Few things in their line of work truly scare Dean Winchester. Sure, it's never very comforting when something creepy jumps out of the dark, and yeah, airplanes and anything that requires flight in general he ranks about as much fun as a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. But absolutely nothing can touch the utter fear that always comes when something bad happens to Sam.
Finding said little brother collapsed on the floor of their motel room, face slack and skin pale, ranks as really bad in Dean's books.
Dean crashes to his knees on the carpet, the floorboards underneath giving a loud creak of protest, which he ignores. "Sam," he says the name breathlessly, hands moving aimlessly over the prone body, checking for injuries. When he fails to see any blood, his next move is to check for a pulse, and he lets out a sigh of relief when he finds a steady one.
"Come on, Sammy," Dean pleads, using the flats of his fingers to lightly pat his little brother's cheeks. "Wake up."
There are several long moments that follow, in which Dean contemplates the different tactics he could use to rouse the unconscious young man (although a cup of water on the face is messy and never elicits a very happy response). Just as he's shaking Sam's shoulders, jaw open in the midst of repeating his name, Sam's eyes flutter blearily open.
He squints up at the ceiling, recognition delayed. "Dean?" he croaks, his voice rough sounding. Slowly, he lets Dean haul him up by the elbow, leaning heavily on the side of the bed. "What's going on?" he asks next, hand coming up to scrub at his face.
"I was hoping you could tell me." Dean clears his throat, trying to get rid of the tremulous quality that hasn't quite left since finding his brother in a heap on the floor. "I walk in here and you're making snow angels on the carpet."
Sam gives his head a shake, as if trying to clear some of the cobwebs away. "I remember…you left," he admits, the last part spoken quietly, timidly. "And then I was on the computer, I guess I got up. I don't remember what happened." He lets out a shaky breath, fingers still rubbing at his forehead.
Dean studies Sam's pallor, waiting for it to take on a bit more color than the lovely shade of ashen he's got going. "Well, I do," he grumbles, masking his concern with frustration. "Your stupid giant body has finally decided it's had enough of your bullshit and wants some God damn sleep, whether you like it or not. The floor was the closest landing pad. Now get up, you're going to bed."
It's unusual to hear Sam's lack of complaint at such orders, but Dean decides that it just attests to how tired Sam must be. So without further argument, he levers Sam up into a standing position with a powerful tug of their joined hands.
When Sam wavers unsteadily on his feet, Dean's ready for it, but it still doesn't make it any less unsettling. As he's sitting him back down on the edge of the mattress, he watches as Sam closes his eyes, struggling for his bearings. He wants to say something, ask, 'are you alright?', but he doesn't, because while Sam doesn't look so good at the moment, there's no point in making an awkward situation any worse. So instead, he opts to make himself useful, pulling back the starched motel comforter and sheets, fluffing the poorly stuffed foam pillow. "Come on, lie down." He instructs.
Sam does as he's told (which in itself is extremely alarming), his motions slow and deliberate. Once he's stretched out, all ten feet of him, he just lies here, gigantic sock-covered feet nearly hanging off the end of the double bed.
Dean rolls his eyes, but can't help the affectionate smile that tugs at the corners of his mouth as he reaches down to drag the covers back over Sam's long body. "Fine. Sleep in your jeans, for all I care, Dean mutters, but Sam's eyes are already closed again.
"Thanks D'n…" comes the slurred reply, and within moments, his breathing has evened out, signaling sleep.
In the silence of the dim hotel room, Dean lets out a deep breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding, and sits down heavily on the edge of the other mattress. Dry washing his face with a calloused hand, he stares at Sam's relaxed features, half hidden by the play of shadows and unruly dark bangs.
It was alarmingly easy to forget that Sam was so young – just a kid still, really. But when he was asleep, it was as if years were erased from his entire body throughout the night. Covers that would seem far too short for such a gargantuan body were splayed and tangled every which way as Sam somehow managed to curl into an impossibly tight ball, head tucked low on the pillow. His face would relax, completely unguarded and unmarred by the usual frown and worry lines that he wore throughout the day like a security blanket. He always looked so child-like, all warm and soft, that sometimes Dean had to remind himself that he wasn't eleven years old anymore, and it wasn't exactly socially acceptable to crawl into bed and cuddle up beside his little brother like a protective cocoon.
After all, he had an image to uphold.
