Infected
Chapter 3
"Dean," Sam said, the intervals between his breaths quickly shortening.
Dean just continued to hold his gaze steady, as a hundred thoughts passed between them unspoken.
"Dean," Sam repeated, finally breaking eye contact, his gaze scanning the room helplessly. His breathing was still sharp and uneven.
Dean continued to watch him passively, knowing they were on the precipice of a breakdown, and realizing there wasn't anything he could do or say at the moment to stop it.
Sam brought his gaze back to his brother. He pressed his lips together. Swallowed hard. His brows furrowed in distress, and his still-widened eyes suddenly reflected the flourescent lights a bit brighter.
"Don't give me that look, Sam," Dean said quietly, drawing his gaze away.
"Dean!" Sam said insistently. He shook his head slightly, staring helplessly at his brother. "Do you know what this means!" he exclaimed, his voice steadily rising.
"I'm not an idiot, Sam," Dean said, maintaining his passive tone. Sam was nearing hysterics. And it wouldn't improve matters one bit if he let his little brother know he was more than a little freaked out himself. So, he put on the appearance of remaining calm and collected, even though he sure as hell didn't feel it at the moment.
"Oh, God, Dean," Sam said, bringing a hand to his brow. He resorted to pacing a small patch of the tile floor back and forth, as his thoughts flit frantically through his mind. This wasn't happening. That didn't just happen. There's no way...
"Sam," Dean said, reaching out to stop his brother's frantic pacing. "Calm down."
"Calm down?" Sam asked, locking eyes once more with his older brother. "Calm down!" his voice was still rising. "Dean...you have it now!" he said, that desperate look still marring his features. "Whatever the hell it is, you have it now!"
"I know, Sam!" Dean said, his voice finally taking on a bit of a hard edge. God, it's like they were kids again and Sam was rubbing it in his face. No, he quickly realized. Sam was just scared shitless. He wasn't intentionally trying to make Dean feel worse.
"Oh, God, Dean," Sam repeated, rubbing his brow once more and resorting to the quick pacing again. "What are we gonna do?" he was directing that question more at himself. What the hell are we gonna do?
Dean went back to playing the role of the calm brother. "Well," he said, giving a slight cock of the head, and offering an apologetic grin. "Looks like we've now got ourselves a pretty good excuse to start learning all we can about that virus."
Sam gave him a hard look before glancing away and shaking his head in disgust. A joke. I'm going out of my mind right now and he offers a joke. That bastard...But the anger was just a cover up. Dean's dark humor was always necessary to get them through situations like this. He couldn't imagine it not being present. And it never would be again if Dean...Sam stopped himself. He was jumping to conclusions and scaring himself even more than he already was at the moment. He tried to slow his breathing down. Tried to clear his thoughts of the terrible implications he was drawing from all this.
"Aw, come on, Sammy," Dean said, attempting to console him a bit. He was just about to open his mouth again to say everything was going to be okay, but he stopped himself. It was too early to make assumptions like that. Too early to make assumptions of any kind. And suddenly, Dean felt a little scared...
Dean threw another tentative glance at his brother, who had been staring out the windshield for the past several minutes, stony-faced and silent.
"Sam," Dean began, hating that look on his little brother's face. He wasn't surprised when Sam just continued to stare forward. "Look, maybe we're really overreacting here." Sam turned to meet his gaze. "I mean, we don't actually know anything about this so-called virus. Maybe it's not anything to get worked up about. Maybe that was just your typical freaky-ass cat, and it wasn't even infected at all. Maybe I don't have it," he shrugged and Sam just continued to look at him, not saying anything. "I just think we're jumping to the worst-case scenario a little too soon here."
"Yeah, well, we know better than to jump to the best-case one," Sam countered. "Since 'best-case scenarios' are so abundant in our lives." He said sarcastically. "Dean, the town's under a government lock-down. I highly doubt this is just a new mutation of the common cold we're dealing with here." He paused, trying to sort out his jumbled thoughts. "We're going to have to figure out what to do. Who to go to for help—"
"Whoa, slow down," Dean interrupted. "We're not telling anyone about this."
