Not Much of a Morning Person (post-Man Down)

[The Preceptor]

The early light of morning broke through the window and shone on Annali's face, warming her cheek. She inhaled deeply as she awoke, but didn't open her eyes just yet. Two weeks ago the window pane had been so filthy that it would have stayed dark in there all day, but not now. Now the day was greeting her, and as she recalled the dramatic events and conversation of the night before, she found she couldn't be happier for a brand new day.

After lying there quietly for several minutes, she realized that breakfast wouldn't make itself and that she had more mouths to feed than usual, so she knew she needed to get a move on. Her eyes fluttered open and she started to move out of bed but found that she couldn't. At some point in the night, Dean had curled up behind her and had draped his arm around her middle, which might have been quite sweet and endearing if his hand wasn't clutching her breast. She couldn't help blushing a little, wondering if he had done so by accident or if he only had planned to claim it as such.

Not wanting to wake him just yet, she bit her lip as she gently took his hand, prying each finger open one by one until she managed to pull his hand away from her chest, but as she did so, she was brought to a graphic realization that they were definitely not out of the hot water yet. Annali's eyes widened and her mouth fell open in horror as she noticed that Dean had fingernails that couldn't have been blacker if he had spent the night at a little goth girl's slumber party. Not worrying any longer about waking him, she brought his hand up to get a closer look, and that was when she noticed the thin, spidery black lines just beneath the surface of his skin on his forearm. This illness, whatever it was, had managed to turn his blood so black and thick that his veins nearly protruded thick and grotesque from his skin, like thin, winding ridges.

"Dean... oh God... Dean..." Her voice rose in panic as she managed to roll over onto her other side and the sight of Dean's usually quite handsome face nearly made her scream. The veins weren't just disgustingly visible on his arms. His skin had gone pale, a sickly, ashy grey, and the veins seemed to rise from his neck, creeping up over his jaw and stretching upward as though they were reaching for his brain. Annali whimpered in fear and grabbed his shoulder, shaking him. "Dean? Dean, wake up!" she said urgently, not bothering to stay quiet anymore. Her heart thudded against her ribcage as she realized that, not only was he not waking up... he wasn't moving at all. Again she shook him, much harder this time, but after a moment she decided not to waste anymore time. Sam would know what to do.

Pushing Dean's heavy arm off of her, she threw back the covers and practically leapt out of bed. Her eyes were on Dean as she started to rush out the door, and she didn't even notice the angel standing at the foot of the bed until she ran right smack into him. For a very brief moment, she stood there staring Castiel in the eyes, and she was so mesmerized that she could have easily just let all the panic melt away. Luckily, she was able to keep her senses enough to break eye contact with him and shove him out of her path so that she could run out of the bedroom.

"SAM!" she screamed as soon as she was out in the hallway, not knowing where he might have put up his feet for the night. And then she remembered Dean mentioning being used to sleeping on the floor at Bobby's, and she raced for the stairs, practically tripping over her own feet in her rush to descend them.

She spotted Sam immediately, stretched out on the sofa, looking quite uncomfortable, his eyebrows knit together with worry even in his sleep. "Sam!" she shrieked, rushing over and shaking him until he woke up. "Sam, help! There's something wrong..."

[Deleted]

Castiel had been watching Dean most of the night, and his emotions were what was keeping him awake, that and the fact that angels didn’t sleep. Of course, he wasn’t there ALL night being he wanted to give Dean and Annali some time to themselves. Still though, in the middle of the night he went into check on Dean being as worried as he had been.

Cas had been looking out the window for a long time asking his Father what they could possibly do about this.

"Dean... oh God... Dean..." Cas turned abruptly to the sound of her voice. As Annali tried to wake Dean up Cas stood worried. He was not waking up. Why? What was wrong with him? Cas looked back at Annali as she looked at him in the eyes.

“Dean, Dean!” Cas went over to him as Annali went to go fetch Sam. “Dean, wake up!” Castiel said to him.

Cas placed his hands on Dean to try and heal him once more. He closed his eyes and started muttering something in his own language. He opened his eyes when he realized it just wasn’t working even still. Cas looked at Dean’s veins and his fingernails and he frowned. This was not possible. Was it?

