Three Dark Days
By Swellison
Sam stood, hesitating at the entrance of Dean's tiny cardiac care cubicle. Dean looked terrible, even worse than yesterday. Sam glanced at the rolling table to Dean's left, which had held a portable television when he'd visited yesterday. Someone had placed the TV on top of the nightstand to his brother's right, and the tray table now held the remains of Dean's barely picked over breakfast. A plate contained most of a short stack of pancakes and a toast triangle with two bites missing. A dish cover lay next to the plate, almost touching a small empty glass with traces of orange pulp clinging to its side. Further proof that Dean wasn't anywhere near his normal self: ordinarily, any pancakes—even hospital pancakes—would be long gone, with maybe a glop of maple syrup left on the empty plate.
Sam shifted his gaze from Dean's breakfast to his brother's pale face.
"Stop staring," Dean ordered hoarsely.
"I wasn't," Sam denied, stepping into the tiny makeshift cubicle. He felt the curtain swish against him as he moved. The curtains provided a modicum of patient privacy, but closing them would block the windows and greatly reduce the amount of light flowing into the room. Besides, Dean's voice wasn't nearly as strident as it usually was; the risk of anyone overhearing their conversation was pretty remote. Sam removed the breakfast dishes and set them on the nightstand, then rolled the tray to the opposite side of Dean's bed and dragged the visitor's chair next to it. He unslung his satchel and took off his jacket. Getting as comfortable as he could in the molded plastic chair, Sam reached into the satchel, and pulled out a bag of peanut M&Ms.
"I brought a deck of cards, too." Sam dug into his jacket pocket, pulled out the box, and placed the cards on the tray table. "You said you wanted presents," Sam reminded his brother, taking a second to rip the bag open before passing the peanut M&Ms over to Dean. "I don't know why you like M&Ms so much, though."
"Dude," Dean protested weakly. "Chocolate-covered peanuts in a colorful hard candy shell. What's not to like?"
"No, it's more than that," Sam said as Dean fiddled with the bag, extracting a red M&M. "Ever since we were little, peanut M&Ms have always been your favorite."
Sam watched as Dean popped the piece of candy into his mouth, then reached into the bag and pulled out another one. He almost missed Dean's first, low-spoken words.
"Mom gave me my first bag of peanut M&Ms." Dean licked his lips and rolled the M&M around in his palm. "It was my fourth birthday and I was kinda getting impatient, waiting for the baby—you—to show up. She wanted to teach me about patience and waiting. She said I could have two M&Ms a day, just before bedtime and when the whole bag was gone, you'd be here.
Dean swallowed the second M&M. "Time's a difficult concept for a four-year-old. I'd just started to learn the hands of the clock thing. I knew the difference between weekdays and weekends because Dad didn't work on weekends. But I wasn't even in school yet, and Mom and I were always home."
Sam tried to tune out the wrongness of the raspy, weak sound of Dean's voice and concentrated on the words. Dean rarely spoke of Mom, so Sam eagerly absorbed the story.
"Anyway, Mom said you needed those extra days to grow, to be big and strong. That didn't make sense to me, because everyone knows babies are little. I told Mom that and she just laughed and handed me the first two M&Ms.
"That started the pattern. Every day, I ate two M&Ms. But I don't think I learned patience. A few months rolled by and I cheated. I ate all the pieces left in the bag, a double handful of peanut M&Ms. Mom found out when she was putting me to bed. She spotted the smears of red, tan, and yellow on my palms. I 'fessed up and Mom made sure I washed my hands, then put me to bed. When I woke up the next morning, Uncle Mike and Aunt Kate were at the house. Dad had taken Mom to the hospital, and you were born kicking and screaming at a quarter to two in the morning, on May second." Dean half-smiled. "That's when I learned what a potent force for good peanut M&Ms are."
Sam smiled, picturing a four-year-old Dean impatiently stuffing candy bits in his mouth to get his little brother to arrive faster. "Sure, Dean."
"Hey, don't knock it. Remember the wendigo's lair?"
"Yeah, they were better than a trail of breadcrumbs." Sam stretched, wriggling around a bit in his chair. "Wanna play a game of cards?"
"Not now," Dean answered lowly. "Think I want to rest for a bit."
Recalling the doctor's warning, Sam felt a pang of guilt. "Go ahead and take a nap." He picked up his satchel, flipped it open, and took out a book. "I brought some reading material to keep me busy."
"You and your books," Dean murmured sleepily, eyes slipping closed seconds later.
Sam opened the ancient text on witchcraft with the fairly innocuous title Everyday Magick. He didn't know what he was looking for, exactly, so he skimmed the book for anything that jumped out as a possible cure or spell; at this point, Sam wasn't picky. A few of the chapters were promising, and Sam felt himself slip into study mode, immersing himself in the book while Dean slept.
Out of the corner of his eye, Sam caught Dean's movement. He glanced up from his reading and saw Dean shiver again. "Hang on, I'll get another blanket." Sam rose from the chair, opened a drawer in the rolling nightstand, and snagged a thin white blanket. He spread the extra cover over Dean's bed, tucking it in at the bottom. "That better?"
"Yeah." Dean sighed, one hand fretting with the new blanket. "This is ridiculous," he muttered sheepishly, "been lots colder than this. Remember that January in that crappy motel in Montana?"