Sam's gaze snapped to meet his. "What do you mean 'we're not telling anyone?' Dean, we've got to get you some help."
"Sam, we're not even sure if I have the virus, okay? We're just going to take this one step at a time like we do with every other job. We'll figure out what the hell is going on here, and we'll find a way to solve it. The last thing we need right now is a bunch of Feds sticking their noses where they don't belong."
"Dean," Sam replied, trying to reason with his brother. "We're not doctors. We're not scientists. If you do get sick, man, we're gonna have to go to somebody."
"Who, Sam? Your old buddy, Le Grange?"
"Dean, I'm serious. We're not going to mess around when it comes to your health."
"Okay, thanks, Doc."
"Dean—"
"Sam, I get it. We'll figure this out, okay? You need to stop getting so damn far ahead of yourself. You can't expect to keep your head when you're always ten steps ahead of the game."
"Yeah? That must be why I always lost to you at chess when we were kids."
"Exactly."
"Dean," Sam said, pointing out he was being sarcastic. "You've never once beat me at chess."
Dean looked at him, eyebrows raised. "What? If I remember right, I always kicked your ass at that game."
Sam snorted. "Well, obviously your memory's just as poor as your chess skills were."
"Yeah, well, chess always was a nerd's game," Dean replied. "I kicked your ass as the things that mattered, though. Still do, in fact."
Sam shook his head, "Yeah, I don't know about that."
"I'd be happy to prove it, Sammy. Any time you need the reassurance."
"Thanks."
Dean let a crooked grin pull at the corner of his mouth, glad the awkward tension had lessened a bit. A lingering feeling of dread continued to lurk at the corner of his thoughts, however, a subtle reminder that they still had a problem on their hands. And it could prove to be a big one. But at the moment, Dean felt fine. And he was clinging desperately to the hope that maybe he would wake up tomorrow and still feel fine. And maybe that freak accident back at the high school science lab could be dismissed and filed in the back of Dean's memory along with all the rest of his least favorite life moments that could never quite be forgotten no matter how hard he tried.
"That's his house up there on the left," Sam said, gesturing.
"Pretty nice farm he's got there," Dean said, scanning the acres of corn that surrounded the lone house. "As nice as farms get, anyways."
"What's wrong with farms?" Sam asked.
Dean snorted. "I forgot. You used to want to live on one when you were a kid," he gave a single shake of his head. "Man, I knew I should have beat you up that one time I caught you watching 'Little House on the Prairie.'"
Sam gave a short laugh. "If I remember right, you did beat me up," he paused, thinking back, "Well, you stole the remote, anyway."
"Ha, really?" Dean said with a laugh. "Good for me. See, it's thanks to me that you turned out okay, Sammy."
Sam shook his head, amused at the irony of Dean considering their lives to be "okay." Damn, they were anything but "okay." They had always been anything but "okay." And Dean was honestly oblivious to that.
"I remember you went through some random horse phase, around the same time you wanted to be a farmer," Dean went on, still musing on their childhood. "You wouldn't quit begging me for one for weeks. After running out of excuses I finally had to flat out tell you we would never have a horse. I think you gave me the silent treatment for at least a week for that one." He pulled into the driveway. "Man, you had the silent treatment mastered before you could even form complete sentences."
Sam laughed. "Yeah, I remember taking pretty good advantage of my manipulative skills as a kid. I couldn't help it, though. Getting you to cave was always too easy."
"Psh, whatever. I was a hardass."
"Dad was the hardass."
And with that, the conversation died. Dean couldn't think of a reply that wouldn't instantly spring an argument, so he simply ignored the remark and climbed out of the car. Sam followed, carrying the vial of cat blood as well as a microscope they had ripped off from the the high school lab.
They made their way to the door and were shortly greeted by the middle-aged man they had met earlier at the bar.
"Sam, Dean," he said, nodding in greeting and stepping aside to let them in. "How did it go?"
Sam gave Dean a dark look and received a warning glance in return.
"Good," Dean said, gesturing to the equipment in Sam's hands. "But, uh, your cat sort of went ballistic on us and took off. Sorry about that." He wasn't really sorry though. He hated that damn cat.
