Chapter 7: COD: Acute Iron Poisoning
Guilt and worry nagged at the back of Sam's mind as he parted ways with Dean and headed down the hall towards their father's room. Under normal circumstances, his brother was the more adept of the two of them, easily able to MacGyver his way out of almost any sticky situation. These circumstances, however, were far from normal.
Side-stepping a supply cart laden with gauze, bandages, tongue depressors and the like, Sam arrived at the door of John's room. He was by no means scared of his father, neither was he ashamed of his earlier behavior, but the knot of panic and dread tightened in his stomach nevertheless. He hadn't seen John since the evening before when he'd been all too ready to plant his fist in the older man's face. Sam had tried to shake off his bitterness since then, play it cool. He thought he'd succeeded but Dean had guessed the truth, leaving Sam with the realization that he was most definitely not ready to forgive his father.
But what had happened couldn't be erased. Sam knew this and also knew better than to try. He didn't much care if John never spoke to him again, he just needed to get them all out safely and put this stop sign of a town in his rearview. Puffing out his chest with a deep breath and squaring his shoulders, Sam turned the knob and opened the door.
John looked much the same as he had the day before, only in worse need of a shave. He was still garbed in the hospital gown, but the IV had been removed. He was sitting upright in bed, scribbling furiously on a legal pad he'd no doubt talked one of the nurses into finding for him.
Sam noticed the disheveled stack of yellow papers already covered in the eldest Winchester's untidy script perched on the edge of the bed's desk/tray. He couldn't make out the words from his position by the door, so he edged closer, stuffing his hands in his pockets to appear curious and non-threatening.
John's hand paused momentarily, pen hovering over the paper, and he flicked a glance up to Sam. "Would you believe that dumbass doctor actually wanted me to wear a cast?" he asked with usual gruffness, waving his pen at his bandaged right leg before returning to his writing.
Sam's eyebrows shot up and he rocked back a little on his heels; this was definitely not the greeting he'd anticipated. He quickly returned his face to a normal, blank expression before answering. "You had a .45 caliber bullet lodged in your tibia, I think that warrants a cast," he said with as much neutrality as possible.
John didn't respond, but lowered his pen and stared a hole through the cardboard topper of the pad. Sam waited, not quite sure what to do or say. He knew that it was only a matter of minutes, seconds even, before the police obtained their names and room numbers, but he didn't see that any good could come from rushing John Winchester. His impatience, however, finally got the best of him.
"Dad, look – the cops are downstairs and we have got to -"
John looked up suddenly, his brown eyes strangely moist. "Sammy," his voice sounded too thick. "You should go."
Sam gave a distressed grimace. "What? Dad…"
"You said so yourself, the cops are down there," John said calmly.
"Dad," the panic welled up from Sam's gut and filtered through his voice to become anger. "I don't care if you're still mad at me- at Dean- but we can't have this argument right now!"
"Sam…"
"No, dammit!" his hands had slipped out of his pockets and balled into fists. "We both said stupid shit that we shouldn't have, and if I was a better man I'd apologize…"
"Sam…"
"We don't have time…"
"SAMUEL WINCHESTER!" John roared, rattling the glass of water on the bedside table. The part of Sam's brain that was a ten year old little boy snapping a salute to Daddy's orders told his mouth to shut up and he stood there in stunned silence.
John took a moment to collect his breath and thoughts, his eyes searching those of his youngest child. "Sammy-" his voice faltered. "I don't care about our fight, I don't want you to apologize," he held up a hand to silence the words forming on Sam's lips. "And I most certainly don't think your brother is weak." He gave a sad hint of a smile. "You two are the strongest men I know."
A lump rose in Sam's throat and he hastily tried to swallow it away. "Why are you saying all this, Dad?" his voice sounded strange to his own ears.
"Because…because I need you to leave here, without me."
"What?" Sam drew nearer to the bed, visibly shaking. "That's stupid; I'm not leaving you here."
"Son," John sighed from deep within his core. "I know you don't understand this now, but you have to trust me. The two of you are better off on your own."
"Bullshit! You were the one who said we were stronger as a family!" Sam turned and began to pace alongside the bed. "What's different now?"
"Everything, Sam!" John leaned forward, his eyes pleading. "This whole thing with the demon – it's so much bigger than I thought. I don't want you and your brother to get hurt anymore." He was now on the verge of tears. "I don't want to lose you boys because of my fight."
Sam sat down heavily at the end of the bed and faced John. "It's not just your fight, Dad. It's mine and Dean's too. We're all in this together."