“Dean, wake up…please,” Cas begged his friend. “I did not pull you out of Hell so you could die on us now!” he said.

He placed his hands on Dean once again to try to heal him not wanting to give up. Nothing was working though. It frusterated Cas and he wondered WHAT this was. He looked at Dean’s finger nails and his eyes widened. If Cas was able to feel fear, this would be it.

Cas continued to try and wake Dean. He closed his eyes and said a prayer as he could hear the footsteps from the others. “Please Dean….don’t do this…” Castiel whispered. He looked at his friend sadly. He wasn’t about to let him die like this.

[ZZZ - Dean - RETIRED]

During the night, Dean's fever had persisted in it's work to try and fry his brains from the inside out, clouding his mind up and giving him weird dreams that he wasn't sure were real or not. Over and over again he kept seeing the motel he and Sam had been staying at just before he'd fallen ill, like seeing a movie scene play and rewind indefinately, the sound muffled and distorted as though he was watching it underwater. It always played out the same too, Dean pulled the car up outside the office, told Sam he was going to check them in and he wandered inside, accidentally bumping into the same unshaven guy every time.

After watching it all happen like an outside spectator for a dozen times, Dean started to get an idea of how frustrated Sam must have gotten during his groundhog day experience with the Trickster, reliving every day over and over, with the same results. But this was different, nothing interesting actually happened, only Dean bumping into a random man then going to book a room. No danger, no-one to save, nothing to do or fix and he just couldn't work out what it was his mind was trying to show him.

Of course, his mind wasn't exactly firing on all cylinders right now, concentrating took all the energy he had and every time the scene rewound to start again, it seemed darker, duller than before like it was losing colour with every re-run. Then, as the scene dissolved into just black and white images, blurred at the edges, Dean thought he saw something different outside in the parking lot. Upto now he hadn't really noticed the white mustang but this time he looked closer and saw it shimmer like a mirage, shifting flawlessly into a white horse with red eyes and fire coming out of it's nose. The sound of it's hooves as they scraped along the ground sent a shiver down Dean's back and that's when he first heard exactly what it was the mystery man he kept walking into in the doorway was saying.

"Good health to you, Dean. You're going to need it."

"What?" The stranger reached out and put his hand on Dean's shoulder, an imposing ring on one of his fingers catching his eye as the scene became slightly different, shifting like the car into the horse, the man turned into a hooded figure made of locusts that suddenly broke free and swarmed all around Dean until he couldn't see anything any more. He stumbled back outside, flailing his arms around to try and beat away the locusts as they attacked him, and to his horror, whenever they touched his skin they seemed to disappear into it, leaving an inky black residue on the surface.

The more infected he got by the bugs, the harder it was to put up a fight, his arms grew heavier, his chest felt constricted as though he couldn't pull enough air into his lungs to keep his strength going. Moving was like trying to swim in tar and everyhing around him seemed to melt like waxworks in flames. Even Sam, sat obliviously in the car began to dissolve, or was it that there was something slowly dripping down over his eyes, filling his vision in with an oily blackness that was blinding him? Whatever it was, he knew it was killing him and he was powerless to stop it.

"Dean... oh God... Dean..."

The invading sound of locusts made it difficult to hear, but in the back of his mind he knew someone was calling his name but it was too late. As he opened his mouth to call back, the locusts swarmed in and cut off any sounds he might have made, suffocating him and taking him down into the dark. By now everything was pitch black and only the vague sound of his name could be heard, reverberating through his ears as if he were at the bottom of a huge well and the person calling him was at the top, out of reach.

Back in Bobby's house, Dean continued to lie motionless on the bed, his breathing so slow it was barely making his chest rise, but just as it had been at the hospital, Castiel's attempts at healing him seemed to bring him back from the very brink, all be it only just.

"Horse..." He whispered softly, agitated by the dreams he had been having, not able to wake enough to make much sense.

"White horse..."

[Sam Winchester (NPC)]

Sam

Sam had stayed up most of the night. He had put together the supplies Bobby had brought him. It was a make shift IV unit, but it should work. Sam knew it wasn't going to be pretty when he hooked it up to Dean, but he couldn't think of anything else. He had come up with a mixture of holy water and salt to make a demonic virus purging saline solution. It was probably going to hurt like hell too.

