All these little land mines, all these little things one can read two ways

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We'd spent the rest of the day researching on Nightmares, and when Sam's decreasing ability to concentrate and Car's need to eat something overpowered their newly established dictatorship rules I was finally allowed to make a break. Outside, the evening glow of the moon mirrored in the still uncleared streets and parking lots and it was quiet. Sam's handyman skills had finally made the heater work, so at least we had it somewhat warm and cozy in here.

"So I guess the Nightmare drove that Dale guy crazy then, right," Sam said over dinner consisting of bad Chinese takeaway noodles swimming in fat and things that used to be vegetables. "So, given that there were so many different ways of killing, it's probably not just Dale."

Carly nodded, stuffing her mouth with what looked like a piece of chicken. "Yeah, I mean," she said with her mouth full, "it definitely looks like it. Also, Nightmares don't just haunt one victim at a time, it could sure be driving a number of people insane."

"It makes sense, right?" Sam gave and looked at me. His expression changed. "How's Cas doing?"

I turned where I sat on the other bed. He was still comatose, that's how he was doing. It'd been around 22 hours and he hadn't done much more than breathe. He looked like he was only sleeping, he looked peaceful. But he also looked lifeless, like all life had left his body, even when he wasn't dead. There was a bruising ache inside me, seeing him like this. This wasn't the person I knew, the angel who'd fought by my side through several ends of the world, who'd acted against everything he believed in just because I'd asked him to. The one who'd healed and saved me so many times I didn't even know how to ever pay him back.

It seemed I'd forgotten how to read his face. It used to be our thing, the wordless staring at each other, having silent conversations nobody else knew how to decode. I used to read worlds into his eyes and whole stories into every little detail of his face. And now I only ever saw the lines on his forehead and the crinkles around his eyes and the unnoticeable draw of his lips and made up explanations for every little foreign head tilt he made. And I couldn't help but read into it what I didn't want to hear but still somehow needed to believe. I couldn't help but regret all the things I'd said to him, all the times I'd started a fight about nothing, all the times I'd pushed him only so I wouldn't get pushed first.

I never meant to fall for him. And when I did I was buried underneath, I crashed into the blunt white fear that I broke something that could never be fixed again. I needed him. I'd always needed him.

I felt Sam's eyes on me, but I guess he picked up on how I really didn't want to answer that question. Instead I asked, "How do we kill that Nightmare dude?"

"Well," Car said, exchanging a look with Sam as I turned away from Cas' unmoving figure and it was probably all over my face that I badly needed to change the subject to a more violent solution to the problems at hand. "Like I said, it's something between demon and spirit, but that also means it can't be killed like either of them. It doesn't have any remains to burn and you can't exorcise something that doesn't possess anything, nor can you kill a discarnate being with physical weapons."

"Awesome," I said sarcastically, "Now that we heard all the ways how not to kill it, how about we hear about solutions next"

"Well, only witches can summon them, otherwise it can only be seen by its victims," Sam chimed in.

"But how do you kill it?" I asked again.

"I don't know, Dean," Sam said, "but I think I can figure out a way to trap it. And once we did that we can think about how to kill it"

"Awesome," I gave back with an eye roll. It didn't satisfy me, it wasn't even close to what I wanted. I didn't need another monster slash demon ghost thingy to babysit until the Nerd Squad found a more permanent fix. "How do we get it trapped, though? We're not witches"

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