"Oh, she's okay. The whole town's her backyard." He led the boys into the cluttered living room. Sam, being the perceptive one that he was, noticed that the house was definitely missing a woman's touch. Jeffrey must not be married. Or must be divorced, he realized, because he did have a daughter.
"Why don't you boys have a seat? I just put some coffee on," he said over his shoulder, retreating to the kitchen to retrieve it.
Dean sank into the worn sofa, while his brother took a minute to examine the framed photographs lining the bookcase. The pictures showed a very happy-seeming family. A golden-haired woman, young and vibrant, held a little girl close to her in one photo. The next showed that same women, arms entwined around a younger Jeffrey. Sam realized Jeffrey must have lost his wife, since it wasn't exactly common for men to lovingly display pictures of their ex-wives around the house.
Jeffrey returned a moment later, two steaming mugs in hand. He wordlessly handed them to the boys and took a seat in the armchair across from Dean.
Sam set the vial and microscope down on the coffee table and took a seat next to his brother.
Jeffrey eyed the objects appreciatively and glanced up at the brothers. "Again, I don't know how to thank you guys for the favor. It was pretty gutsy of me asking you two to break into the school, and if any inquiries or anything arise, I'll be sure to take full responsibility for the act."
"Don't worry about it," Dean said dismissively, though not hoping to convey the idea that break-ins were something he and his brother indulged in often.
Jeffrey reached for the vial and held it up, examining its contents closely. "I only hope this might give me some leads on a way to help my daughter..."
At the mention of his sick daughter, Sam jumped on the opportunity of gathering some much needed information he was dying to know at the moment. "Your daughter," he began, leaning in anxiously, "Can you tell us what happened? What the symptoms were? How fast they came on?"
Dean gave him a look, knowing full well what this interrogation was all about.
Jeffrey sighed and leaned back against the chair. "It was only a couple days ago. She came into my room in the middle of the night saying she didn't feel well. Chills, fever, and what seemed like an on-setting cough. I just took it as a case of the flu. Gave her some Dimetapp and sent her back to bed. The next day it seemed the symptoms just kept getting worse and worse. It wasn't a normal cough—she could hardly breathe. She wouldn't stop shivering, even though the damn fever wouldn't break. It scared the hell out of me. It wasn't a normal sickness. And when I finally realized that and was about to take her to the emergency room, the feds showed up. That was yesterday. They've assured me everything's going to be okay...But the bastards won't let me see her. They've turned the hospital into their own little science lab, and God knows the tests they've been running on her...And you know, they're probably excited about this whole thing, the bastards. That's how it is in the science world. Any new discovery is big stuff. Who cares whose lives it's screwing?"
Sam's face was a mixture of sympathy and worry. Sympathy for the poor father in front of him, and worry for his possibly-infected brother next to him. God, he didn't want to go through that...again, he reminded himself. The image of Dean in a hospital bed was still all too fresh in his mind after the whole electrocution incident they'd dealt with weeks earlier. He couldn't go through that again. Seeing his brother like that...It was just too hard. Too emotionally taxing. And they had never been the best at handling emotionally-taxing situations.
"So, they haven't been much of a help, huh?" Sam asked, his voice laced with regret.
Jeffrey's gaze was directed downwards as he gave a slight shake of his head.
"Well," Sam said, slowly rising to his feet. He felt a little bad cutting their visit short, especially when the man was obviously so distressed, but it couldn't be helped at the moment. They had some investigating to do. "We better get running. We still have to get a room, and you said they're keeping pretty close tabs on the town at night?"
"Yeah," Jeffrey replied, also standing. "After seven they start clearing the streets. Closing the shops. They make house visits, too. Always on the look-out for their next infected victim."
"What about the bar?" Dean asked.
"You know, I think they're actually allowing the bar to stay open until ten or eleven. Out of pity, more than likely. Though I doubt the bastards actually have any." He paused for a moment. "Granted, I'll be singing a different tune if they actually manage to cure my daughter."
Sam gave a slight smile, actually hoping the man would end up eating all his critical words about the government workers. He really hoped his little girl would be okay. As well as all the other infected townspeople...As well as his brother. He glanced at Dean, studying him closely, looking for any signs of an on-setting illness. Dean caught him looking however, and quickly stepped past him towards the door, cutting off Sam's scrutinizing gaze.