After he had gotten the IV unit set up Sam had gone about doing some research. Going through Bobby's books, looking for anything that might help. Some kind of clue. He had found some interesting references to The Black Death. Most theories told that The Black Death was a series of plagues that swept across Europe during the middle ages. It was actually composed of three different plagues; bubonic plague (infection in the lymph nodes), pneumonic plague (the infection in the lungs), and septicemic plague (the infection in the blood and the most deadly of the three). However, there was a theory about the third plague, the one that affected the blood. It seems that some people believed that it was caused by something evil, in fact the word demonic was even tossed around.

It was an interesting thought and it seemed to fit. If Dean's blood was infected... Sam was still pondering all the information when he had fallen asleep on the couch with the book resting on his chest.

Sam was having a fairly bizarre dream about a black tar like substance and Dean. There was something about his eyes and the blood running through his veins. That's when he was suddenly jolted awake. Blinking his eyes so he could see that it was Annali and she was quite frantic.

"Sam, help! There's something wrong..."

It only took seconds for it to register. He bolted up from the couch, the book falling to the floor. Without saying a word he looked at Annali and then took off running up the stairs, bursting into the room where Dean had spent the night.

Sam saw Cas was still there, trying to get Dean to come around. It didn't look like he was having much luck at it. He barely caught the words that the semi-conscious Dean was trying to rasp out. Something about a horse? A white horse? He had no idea what that meant and at the moment he didn't care, probably just delirious rambling.

Sam hurried to the side of the bed. Sitting on the edge he looked at Dean closely. He could see the blackened finger nails, the black veins spreading across his skin. Sam furrowed his brow as he reached up to pull up one of Dean's eyelids to see the black film cover his eye as well. It was like in his dream. He took a deep breath and tried to shake it off. This was weird, even for them. Quietly he tried to talk to Dean.

"Dean... Dean... Can you hear me? It's me Sam. I don't know if you can understand me, but I have an idea... I don't think you're going to like it though."

Sam sighed and then looked around the room at the others. His expression was somber and serious, he clenched his jaw. He wasn't looking forward to explaining what he was about to do. But, it had to be done. There was no other way.

((Thanks to Wikipedia for the information on the plague... the part about the blood plague possibly being demonic is creative liscense....which is to say we made it up.))

[The Preceptor]

Annali was grateful that Sam was able to react so quickly, and she stepped quickly out of the way to make room for him as he rushed past her, following right behind him. She didn't know if what she had seen was anything worth this sort of panic. Since they knew nothing about this disease it was hard to know what was crucial and what wasn't... but blackened veins and her inability to wake Dean seemed pretty damn threatening to her.

She followed Sam into the room and sat down on the bed on the other side of Dean, worry etched on her features as she smoothed the sweat-soaked hair back from his forehead. Tears had already pooled up in her eyes and she looked hopelessly at Sam and then at Castiel. How was it possible that they actually had an angel in the room with them but he seemed just as helpless as they were?

"Dean... Dean... Can you hear me? It's me Sam. I don't know if you can understand me, but I have an idea... I don't think you're going to like it though."

Annali looked at Sam as he spoke quietly to Dean, feeling a tiny flutter of hope in the pit of her stomach. Sam had an answer, and she felt the relief already starting to wash over her. When he looked up at she and the angel, she managed a small, weak smile at him. "How can I help?" she asked, pulling Dean's black-veined hand into hers and gently caressing it.

[Deleted]

Cas was worried, and angels weren’t supposed to BE worried. Dean was his friend, and Cas was actually worried he might die and there would be nothing he could do to help him. Cas stared at Dean as he muttered something about the white horse. He also looked over as Sam came upstairs and started talking.

"Dean... Dean... Can you hear me? It's me Sam. I don't know if you can understand me, but I have an idea... I don't think you're going to like it though."

Cas stared at Sam for a second, “Sam….” Cas said “Dean said something about a horse, I believe I know why I can’t heal him,” Cas said.

