back threefold. His legs felt a bit rubbery, as though they were about to collapse under him. “Sammy, I think that bitch did something… I thought it was to me, but…”
“There’s something weird going on.” Sam told him. “We’ll be there in ten, and maybe we can pool our research.”
But we have the same research, Dean wanted to yell, but the call had already disconnected. His legs finally gave out, and he sat abruptly in the dirt, and slumped forward, cradling his aching forehead in his hands. Sam and Cas couldn’t have just forgotten him.
Maybe if Dean just passed out for a while, he’d wake up and everything would be normal again.