A/N - Hi all! Well I hope this posts, the site has been a bit funny today due to updates. Thanks again to all the wonderful readers, reviewers, the folks following this story. You keep me going!
To the guest reviewers, I can't write you back directly since you don't have accounts, but thank you for your kind words!
Disclaimer - Anything related to the show Supernatural does not belong to me. I would really like to rent Dean for a few days, though.
Dean shifted for the thousandth time in the backseat of the Impala, vainly trying to find a more comfortable position that didn't pull on his stitches or make the dull, persistent ache ramp up into cutting, biting, nauseating, never fucking ending agony, but it just didn't exist. The best he could do was an awkward sprawl with his head propped up against the arm rest of the door, one foot resting on the ground to pr otect himself against any abrupt stops or turns, the other leg curled inward on the seat, foot squished uncomfortably against the door. His arms were curled around his middle below the stitches trying to keep some warmth in his shivering body. At least it was better than the front seat, maybe only one percent better, but Dean would take it right now.
Getting out of the hospital had been easier than expected. The doctor had been adamant that Dean leaving was not only insane, but extremely dangerous to his health, but Dean already knew that and wasn't impressed. He knew he was in more trouble staying there. The doctor threw out a lot of awful and painful sounding words, getting more irate as Dean just continued to pull on his clothes. At the end, the doctor lost and Dean was released with pain medication, antibiotics, and a disgusted, but concerned glare from the doctor.
Once the doctor had stormed out, Dean had made a valiant effort to walk out on his own, feeling pretty proud of himself that he was able to get dressed without help, but his legs hadn't been in the mood to cooperate with actual movement. Dean had leaned back against the bed, staring at the ground swirling below him, trying to inhale enough oxygen to shove the floaty sensation of pain medication away, so didn't notice that Sam disappeared briefly, only heard the squeak of wheels on the shiny floor and looked up to see him rolling in a wheelchair. There had followed a silent exchange consisting of death glares and hand motions of escalating rudeness, but when Sam did his "Get in the chair or I'm gonna shoot you" sigh complete with F5 level bitch face, Dean had known he had lost and gingerly sat in the seat, scowling at being overruled. No one had paid them any attention as they made their way out of the hospital to the car.
Sam had argued when Dean slid carefully into the front passenger seat, starting off kind, concerned and helpfully suggesting that it might be better for Dean to stretch out in the back. The battle over the wheelchair had obviously used up what little remained of Sam's patience because that didn't last long. Dean knew it was his own fault, his own stupid stubbornness that turned Sam's calm approach into sarcasm and anger when Dean refused to take what he knew was the smart choice and sit in the back. With a tight lipped, "Fine. You just tell me before you're going to puke from the pain so I can pull over in time," Sam had slammed the door shut, rocking the car on its wheels. Dean glared at him through the windshield for the unnecessary abuse to the car, ready to let loose when Sam got in, when it sunk in. Even through the warm fuzzy goggles the drugs had given him, he could see the worry etched into Sam's face, the lines that suddenly appeared in his normally smooth forehead speaking of internal struggle. Sam was freaking out and Dean wasn't helping matters.
He just didn't want to lay down in the back because that was the out of commission spot. He'd been there before, bleeding, broken, dying, so had Sam, so had Dad, but Dean wasn't any of those things now, at least he wasn't about to admit that he was. He already felt useless and helpless enough, he didn't want to make it worse by being relegated to the liability spot in the car. There was no explaining that to Sam, though, he wouldn't understand, hell Dean didn't even understand it. It was just his own little phobia. He knew Sam was doing all he could to keep it together for both of them and he knew that he wasn't being fair to him by being such a bull headed ass, but Dean simply couldn't help it. When he was hurt, he went into full on wounded animal mode, striking out at everyone and everything so he didn't appear weak and vulnerable. Sam just wanted to help and Dean just wanted to stand up, dust himself off and say everything was fine, pay no attention to the intestines he was holding in with his hands.