Cas looked at Sam and Annali, “I believe this has to do with the horsemen,” he said. “I looked, and there before me was a white horse. It’s rider held a bow and he was given a crown,a nd he rode out as a conqueror bent on conquest,” Cas quoted. “It’s Revelation 6:2,” he explained, “I believe Dean is somehow seeing that white horse in his dream, or perhaps he saw it before….” Cas said with a shrug. “it would explain my inability to heal him,” he said again.

Cas looked at Dean worried, and to everyone’s surprise, he too grabbed Dean’s hand. He started to pray and he looked at his friend, “It shall be alright Dean….we are getting closer to figuring this out,” Cas said softly.

[bobbysinger1]

When Bobby heard Annali’s cry’s from upstairs, he immediately dropped all his books and headed towards the bedroom Dean was in. He frowned when he saw Cas, Sam and Annali near Dean looking worried. “Dean?” he asked softly.

He couldn’t loose Dean again, and he knew what it would do to Sam. He sighed as he looked at Cas when he started quoting scripture. “He prepared a path for his anger; he did not spare them from death, but gave them over to the plague…” Bobby said “Psalm 78:50,” he finished Cas’s quote

“Don’t’ you get it?” he asked, “That’s what this is, Cas is right, it’s the horsemen….the horseman gave Dean the plague,” he said softly. Bobby was worried. He wasn’t sure HOW to heal Dean from this, and if Cas couldn’t help them.

Bobby sighed frustrated as he to went near Dean. He brushed Dean’s sweaty hair away from his eyes and sighed. “Come back to us Dean,” he said quietly. “We can’t loose you again,” Bobby insisted. “We WON’T,”

[ZZZ - Dean - RETIRED]

With the flurry of activity around him, Dean finally began to stir awake, but it was a painfully slow struggle to do so. Like trying to wade through treacle that was up to your neck. Everything was too much effort, from trying to breathe deeply, to moving his limbs, to opening his eyes, it all just seemed like doing so would suck all the energy out of him entirely. But from the sounds of the paniced voices in the room, he knew he needed to put the effort in because something was wrong and it had everyone freaked out.

"Sammmhhmmm....?" His brother's name came out more as a moan as he sucked in a breath and found it made his chest ache. Before he'd really found alertness, someone pryed his eyelid open and the unexpectedness of it made him flinch and squirm back into the pillows.

"Nuugh..." A flush of warmth spread over him, making his head feel even more fogged up that it already was. He tried to move his hand up to brush the sweat from his brow, but found that something cool had caught hold of it instead and was stroking soft circles on the back of it.

Li...

He knew that soft touch, felt the relief that her cool skin brought to his fever prickly hand and instinctively he curled his fingers around hers. Or at least he attempted to. Somewhere between his brain and his hand, the message got confused and all he could manage was a slow squeeze with about as much power behind it as a ninety year old with arthritis.

"Why's it dark?" Came the raspy mumble when Dean realised that when his eye had been pryed open, he'd not been assaulted by blinding sunlight. If everyone else was up, surely it was daytime, wasn't it? Determind to find out, he gradually peeled his eyes open and turned his head on the pillow to look around the room. There were definately people there, he could sense them, could hear them and could feel them touching him, so why on earth couldn't he see anything? Not even a dim sliver of moonlight coming through the curtains, just pitch black nothing.

It didn't make sense that they would all be standing around him in the dark, so that left Dean with one horrible explanation. He was blind. The sudden fear of it kicked his adrenaline glands into action and all remnants of sleep were shaken off quickly. He blinked and frowned when it didn't help, his breathing going up a notch making it sound like he was a twenty a day smoker.

"I can't see....it's all black! Sammy?!" Scared and desperate, he jerked his hand away from Castiel and clumsily attempted to rub his eyes whilst trying to move his body upright against the headboard. He didn't really get far, but he did manage to roughly brush his thumb against his right eye which caused the thin mebrane of black that had settled over his eyeball during the night to break, making it appear as though he was crying black tears when the stuff oozed off his eye and down the side of his face.