They locked matching brown eyes, each trying to understand the other's perspective. In their brief silence, before father or son could speak, both distinctly heard the rapport of a gun. If Sam guessed correctly, it was a .45 Smith & Wesson with a mother of pearl grip…
-O-
"Well, I was looking for your brother, but I guess you'll have to do instead."
The voice was almost human and the undercurrent of evil would go unnoticed by the mortal populous. It was a fairly safe bet that only a Winchester would detect the edgy clip to the words and correctly evaluate the speaker as a demon. Said demon could then only hope that the Winchester in question was dead or unconscious. For the moment, this demon was lucky.
Dean's eyes cracked open marginally, and what little he could see of the world spun in a vortex of light and color. He pressed them shut almost immediately and rolled his head so that his cheek pressed against the elevator's tile floor. At the moment, his fuzzy brain was having trouble connecting the dots as to what had just happened. One second he'd been standing, or slouching rather, in the elevator whistling his heart out, the next thing he remembered was blackness. He'd passed out, his body's natural defense against this haphazard scheme of walking around before he was healed. But for some reason, he'd been pulled from his much needed beauty rest. He rolled his head again, feeling the rapidly growing knot that hurt like a son-of-a-bitch.
He tried to take a deep breath and found his airway constricted, his chest was too heavy to lift. Opening his eyes for a second time, he blinked rapidly, smudging away the protective tears with the back of a weak hand. Slowly, things started coming into focus, and Dean noticed a large, dark object perched on top of his chest. He blinked away the remnants of his blackout and squinted, now able to identify the object as a black, well-polished shoe.
Dean frowned in confusion. The fluorescent lights seemed much too harsh in his current state and he was unable to identify the person attached to the shoe.
"What the fu…" his tired lips tried to mumble but were cut off as a hand descended from the heavens and took hold of his collar. A second hand joined the first, the shoe vanished and Dean found that he was suddenly being lifted from the floor.
The man doing the lifting was shorter than Dean by a good two or three inches. He was dressed in a dark suit and red tie, his features non-descript but his eyes - oh God his eyes. They were black, swirling wells of despair, the spots where pupils should have been flecked with even deeper hues of evil.
Dean could hear the worn cotton threads of his shirt snapping under the strain of supporting his muscled form, but his captor showed no such signs of weakness. A second man swam in Dean's periphery, just outside the elevator doors. This must be it he thought. This is what death looks like.
The possessed man, obviously some sort of law enforcement official, continued to lift Dean even higher, the soles of his boots losing contact with the floor. The plain mouth sneered nastily. "I thought you Winchesters were bullet proof." His chuckle was deep, humorless and cold.
"No," Dean croaked, his unrestrained hands moving ever so slowly under the demon's gaze. "And you're not either." His palm found the butt of his pistol and his fingers closed around the grip.
The demon realized his error as the .45's muzzle pressed against the host's chest and Dean pulled the trigger. With a crack of thunder, the round seared through flesh and bone, instantly dispensing the demon in a misty cloud of ebony. The human host's hands released their captive, the body crumpling to the ground. Cause of death: acute, consecrated wrought iron poisoning.
TBC
AN: I originally had their escape from the hospital planned as one chapter, but it was going to be super long, so I broke it into two. Personally, I can't wait to get them out and move this thing along, but I didn't want to rush John and Sam's conversation. And don't worry about the last line; the guy wasn't really poisoned, I just borrowed one of my dad's corny little sayings, so laugh at me if you want!
Also, a little side note on the credibility of the police work in this fic. In my neck of the woods, we have some pretty unresponsive, Reno 911 style law enforcement. You're lucky if you can get them to respond to a tripped burglar alarm that same night. If you're real lucky, the dispatcher will tell you it's a false alarm and to go back to bed! Our boys "crashed" in a seriously backwater, po-dunk town in Missouri, so my guess is the police response would resemble that of my town's finest. If they arrived at a crash site where all parties involved were dead or unconscious, priority one would be rushing all victims to the hospital. Even criminals don't get interrogated if they're bleeding out on the side of the road. Secondly, cops don't wait at the hospital for victims/suspects to wake up, even on Law & Order they ask the doctors to call them if the patient wakes up. While I probably delayed the investigation a little too long, the cops most certainly wouldn't have expected the guys to be up and walking around. Not to mention, Sam would certainly be slick enough to pose as a detective long enough to get the Impala out of the police impound lot and retrieve the slug from the evidence locker. We're talking about local officials here, not the team from CSI: NY.
Okay, sorry for rambling on and my many thanks for listening. I just wanted to clear up my crazy thought process. Look for the next chap sooner rather than later.
- Uzi.