So instead of yelling at Sam when he got in the car, he said nothing at all, had just stared at his younger brother's profile with an uncomfortable blend of guilt and defiance. Sam didn't look at him, just started the car and headed out for the long drive to Bobby's. He didn't look at him when Dean kept adjusting his position, trying to ease up the discomfort. He didn't look at him when the drugs started to wear off and Dean's breathing got heavier and more measured while he tried to ride it out, breathe past it. He didn't look when sweat started to break out over Dean's colorless face. He especially didn't look when Dean asked him to pull over the car in a small, urgent voice, simply did as he asked.
But he did come help him out of the car and held him steady while Dean threw up the meager contents of his stomach, one hand pressed solidly against the stitches to keep them from flexing and ripping with Dean's retching. Sam had also handed him a tissue to wipe his mouth when he was finished and helped him back into the car, backseat this time. Even more kindly, he didn't say anything along the lines of "I told you so" or look smug at Dean's distress. Sam had just looked wiped out and scared.
Panting shallow breaths while he'd waited for the pain in his guts to subside, hoping it would sometime soon before he passed out, he'd seen Sam's hand held out in front of him, two white horse pills waiting on his palm. Dean had grabbed them and tossed them into his mouth, following them with a swallow from the water bottle held in front of him just as suddenly.
"Thanks Sammy," he'd breathed out of clenched lips.
At first, Sam hadn't said anything, just stared at Dean with that damned worried, wrinkled forehead and terrified eyes. Then a sad parody of a smile quirked up his lips. "You always have to do everything the hard way, Dean," he had finally said, shaking his head.
"Yeah, I'm kind of dumb that way," Dean had agreed, trying to work up a smile in return, but unable to find one at that moment.
After Sam had helped him settle in and checked to see if he needed anything else, he'd resumed his position in the driver's seat and headed back out on the road. Even though his stomach had been completely empty, the nausea didn't go with it, so Dean had done everything he could to remain still and keep his breathing steady. The pills had kicked in after several harrowing minutes and Dean had been able to fall into a restless sleep that didn't least nearly long enough.
So now he was awake, the pills barely took the edge off the fact that he was only a few hours out of surgery, he was freezing and he could see Sam's troubled gaze on him in the rearview he had tilted down to see him better. Good times. Maybe he should have stayed in the hospital another day. Looking away from those sad puppy dog eyes, Dean shifted again, this time in a really bad way, a grunt almost making it out of his clenched lips as a spike of pure agony stabbed through him, feeling a pull from inside that just felt gross and wrong. He stopped his movement immediately, not caring that his back was twisted and starting to protest the position. It could shut the hell up, he had other concerns.
"Dean?" he heard from the front seat. "You need some more pain pills?" Sam asked. Dean could tell Sam was putting a lot of effort into keeping his voice steady and casual, but years of experience told him that Sam was about five seconds away from either bursting into tears or cramming more pain meds down Dean's throat whether he wanted them or not. Maybe even both.
The second he opened his mouth to respond, Dean felt his stomach try to crawl up and escape via his throat, so he clamped his lips shut again, and resumed his deep breathing. He could still feel Sam's eyes on him, so he just nodded. Dean wasn't a fan of pain medication, he didn't like the way it made him feel, but he liked this even less. A clenched hand came into his line of sight and Dean raised his own to grab the pills he knew where held inside, fighting the pain the movement caused. Who knew that raising your arm used so many core muscles?
The pills fell into his hand and Dean shoved them into his mouth without hesitation, not even bothering to take a swig from the water bottle rolling around in the foot well beside him. He forced them down his dry throat into his heaving stomach, trying to make a deal with his churning guts that he would not move for a while if they would just keep the pills down. They must have taken him up on it because the urge to vomit began to fade.
"Jesus, this sucks," Dean gasped out, letting his head fall back against the door again, eyes focused on the roof of the car. He had left the hospital well before the doctors wanted him to many times, but this was a first for taking off so quickly after surgery. The really good stuff they put in the IV to make you completely unaware of what the hell was going on would be really welcome right about now. He was going to try really hard not to do this again. It had been necessary, but he was paying for it.
"I know Dean," Sam said sympathetically. "We can stop if you need to. We're coming up on a town," he offered.
Dean was in enough pain that he actually considered it. A bed would be a lot more comfortable and still than his present location, but he also knew that every minute they delayed getting to Bobby's was another one that Dean had a target on his ass. "No, I'm good."