"Ughh..." He growled under his breath when the shock of the bright light in the room hit his retina. Straight away he snapped his eyes tightly shut, but tentatively blinked them open again, testing how much light he could stand in his right eye. Wanting to clear the other too, he brought his hand achingly back up to his line of sight and gasped when he saw the spiderweb of black veins running over the palm of his hand.

"Jesus!" It made him think of the dream he'd been having, with the black locust's getting under his skin, infecting him and he lamely began trying to claw at his arms where the veins looked blackest, ignoring the fact that he probably looked like he'd gone insane, all wide eyed and frantic.

[Sam Winchester (NPC)]

((OOC: OK, I will leave it to you guys to figure out how the horsemen are coming before all the seals have been broken. Which actually, could work because the horsemen are supposed to technically arrive BEFORE Lucifer... but my brain is way to mushy to sort it out... I'll let you guys do that. ))


Sam

Sam looked back and forth between Castiel and Bobby as they spoke. It did make sense. In a bizarre apocalyptic kind of way. Sam frowned. He didn't like it though, it didn't make sense. But then again, what did make sense these days.

"Sooooo... If you think this is the work of one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse? Like the white horse, conquest... or pestilence right? The plague... yeah I read something about those last night. There were theories about it. There were actually three plagues, one of them, the septicemic plague affected the blood. Was said to be evil. But... How the hell are we having horsemen if the seals aren't all broken yet?"

Sam shook his head in frustration. He supposed it didn't really matter whether it was the horsemen or not. He had already had the idea that this was something similar to that third plauge. Whether an apocalyptic horseman or some kind of demon had caused it didn't really matter. What mattered was if they could cure Dean.

Sam's attention was pulled away then by Dean who had started to stir. He watched as Dean fumbled around and tried to speak. Feeling a bit helpless. He was just about to try and explain why it seemed dark when Dean wiped the film from one of his eyes. Quickly he reached out and grabbed a wash cloth that was on the bedside table and wiped the black ooze from Dean's face. Sam gave Annali a quick look as Dean started to panic a bit and clawed at his arms. Leaning over his brother he grasped both of his wrists and pulled them apart. Pinning them down to the bed.

"Hey, Hey! Easy Dean. It's OK. We're going to fix this. Calm down."

Sam took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He looked at Annali again and nodded his head toward the bed. Trying to indicate for her to take over holding onto Dean. It seemed her touch had a calming affect on him and they needed that right now. Then Sam got up and started to pace back and forth at the end of the bed. He looked at the others in the room. It was time to tell them what he had in mind.

"OK. Like Bobby said, I figured it might be something like this plague thing. It's in your blood Dean. It's also possibly demonic. Not sure how that's going to twist things. But... My plan is... I want to try and flush it out of your system. Sort of anyway. I figured we could hook up like an IV, a kind of holy water, saline drip. It should react with the evil ectoplasm and force it out of your blood stream. I also looked up some rituals that were used when these plagues were around the first time. I'm hoping that a combination should work. Dean... you gotta know though, I don't think it's going to be pleasant."

That was it, that was his plan. For whatever it was worth. Unless someone else had a better one he didn't know what else to do. Turning his attention to Castiel and Bobby he spoke quietly.

"Would you go get the supplies and the books I left down stairs. By the couch where I was sleeping. Then we can get this started."

Sam waited until the two men left the room before he turned back to Annali and Dean. He tried to give his brother a small smile but he wasn't very successful with it. This was going to be rough and he knew it. He was sure Dean knew it as well. Sam moved around the side of the bed where Annali was sitting and sat down beside her. He looked her in the eye while he spoke.

"This is going to be really, really hard. He's probably going to be in a lot of pain. Will you be OK? I need you here. He needs you here. You'll help get him through it."

Sam spoke softly to her, glancing over at Dean on occasion and then back to Annali. He rubbed his forehead and ran a hand through his hair. He really didn't want to do this. He was really hoping that someone would come up with a better plan so he wouldn't have to go through with this.

[The Preceptor]

Everything seemed to be happening so fast, and though Annali had spent the last six months researching supernatural activity and had even been minorly involved in a few encounters, nothing made her feel as scared as this. Throughout her life she had been confident and certain... always had an answer and had always been good at handling herself under pressure. But now... now she felt so frightened for Dean's life that she didn't have any answers... she didn't know what to do.

