NIGHT WATCH

It's the worst storm for a generation; what happens when a restless Winchester goes sleepwalking out in it?

Well, nothing good, that's for sure!

Disclaimer: I own nothing, just borrowing for fun and frolics.

xxxxx

Sam could hear his phone ringing. The sound was floaty, unreal, a tinkling melody against the distant hiss of the storm outside.

Blinking around the edges of sleep, he fumbled clumsily in the darkness, groping blindly as he chased the vibrating phone across the top of the bedside cabinet.

His hand knocked into something and he heard a wet clunk as a glass of water ended up on the floor.

He grabbed the phone at the precise moment it stopped ringing.

"Ah, crap!" he groaned.

Flopping back into his bed; he stared at the missed call register; 'unknown'.

Swimmy, befuddled eyes made their way to his watch. He squinted at the luminous hands and frowned as he focussed blearily. Two thirty.

Two thirty? The hell kind of moron calls at two thirty in the morning?

He lay back with an exasperated sigh, still clutching the phone and listening to the window frames rattling against the onslaught of the hammering rain outside.

Suddenly, his phone buzzed in his hand, heralding the answer phone message he hoped would come. If this was a wrong number, the dumbass who left it was gonna get his damn ears bitten off.

The message was barely audible over the bad reception, the hesitant speaker sounded like he was calling from the bottom of Niagara Falls.

"S-s'mmy, s'me …'m all wet … dunno where I am …"

Xxxxx

Earlier that day …

A job well done.

A particularly narky spirit that had been making life mightily unpleasant for the good townsfolk of Pinegrove had haunted his last haunting.

The Winchesters had found the mortal remains of the late and greatly unlamented Percival Clench, 19th century plantation owner, pillar of society, and thoroughly miserable bastard, in a granite sarcophagus bearing his carved image.

Dean wrinkled his nose in disgust as he studied the weathered effigy. "Shit … they must have really hated him!" he observed dryly.

Sam salted the bones and stood back to allow his brother to do the honours.

"Hasta la vista, ugly!" Dean grinned with immense satisfaction as he dropped the match into the casket.

Xxxxx

The road back to the motel was long, the heater in the Impala was warmly soporific, and the pizzas on Sam's lap filled her interior with an aroma which had both brothers salivating longingly.

They had settled into a comfortable silence, soothed by each other's presence and the thrum of the Impala's engine. She ate up the miles between Pinegrove and the motel the way the boys would eat their pizza later – swiftly and ravenously.

Sam was lost in the melodious strains of 'Highway to Hell' when it happened. Dean's head nodded onto his chest and the Impala gave a violent lurch to the left; he was flung sideways, crunching his nose against Dean's shoulder, the Pizzas taking flight across the Impala's bench seat.

There came the scream of a truck's horn, and between them the brothers managed to frantically tug the Impala back onto her own side of the highway as the truck sailed by, the wail of it's horn dropping though the Doppler to a bellow, buffeting the black car and it's two shaken occupants in it's massive slipstream.

Dean pulled the Impala onto the verge, and rolled to a halt. He stared wide-eyed and grey faced, at his equally shocked brother.

"What the hell was that all about man?" Sam gasped; he pressed his hand to his chest, feeling his heart pounding. He could see Dean panting, his hands shaking as the adrenalin coursed around his shocked body.

"I-I fell asleep."

Dean sounded as if he could hardly believe it himself; closing his eyes, he sighed, "jeez, man, we've been workin' too freakin' hard!"

The car was silent for a moment, except for the sound of the brothers' heavy breaths.

"Is the insomnia back?" Sam ventured.

"I'm sleepin' just fine Sam," Dean retorted irritably without looking his brother in the eye.

"Oh yeah? How do you explain four bathroom visits last night, Dean? You developing early-onset prostate trouble or something?"

Dean glared; "what, I gotta report to you before I take a leak now?"

Sam grinned, "I'm just sayin'."

"Well, don't" Dean snapped, "I put away a few bottles of Becks last night – it had to go somewhere!" He glared at Sam, "I'm gonna start getting' stage fright if I think you're watchin' my back every time I take a pee!"

Sam shook his head, "It's not just that; I've seen you sitting up watchin' TV in the middle of the night, and I know you've had a few nightmares recently." Sam was like a dog with a bone, he wasn't letting this one go.

"And you were sleepwalkin' the other night," he added gleefully.

"I was so not sleepwalking" Dean snapped, "I was - ah - checking on the Impala."

"With your eyes closed?"

"Shuddup."

"Seriously dude, I remember the last time," Sam replied softly, "you went months without a decent nights sleep; it almost did you in."

"Sammy, what can I say; this job gets to you sometimes." Dean shrugged, glancing out of the window to look at thunderously black clouds looming overhead, "they say there's some seriously rough stuff headin' in," he turned back to Sam. "Might be a good opportunity for us to dig in at the motel and rest up for a couple of days"

"I'll drink to that" smiled Sam.

"Steady bro, you might have to get up in the night!" Dean grinned and playfully punched his brother's shoulder.

The brothers wrestled the strewn pizzas back into their boxes, and hit the road again.

xxxxx

tbc