(no subject)

 There's so much blood.

 

He wakes up soaked in it, not just blood but stringy sinew, can still feel bones cracking sharp enough to cut beneath his wringing fingers.  It's slippery, coats right up to his elbows and Dean can't get it off, seizes sheets damp with sweat and rubs at his arms, but it won't come off.  

 

There's howling, shrill and high and scraping at Dean's ear.

 

For a moment, it fits, it's hell and it makes sense, and then it doesn't.  It's not just blood on his hands.

 

It's fur.

 

Dean's heart stops.  

 

He blinks, sucks down a breath to scream, and it's gone.  It's just a nightmare, and it's gone.  But the howling hasn't.

 

"Annie!" Dean shouts, falling out of bed in his haste to find her.  There's no blood on his hands when he levers himself up, no fur, no nothing, but Annie's howls have turned to growls, and he can't find her, can hear her, but she's not under the bed, not on her own, not in the closet or the kitchen or anywhere that he can think of, and his pulse is so loud in his ears that by the time Dean wrenches his front door open, everything is a dull roar.

 

"Cas!" he shouts, pounding hard on the wall all the way to his door.