Luckily for her, Sam seemed to at least have an idea. She tried to stay out of his way as he held Dean down and talked with them, explaining his theory and ideas, even though all Annali wanted to do was panic. But when Sam indicated for her to take over holding his brother, she forced herself to stay calm and focus, reaching out and taking one of Dean's hands into hers.

She knew that there was no way she would be able to pin him down like Sam could, so she settled for a different approach and just hoped it would work. Pulling her legs up onto the bed, she moved Dean's arm so that she could lie down next to him, curled up against his side. She then reached out and held his other hand in hers, lightly squeezing it, her head resting on his shoulder, her lips just a breath away from his ear.

"This is going to be really, really hard. He's probably going to be in a lot of pain. Will you be OK? I need you here. He needs you here. You'll help get him through it."

Annali didn't look at Sam, but she nodded gently. Her mind was focused on one thing right now and it was telling her that this may be her only chance to tell Dean how she felt about him. Sam had what sounded like a great idea but even he didn't seem too sure about it. So now she felt she was being faced with a tough decision. Either she open up to Dean and spill her guts... just in case... or she keep quiet and take a big risk.

"Dean..." she whispered softly in his ear, closing her eyes so that she could mentally block out everything around her. "Dean please hold on for me. I need you. I've waited all my life for you. I tried to forget you when you left but I never stopped thinking about you. Ever. I love you so much... Please... please stay with me..."

[Deleted]

Castiel looked at Dean as he suddenly started saying that he couldn’t see and that it was all black. The angel looked at Sam for a moment unsure of what to do since he could not heal his friend. For the first time in a long time, Castiel felt helpless.

“Dean….” Cas chimed in once Sam started to comfort his brother. “Dean, it will be alright….” He said with a whisper. He felt completely useless at this moment and tried not to show it.

"Sooooo... If you think this is the work of one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse? Like the white horse, conquest... or pestilence right? The plague... yeah I read something about those last night. There were theories about it. There were actually three plagues, one of them, the septicemic plague affected the blood. Was said to be evil. But... How the hell are we having horsemen if the seals aren't all broken yet?"

Castiel shrugged, “I do not know Sam,” he said “It was merely a theory. “Perhaps a wrong one,” he added. “Perhaps he is just merely DREAMING of the horsemen…” Cas said. “It IS however, one thing that makes sense as to why I couldn’t heal him.” he said once again.

As Sam talked about flushing this plague out of Dean’s system, Cas cringed a little. “Holy water….” He looked at Sam with a sigh. He knew how painful this might be for Dean. “Perhaps I can help ease his pain at least…” he hoped though he doubted it.

"Would you go get the supplies and the books I left down stairs. By the couch where I was sleeping. Then we can get this started."

Catiel nodded, “Of course,” he said to Sam and headed downstairs with Bobby. When he came up Sam and Annali were talking. He stood by the doorway a moment and waited for them to finish. He heard Annali’s soft voice as she spoke to Dean in fear.

"Dean..." she whispered softly in his ear, closing her eyes so that she could mentally block out everything around her. "Dean please hold on for me. I need you. I've waited all my life for you. I tried to forget you when you left but I never stopped thinking about you. Ever. I love you so much... Please... please stay with me..."

He paused wondering if he should walk in or not. He remembered Dean lecturing him about personal space, but he didn’t care this time. He went up to Dean after placing the books Sam requested on one of the shelves, and he placed a hand on Dean’s shoulder. He slowly bowed his head in prayer not caring if Dean got offended by it or if anyone else in the room did either. He stayed that way until someone would tell him to stop. He knew it was what Dean needed right now, and whether or not the other people in the room believed it, Cas didn’t care. He did and it was his ONLY way he could help. "Please my friend...you MUST pull through this." Cas said.

