Title: A Cruise to Nowhere
Author: Disasteriffic Kaz
Info: Supernatural hits the high seas when Sam takes pity on Dean and books them a cruise home instead of a flight. Post 2x03 Bloodlust The usual hurt/comfort/angst/awesome!Sam/Dean
Author's Note: Alrighty kids! I'm back from NY and thanks to my little brother my laptop is virus/malware free once more! :D On with the writing…and the whump. Heh.
Do please Review once you've read. :D Every comment and vote of support helps keep me writing. Not to mention if I've pooched anything, someone can always tell me. :P
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"I don't like this, Sam." Dean scowled at the closed door. He wanted to get inside the room and have a look. Something was picking at the back of his neck, the sense that rarely failed him when their kind of 'wrong' was near.
Sam nodded and tapped the shoulder of the nearest crewman. "Was someone hurt? I saw a boy in that room earlier. Is he ok?"
"Sir, you'll need to head back that way now." The crewman smiled and put a hand on his shoulder, giving him a gentle push. "We're taking care of it."
"But was anyone hurt?" Sam pressed, refusing to be moved. He needed to know if the child was alive.
"Come on, Sammy." Dean took his arm and pulled him away. "They're not gonna tell us anything. They're in damage control mode. We're at sea. They can't afford a panic."
"Right." Sam nodded. "I know." It didn't make it any easier to walk away not knowing. He looked back as they reached the corner and pulled Dean to a stop. "Dean."
Dean turned to peer between the press of bodies and saw two new men coming out of the room; a long, black rubber bag held between them. "Ah hell."
"Someone died in there." Sam said softly. The murmurs of the other passengers around them told Sam they weren't the only ones who noticed the body bag.
"Let's go." Dean tugged him into motion again. "Can't do anything in swim trunks dude."
"He was crying." Sam said quietly as they headed back to their room. "That little boy. He was crying."
Chapter 2
Dean smiled as he walked and the smell of cooking food reached his nose. He and Sam had changed and split up after another aborted attempt to get into the burned room. The crew was being tight-lipped about it and Sam had suggested they try asking the two departments most likely to freely gossip anywhere in the world; housekeeping and the kitchens. Dean had volunteered for the kitchens and chuckled. The Steward he'd asked for directions had informed they were baking pies today. He rubbed his hands together happily as he neared the double doors for the ship's kitchens and pushed through into controlled chaos.
The kitchens, he'd been informed, stretched a third the length of the ship. It was teeming with people. They ran back and forth, dodging around each other, narrowly avoiding collisions in their haste. Some were laden with trays, others with pots and pans; it was like a dance choreographed by an epileptic he thought. Somehow they managed to avoid each other time and again and through it all voices shouted orders and questions answered in a level of noise that made it impossible for Dean to understand what they were saying.
"You shouldn't be here."
Dean turned at the loud voice and smiled at the short, dark haired woman behind him. "Hi there."
"Oh." Her eyes and mouth rounded appreciatively as she took him in and a smile tugged at her face.
"I smelled pie." Dean leaned down and said conspiratorially. He smiled more widely and gave her a wink.
She dropped her eyes for a second, her own grin showing white teeth before she looked back up. "Well, I suppose I could make an exception." She touched his arm lightly. "I'm Jenny. Follow me and uh…don't, you know, run in to anyone."
Dean smirked and followed closely behind her, practically hugging her back through the kitchen as the frenetic level of activity carried on around him. He smiled happily when those passing them looked up in surprise and chuckled when an older woman stopped in her tracks to give him the once over, causing the man behind her to stumble into her back before she started moving again.
"Here we go." Jenny drew him to a table against the wall in the middle of the kitchen and nudged him toward a chair. "You just sit there. I'll grab you a slice of pie." She raised her brows. "The blueberry just came out."
"Oh baby." Dean worked not to drool. Jenny laughed and moved off through the throng. He watched the bustling kitchen and after a few minutes of observing was able to see the tension in the shoulders of every person who passed by. The fires and the death were definitely having an impact. He put his smile back in place as Jenny weaved back to him with a plate held expertly above her head. She set it on the table in front of him with a flourish.
