Brothers Keep Her

Dean Cracks

You wake up in a hospital bed. You hate hospitals. You make the mistake of trying to swallow a pool of saliva and your throat screams in agony. Your hands instinctively move to your neck.

"Hey," Sam says, coming to the side of your bed. "Don't talk. Just blink once for no, and twice for yes."

You blink twice.

His puppy dog eyes are more intense than you've ever seen them (in the short time you've known him). "You're going to be okay. There's no major damage. The swelling should start coming down soon with all the antiinflamatories they've got in you."

You don't blink at all as the hot tears brim your eyes.

Sam kneels beside the bed and cups your hand in both of his. "I need to ask you some questions about what happened in there. Just answer the best that you can, whatever you can remember. It's important."

Two watery blinks.

His voice is soft. "Did you smell anything strange? Sulfur?"

Blink.

"Did the lights flicker?"

Blink.

Lines form in the middle of his forehead. "Did you see any light in the dark? Even the tiniest spark?"

Blink.

He squeezes your hand. "Okay. Uh... What can you tell me about the thing that... choked you?"

You think: This isn't a yes or no answer, Sam. You blink twice and his face lights up.

"You can?"

With your free hand, you mime scribbling in the air with a pen.

"Right," he says. He drops your hand and goes to his backpack sitting on the chair.

You need to swallow, so you brave the pain as carefully as you can. It still hurts like hell. You think: I almost died today.

"Here," Sam says, placing a pen in your hand and handing you a notebook.

At your angle, you can't see the paper well enough so you have to write blindly. You start to scratch out the word invisible while you watch for his reaction.

"Invisible? Okay, that's a start. Anything else?"

You pause, trying to think of the best and shortest way to describe that while you felt it around your neck, you couldn't feel it with your hands. No touch, you write.

He cocks one eyebrow. "What?"

You drop the pen and reenact the way you tried to grasp whatever it was.

He shakes his head. You're going to have to get creative. I tried to grab, you write.

"You tried to grab it," Sam says, and you blink twice. "But you couldn't touch it?"

Blink blink.

After a moment lost in thought, Sam gets it. "There was nothing there for you to grab."

Blink. Blink.

He runs his hand up over his forehead, smoothing down his hair. "What the hell is this thing?" He turns and paces the room. "Maybe Dean's right. Maybe it's more than one. But why are they all after you? Why not attack us? We're here..." He moves back to the bed. "Did you hear anything?"

You search your memory through the loud bangs of Sam's body slams against the bathroom door, but you can't find anything else.

"Okay. It's okay. Listen, I need to go look some things up. Dean's not so good at research. Uh... you can't leave the hospital yet, so he's going to sit in with you while I'm gone. Okay? Just in case."