Gnawing on his lower lip, Dean continues to stare at Sam in the lamp glow. In the unresisting quiet, his mind wanders, and try as he might to hold it back, he finds himself wondering calmly if Sam would still look this innocent one year from now, in a motel room like this one, alone. Stomach churning, he pushes the thought aside, because as guilty as that image makes him feel, it's still leaps and bounds better than the one of him staring down at that same childlike face, slack and peaceful in death.
A familiar coldness crept over Dean's back like a wet blanket, and he shrugs it off quickly, toeing off his boots and leaning back against the headboard of his bed. Without turning down the bed, Dean slumps low into his pillows and stares at the far wall, arms crossed protectively in front of his chest. Despite what he's told Sam, he knows his conscience hasn't come out of the whole incident Scott-free. And no matter how hard he tries to push it down as far as it will go, something deep inside of Dean was starting to ache.
At precisely ten twenty-five the next morning, Dean gives up on trying to be patient. "Hey, geek boy," he says, his tone sharp but not loud as he lifts one foot to nudge at Sam's blanket-covered feet with toe of his right boot. "Up and at 'em. I let you sleep in long enough."
That was an understatement. It was unsettling in itself to wake before Sam, the usual irritatingly chipper early-riser, had even moved beneath his blankets, but after an hour or so of puttering around the motel room and Sam still hadn't shown any signs of waking, Dean had left in search of coffee and a quick flirt with Nancy. Now, back in the darkness of the musty motel room, some girly whipped latte-whatever in hand, Sam still looks dead to the world.
The Sam-shaped lump in the blankets gives a croaky moan, drawing his legs in protectively.
"Come on, Sammy, this syrupy shit you refer to as coffee is getting cold, and I'm sure as hell not drinking it." Dean steps closer to the side of the bed, reaching for the switch on the lamp atop the nightstand. With a click, the room is brought into sharper focus, and he blinks a few times to let his eyes adjust. When they do, he quickly sets down the Styrofoam cup with a muted thunk. "Sam?"
Lids screwed shut against the unwanted light shed across his skin, Sam's dark lashes stand out in stark contrast against his pale skin. Dean takes in the sweat dotting his brother's brow, the chestnut hair dampened across his forehead, the lines of distress across the young face, and feels something in his chest tighten. "Sam, wake up," Dean demands, concern sharpening his words.
Thankfully, Sam's eyes slowly blink open, squinting against the lamplight. "Dean?" He asks hazily, bringing up the back of his hand to swipe blearily at his eyes like a little kid, and okay, maybe that illusion carries through to some of his waking hours, after all. "Time is it?"
"Late." Dean gnaws on his lower lip, still studying his little brother's face. He doesn't like Sam's slow responses, doesn't care for the fact that even after over twelve hours of sleep, Sam still looks wrung out, and could really do without the strange, gnawing feeling making itself present in the pit of his stomach.
After another moment or two of gathering his bearings, Sam hauls himself into a half-sitting position on his elbows, a familiar frown line appearing between his eyes. "What's wrong?" he asks, head tilted.
Dean doesn't beat around the bush. "You look like death warmed over," he mutters, and that's no joke, because Dean just so happens to know exactly what that looks like on his kid brother.
Sam's response is a thick swallow, squeezing his eyes closed for a moment or two before sitting up fully, pushing back blankets as he goes. "I'm alright," he mumbles, and swings his legs over to the side of the bed, forcing Dean to leave his perch.
Watching Sam's movements with an uncertain eye, Dean manages to refrain himself from moving to his brother's aid as Sam staggers to his feet, looking more than a little unsteady as he detangles his wrinkled, day-old clothes from the sheets. "You sure about that?" Dean asks as Sam passes him unsteadily, weaving a somewhat drunken path to his duffel bag.
Sam ignores him as he leans over to dig through piles of unfolded clothes, reminding Dean that they'll have to do laundry soon. As he finally comes up victorious with a clean pair of jeans and a shirt that passes the sniff test, Dean comes up behind him and puts a steadying hand on Sam's shoulder before he can move to the bathroom. "Hey," Dean says, and reaches up to place a hand on the younger man's forehead.
Looking somewhat put off, Sam tries to shrug the touch away. "I don't have a fever," he assures him confidently.
"No," Dean relents, letting his hand fall to his side, and settles for scanning Sam's face again. His brother is right, he doesn't feel warm. But what's more worrisome was the lack of heat coming from his skin, the cool, clammy feeling of sickness that Dean can't help but feel radiating off of him.