"One slice of hot from the oven blueberry pie." Jenny enjoyed the flush of pleasure that spread across the man's face as he looked with avarice at the steaming slice of pie. He took the fork and a first bite and closed his eyes, moaning in a way that made her knees weak. "Good?"
In reply, Dean took hold of her hand and tugged her into the chair across from him. "You are my Pie Goddess. I think I'm in love." He took another bite, savoring the sweet, tangy burst of the berries on his tongue; the rich flaky perfection of the crust and the almost too warm temperature. "Mmmf."
Jenny laughed and propped her chin in her hand to watch him. "You have a name?"
Dean nodded and looked up at her from the pie, green eyes sparkling with pleasure. "Dean." He licked an errant blueberry from his bottom lip and smirked as her face flushed. "Although, you bring me another slice of this and I'll have to change my name to yours."
Jenny leaned back with a laugh and shook her head. "Oh you are gonna get me in trouble." She grinned. "Technically the staff aren't supposed to fraternize with guests but…" She reached a hand out, running a finger slowly along his chin. She pulled it back with a small line of blueberry sauce on the tip and licked it clean while watching his eyes darken. "My shift ends at midnight. An enterprising guy could find me in the ship's bar."
"I am feelin' a powerful thirst coming on." Dean gave her a lopsided grin and caught her hand, playing his thumb maddeningly over the sensitive skin of her palm. He altered his grin to a sad smile. "Been consoling my little brother though." He sighed, inwardly smiling at the instant soft look on her face as he pulled the awesome big brother card. "He's been worried sick about this little boy he met being hurt in that fire."
"Oh my." Jenny squeezed his hand in sympathy. "You're wonderful for taking care of him."
Dean nodded. "Poor guy's torn up about it and the crew won't tell him anything." He glared up at the ceiling toward the top deck and the bridge before looking back at her. "Just wish I could settle him, you know? Find out if the kid's ok."
Jenny looked around at the kitchen staff still bustling away and leaned closer to him. "I don't really know a whole lot but Mercedes said a man died in the fire and Jorge was positive the man was the only one in the room. He works in records sometimes. He says he checked." Jenny smiled and patted his knee. "Tell your brother I think the boy is probably fine wherever he is."
Dean pulled her hand to his mouth and dropped a light kiss across her knuckles. "Thank you."
Jenny had to take a deep breath before she nodded and sighed with regret when he released her hand. "Any time."
He pushed the empty plate back and stood. "I should go tell him. Think you could lead me back outta here?"
Jenny rose and took his hand back in hers, pulling him along. "Find me in the bar later and I'll lead you somewhere else."
Dean grinned as she tugged him expertly through the busy kitchen and back to the door.
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Sam leaned back against a row of washing machines and listened as the housekeepers talked back and forth about the goings on around the ship. They had looked strangely at him when he'd first entered but quickly warmed to his smile. The oldest of them, a Venezuelan woman had called him 'little man' in her native tongue with a laugh and put him to the side out of the way. She'd given him an apple and patted his shoulder before going back to her work. The laundry was near the bottom of the ship and he could hear the thrumming of the engines and feel them through the machines at his back. Large, green laundry bags flew slowly by on trolleys above them as they made their way from station to station. Unlike the women, Sam had had to duck under them several times.
He stood now with his left arm cradled in his right, doing his best to ignore the pain and the fever he felt brewing in him. Most of concentration was taken up translating the rapid-fire Spanish of the women as they worked. He was missing things but catching enough. There had been other fires in the last two weeks. They had been small and no one had been hurt but the fires were wearing on the crew's nerves. None of the women knew anything about a boy and all were adamant there had been no boy in the most recent fire; that it had been a grown man who'd died. That at least gave Sam a little peace but he still wondered about the child.
"Gracias." Sam straightened and smiled around at the women. They each grinned back at him; the younger women with covetous smiles that made him blush while the older women raised their brows and shook their heads. He ducked under the moving laundry bags and made his way out of the laundry. In the hall he sighed as the noise level dropped considerably. The thrumming of the engines was beginning to pound in his head though, louder out here away from the machines.
