( I'm fine, he says, sounding totally not fine at all. Now's not the time to go prodding about that, though. They're in the field, they have priorities — but it embeds itself into Dean's mind like a splinter, the way things like this do when they impact his people.
They move on.
Dean takes up the rear, his own flashlight passing in sweeping moves across the hall before them and occasionally behind them. The sound of the heart rate monitor grows louder, its beeping as rhythmic as the flashing light, constant and shrill.
Sounds slow down. The beeping. Their breathing. Heartbeats.
He sees a lock of Geralt's hair flutter with the momentum of something coming, and instinct has him throwing a hand out. It might be the striga, or some bastardized version of it. Teeth, claws, gnarled skin, screaming, but blasted back by a flash of white light before it has a chance to come within striking range of Geralt. Not that he couldn't have handled it himself just fine, probably, but that's not a reaction that Dean ever has time to process with logical thought — it just happens, a reflex driven by an instinct to protect.
The monster goes smashing into the reinforced mesh glass of a closed hospital doorway so hard it shatters.
But that's just the beginning.
The deceptive lie of silence and stillness has been broken. )
no subject
They move on.
Dean takes up the rear, his own flashlight passing in sweeping moves across the hall before them and occasionally behind them. The sound of the heart rate monitor grows louder, its beeping as rhythmic as the flashing light, constant and shrill.
Sounds slow down. The beeping. Their breathing. Heartbeats.
He sees a lock of Geralt's hair flutter with the momentum of something coming, and instinct has him throwing a hand out. It might be the striga, or some bastardized version of it. Teeth, claws, gnarled skin, screaming, but blasted back by a flash of white light before it has a chance to come within striking range of Geralt. Not that he couldn't have handled it himself just fine, probably, but that's not a reaction that Dean ever has time to process with logical thought — it just happens, a reflex driven by an instinct to protect.
The monster goes smashing into the reinforced mesh glass of a closed hospital doorway so hard it shatters.
But that's just the beginning.
The deceptive lie of silence and stillness has been broken. )