Sam must notice Dean's uncertainty, because he offers up a weak smile. "I'm just tired, man." He bundles his clothes tightly to his chest, and his eyes wander to the carpet. "The last few weeks haven't exactly been easy."
Yeah, Dean can heartily agree with that. Plus, he's not exactly sure how much it takes out of a guy to come back from the pearly gates (or wherever it was that Sam went), but it can't be all that restful. "Yeah," Dean says aloud, because God knows he's tired, too.
Sam's mouth twitches and he looks at Dean briefly before turning towards the bathroom. He pauses in the doorway, glancing around the room hopefully. "Maybe after this we could take a break…" he trails off and his eyes snap up to Dean's. "Only for a few days, I mean," he adds hurriedly, as an afterthought.
Dean feels that same pain from last night tighten in his chest, and he forces a smile. "Yeah, Sammy," he replies, but the words feel like broken glass. "Sounds like a plan."
Once showered and looking a little more the part of someone among the ranks of the living, Dean had no trouble ushering Sam out the motel room door to grab another coffee and a pastry from the diner before heading for the Impala. Aside from a few contrived pleasantries and primordial sounding grunts, Sam didn't seem much up for talking. Dean was reluctant to admit that whatever tension had peaked last night probably wasn't going to be resolved on its own.
Scuffing the toe of his boot along the gravel road of the parking lot, Dean bites off a chunk of his Danish and casts a shaded look at his brother. "So, visiting hours in pediatrics start at noon," Dean begins cautiously, testing the waters. "I was thinking we could start heading that way…see if we can find the parents of the little girl I met last night. Maybe you could do your thing, talk to the doctors, look into when she got sick, the circumstances and all that."
Sam still hadn't asked about what had gone down at the hospital last night in his absence, and apparently wasn't about to start showing any interest at this rate. "Okay," is all he says, sipping absently at his coffee.
Dean felt a surge of irritation. Okay, so it had one of the more heated arguments they'd had in awhile, and yeah, Dean had left angry. But did Sam have to be such a God damn girl about everything and try to goad him into apologizing with the silent treatment? "Course, then we'll have to get back into our nurses garb," he adds as an afterthought, glancing at Sam again. If Dean didn't know any better, he'd say the little jerk isn't even paying attention at all. "Then again, yours have been stinking up in the trunk with that old meatball sub I forgot to take out of there last night."
"Mhm," Sam mumbles, eyes fixed dully off into the distance.
Hypothesis confirmed, Dean thinks, smirking. "Guess we'll have to find you another pair, then," he concludes, gnawing on his lower lip and casting a thoughtful glance at the bright blue sky overhead. "Maybe a nice shade of lavender, this time. Do you think they come in rainbow? Perhaps a little something to represent that other team you bat for, Samantha?"
Finally, some form of awareness is sparked in Sam's eyes. "Huh?" He mumbles, looking at Dean in confusion.
"Welcome back," Dean pretends to appear annoyed, but feels a line of concern crinkle his brow. "You sure don't look like a guy who slept as much as you did last night," he says curiously.
Sam kind of snorts, and brings a fist up to his face, rubbing blearily at his eyes like a tired six-year-old. "Good, 'cause I don't feel like one, either," he mutters with a small, crooked smile. "Must be that lumpy mattress." Sam rolls his head around a few times like it weighs fifty pounds, and his neck gives a few grossly-audible cracks.
"Huh," Dean replies around another gulp of coffee, because aside from a few unpleasant dreams, he's been sleeping like a baby. "Want to go back to the room for a bit? I could just do some sniffing around myself, you know," he tries casually, still eyeing Sam's tired features.
"No," Sam says hurriedly, and seems to take it the wrong way because he ducks his head a little guiltily, letting his hair fall forward to partially hide his profile. "I should be there this time…I don't even know what happened last night," he admits, and glances sideways at his brother like this is supposed to be news to Dean.
Okay, so those God damn puppy dog eyes are trained in his direction, and if collapsing on the carpet was any indication, Sam hasn't been feeling that great lately, so Dean feels a little bit bad. "Want me to fill you in?" he offers, holding out the olive branch.
As they near the Impala, Sam nods a genuine sounding "yeah", and so Dean begins his story as he settles his coffee cup on the roof of the car, searching his pockets for the keys.