Sam started down the hallway, stepping around more housekeepers coming and going with carts and then stopped dead. At the end of the long hall stood the little boy. He looked sadly at Sam for just a moment and then ducked away around the corner.
"Hey! Wait!" Sam lurched into a run, dodging another cart and turned the corner. There was no sign of him. He grabbed the nearest man. "Did you see where the boy went?"
"Sir?" The man looked down the hall and back. "What boy?"
"Damn." Sam let him go and started down the hall at a jog. He peered in every door and just as he was about to give up, he caught sight of the child again at the far end of the hall in a small group of people getting into the elevator. "Wait!" Sam called and ran to catch it but the doors swooshed shut on him. He growled in frustration and watched the lights above the door until they stopped four levels up.
"Ok." Sam turned for the stairs and jogged up them. By the time he reached the right floor he was heaving for breath and longed to lay down. He shoved the exhaustion down and ran out into the new hall.
"Sammy?"
Sam spun and stared as Dean came down the hall toward him.
"Dean. He was just here." Sam looked around, confused. "That little boy. He came up the elevator."
Dean studied his brother and didn't like what he was seeing. He took his arm and scowled; the skin warm under his hand. "Sam. There's no kid here."
Sam turned a disgusted look to his brother. "Well no kidding, Captain Obvious."
Dean snorted and reassessed Sam's condition if he was lucid enough to insult him. "Ok, well he can't have gotten far. We'll…"
Screams interrupted them and both men spun as the kitchen doors at the end of the hall burst open, spilling panicked people outward.
"Holy crap." Dean ran back toward the kitchen with Sam at his side. He spotted Jenny staggering into view. He grabbed her and slapped out the flames licking up her arm. "You ok?"
Jenny nodded, wide-eyed. "One of the stoves…it just went up." She looked back at the door as they were bumped by escaping people. "Jorge…he was right next to it."
"Ok." Dean grabbed a passing cook. "Take care of her?" The man nodded and pulled Jenny with him.
"Dean?" Jenny called as she was pulled away but he turned toward the kitchen instead.
"Our firestarter again?" Sam asked as smoke began to seep out of the doors.
"Bet money on it. Come on." Dean shoved through the doors and ducked his head, coughing into his shoulder. The kitchens were devoid of people and looked wrong without all the frenetic movement of the people. Halfway across the long room one of the stoves poured flames from the six burners up to the ceiling.
"Dean." Sam dashed to the side and grabbed a fire extinguisher from the wall. He tossed it to his brother and ran to the next twenty feet away.
Dean ducked low beneath the growing smoke as he neared the stove and sighed. "Jorge I presume." The man lay face down on the floor beside the maelstrom of fire, unmoving. Dean knocked off the safety on the extinguisher and started covering the burners with the foam.
Sam went wide around the other side and fired the foam up into the ceiling as the flames began crawling across it in earnest. He frowned as he watched the fire and for a moment it almost looked as if it were splitting in two directions; reaching out for him and his brother. He doused most of the flames above them, suffocating them with the foam and set his extinguisher aside.
"Get this guy outta here!" Dean shouted above the roar and crackle of the fire.
Sam didn't argue. He ducked low and rolled Jorge's head and shoulders up and over his own in a fireman's carry. He was heavy and Sam staggered under the weight toward the doors. He glanced back and saw Dean backing away as his extinguisher began to fizzle; the burners still spewing flames into the air though not as strongly. He didn't like leaving Dean there alone with the fire; it gave him a bad feeling. As he reached the door he felt his brother's hand on his back and the tension eased across his shoulders.
They pushed through into the hall and Dean helped Sam lower the man to the floor. "Damn."
Sam sighed as he got a good look at the poor cook. "Never had a chance." The man's face was burned beyond recognition; the skin blackened and charred. Even the top of his white chef's jacket was melted into his neck, his hair gone and Sam's stomach did a slow roll at the sight of bone through some of the crisp, twisted muscle where it was pulling away. The smell alone made him rock back on his heels.
