[ It's one of those rare nights where Beverly actually went to bed at a decent hour because she's been dead on her feet all week, caught up in the flurry of prep for an event just barely a month away. Whether or not her sleep is going to be restful is anyone's guess; the nightmares have eased since they killed the clown, but whatever the deadlights burned into her as a child is a curse that will never fully fade. So she's not sure what jolts her awake a few scant hours later: the cry ringing in her ears and caught in her throat, or the buzzing on her nightstand, too loud in the relative silence of her bedroom. It takes a few ragged breaths for her to get her bearings, dragging herself to the present from wherever she was, shadowy in the world of the dream. (In Manhattan, it's never truly dark, so it was somewhere else. Rural. Trees? It's already slipping away.) Her heart's still racing as she fumbles for her phone, half-awake and trying to ignore the phantom bite of — something, claws, a blade? — on her prickling skin, squinting at the name on her glowing screen: Dean Winchester.
Shit. He knows how nights are for her, he wouldn't wake her unless — What's wrong?
It's a goddamn miracle she manages to get an Uber in the middle of the night, let alone one willing to take her across the river into Jersey, but this is the city that never sleeps and cash is king (and a dozen other cliches that ring true) so it all falls into place somehow with a little coaxing on her part. The town she's headed to is barely an hour's drive away when the sun is up; now, at 2 AM, Beverly's hoping they can shave some time off that ETA. She'd already wasted a whirlwind 15 minutes at Duane Reade stocking up on medical supplies her rudimentary first-aid kit didn't carry. Dean had sounded... Well, not fine, but alive on the phone. Not bad enough to go to a hospital. And lucid enough to be a pain in the ass about asking her to haul hers into the next state for a favour he didn't even have to ask of her. She knows how the job goes, knows this was a hunt that should have been simple (so no back-up, no Sam) but obviously wasn't; and she knows she was his nearest and only option for help.
Because whether they've actually talked about it or not, she knows Dean wouldn't have called her if he had any other choice. Well, she never hesitated the first, second, third time she walked into Neibolt House and she's made it perfectly clear she'd do it again, too. Any haunted house. No one's taken her up on the offer yet, but it still stands. So swooping in after the monster is dead? That's nothing. Easy. But she can't stop checking her phone or tapping her fingers on the carton of cigarettes in the front pocket of her backpack. God, she's dying for a smoke. She's trying to quit but it's been a stressful week and her nerves are fraying like silk; she tries not to put too much stock in her nightmares, knowing a lot of them are just noise and memory, but sometimes — sometimes there's truth to them, even now. Especially when she recognises the faces staring back at her for help.
Jesus fuck, she really wants a cigarette.
The GPS inches closer to her destination: some motel near West Milford, nestled in a dense patch of forest. She texts Dean that she's almost there, then scrolls through Twitter and the local news for any clues as to what he was working on. That's a new habit she's picked up, browsing for the Winchester kind of weird. At 2:37 AM she's thanking the driver with a generous tip as they pull up to the motel and she slings her backpack over one shoulder as she steps into the parking lot — deserted save for one mercifully intact, if haphazardly parked, Impala — and scans the numbers on the doors.
There. That one. ]
Hey, it's me, [ she calls between knocking and opening the unlocked door. And then, as she catches sight of him across the way, loaded backpack dropping from her shoulder into the crook of her elbow with the same weight that drops in her stomach: ] What the fuck happened?
[ No, this doesn't make her queasy. She's half-drowned in blood. Twice. But that doesn't stop the worry or the sickening lurch of deja-vu when her visions and reality intersect. More than anything, she sounds almost angry. ]
No, don't, [ she's already saying — either don't tell me or don't get up. Beverly shuts and locks the door behind her, crosses the room, and deposits her bag on the floor as she kneels in front of him, brows knit and face pale. Her hand rests on his thigh without thought, her next words riding on an exhale both exasperated and strained. ] Jesus, Dean.
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Shit. He knows how nights are for her, he wouldn't wake her unless — What's wrong?
It's a goddamn miracle she manages to get an Uber in the middle of the night, let alone one willing to take her across the river into Jersey, but this is the city that never sleeps and cash is king (and a dozen other cliches that ring true) so it all falls into place somehow with a little coaxing on her part. The town she's headed to is barely an hour's drive away when the sun is up; now, at 2 AM, Beverly's hoping they can shave some time off that ETA. She'd already wasted a whirlwind 15 minutes at Duane Reade stocking up on medical supplies her rudimentary first-aid kit didn't carry. Dean had sounded... Well, not fine, but alive on the phone. Not bad enough to go to a hospital. And lucid enough to be a pain in the ass about asking her to haul hers into the next state for a favour he didn't even have to ask of her. She knows how the job goes, knows this was a hunt that should have been simple (so no back-up, no Sam) but obviously wasn't; and she knows she was his nearest and only option for help.
Because whether they've actually talked about it or not, she knows Dean wouldn't have called her if he had any other choice. Well, she never hesitated the first, second, third time she walked into Neibolt House and she's made it perfectly clear she'd do it again, too. Any haunted house. No one's taken her up on the offer yet, but it still stands. So swooping in after the monster is dead? That's nothing. Easy. But she can't stop checking her phone or tapping her fingers on the carton of cigarettes in the front pocket of her backpack. God, she's dying for a smoke. She's trying to quit but it's been a stressful week and her nerves are fraying like silk; she tries not to put too much stock in her nightmares, knowing a lot of them are just noise and memory, but sometimes — sometimes there's truth to them, even now. Especially when she recognises the faces staring back at her for help.
Jesus fuck, she really wants a cigarette.
The GPS inches closer to her destination: some motel near West Milford, nestled in a dense patch of forest. She texts Dean that she's almost there, then scrolls through Twitter and the local news for any clues as to what he was working on. That's a new habit she's picked up, browsing for the Winchester kind of weird. At 2:37 AM she's thanking the driver with a generous tip as they pull up to the motel and she slings her backpack over one shoulder as she steps into the parking lot — deserted save for one mercifully intact, if haphazardly parked, Impala — and scans the numbers on the doors.
There. That one. ]
Hey, it's me, [ she calls between knocking and opening the unlocked door. And then, as she catches sight of him across the way, loaded backpack dropping from her shoulder into the crook of her elbow with the same weight that drops in her stomach: ] What the fuck happened?
[ No, this doesn't make her queasy. She's half-drowned in blood. Twice. But that doesn't stop the worry or the sickening lurch of deja-vu when her visions and reality intersect. More than anything, she sounds almost angry. ]
No, don't, [ she's already saying — either don't tell me or don't get up. Beverly shuts and locks the door behind her, crosses the room, and deposits her bag on the floor as she kneels in front of him, brows knit and face pale. Her hand rests on his thigh without thought, her next words riding on an exhale both exasperated and strained. ] Jesus, Dean.