By the time they've pulled out of the parking lot and are on the road that will take them into town, Dean is already caught up in the dramatic climax of his heroic tale. "…So she's chanting away, mumbling who knows what kind of mumbo jumbo, when I pull my gun on her and give her one last chance to move it or lose it." Dean can't help but give a cocky smile and tilt of his head to the passenger seat. "She got the picture, put away her pet rock collection, and left."
Sam is staring at him, looking a little less impressed than Dean had been going for. "Just took off because you told her to? Right in the middle of her hex?" he asks, sounding a little disbelieving and a tad too acerbic.
"Yup," Dean responds, and squints his eyes at the road with a grin. "I'm just that good."
Alright, so Dean left a few hearty chunks out of his story. But Sam doesn't really need to know all about the creepily accurate accusations the old bag had pinned on him about his brother, nor did Dean feel the need to bring up the whole ethical debate they'd had going over life-trading and all that business. The last thing Sam needed was to know that he had another person (an albeit freaky one) on his side over this whole crossroads deal thing. What's done is done, and all Dean needs to know is that Sam isn't dead anymore. The rest are small potatoes.
And yes, it was a little bit unsettling that Shimi knew just about everything they'd been through by merely looking at Dean and doing her strange little head tilt, and maybe it was weird that she was far too interested in Winchester business, but if anything more messed up than the norm started going down, Dean would deal with it himself.
The less Sam knew, the better.
"Who do you think she was cursing?" Sam asks next, sounding legitimately curious, for once.
Shit, he should have been paying attention. "Who-now?" Dean asked dumbly, glancing at his little brother in confusion.
Heaving a greatly put-upon sigh, Sam explains himself. "If we're still running on our whole 'illness transferring' theory," Sam starts, and Christ, when he says it like that, of course it sounds stupid, "then she must have had a victim already picked out, right? Someone she'd deemed insignificant enough to get the cancer she was going to take from that little girl."
Dean's fingers twist a bit on the leather of the steering wheel. He glances out at the morning pedestrians on the sidewalks. "Mhm," he murmurs absently.
Sam is still going. "So do you think someone else in the hospital is sick now?" he asks, but Dean knows he doesn't really have to answer, because Sam has that inclination in his voice that he only uses when he's talking himself through an idea. "Or maybe it has some sort of delay. Like the 'matter', as you so delicately put it yesterday, is in her hands, so to speak, until she decides what to do with it. Finds who she's going to…" he trails off, and Dean hears him swallow. "…destroy," he finishes quietly.
Several long moments go by, in which Dean finds his attention drifting to two little kids running down the street, caught up in the midst of what looks like an intense game of cops and robbers.
"Dean," Sam's voice snaps him back to attention.
"Hm?" Dean's head whips around in time to find Sam staring at him expectantly. Okay, so maybe his input was necessary at this point. It was hard to tell the way Sam rambled. "I don't know, man. But it doesn't really matter, because I stopped her." He explains, and makes sure that the confidence and finality in his voice leaves no room for argument.
A sideways glance at Sam reveals a slightly skeptical expression, and even though his little brother looks like he wants to add something, to question him further, doubtfully, Sam refrains. "Good," he replies.
Dean returns his gaze back to the road as they near the turnoff for the hospital.
Right. Good.
Dean figures their game plan at the hospital will go as follows: find the little girl's doctor, find out what the little girl's name actually is, and learn more about her specific type of cancer, course of treatment, all that jazz. Sam has some sort of geek-boy theory that involves stealing charts so he can track cell division and compare them to before and after the little chanting fiasco that went on last night.
Something about lymphoblasts and Dalmatians or some shit. Dean tuned him out somewhere in the middle.
Pediatrics is quiet once again because, well, there's only one freakin' patient in there. Dean makes sure to put on his most charming grin as they make a pit stop at the nurse's station. When he asks for the chart that belongs to the single patient in the room across the hall, the middle aged woman with bee-hive hair scowls at him, and Dean's pretty sure the nametag she's wearing has to be stolen, 'cause no way her name is actually Joy. But he puts on his best 'sorry, I'm new and cute' act, and somehow they finagle it from her meaty grasp.
"Okay, so," Dean says as they pause outside the hospital room door, scanning the papers in front of him with an oblivious eye. "I have no clue what I'm lookin' at here, dude. Except her name is Claire Owens, and she's eight." He pauses, wincing. "That sucks."