Dean felt a little green himself. "Fire must have hit him right in the face." He glanced up at the sound of raised voices and winced as the fire alarm began to scream. He rolled his eyes. "Better late than friggin never. Come on." He pulled Sam up with him and headed away from the voices. He didn't want to get caught up with ship's security.
"What the hell's going on, Dean?" Sam asked as they turned a corner out of sight. "This is nuts."
"Did you smell it?" Dean glanced over at him and pulled them out of the way as a group of crewmen armed with extinguishers ran past. "Like Ozone in the kitchen."
Sam frowned. "But it was a gas stove. That wasn't an electrical fire."
"No, but a spook manifesting in there, expending the energy to set off that blaze?" Dean shrugged. "That could do it. I wanna go over the first crime scene with the EMF."
"That's a hell of a ghost if it is a ghost." Sam was slightly comforted that they had the weapons bag with them and silently thanked the poor security when they'd boarded the ship.
Dean nodded and looked down, scowling. "Dude." He grabbed Sam's left arm and raised it up; blood was slowly seeping through the bandage on his arm.
"It's ok." Sam took his arm back with a roll of his eyes. "That guy was heavy."
"Room." Dean gave him a shove toward the elevator, his tone not brooking any argument. "Don't think I don't know you're running a fever too."
"Dean, I'm not five. I can handle it." Sam gave him his best bitch-face which earned him nothing but his big brother's glare.
Dean gave him the silent treatment all the way back to the room. There was a building pressure in his chest that they're peaceful ride back home was quickly going very wrong and a stubborn, walking wounded little brother wasn't helping. It was the fires, he thought. They were literally trapped on this ship with fires breaking out and a deep-seated part of him wanted nothing more than to bundle Sam into a lifeboat and get the hell out of dodge. They could row the hell back home.
"Sit." Dean pushed Sam toward one of the couches and grabbed the first aid kit.
Sam started unwinding the bandage himself, resigned to being mothered. It was irritating and comforting at the same time. He'd worried for a while that Dean would never find his way out of the dark place he'd gone when their father died; that Dean was 'handling' him like he used to gave him hope.
"It's better than it was." Sam told him as he got a look at the still open wound. It was oozing blood in a couple places from the strain he'd put on it but the puss was gone.
"Oh yeah. Looks awesome." Dean said in a disgusted tone. The cut was an angry red and while it might not be oozing yellow anymore it was swollen and looked painful. To prove a point he pressed his thumb into the skin beside it, watching as Sam paled. "Still feel better?"
"Bite me." Sam said a little breathlessly.
Dean cleaned the cut again, grimacing each time Sam hissed in pain but he was thorough and decided to stitch it back up. The damage had been done if Sam's fever was anything to go by. Sam kept his arm still through the process but the strain showed on his face. Dean wrapped a fresh bandage around it and sat back.
"Sam, you need antibiotics." Dean told him. "We need to go to the…"
"No sickbay." Sam shook his head and took his arm back. He rose and went to find his laptop.
"Dammit, Sammy. The infections in your damn blood stream now." Dean growled. "You think Bobby wouldn't kick both our asses for letting this go?"
"We're big boys, Dean." Sam turned and raised a brow at him. "We've had infected cuts before and somehow come through without running to an emergency room. People survive them all the time without medical intervention." His voice dripped with sarcasm to remind Dean of the number of times he'd ignored his own injuries, stubborning his way through infections rather than deal with a hospital. In truth, he wasn't ready to be anywhere near anything resembling a hospital again yet; not after Dad. He still saw it every night in his sleep; looking in that doorway to see his father on the floor, his skin already going cold as he screamed for help, Dean lying in his bed looking so close to death with only the machines keeping him there. Sam gave himself a shake. On an intellectual level he knew what he was feeling was fast approaching a phobia but he wasn't ready to face it yet. "Look." Sam sat on his bed and deflated a little. "We can always pay a late night visit to the sick bay." He smiled at his brother, offering him a compromise. "Liberate some antibiotics if I'm not feeling better by then."