[bobbysinger1]

Bobby too was trying to take everything in. From Dean crying out that he couldn’t see, to Sam comforting him, Bobby was just trying to hold everything together. Sam asked about the Horsemen and Castiel explained his theory, and Bobby shook his head, “I don’t know Sam,” he said, “All I know is, it would make sense to me,” he said. “Somehow, someway this happened, whether we are right about the horsemen or not….doesn’t make a difference. We gotta stop this, and soon,” he said. He stated the obvious there and hoped that Sam wouldn’t get frustrated with him for that. Truth was, Bobby only knew as much as the rest of them, which wasn’t much. They were ALL trying to figure this out.

Bobby went back up to Dean after Sam had tried comforting him. “You’ll be alright boy, we’re getting closer to this…” he said hoping he was right. He placed a hand on Dean’s shoulder and sighed.

"Would you go get the supplies and the books I left down stairs. By the couch where I was sleeping. Then we can get this started."

Bobby nodded at Sam and went downstairs with Cas. He grabbed the books Sam requested and came back up and placed them on the shelf near Sam.

He stared at Cas as the angels suddenly started to pray for Dean. He rubbed the back of his neck feeling a bit uncomfortable but he wasn’t going to argue it. Whatever Cas could do, he was doing it, and right now this was the only thing that MIGHT help with Dean’s pain that he was going to be in.

Bobby heard Annali as she told Dean that she loved him. He smiled a little hoping it wouldn’t be the last time she said that to him. Bobby looked at Annali and smiled, “He loves you too Darlin…” he whispered in her ear. “Least I can see it from where I’m standing…” he said smiling a bit.

“Alright Sam, we’re ready when you are, supplies are here, so lets get this party started, shall we boy?” he asked trying to keep stress down to a minimum which was very hard at the moment. Bobby was scared, but was doing his best not to show it. He went to the other side of Dean so that Dean knew he was there as well. “People who love you are here boy, you ain't alone in this,” Bobby said patting Dean’s shoulder.

[ZZZ - Dean - RETIRED]

It wasn't exactly irrational to panic under the circumstances, but later Dean would be disppointed in himself for losing it so spectacularly in front of a room full of the people who knew him the best. But when you'd just been dreaming about huge, black bugs burrowing under your skin and the first thing you see when you awake is gruesome black veins all over your body, well I guess you could say that was reasonably acceptable behaviour.

He was still frantically trying to rub the black off his arms when Sam loomed over him, catching his flailing hands and holding them tight down against the bed to force Dean to halt his panic attack. At first he didn't realise who it was, his attention firmly latched onto the hands clamped around his wrists, a heavy frown of anxiety and anger at being restrained on his face that made him look even sicker than he already did. But as soon as his brother's voice reached his ears, he almost immediately stopped thrashing and found Sam's eyes, locking onto them with his own black-blood shot pair.

"Hey, Hey! Easy Dean. It's OK. We're going to fix this. Calm down."

The sawblade sound of Dean's wheezy, erratic breathing gradually reduced as he grounded himself in Sam's prescense, relaxing as best he could because Sam was here and he was going to fix this and Sam never gave up when it came to trying to save his brother, not ever. If there was a way to get rid of this demonic disease, then he'd find it. Dean just hoped he would find it in time because the way things were progressing, he wasn't so sure there was a whole lot of time left.

Calm down....calm down...deep breaths...in and out....slow and easy....FUCK ME! Feels like my ribcage is about two sizes to small....can't hardly draw a decent breath in here....okay, relax... you can do it....God, listen to me...I sound like a friggin special needs coach...

Eventually Dean stopped panicing altogether, thanks largely to Annali's soothing touch as she took hold of his hands and lay down beside him, though maybe he wondered if it wasn't also due to the fact he'd worn himself out with the abrupt awkening. Now he was thinking about it, it really didn't feel like he'd gotten any rest at all if he had actually slept, passed out or slipped into an overnight coma, whichever one they decided to label it. No wonder the virus was able to take over his entire body so easily if he hadn't had chance to recover yet.

What he really needed to do was pay attention to what was being said in the room around him since it felt like they were all talking over him rather than to him. Understandable, after all, what use could he really be to them in this state? His mind was lagging behind the conversation and the delay in processing what everyone was saying left him floundering to keep up with even who was saying what.

"I figured it might be something like this plague thing. It's in your blood Dean."

"Dean..."

"I want to try and flush it out of your system."