Jeffrey grasped Sam's hand again and offered another sincere thanks. Sam reassured him they'd be in-touch soon, before following his brother out the front door.
Once back in the Impala, Dean roared up the engine and fastened his seatbelt. He felt eyes on him once again however, and abruptly turned to face his brother.
"Knock if off, will you?"
"Knock what off?" Sam asked, caught a bit off-guard by Dean's annoyance.
"That look you keep giving me."
"What look?"
"That one," Dean said, pointing. "Look, I'm not about to drop dead or anything, okay? And I hate being stared at, it creeps me out."
"I'm your brother," Sam said, as if that gave him every right to stare at his brother as much as wanted.
"Yeah, especially by my brother. It's creepy, quit it."
"Look, Dean," Sam said, "I know all too well how good you are at hiding things," Dean's eyebrows shot up as if to say, Oh, really? "Like being sick," Sam went on, "and thinking I won't notice. You were always like that when we were kids, and you're still like that now. I know you won't speak up about it, so I've learned I just have to keep an eye on you."
"Oh, is that so?" Dean asked, nodding sarcastically.
Sam gave an affirmative shrug.
"Well, I'm not five, Sam," Dean retorted. "And as much as you may want to be, I hate to break it you, you're not my freaking nursemaid."
Sam couldn't help the slight exasperated smile that formed on his lips. Dean couldn't stand any form of coddling. At all. It drove him crazy.
"No," Sam answered. "But I am your brother." That should explain it all. Brother's looked out for each other. Took care ofone another. It wasn't "coddling." It's just what they did. And Sam was so sick of Dean's double standards. If it was him that had gotten pricked by the needle, Sam knew Dean would be going crazy. There wasn't any written rule that said older brothers always had to act as the "older" ones, and younger brothers always had to be the "younger" ones.
Dean shook his head in annoyance and peeled out.
Getting a motel room proved to be easier than they expected. All they had to do was feed the owner some b.s. story about how they were involved with the government investigationsof the town, and there they had it. His suspicions were diverted and he didn't ask them any further questions.
The room was small. Two twins, shaggy carpet, dim lighting. Not too homey, to sum it up. Dean flopped down on the edge of the nearest bed, once again drawing Sam's gaze immediately to him. Dean only ignored him this time. He felt okay. Tired, frustrated, and a little edgy, but for the most part okay.
Sam set his bag down on the opposite bed. "So, feeling up to paying the bar another visit?" he asked casually. "Maybe find out more about this 'Bill McPhee' character? Or maybe ask around about the other victims?"
Dean rubbed his brow. "Yeah, okay."
"You all right?"
"Yeah," Dean said, giving a slight nod. "I'm just sick of this gig already," he explained.
"Well, you can't be, man," Sam replied. "We haven't even started."
"Yeah, I know," Dean said a little snappishly, once again reasserting that he was the oldest and didn't need to be treated as anything but such.
Sam's gaze lingered on him for a moment longer. He mentally checked "fatigue" on his list of things to be watching out for in his brother. He hoped to God "chills," "fever," and "difficulty breathing" would remain unchecked. But he would be watching. And whatever symptoms might make themselves manifest in his brother, they wouldn't be a problem. They would be dealt with and taken care of just like the usual roadblocks they faced in their everyday lives as hunters. Were Dean to get sick, he would get better. That was just the plain and simple truth of the matter. And Sam clung to that desperately as he pulled his jacket on and followed his brother back out the door.
To be continued.
Author's note: I'm really, really sorry about the ridiculously long gap between the last update. But the simple truth of the matter is I just haven't felt like writing for a while. My obsession for the show hasn't waned in the least, however. In fact, I'd say it's probably gotten a bit more unhealthy! The online Supernatural communities are pretty addictive and I've been spending most of my computer time posting on message boards and reading fanfics, rather than writing my own. But I do still love writing, and I won't ever start a story without (eventually) finishing it. Anyways, thanks for the reviews, and please don't hesitate to drop another one:)