Dean finished packing up the first aid kit and tossed it onto the table. Sam was right on the one hand; not every stupid infected injury required a hysterical visit to a Doctor to fix. Most of the time their bodies fought it off and made them miserable for a few days until it did. Dean however had always been unwilling to take chances with his brother and the fever worried him. "Fine." He said at last and held up a finger. "But I even think you're going downhill and I will knock your ass out myself and drag you in."
"Deal." Sam smiled tiredly and leaned back against the wall with his computer on his lap. "I want a look at the ship's passenger list."
Dean watched him tapping away and pulled a beer out of the little fridge. "Still looking for that kid? Sam, he's fine wherever he is. I don't get why you're so focused on him."
Sam didn't look up. "I don't know. He was just so…sad." The tears in the boys' blue eyes had touched something in him and he needed to know he was alright. "Damn." He snapped the laptop closed and set it aside. "The system's protected. I could probably hack it but…"
"It'd set off alarms and they'd be at our doorstep." Dean smiled grimly. "Ok. We go to the computer then." He smiled. "They bust is in there we can just say we got turned around and the door was open."
Sam snorted a laugh. "Hope you've been working on your 'innocent' face." He stretched his legs out on the bed and leaned his head back. "We've got a few hours to kill. Go clean out some pockets in the casino or something."
"I'm good." Dean flopped onto the couch and flicked the television on. He wasn't going to leave Sam alone with random fires popping up all over the damn place nor with the fever. He kept the volume low and settled on an old movie, smirking over at his brother and hoping he looked up and saw. It'd be worth the bitch-face Sam would give him if he realized Dean was watching Killer Klowns from Outer Space. He chuckled softly and got comfortable.
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Sam scowled at his brother as he had several times now; each time Dean looked at him and chuckled. "You'd have had that door open a lot faster if you weren't giggling like a girl."
Dean didn't rise to the bait, settling for another laugh as he kept watch at the door. Sam had indeed woken up during the movie, just in time for the army of blood-thirsty clowns to march across the screen. The look on his face and the resulting slap to the back of the head had been worth it. They were in the administrative office now, Dean having picked the lock after the last crewmember had wandered out around ten.
Sam wiped a hand over his face, brushing away the sweat that was ever-present now from his fever. He'd been feeling progressively worse over the last few hours and managed to keep it to himself…he hoped. He gripped the side of the desk as his head swam and he suddenly felt as though he were standing in a furnace. He'd been digging through the passenger manifest for twenty minutes. Thanks to modern technology there were pictures of each passenger which made it easier but he was nearing the end of the list and though there had been dozens of children, not one resembled the sad child he kept seeing.
"He's not here." Sam muttered and clicked through the last few pages, coming to the end. A wave of nausea assaulted him as the heat inside him grew and his head spun. "Dean, I…" Sam turned to find his brother but the motion proved more than his head could handle. The floor seemed to tip beneath him.
Dean turned from the door in time to watch all six feet four inches of little brother collapse to the floor. "Sam!" He slid to his knees beside him and rolled him over. "Dammit!" He cursed, feeling the heat of his skin through Sam's shirt. "Sammy?" He shook him gently and propped him up in his arms. "Come on, kiddo. Wake up." His skin felt like hot, dry paper beneath the sheen of sweat. "Sam." He shook him again, swallowing down his rising panic when Sam still failed to wake. "That's the last time I let you talk me out of something."
He sat Sam up and slid his arms under Sam's shoulders; dragging him back toward the door. "Can't let them…find us in here." Dean reached back to open the door, kicking it out of the way and pulled Sam into the hall. He let the door fall shut and dragged his brother well down the hall toward the elevator before laying him back on the floor.
"Ok, Sammy. Showtime. Help!" Dean shouted at the top of his lungs and kept one hand on his brother's chest, over his heart where he could feel it pounding. He called again and sighed in relief when an officer, by the uniform he wore, ran around the corner, eyes wide as he took in the brothers. "My brother's collapsed. We need help!"
"Stay there." The officer said, prompting Dean to roll his eyes as he ran back around the corner out of sight.
"Where the hell are we gonna go?" Dean asked Sam, disgusted. "Anytime you wanna wake up, Sammy." He pushed damp hair off Sam's forehead, willing him to open his eyes. "Please, Sam."