"Yeah, you're great," Sam said in a huff, but there was no heat to it. He knew as well as Dean did that stopping wasn't really an option, he was just going through the motions. "Just tell me if it gets too bad okay?"
"Sure," Dean responded flatly, knowing he would do no such thing.
"Dean.." Sam started, a warning in his tone. Sam knew he wouldn't do it either.
"Stop worrying Sam, just drive. I'm not dying here, I just hurt and that's nothing I can't handle. I knew what I signed up for when I left the hospital," Dean sighed in resignation. He knew Sam was physically incapable of not worrying, but he was hoping that he could get him to stop jumping in panic every time Dean moved.
Dean's eyes shifted over to meet Sam's in the rearview. "And stop staring at me, it's starting to freak me out," he demanded, the words softened by the smile curving up on side of his mouth.
"All right, I'll make you a deal. You tell me when it's getting bad again and I'll quit looking at you. And you have to promise Dean, no going tough guy and riding it out until you're barfing again or I'll stare at you all the way to Bobby's," Sam threatened, already adjusting the rearview mirror back to its normal position.
"Scout's honor," Dean said wearily in reply. He meant it. He knew Sam would do exactly as he said if he didn't keep to his end and he could do without Sam eyeballing him for the rest of the trip. "So tell me what exactly went down to give me another bellybutton." If he couldn't sleep, move, or drive, then talking was the only thing he had left to give him some distraction from the pain.
Dean saw Sam run a hand through his hair, something it looked like he'd been doing a lot lately judging from the tousled state of his hair. "I was getting gas and you went into the store. I saw you standing at the counter, just staring at the wall. I thought maybe you had gone AWOL again so I started to head inside when I saw you walk over to get coffee. Thought everything was okay, that you had been looking at a TV or something, but then you were gone." Sam stopped there for a moment, drawing Dean's eyes to him. He could only see Sam's profile, but it was enough to see how much the event had shaken him in the muscles twitching in his tight jaw, the eyebrows pulled down tight to his nose.
"When I got inside, I saw that you had been looking at a clock and that's when I knew that it was happening again. The guy behind the counter said you had gone out the back. When I got out there, it was the same thing as last time; you were just standing there, totally gone, just vacant. I was in front of you and I felt something pass through me, through my belly. It was an arm, Dean," Sam voice rose in disbelief. "A fucking arm passing through my guts and it had stabbed you." He broke off then to take a long trembling breath. "And then it was just you and me again, no arm, no death echo. Just you covered in blood, but still not there. The clerk called an ambulance and I followed it to the hospital in the car."
Dean remained silent, letting the words sink into his brain that was rapidly becoming slow and soggy as the additional dose of pills started to work through him. That sounded pretty bad. Whatever that witch had done to him had made him vulnerable to death echoes. He didn't know how, or even why since it was a terribly inefficient way to kill someone, but that had to be the how. Now to sort out the why, what and the fucking fix it parts.
"If I hadn't been there, or had gotten to you just a little bit later, I don't think they could have saved you," Sam added in a rough whisper, his head swinging around to look at Dean fully for a moment, as if to reassure himself that he was still there and breathing, before going back to the road.
Guilt started to creep back into Dean as he thought about what his brother must have gone through and about the hard time he'd given him since leaving the hospital. Dean didn't remember what had happened, he didn't know if Sam had only had to try to keep him from bleeding out for a few short minutes or an eternity of time waiting for the ambulance. He didn't know how long Sam had to wait to hear if Dean was going to live while his brother was in surgery. He didn't know how frightening it must have been to see his brother attacked by something they didn't know how to stop.
It must have been bad. Trying to picture it all, Dean knew he would have been frantic if the roles had been reversed, so appreciated the restraint Sam had shown in letting Dean make his own dumb decisions. Being reassuring and grateful weren't his strong points, in fact, they were probably the lowest points he had, but Sam had earned both. The slightly loopy feeling that was getting stronger as the minutes passed was probably helping with the urge to comfort his brother, too.
