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Wet, itchy, pesky, tall grass slicks around their knees as the boys stumble through a country field. The Vamp darts away, zigzagging annoyingly away from the boys all the while Dean spews out a colourful array of curses. Sam only glances away for a second when hears a pissed Dean thud against the ground.
“Fuck’s she doing here?!” He groans winded from the impact.
Frantically, Sam darts his eyes back to the situation expecting anything but this. The Vamp’s still running, not turned around, no fangs out, yet his brother is on the ground nowhere to be seen in the wild grass.
“Dean! Dean, where are you? What’s going on?” He calls out treading through the grass and it’s mud, all of it sticking to him like glue.
Soon enough, he crashes to a halt quickly saving himself from stumbling, like Dean did, over the girl lying beside his steaming sibling swimming in a mud bath.
“She’s fine. No injuries, just a god damn pain in the ass.” Dean grunts saving him the trouble of fussing over this sleeping beauty.
“We’re not far from the nest. She could be a Vamp.” Sam huffs.
“Checked that too, no fangs. Fuck my leg kills.” Dean whines cradling his now probably sprained ankle.
Messy red hair tied up in a bun , dressed in entirely now muddy pjs, eyeliner smudged by nothing but a good sleep, she was a perfectly fine civilian just… here in a field? In the middle of nowhere? It was definitely unusual but then again nothing was too unusual for them at this point. A faint noise came from her and the two immediately cease their bickering.
“Snoring? Seriously. She’s not even unconscious, she’s asleep!” Dean almost laughs “now we’re gonna have to hunt that bastard down all over again.”
He sighs at his brother. The vamp they were chasing is long gone by now. Bending down to take a look, she’s pale, almost sickly, with dark and heavy bags under her eyes that could tell stories themselves. Pushing all that to the side, Sam has to admit, he finds her attractive in a mysterious kind of way but that’s not important right now.
“Well we can’t just leave her here, Dean.” Sam says with a sigh as he flicks a strand of damp grass sticking to his arm away.
“You’re right,” Dean pushes himself up with a wince “but I’m not carrying her back.” He gives Sam a cheeky flick on the back of the neck before limping off through the mud.
Slowly but surely, they make it back to the impala. Sam takes the mysterious girl off of his shoulder and gently places her on back seat. Every couple seconds, he can’t help giving the odd brief, subtle, glance at the sleeping beauty in the back of his car. She’s in a sleep, so soft, so quiet, so tranquil that he can’t help but not settle his gaze on her. It’s like he’s trapped under a spell. Why was she in a field? Why does she look so sick? A billion questions mingle in his head. If she were some drug user, or just another drunk kid, maybe he’d brush it off but if that was the case wouldn’t she be a little more you know… messy? It may be a little of his own personal judgement going on right now, he can admit that, but she didn’t exactly have the ‘look’ of someone who’d just stumbled there. The nearest town is miles off, she doesn’t even have a coat or shoes, the only mud on her is on her back from laying there, it all seemed off. No mud on her feet? If she has no shoes how would she have gotten the middle of nowhere so clean?
Just as he begins to open his mouth to Dean he’s cut off by a gasp from the back seat.
“No, no, no, shit.Not again. Seriously? I was so close.” She curses to herself not even acknowledging the two men in front of her.
“Whoa ,whoa ,whoa,calm down. Are you okay? Can you tell us why you were out there?” Sam turns again.
“Yeah, and why you were in the middle of a god damn field!” Dean grumbles from the wheel.
“Are you hurt? Did someone take you there?” Sam questions
She groans clutching desperately at her head
“What was that?” Her voice stumbles over her words in exhaustion.
“Chill Sam. One question at a time.” Dean nudges him causing Sam to almost laugh at the irony “Name.”
“Nora.” She mumbles.
“Alright Nora, we’re here to help you. I’m agent Perry and this is agent Tyler,”Sam flashes a badge “we’re here to help. Can you tell us what you were doing out there?”
“I-I-ugh.” Her head drops against the seat with a hard thud as she sighs melodramatically.
The boys stare at each other dumbfounded.
“Did-did someone lift you there? You don’t seem to be too muddy.” Dean questions
“No-I just- *sigh*, just take me to the nearest bus station, I think I’ve got some cash on me.” she mumbles. Maybe she is a drunk.
“…you don’t have any shoes.” They both reply, almost gawking at the girl.