The elevator doors opened beyond them and a team from the sickbay rolled out with a gurney as the officer returned. "Sir, you'll have to move." The taller of the two men gave Dean's shoulder a gentle push before dropping beside Sam. "Can you tell us what happened?"
"There's a cut on his arm that got infected. I'm Dean. He's Sam." Dean scrubbed a hand through his hair as they checked Sam over and lifted him onto the gurney. "He's been feeling kind of off all day and then he just passed out."
"We'll take care of him." The tall man smiled. "I'm Doctor Evans. Why don't you follow us."
"Couldn't stop me." Dean said softly and pushed his way into the elevator with them and his brother. He put a hand on Sam's shoulder as they dropped down through the ship and kept it there as they wheeled him down long halls and into the sickbay. He was pushed aside finally while they set Sam up in a little room all his own. Dean paced around the sickbay while they worked on him and glared at Doctor Evans when he finally came out to talk to him. "How is he?"
"He's going to be fine." Doctor Evans smiled in the face of the contained fury and panic on the young man's face. "We're giving him IV antibiotics right now to fight the infection and they're going to pack some ice around him to bring down his temperature. That's our only worry right now. The infection has driven it up…"
"Doctor?" A nurse called from Sam's room. "He's seizing."
Dean pushed past him into the room and shouldered past the nurse at Sam's side. "Move." Dean took hold of Sam's shoulders, holding him as firmly as he could while his brother's body convulsed.
"Where's the ice?" The Doctor shouted.
Dean watched him fill a syringe and inject it into the IV before he did his best to hold down Sam's legs. A commotion outside heralded the arrival of the ice. Dean refused to move as they packed it around his brother. The tremors wracking Sam's long frame tore at Dean's heart. He felt worthless for letting it get this bad. "Sorry, Sammy." He whispered and then gasped as Sam suddenly went limp.
"It's alright." Doctor Evans said quickly to ward off the terror on the brother's face. "It's the drug I gave him and the ice. He's fine. Look." He pointed to the heart monitor on the other side of the bed where the beat of Sam's heart scrawled over the tiny screen.
"Shit, Sam." Dean said, breathless and leaned back, resting a hand on his brother's too warm head.
"Fever's coming down now." The Doctor said absently, watching the readings on the monitor.
Dean listened as the Doctor gave the nurses orders to replace the ice in half an hour, medications, and he tuned him out. He hooked a stool over with his leg and sat by the head of the bed while the Doctor came back and started unwrapping the bandage on Sam's arm.
"This was cleaned well." Doctor Evans mumbled as he checked the wound. "Good stitches, probably won't leave a scar. He had a good Doctor."
Dean snorted a laugh and dropped his head. "Not good enough apparently."
"Now, Dean. Any Doctor would have underestimated an infection this voracious. As suddenly as you say it took him down, there was likely nothing to be done. It happens." Evens shrugged and smiled. "You know most of the time our bodies handle this stuff on their own. He just got unlucky." He wrapped a fresh bandage around Sam's arm and patted it lightly in place. "Feel free to stay with him. It'll be a few hours before he's back with us."
Dean looked up at him with dark eyes. "He seized, Doc. You're sure he's gonna be ok?"
"Reasonably." The Doctor dropped a hand to Dean's shoulder. "We'll know for certain when he wakes up. Talk to him if you like." He left them alone.
Dean had yet to take his hand from Sam's head and squeezed his shoulder with the other. "Man I wish you'd wake the hell up already." He was pale and flushed at the same time. Dean could feel that the heat in his body had lessened slightly and he pushed some of the bags of ice against him more firmly. He stared at Sam's closed eyes and the rise and fall of his chest and suffered. "This is how you felt, isn't it? In that hospital with me and…Dad." The Doctor saying Sam would be alright and believing it were two very different things. He could only imagine the panic Sam must have felt when the doctors had told him that Dean wouldn't be getting better. He knew what he was feeling now, the hopelessness and fear and the uncertainty of whether he'd be able to go on without Sam in the world. He worried he knew the answer to that question.