Beside him, Sam kind of nods. "What was she diagnosed with?" he asks quietly.
Dean flips to a different page, like that's going to help. "Beats me, Bill Nye. It's all gibberish to me," he grumbles, and tries to pass the folder off to his little brother. "Want to wipe that condescending look off your face and take a gander for yourself?"
Sam sighs but relents, taking the small stack and scanning it carefully. Dean takes the opportunity to run a cursory eye over the younger man himself, and ends up frowning. Sam's still looking like something the wendigo dragged in. Actually, that's being generous. Dean kind of wishes he'd forced Sam to stay back at the motel.
Not like Sam can really be forced to do anything. But still, would have been worth a shot.
"Stage two Acute Lymphoctic Leukemia," Sam says, his voice quiet and pinched-sounding.
Dean wonders if that's supposed to mean anything to him. Because, right, isn't Leukemia cancer of the blood? Why the need for all the other fancy words? "Stage two?" He repeats aloud. "So, what, Claire's cancer is the second best at kicking all the other cancer's butts?"
Sam's response is to sigh like he's tired and fed up, eyes closing irritably as his free hand comes up to rub the bridge of his nose. "I don't think it quite works like that, Dean," he mumbles. "I think it's the opposite. Stage two is the level of how advanced the cancer is. One being the least developed."
"Oh," Dean says, and lowers his eyes to the linoleum. He doesn't really have all that much time to think about how awful that is and completely screwed up, (the girl is eight, he remembers Sam at eight), because his attention keeps straying to the paleness of Sam's face, the way his hands are slightly shaking. "Hey, you okay, man?" he asks quietly.
Because he's been caught red-handed, Sam drops his hand from his face where it had been rubbing at his temples, tries to bury himself back into Claire's patient files. "Yeah. Just a bit of a headache," he admits casually.
For Dean, that's reason enough for a pause. "Like an 'I'm-a-doofus-who-stays-up-all-night' headache? Or a 'freaky-vision-boy' headache?" He asks nervously. Not that Dean likes the thought of either one.
Sam actually smirks a little bit at that. "The first one," he assures, sucking in a deep breath through his nose and letting it out, slowly.
Dean watches, and tries to hold his tongue, because Sam can say what he likes, but at the moment the kid looks like he's about to give this joint a run for its money. Dean enjoyed his morning pastry and all, but he isn't too keen on seeing a repeat performance of it, all the same. "You're lookin' a little pale," he says, waving an aimless finger in the general direction of Sam's face.
"Yeah, well…" Sam says, like that's any kind of answer, but because it wasn't an outright rebuke, it speaks volumes. Then again, so does the slight sheen of sweat Sam's got going, and the anxious swallow. "This hospital makes me nervous. Let's get this over with."
Dean wants to say, "since when?", but a knot of something annoying and tight is starting to mess with his own stomach, so instead he nods as they close in on Claire's room. "We'll make it fast," he assures, and at Sam's nod, they open the door.
It may be the same setting of last night's big drama, but to Dean, he has to take a good look around the bright, smiling room just to make sure they're in the right place. With the curtains wide open, cheerful sunlight dances across the walls and brings the painted scenery to life.
It kind of makes Dean want to throw up.
A quick scan of the beds comes up empty, even the one Dean knows is supposed to hold the room's single patient, and that makes him frown. But a moment later Sam is elbowing him in the side, nodding his head to the corner where a bin of toys are spread out on the floor. In the middle of a chaos of Lego, Barbies, and ink markers is a little girl wearing a pink baseball cap and a smile so wide her cheeks have to be hurting.
Even though his gut instincts tell him it's true, Dean still has to do a double take to ensure that this grinning face belongs to the same sickly little girl he met the night before.
Dean hangs back, still slightly stunned, as Sam approaches Claire slowly, all warm smiles and casual demeanor. He crouches down to the little girl's level to catch her attention. "Hi there," he says, and she looks up to give him a shy smile. "I'm Sam."
Claire looks at him bashfully before returning her attention back to the squeak of a pink felt pen against a crisp sheet of paper. "Hi," she replies shyly.
Sam tilts his head and watches her draw for a few seconds, a hand reaching out to steady himself on the floor. "Your name is Claire, right?" he asks, and when she nods, Sam gives her another friendly grin. "That's a really nice…um…bunny?" he asks hesitantly, squinting at the drawing.
