𝐃𝐎𝐍𝐎𝐕𝐀𝐍

𝐄𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓𝐘-𝐄𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓

"Stoner Boy wasn't in his room," Sam says in a sigh as he enters Bobby's hospital room.

Bobby's just fine. Sitting up, talking, breathing, eating. He looks up at Sam as he keeps talking.

"My guess is he's long gone by now."

"Well he's not much of a stoner," Bobby says. "Got an IQ of 160, which is saying something."

Katherine rolls her eyes. "Whatever," she grumbles.

"Considering his dad took his baseball bat to his head," Bobby finishes, throwing a poignant gaze her way. Katherine rolls her lips into her mouth and nods once before snapping her fingers and finger-gunning Bobby. "He died before Jeremy was 10. The injury gave him Charcot-Wilbrand. He hasn't dreamt since." The Winchesters glance to Katherine briefly. Her gaze seems far away as she runs her thumbnail over her lower lip.

"Well, until he started taking the dream root," she absently hums. Blue eyes come to life as they snap to Bobby. "How did he know how to dig up your worst nightmare and throw it at you?"

"He was rootin' around in my skull," Bobby grunts. "God knows what he dug up in there."

"Well how'd he get in there in the first place?" She crosses her arms. "He's supposed to have some of your DNA, whatever it may be."

"Yeah," Bobby hums. "Before I knew it was him, he offered me a beer...and I drank it."

Dean looks at the ground. Katherine's eyes slowly track to him. He doesn't look at her. "Fuck."

"Dean, you didn't," Bobby admonishes.

Dean offers him a wince. "I was thirsty," he pathetically defends.

"Great!" Sam erupts. "Now he can come after either one of you!"

"Well, no," Dean says. "We just have to find him first."

Katherine sighs, rubbing the inner corners of her eyes. "Yeah, well, we're gonna need to caffeinate and work fast. Neither one of you can fall asleep now."

✕

Katherine has read several sleep deprivation studies, mostly out of curiosity. There's nothing better than a med student reading a study on sleep deprivation at three in the morning when she should be studying for exams.

After twenty-four hours, the patient suffers cognitive impairment similar to that of a person with a .10 BAC. Judgement is affected, memory is impaired, declination in hand-eye coordination. Daytime sleepiness, decreased attention...

At thirty-six hours, inflammatory markers begin to appear in large quantities in the bloodstream. Hormone levels take hits and spikes. The patient experiences some sort of headache.

At forty-eight hours, the body begins to shut down for micro-sleep, similar to blacking out for half a second or half a minute at a time, followed by a period of disorientation. The patient falls asleep regardless of the activity they're in the middle of. And the horrible thing is, the patient isn't even aware they're blacking out.

Dean fell asleep at the wheel. Neither Sam nor Katherine knew for a few moments, but when Dean started to veer into oncoming traffic, Katherine screamed him awake and pushed him into the passenger seat.

At seventy-two hours, the hallucinations set in. Having a simple conversation is difficult. Concentration and perception deficits are starting to show, other higher mental processes begin to shutdown.