The hospital in downtown Avery was small, well equipped and employed an efficient and amiable staff. But as good as they were they were no match for the Winchesters.
"These people are so gullible," Dean said under his breath as they waited outside the records department.
"Dr. Hook, here are the patient records you asked for," the records girl, a cute but dumb as a box of rocks blonde, said with a smile as she dumped the stack of folders into Dean's arms. "You and Dr. John can use Dr. Whiting office for as long as you need. He's on vacation." She pointed to an office across the hallway, flipped her hair and headed back into the record's dungeon.
Dean walked into the appointed office and dumped the files on the desk. He sat down behind them and looked up at a frowning Sam.
"What?"
"Dude, I'm so picking the names next time."
"I suppose you think Phibes and Morbius are better?"
Dean snorted and turned his attention back to the files and, cracking his fingers over them and rolling his shoulders, said, "Now let's see what's been going on here in Smallville."
He opened the first folder and started to go through the sheets in search of the autopsy report, blood screens and toxicology reports.
Sam picked up the next few from the pile and took them to the couch. He perused each file, one after the other, coming up with the same results as Dean.
"I got nothing, Sammy. No West Nile, no Legionnaire's Disease, hell, not even a case of French Foreign Legionnaire's Disease."
"I know," Sam concurred, "These guys should still be alive…now and eighty years from now. They were healthy as horses except for some vague sleep disorder that was only diagnosed once they were admitted. No history of anything before that."
"Maybe that's it. I bet there are at least a hundred ways you can just up and die in your sleep," Dean said as he stood and bent backward to stretch out the kinks in the small of his back.
"Like dreaming you're falling and not waking up before you hit the ground," Sam offered.
"Or like being smothered by your brother for snoring so loud that I can't hear the dialog on the porn channel."
"Dialog?" Sam said, his eyebrows lifting.
"It's like saying you read Playboy for the articles, Sammy. I can figure out what's going on with just the picture but having the sound on gives me credibility."
Sam wanted to pound his head against the wall but instead helped gather up the files. The two of them headed back across the hall to the records office to return to files then headed back outside to the Impala.
"I'm starving. You wanna grab something?" Sam asked checking out the main drag for a restaurant as they drove through town.
"Not hungry," Dean said turning into the motel's parking lot, "and I gotta severe case of burning the candle at both ends." He left the engine running while Sam took his place behind the wheel. "I'm gonna catch some sleep and if I dream I'm flying I promise I'll wake up before I auger in," he told Sam and headed inside.
Sam watched him go and although he'd seen his brother go for days without much sleep he'd never seen it catch up to him so quickly. Shrugging he headed for a drive through to get dinner.
The drive took him all of fifteen minutes and when he got back, clutching a bag of greasy burgers and fries in one hand and balancing a cardboard tray of drinks in the other, Dean was fast asleep the TV tuned to South Park and, instead of paying him back for all the practical jokes he had played on him when he'd fallen asleep, Sam just watched Dean sleep.
Noting the dark circles under his eyes and the lines that had appeared out of nowhere to etch the corners of his brother's mouth, Sam hoped that, after their long months on the road, Dean really wasn't on his way to flaming out and auguring in. Just the sight of him made Sam sleepy and after his dinner with Cartman, Kenny, Kyle and Stan and a couple of hours of research to completely numb his mind and body he racked out only to have his brother awaken a few hours later.
Dean opened his eyes and searching the darkness slid his hand under his pillow, the smooth pearl grips of the Colt 1911 a comfort in his hand. A quick look to his left at his slumbering brother and he knew it wasn't Sam he'd not exactly heard but sensed in the room. A second later a shadowy figure moved closer.
God only knew who or what it was and when his hand emerged from beneath the pillow, the gun clutched tightly in his grip, only his sense of smell kept him from pulling the trigger.
"Mari?" he whispered into the darkness, a faint trace of her perfume on the air.
"Hello handsome", she said huskily, "I missed you."
Relief flooded through Dean and he was so pleased to see her that he didn't even think to ask how she'd found him or how she'd gotten into the room or why she had nothing on but a leather coat and the sexiest pair of red heels he'd ever seen. Frankly he really didn't care and, stripping off his t-shirt and boxers, he lifted the covers silently inviting her into his bed.
It was a standard issue cheap motel twin but he'd made due in smaller and more cramped quarters before and she was so warm and smelled delicious and her hands…oh God, and her sweet, sweet mouth.
"God, Mari," he breathed out and she bit his lip drawing blood and laughed when he cried out and looked over at Sam in panic.
"My brother..." he whispered.
"Won't hear a thing," she assured him, her hands sliding sensuously over his body.
"Then you've forgiven me for last night?" he asked, Sam all but forgotten.
"Not yet," she told him and lowered her head until her thick tumble of hair formed a cocoon around them.
She kissed him, softly this time and his eyes fluttered shut. When he opened them again Mari was standing next to the bed, her coat pulled tight and belted around her, looking down at him with a half smile on her face.
"Don't go," he whispered thickly, drowsily.
"I need to get home at a decent hour," she told him and he just laughed softly.
"There's nothing decent about you, Mari, including the hour you keep."
She smiled and blew him a kiss and left him satiated, exhausted and thankful that Sammy had never even twitched.