"You could throw me a bone here. Blink at me or something." Dean sighed. He rubbed a hand through his hair again and looked up. "Sammy?" He leaned over Sam's face. His eyes were fluttering and a moment later they cracked open to reveal hazy, blue-green eyes.
"Dean?" Sam's voice was soft and rough. His entire body hurt; aching like he'd been beaten and he was so hot yet cold. Confusion swirled through his mind as he tried to focus on his brother's face.
"Hey, tiger." Dean smiled down at him. "There's better ways to find the hot nurses man." Sam stared up at him for a moment and then closed his eyes again. "Hey. Hey, come on, stay with me." But Sam was out again and Dean settled back onto his stool. "Ok. I can wait."
A nurse bustled in with a bucket. She smiled at Dean as she started removing the old, melting ice and replaced the bags with new ones, checking his vitals before she bustled out again. Sam was beginning to shiver lightly and Dean rubbed a hand up and down his arm in sympathy.
"This would have been a lot easier if you'd listened to me and come in here earlier." Dean scowled at him. "We're gonna talk about that later, dude."
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Dean startled awake, snapping his head up from where it rested beside Sam's shoulder on the bed. He shook the cobwebs from his head and glanced up to the monitor. Sam's heart was beating more normally and at some point while he'd been sleeping the ice had been removed and replaced with a blanket. It bothered him that they'd done that without waking him. The sound of raised voices drew his attention and he wondered if that's what had woken him.
"Hey, Sammy." Dean brushed his dark hair from his forehead. "You coming back yet?" Sam's head stirred on the pillow. "That's it, buddy."
More voices shouted from somewhere nearby. "What the hell?" Dean looked out through the door but saw nothing. "Ok. Don't go anywhere, sasquatch. I'm gonna see what's going on."
Sam struggled up through the gauzy layers wrapping his mind with the sound of Dean's voice. He wanted to know what was happening and where he was. He cracked his eyes open and saw a tall shadow moving away from him. Dean. He wanted to call him but his mouth wouldn't cooperate, his voice stalling in a dry throat. Sam's eyes refused to focus, making everything a blur. He watched Dean's figure disappear and frowned, looking to his left. A smaller, shorter blur of a shadow was there in the doorway.
"H…hello?" Sam croaked and coughed. He tried to focus on the blur but the drugs and the exhaustion pulled at him as the shadow drew closer to him. It was short, he thought, no more than a child. Sleep sucked him back under, closing his eyes against his will.
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Dean followed the noise out of the sickbay into the hall. There was a commotion at the other end of the hall and he jogged down to where several people were standing around, staring around a corner.
"What's going on?" Dean asked as he drew even with them and looked around the corner. Several crewmen with fire extinguishers stood outside a door with smoke pouring out at them. "Crap." This close to the sickbay and his brother made him nervous.
"It's just a linen closet or something." A man said next to him. "Heard one of those guys say so." He nodded toward the white uniformed crew.
Dean ignored him and watched the men work at putting out the fire. This little fire niggled at him. If it was a spirit setting them, it made no sense to set one like this when it had already escalated to killing people. He knew well that murderous spirits were a lot like living serial killers; they rarely backtracked once they graduated to actually killing. He just didn't get why it would do this. He wished he'd thought to grab his EMF before they left their room. His nerves began to yell at him; the hairs on the back of his neck standing up as he told himself it wouldn't do this. It wouldn't drop back from killing to torching some towels; not without a reason.
"Oh god." Dean spun and raced back down the hall toward the sickbay. He hadn't gone ten steps when the shipboard fire alarm sounded, blaring in his ears. It spurred him faster. He skidded to a stop when the sickbay doors swung open in a cloud of smoke, the Doctor and a nurse emerging to fall to the floor gagging and coughing.
Dean grabbed Doctor Evans roughly and pulled his head up. "Where's my brother? Where is he?"
Doctor Evans couldn't speak. The smoke had burned his throat and was clogging his lungs. He shook his head and pointed back into the sickbay.
"You left him?" Dean growled. "Son of a bitch." Dean stood and took a deep breath. He pushed through the warming doors into an inferno.
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To Be Continued…