"Dean please hold on for me."

"I figured we could hook up like an IV, a kind of holy water, saline drip. It should react with the evil ectoplasm and force it out of your blood stream."

"I need you."

"I also looked up some rituals that were used when these plagues were around the first time."

"I've waited all my life for you."

"Dean... you gotta know though, I don't think it's going to be pleasant."

"I tried to forget you when you left but I never stopped thinking about you. Ever."

"This is going to be really, really hard. He's probably going to be in a lot of pain."

"I love you so much... Please... please stay with me..."

In that instant, time stood still. All the noises around him seemed to mute in sync leaving it so quiet a pin dropping would sound like someone ringing a huge bell. His heart beat pounded in his ears, loud and all encompassing as he replayed what Li had just said to him over again in his mind.

I love you.

How was it he could be knocking so loudly on death's door yet still feel like he was on top of the world over three little words? Especially when Sam had just told him he'd have to go through Hell again to be in with a shot of surviving this?

She loves me?

She loves me.

She loves me!

Dean turned his head on the pillow, focused as best he could on Li's beautiful face with the one eye he could see out of and regretted ever having walked away from her. If there was one woman he was meant to be with, it was her and wasn't it such a cruel twist of fate to find out this late in the game that she felt the same about him as he did for her.

“He loves you too Darlin…Least I can see it from where I’m standing…”

And wasn't it just like Bobby to beat him to the punch. He might have confessed his love for her too, if the moment hadn't been lost. Though maybe not, with everyone standing over him like they were.

"Just keep your...eyes off my girl...old man." Dean rasped in mock warning, going for a smirk at Bobby but not quite sure it had the usual brilliance behind it.

So it seemed they were ready to do what needed to be done, which Dean was not all that sure he was ready for, but now that he knew, really knew for sure that someone needed him in this world, he was damn well going to fight to stay here as long as he could. But before he threw caution to the wind with this crazy plan Sam had come up with, he wanted to say a few things to his brother, just in case the plan didn't go smoothly. Which it most certainly wasn't knowing Dean's crappy luck.

"You guys mind...just giving me a minute? I need to talk to Sam." In private.. He left the obvious unspoken when he glanced over at Bobby and Cas, hoping that Bobby would find something to distract the angel away from his bedside since he doubted that Castiel would notice his subtlety.

"Li? Baby, can you get me...some water?" A soft smile in her direction and a gentle squeeze of her hand. "Promise, I won't go...anywhere." Because I love you too...

He hoped that they'd take the hint and give him a few minutes alone with his brother without taking offense that he was kind of kicking them out of the room for a little bit.

[bobbysinger1]

Bobby watched Dean worried as he was starting to talk a little. His own voice got choked up as he had asked the others to leave for a few minutes. Bobby knew he was going to have a talk with Sam, and he knew what that meant. It was one of those, 'end of the road' speeches.

Bobby shook his head and sighed, "Alright boy, we'll step out for a minute," he said to Dean, "Fight this Dean, we know you'll make it," Bobby said giving Dean some last minute encouragement. He hoped to believe those words himself too.

WIth a sigh he and Cas went out of the room as Dean requested. He immediately started pacing back and forth. Dean was like a son to him, and if he lost him...again....Bobby wasn't so sure how to handle it let alone help Sam through it. He sighed not wanting a replay of the last time.


(Cas Godmoded with permission)

[The Preceptor]

Embarrassed didn't even begin to describe how Annali felt. Her confession to Dean had meant to be private but she supposed she hadn't been whispering as quietly as she had meant to. Therefore, when Bobby assured her that Dean returned her feelings, she didn't feel confident or relieved. Instead she felt mortified, like some of that black sludge had pooled into the pit of her stomach. But she simply looked at Bobby and gave him a small smile, blushing slightly when the object of her affection teased the older hunter about keeping his hands off.

She was glad when Dean asked her for some ice water... she really wanted to go hide her face for a few minutes. Nodding to him, she squeezed his hand as she stood up, bending down to softly kiss his blackened lips. "I'll be right back," she promised, and gave Sam a weak smile before leaving the room.


(I am so sorry guys, please please forgive my absence lately)