"You did get to me, Sammy, you always do and I'm alive and kicking. Well, not so much with the kicking, but I'm alive. That's all I need little brother, just some breathing and some heart beating and…uh…" He had a train of thought, but it was gone now. Yeah, the drugs were really starting to kick in, even the agony in his stomach was starting to fade around the edges. Awesome. "Just, thanks man," he finished deciding to give up the attempt for more conversation.
"Guess those pills are finally working, huh?" Sam said. Dean's eyes had closed at some point, he wasn't sure when, but he could hear the smile in Sam's voice. His little brother knew him so well. He was a good brother, really was, should probably tell him more often if he wasn't so sure it would just give him a big head.….
Dean was out.
At the abrupt silence, Sam threw a panicked look over his shoulder to see Dean's form relaxing on the seat, eyes closed, mouth hanging open. He sighed in relief when he saw that his brother was sleeping, the worry in his face smoothing out into something resembling fondness and exasperation. It was about damn time. If he'd had to listen to the gasps and grunts of pain that Dean didn't think he could hear and watch the grimaces of anguish flit across his face for much longer, he was going to pull off for a motel regardless of Dean's opinion on the matter and the danger he was in. He was well aware of his brother's exceptionally high pain threshold, it was a Winchester trait that all three of them had, so he knew Dean was in really bad shape and he couldn't ignore the remorse he felt in shuffling Dean out of the hospital so early, even if the reasons were sound.
The vibration of his phone sounded, and Sam snatched it up from the seat beside him before it could wake Dean. Peeking at the screen before answering, he saw that it was Bobby.
"Bobby, hey!" he greeted.
"Where are you boys?" Bobby asked, his voice brusque and urgent. The sound of that tone set off all Sam's alarms and he could feel the fear start to worm its way back in.
"We're only about three hours out from the hospital, we still have a ways to go. Did you find something?" Sam asked, hope and anxiety warring inside him.
"Yeah, well I found something, but it's nothing good." The hope died a brutal death at those words. "Dean said that one of the witches mentioned a Moros. Best I can tell it's a Greek personification for impending doom, drives people to their deaths. It doesn't cause death, just puts them on the path for however they are fated to die."
Sam tried to reconcile that with what was happening to Dean and wasn't coming up with any conclusions. "Well Dean's being put in situations where he could die, but it's not his fate, right?" If it was his fate, it wouldn't be so unnatural.
"Hell kid, who knows how your brother is fated to die? But I'm with you, this is all too artificial to count as his natural death. I've got some calls out to some contacts to see if anyone can tell me more about the coven and in what fashion they may have been worshipping Moros. With any luck, which I know we're short on, someone will have something useful," Bobby explained.
Sam hit upon a thought. "Maybe that's what the death echoes are for. Since Moros doesn't cause death out of turn, they are recreating what he's already prompted to happen? Might explain all the different causes of death for some of those missing people." It was far fetched, but it was starting to make a little sense, as scary as that was.
Bobby was silent for a moment. "You could be right Sam. Maybe that idol they seemed to be so worried about has something to do with it all. Gives us a place to start, anyway," he finally said. "How's your brother doing?"
Sam lifted up so he could see Dean, pleased that he was still sleeping and didn't appear to be feeling any pain. "Sleeping now, not so good before. I'm intending to keep going until we get to your place, but if it starts getting to be too much again, I may need to pull off for a while." Dean had promised to tell him if the pain was getting beyond his tolerance, but he didn't exactly trust Dean to have the same idea of what was too much as Sam did, so he would make the call if he felt it was necessary. He wasn't going to watch his brother writhe around in agony if he could help it.
"Keep me posted. I'll keep digging, and I should start to hear back from some people soon. Just keep it steady, Sam, we're going to get to the bottom of this," Bobby promised, his gruff voice dropping into reassuring tones.
"Thanks, Bobby," Sam said, disconnecting the call.
He looked back again at Dean's resting form and sighed, pressing just a bit harder on the gas pedal, the Impala's engine roaring to accommodate his need for additional speed. Count on Dean to piss off a witch coven that basically worshipped death. As if they didn't piss off death enough in their line of work.
"Always the hard way," Sam muttered to himself, eyes gazing out on the road before him, but mind focused on the threat to his brother. They would fix it. They had to.
TBC...