The Dying of the Light
By Spense
2008
Note: As always, I seem to forget the disclaimers. I don't own, just playing, don't sue.
And I forgot to thank the inimitable K. Hannah Korossy for the wonderful suggestions and keeping me on track when I was drafting this story. Thanks for your help and encouragement!
Chapter Two"Mr. Winchester?"
The voice was welcome. Dean had been sitting for hours, running in his head Sam's injuries. Sergeant Leary had joined him as soon as he could, and lent a quietly needed moral support while the doctor ran down the list.
Exposure, check. Shock, check. Badly beaten, bruised, contused, whatever. Check. Dislocated hip that had apparently popped back into place on it's own, just severely inflamed now. Badly strained shoulder. Wrists skinned badly from rope burn. Sammy had clearly been trying hard to get free. Dean had shuddered when he thought what would cause that kind of frenzy. Badly bruised kidney, but what internal bleeding had been going on was apparently stopping on it's own. Cracked ribs and badly sprained wrist. But the worst were Sam's feet. He'd shredded them practically to the bone. He wouldn't be walking anywhere for awhile. The doctor was optimistic regarding a full recovery, but did say it would take awhile.
Leary had had to leave. A quick squeeze on Dean's shoulder and he was gone, and Dean was alone. Alone like he'd not ever been. No Dad, no Sammy. When Sam was gone, he'd at least had Dad. Now Dad was gone permanently (nonononono), and Dean had been pushing away the one person who made him whole. And now it might be too late.
Now, after sitting for hours in the waiting room, he was glad for the distraction of the doctor walking towards him. He stiffened unconsciously, bracing for who knew what.
"Mr. Winchester, Sam is in recovery and the surgery went very, very well."
Dean felt like he deflated as the doctor smiled. "Sam is in recovery. Shelly will let you know when you can see him."
Dean's relief made him loose track of time until another nurse (Shelly he hazarded, too distracted to even hit on the attractive woman of about his age), a slightly worried line between her brows appeared.
"What?" As soon he processed the look (longer than normal given his exhaustion) Dean was on his feet so fast he was almost dizzy.
"Mr. Winchester, Sam is fighting coming around. I'm hoping you could help."
"Show me the way," Dean said grimly, ready to nearly push her towards the recovery room.
SNSNSNSN
He was trapped. Again. He'd thought he was free, but he couldn't move. Panic filled him, making him breathe quickly. Hands on him scared him more, making to defend himself.
Voices were intruding, unknown voices, asking, demanding, frustrating him.
Then a familiar touch, combined with familiar words cleared his head and the safety made him swim towards consciousness.
"Easy buddy, . . . just tangled in the blankets . . . hang on . . ." The familiar mutter was combined with a freedom, a LACK of 'trapped' and a sense of safety, and he could move again. He clenched his now free hand around the blanket, bunching it up and holding it hard, and desperately wrenched open his eyes.
"Hey, Sammy, glad to see you again," Dean smiled at him, perched on the edge of his bed, a careful smile lightening his tired face.
Sam thought his brother looked guarded. 'What the h . . .' "De . . n?" he finally managed to stutter, sounding garbled even to himself.
It must have made sense to Dean, because the slightly hooded gaze lifted, replaced by a true, unguarded, patented 'Dean' grin. The one few ever saw. Sam blinked at that, the expression penetrating even the hazy fog that surrounded him as he unconsciously let go of the blanket and reached out to grab Dean's hand, lying near his own on the bed, in a death-like grip.
Dean's smile got even bigger, if that was possible. "Welcome back, Sammy." Quietly.
SNSNSNSN
He was cold. Freezing cold. He was so tired of being cold. But the cold kept the pain away, and it kept him alive. He knew that. And he had to stay alive. He had to talk to his brother. Had to see Dean, and tell him how sorry he was for being such a jerk.
No, something was wrong. He always called Dean a jerk. Didn't he?
It was too cold. He couldn't think straight.
"Geez Sammy, you're going to freeze to death if you keep doing that. I go away for a second . . . " The voice faded out, and then his legs were covered by warmth, getting warmer.
He sighed with relief. Being warm enough could never be overrated. The warmth spread, and he lazily opened his eyes.
Dean was there. He was spreading a blanket over Sam, and tucking in the edges the best he could given all tubes the snaking around the bed.
How Dean be here? Sam had been worried about him, had been trying to get to him. Hadn't he?
Suddenly Dean turned and noticed Sam's open eyes.
"Hey! Welcome back," he said with a gentle smile. The one that looked like a lamb disguised as a barracuda. The smile was sweet and lacking all guile. "How ya' doing?"
Sam noted the smile absently, knowing it must mean something, but he sure couldn't guess what. He licked his lips and tried to talk. "Cold."
Dean lifted his eyebrows. "Still? Need another blanket?"
"Uh-uh," Sam managed to stutter. "B-before."
Dean dropped to his chair, placed near the head of Sam's bed. "Well, if you'd stop kicking off the blankets you'd stay warmer," he pointed out, putting a warm, comforting hand on Sam's shoulder.
Sam tried to process that, but it was too hard. He just nodded absently.