“Right…”
“I’ll call Bobby. See if he can fish anything up.” Sam nods to Dean with a slight slump, that chase was exhausting.
After a long, drawling 20 minutes, Bobby finds a lead. A Nora Ramsey, matching every little description possible down to what pyjamas she’s wearing, reported missing yesterday morning in a town in the next state over.
“Bobby says she was reported missing in a town a few miles back.” Sam reveals
She perks up at that, swinging her head up lap so ungracefully he could’ve thought she were a flopping fish if he squinted hard enough.
“A few miles? Thank god.” Nora groans out a hazy sigh of relief.
“You still haven’t told us what you were doing it that field.” Dean exhales harshly. He’s lost the Vamp they’d been chasing for a week, he’s got a nuisance of a pang in his left ankle, and now he’s gotta deal with some shitfaced chick muddying up Baby’s back seat; he’s pissy to say the least and this whole situation seems to be teasing him more and more.
Her eyes are dwindling. Those heavy bags? They are definitely telling a story now. The mumbling? Certainly not from being a shitfaced college student, and Sam sure knows that look. Her frame seems frail and weak. She’s exhausted. Something else is clawing at the back of his mind, a familiarity to her he can’t quite shake yet he doesn’t believe he’s seen her once in his life.
“I just woke up there. I’m a sleepwalker.” She says with a subtle stall.
“You’d have to be an Olympic sleeprunner to get this far out in just one night.” This time Dean laughs.
Sam bites at Dean with his eyes; she clearly isn’t well, just sitting up straight is taking its toll. A dazed sway begins as she stares back at him. She hasn’t slept in months.
“Take this, it’ll out some energy in you.” He hands her Dean’s mars bar out the glovebox resulting in a hardly hidden scoff.
After a couple minutes of driving, the faint crinkling of a wrapper behind him has stopped. He looks back to check up on her, startling himself at the sight. His harsh gasp alerts Dean who now does the same. Her entire ,now sleeping, body is fading from visibility, peculiarly translucent as if she’s a ghost. Hurriedly, Sam scrambles over and violently jolts her awake and is met with an such sudden array of curses and scolding he’d sooner think it was his brother he is waking up.
“Fuck man…” she groans remembering her situation. Ruffled red waves fall haphazardly around her face in the commotion like scarlet whitecaps on a rough sea. In this moment, his face so close to hers, breath mingling, eyes locked, his stomach gives something he couldn’t quite place.
“This isn’t the time.” He thinks shoving any remaining confusing feelings to the back of his head when he clumsily backs away.
“What the fuck was that?!” Dean blurts at Nora.
“Ugh” she does nothing but groans in response, sluggishly clutching at her head.
“Well?” Dean urges her.
“Yo-you won’t believe me. Put me in a fucking psych ward or some shit.” Her tone shifts from pissed to nervous and stuttering.
“We’ve seen a lot Miss, we won’t hurt you, we’re just… surprised. That’s all.” Sam is attempting at slowly toning down her panic.
“sometimes when I fall asleep, I well- I wake up somewhere different after what you seen just then happens,” She winces internally “ but like it can be right outside my place or just miles away. Randomly.”
The two give each other a look before Sam shot into action “Was there a house fire when you were a baby?”
“Y-yeah?” A hand begins to fiddle with a scraggly strand of hair.
“This all started when you turned 22?” He pressed on. In a long, tediously explained, explanation the boys told Nora the same story they’d gave to Andy just a couple weeks ago in.
She sits back, getting weighed down by the dense truth of her situation. Thankfully, she’s in the perfect place.
“So you’re some kinda freaky fortune teller, this guy you met can tell people what to do and they just do it, another kid you met had fucking telekinesis, and I just happen to wake up in the middle of fuckass nowhere when I fall asleep.” She groans, running lazed hands over her cheeks for emphasis. “Great. Just my damn luck.”
“We can help you Nora, get you some control over it, you can meet people like us. We know about things like this. Our Dad, he had this book of all his findings over the years, and our friend Bobby knows his way around stuff like this like the back of his hand.” Sam assures her calmly.
Now slumped against the back seat, eyes so heavy lidded, head hung so low and skin so pale and malnourished, she invokes a weight of protectiveness in Sam he hasn’t seen in himself since his dear Jess. This girl is just another kid like him , suffering at the hands of damn yellow eyes.
“That would be nice.” She smiles subtly, her words heavy and weighed down by her own need to nothing but a rest.