Claire looks up at him, a smile crinkling her eyes. "It's a monster, silly!"
Sam's eyes narrow, and he shoots Dean a sideways glance. "Monster, huh?" he begins accusingly.
Choosing that moment to step into view, Dean comes closer and looks down at Claire's paper. Alright, so maybe the 'monster under the bed' story hadn't been his best, but if it had held any truth, he sure as hell wouldn't have been hunting anything furry and magenta with big black eyelashes. The kid is going to ruin his rep.
"Right," Dean says, and when Claire notices him for the first time and gets a disturbingly wide-eyed, I-may-start-screaming-now look in her eyes, he breaks out his most charming grin. "Claire and I did a sweep of the room last night. All the beds were clean as a whistle. Isn't that right, Claire?"
After a brief moment of indecision, the littler girl smiles widely, glad to be included. "Right," she confirms with a self-satisfied nod, and returns her attention to coloring.
Sam looks at him disapprovingly, so Dean shrugs.
A click of the door opening makes Dean's head spin to their only exit strategy. A woman with messy brown hair in a bun bustles into the room, attention focused on the purple knapsack she's trying to juggle while righting the sleeves of an inside-out jacket. "Claire, sweetie, I found your…" the woman notices them standing there and straightens, eyeing them curiously. "Hello."
Sam is the first one in motion, standing up straight and holding out a steady hand for her to shake. "You must be Mrs. Owens. I'm Sam, this is Dr. Chochrane," he says, nodding at Dean, and damn it, it's no fun if Sam isn't actually going to use the name Dean made up for him.
Mrs. Owens, still looking a little flustered and more than a little uncertain, reaches out a hesitant hand to Sam's. Are you Dr. Kennedy's interns?" she asks apprehensively.
"Yes, we are," Dean jumps in, always happy to be handed an out. "Dr. Kennedy just sent us by. To make sure everything was squared away for your…" Dean takes one look at the bag and coat in the woman's hand, and takes a guess, "departure."
Relaxing, Mrs. Owens drops her rigid stance and offers a small, tired smile. "Oh. Well, thank you." She swings the small knapsack onto one of her shoulders and motions to the little girl on the floor. "We've done this enough times now. I've already picked up her new prescriptions from the pharmacy, and I've scheduled a check-up appointment for next week."
Sam, whether he's faking it or is actually reading something, Dean isn't sure, flips through the patient file in his hand some more and nods approvingly. "Good," he says, and looks at Claire. "She must be happy to be going home."
Mrs. Owens nods, face instantly brightening. "You better believe it. I haven't seen her this energized in…well, forever! When I got here this morning, I barely recognized her." A corner of her mouth twitches from its smile as her eyes sparkle with tears held in check. "I can't believe we get to take her home so early this time. I guess that chemo regimen they've got her on is finally starting to do its job."
With a barely concealed frown, Sam nods and feigns assurance. "Must be," he agrees.
Shaking herself from her daze, Mrs. Owens holds out the child-sized coat with a smile. "Claire, honey, you ready to go?" she asks, beaming.
Pulling herself up from the floor, Claire returns the happy expression and adjusts her hat on her bald head. "Uh huh." She clamors over and tangles her way through the arms of her jacket. Once properly dressed, one hand holding tightly to her mothers, Claire shyly gives Dean's sleeve a tug. "This is for you," she says quietly, and holds out her drawing.
Feeling a kick of something alarming and painful in his chest, Dean accepts the gift with a crooked grin. "Thanks, Claire," he stammers, and struggles not to just melt to the floor right then and there under that little girl's dazzling smile.
"Okay, come on, Slick." Mrs. Owens teases, and waves as they open the door. "Thanks, guys," she says, and with a meaningful stare, they leave.
Alone in the quiet, sun-filled room, Dean lets out a huff of breath and looks fondly down at the brightly colored picture in his hands. "Well. That's good." A warm feeling fills his chest when he sees the dashing stick-figure that has been added to the corner of the drawing, wielding a gun.
Sam's voice, strained and tired-sounding, breaks his trance. "Good?" he asks in disbelief, and when Dean looks up, Sam has his arms crossed in front of his chest. "How do you figure?"
Dean's eyebrows knit together. "Uh, the sick little girl gets to go home with her mommy?" he says snidely, gesturing to the closed door.