His brother smiled again, this time full of humor. "Not firing on all cylinders there, are ya, Sammy?"
Sam ignored him, feeling like he was swimming through a fog. "W-where?"
"ICU." When it was clear that wasn't meaning much to Sam, Dean clarified further. "Hospital. You've had surgery. You'll be fine, okay?"
"'Kay." He processed that slowly, licking his dry lips once more. Before he knew it, Dean was getting some ice chips into his mouth, and they tasted like heaven.
"Better?"
"Uh-huh." The ice tasted amazing. How . . ." He tried again. "How did I get here?" He felt slow.
Dean thought about the helicopter and looked again at his brother's face. Nope, they'd do that later. "Found you on the side of the road. Want to tell me how you got there?" He forced all his desperation to 'know' down ruthlessly. Sam was in no condition to deal with anything besides putting words together in a coherent fashion.
"Huh?" Sam's brow furrowed.
Dean counted to 10. "What's the last thing you remember, Sammy?" He leaned forward, intense.
Sam frowned. "Motel?" he guessed.
"No, Sammy, after that," Dean reminded him patiently.
"Here." Sam said slowly, the light beginning to dawn in his eyes, fear clearing the cobwebs. "Here," he said more strongly.
Dean watched the panic beginning to grow, and eased himself up and closer to the bed, the hand resting on Sam's shoulder became a careful grip. He gave Sam a gentle shake to remind him that he was there. "Easy, Tiger."
"Dean, what happened to me?" Sam's voice began to rise.
"Calm down," Dean soothed, eyes going up to the nurses station across the large, open room of the ICU.
The nurse looked up, caught Dean's eye, saw Sam's agitation, and was heading their way in moments.
"Dean! No! What happened?" Sam demanded, eyes widening.
Then the nurse was there and pushing back the blanket and injecting a sedative into Sam's arm.
"Sammy, easy, we'll find out, okay? Promise." Dean talked reassuringly as the energy drained from his little brother and he was suddenly asleep once again.
The nurse just smiled at Dean and patted his shoulder. "He'll be okay. He's just been through a lot. We'll just get him on something to take the edge off, okay?"
Dean nodded as he dropped back to his chair, staring pensively at his little brother as Sam's face smoothing out in sleep. Things had gotten significantly more difficult. If Sam couldn't remember, then where would they start? His lips thinned. No matter. Nothing on earth would stop him finding out who did this. But he was going to need some help. He couldn't leave Sam alone, and there were very few people he trusted in a situation like this.
SNSNSNSN
"Bobby?"
Dean's voice on the phone could only mean one thing. Trouble. Interesting trouble, but trouble none-the-less. "What have you managed to stir up now?" Bobby Singer answered, amused, as he tucked the phone between his shoulder and ear and continued working on the carburetor he had spread on the workbench.
While the situations the brothers found themselves in could be initially irritating, they generally proved to be fairly entertaining. And this was far more normal that the last call he gotten about the car accident. He was glad that things seemed to be settling from the strain of losing John. The boys just needed some time together in order to put things right between them.
A long pause.
"Dean?" Bobby's hands stilled.
"Sam's down. He's in the hospital."
Shit. "Where are you?"
"Ellensburg, Washington State." Dean's voice seemed to steady as Bobby's no-nonsense voice emanated from the other line.
Double shit. That was a ways away. "What happened?"
A pause. "Just . . . get here Bobby."
"Dean!"
"We were investigating . . ." Dean trailed off.
"What? What were you investigating?" Bobby demanded sharply.
"Ah . . ."
"Geez Dean, spit it out, will ya?"
"Bigfoot."
Bobby laughed. "Yeah, right. So what were you investigating?"
"I told you. Bigfoot. You know? Sashquatch? Real tall, kind of like my giant brother?" Dean sounded irritated.
Bobby decided to let that one go. Sounded like they really had just wanted a vacation. Not surprising, given he stress they'd been under. It would be in Dean's character to say they were working when they were really just backing off for awhile. "So let me guess, you found Windiego instead. Fed your brother to him?"
"No," Dean snarled. "Sam disappeared 2 days ago."
"What!!" Any further idea of trying to lighten Dean up a little was gone from Bobby's mind.
"He's back," Dean hastened to add. "We found him early this morning. He wandered out of the woods. He was only in shirt and boxers and it's like 25 degrees outside."
"Is he okay?" Bobby demanded, knowing as he said it that it was probably a really stupid question..
The silence on the other end was deafening.
"Dean!" Bobby commanded, impatient.
The John Winchester training of obeying orders was too good. "He's in ICU." Dean admitted softly.
Double Shit on ice cream. "How bad?" Bobby asked firmly, compassion clear in his tone.
"Shock. He was nearly catatonic. Maybe drugs. They're not really sure. They're checking his blood now for all kinds of crap. They Life Flighted him over. And . . . the bottoms of his feet are . . . pulp. They had a micro-surgeon repair them." Dean's voice grew stronger. "Bobby, he doesn't remember anything. I need some help here. I need to find what did this, but I can't leave Sam alone. Not until I have some idea of what's going on."
Bobby had heard enough. "Hang on kid, I'm on my way."