"Don't you get it? She's feeling better, Dean." When all Sam gets in response is a 'no shit, Sherlock' look, he continues. "From what I can make out of these charts, they did tests this morning. If all these check marks and staff signatures are as good as I'm interpreting them to be, they're releasing her from the hospital because she's practically cured, Dean. Her cell counts are almost back to normal. It looks like they're going to diagnose a tentative remission."
Again, Dean wonders for a moment how in hell Sam can have a problem with any of this. But then he gets a clue, and oh yeah, miracles like that don't really happen in this shit hole of a world they live in. So he glances up at his little brother hesitantly and frowns. "So what does this mean?" he asks, although he doesn't really want to know.
Sam swallows hard, blinks once or twice, and seems to steady himself. "It means you were wrong, man. Shimi cured her, and…" he trails off and brings up a hand to swipe shakily at his pale face. "…and now she's going to hurt someone else. If she hasn't already."
Dean stays quiet and stands his ground, watching Sam for several long, heavy moments. He sees as Sam squints some more, lets out a stifled grunt of pain, and brings up a hand to squeeze at the bridge of his nose. "Sam?" he asks, his voice low.
"I'm fine, I'm…" Sam starts, and gives up. He lets out another slight moan, and that's it, Dean is across the room, a hand on Sam's arm. "I don't feel so good, Dean."
Biting back fear, Dean gives him a slight push back towards one of the hospital beds. "No kidding. Come on, sit down a minute." Slowly, gently, he eases Sam down until he's sitting slumped on the nearest mattress.
For several long, agonizing moments, Sam sits, slightly bent over, and just breathes. Dean has to duck his head just to see any of Sam's face, and his little brother looks sheet-white and drawn. "Something's wrong with me," he says, and if the strained sound of his voice wasn't enough to make panic claw at Dean's chest, the fear behind his words does the job just fine.
"Well that much is obvious, Sam." Dean gives the younger man's shoulder a squeeze, and feels Sam leaning into his grip, like it's the only thing keeping him from toppling over. Swallowing over a lump in his throat, he does the same with his other hand. "You're not getting enough sleep. You aren't eating. You've gotta start taking better care of yourself."
Eyes squeezed shut, Sam gives a weak shake of his head. "No, I…" his voice tapers off, and after a moment, his eyes open. "It's something else."
Dean feels his stomach drop. That thing that had been digging at the back of his mind? Right now it's stabbing him with a fucking ice pick. But he's not going there. He won't. He outright refuses. "Come on. Let's get you back to the motel." He slides one of his arms down to the crook of Sam's elbow to help him off the bed.
Shakily, Sam pulls free from his grip and suddenly Dean finds a handful of his scrubs in Sam's white-knuckled grip. "Dean," he gasps, and his eyes are wide and frantic. "Something is happening to me."
"Sam," Dean starts, the name like shards of glass in his throat. He tries to pry the hands free from his shirt.
But Sam's got a desperate, determined burn to his gaze, and he won't let go. "What happened here last night?" he asks, and he's trembling.
This time Dean manages to pull free, and he glares at Sam, hard. "We're going," he says, and it's his very best Dad voice, because he is not talking about this bullshit anymore.
Sam lets him pull away, but he sits there, hunched over on the little bed that would barely fit half of him. A hand wrapped loosely around his stomach and a look of something in his eyes that's making Dean feel vaguely nauseous, and Dean wants to get the hell out of this building now, thank you very much. "Did Shimi do something to me, Dean?" Sam asks, and that little-kid voice, that 'my big brother will make everything better' hopefulness is a punch to the gut.
Dean doesn't think. "No," he says flatly, and stalks to the door, swinging it open and holding it there. "Let's go."
Wide-eyes stand out starkly on pale features. Dean can see him thinking, can decipher just about every emotion that crosses his little brother's face as they go by, one at a time, and Dean knows Sam wants to argue. But with a heavy swallow, Sam wearily pulls himself up from the mattress, steadies himself once when he lists alarmingly to the left, and then walks out of the room.
Dean stands in the doorway he holds open, and stares blankly around the room. The smiling clouds almost seem like they're weaving a lazy pattern around the walls, and Dean tightens his fist around the piece of paper, now forgotten, in his hand. When his eyes start to burn, he blinks and clouds stop moving. He makes sure to close the door behind him when he leaves.