Which one? That could've been any number of times. But Sam nodded, not wanting to distract his brother's train of thought.
"I was almost nine." Dean's voice was too soft, and maybe pain-edged, like even talking hurt. But he kept going. "Dad was off hunting a goblin—only there were two of them, so it was taking him longer than he expected. And the weather wasn't helping, either. It was a full-on blizzard. He called and told me he'd extended our room two more days. I couldn't go outside and restock our food supply, so two days later, we were down to the last can of SpaghettiOs. But Dad had bought the wrong can. It wasn't SpaghettiOs, it was Beef Ravioli. I knew you wouldn't eat that, but I cooked it anyway.
"I put the ravioli on your plate and told you it was SpaghettiOs, only it was so cold, the meatballs were covered by blankets."
"Dude, that was so lame."
"Hey, it worked. You ate 'em, practically licked your plate clean."
They'd spent a lot of winters in crappy motel rooms, but Sam remembered that time. Memory played back his brother's confident storytelling voice, which didn't quite hide the worried neediness underneath. "I ate them because you wanted me to so badly. I heard it in your voice."
"Oh."
Sam reached for the cup of ice on the tray table. "Here. Munch on this for a while." He held out the cup to Dean, and waited to make sure he had hold of the cup before releasing his own grip. While Dean tipped a few ice chips into his mouth, Sam took over the reminiscing. If Dean wants to talk about the past rather than the present or the future, fine. I can do that. "Hey, remember that time we were tracking down that black dog in the Colorado Mountains, near Telluride? Now that was cold! We stepped out of that hunting cabin we were crashing at and into four feet of fresh snow…"
The morning passed in spurts of conversation, with long periods of Dean napping and Sam delving into his books, looking for a way out of this mess.
"Good morning, Mr. Berkowitz—"
Sam dropped his book on his lap as the young nurse in lilac scrubs entered Dean's cubicle.
"Oh!" The nurse paused, startled. "I didn't realize you had company."
Dean jerked awake at the new voice. "S'my brother. He was just leavin'."
"Hey, I don't—" Sam started to protest.
"No peep shows, remember?" Dean tried to growl, but it came out his now-usual rasp. "Go and get some lunch. Experience hospital food firsthand. You can talk to the nurse when you get back."
Sam's gaze flipped from Dean to the nurse. Dean wasn't even flirting. Usually—Sam winced mentally that his brother had a "usual" hospital patient mode at all—he'd be on a first-name basis with all the nurses, have them vying to give him a sponge bath.
"We'll talk later, sir. If you'll excuse me," she walked over to the window and took hold of the edge of the privacy curtain. "I need to examine your brother."
Taking the hint, Sam rose to his feet. "Later, dude," he said to Dean, eliciting a slight smile from his brother. He walked out of Dean's cubicle into the hallway, hearing the nurse yank the curtains closed around Dean's bed behind him.
SPN_SPN_SPN_SPN_SPN_SPN_SPN
Sam paused in front of the motel door, reaching for his key. He remembered—was it just two evenings ago?—he and Dean had picked up the room key and made a strafing run to the room, unloading non-essential items so they wouldn't have to do it after the hunt. Then they had headed back to the Impala, eager to track down that rawhead. Dean had been pleased at the proximity of the vending machine, right next door. Sam always kept a pocketful of change, but his brother knew and routinely used the five sweet spots on any beverage machine that could be tapped, bumped or slammed to produce free soft drinks. Doing anything the ordinary, law-abiding way was just so not-Dean. The thought brought a half-smile to Sam's face as he opened the door and stepped into the room. His smile disappeared as he walked past the bed by the door, which he'd neatly made that morning before going to the hospital. Craving normal, Sam dropped his satchel on top of the interior bed, his usual digs. Maybe if he buried himself in his books, he could pretend Dean was out carousing while he diligently researched their hunt—situation normal.
Wearily, he stepped over to the kitchenette, which occupied the back portion of this motel room. Sam shrugged off his jacket, draping it across the back of a chair by the kitchen table. Then he plunked the white bag of fast food in the countertop microwave, zapping chicken sandwich, French fries, ketchup packets, and all. After lecturing Dean about eating properly, he had to make sure he was following his own advice, didn't he?
When it was ready, Sam popped his dinner out of the microwave and placed it on the table. He crammed his tall frame into a vinyl-cushioned chair and mechanically opened the bag, removed the sandwich and fries, and dug in. He recalled Dean's story from that afternoon about their being unexpectedly thrown into extreme camping/survival mode in the deep woods of Wyoming. Forced to find food where he could, Dean had caught and killed a rattlesnake, skinning it and cooking the strips of meat over their campfire. He'd cajoled a fifteen-year-old Sammy into eating it, promising it "tastes like chicken, dude."
Sam swallowed. Tastes like chicken, he agreed, munching distractedly. Oh, it is.
Finished with his meal, Sam cleared the table by dumping the bag and wrappings in the wastebasket next to the room's basic white desk. Although Dean had only been in the room once, he'd managed to comment on the dismayingly feminine feel of the room, from the floral wallpaper to the small-scale furnishings. Pointing out the desk, he'd snarked, "Too girly for me, but it fits you, Samantha."
Wrong again, Dean. Sam gave up trying to shove his long legs under the too-short desk and grabbed the square-framed chair. He plunked it down facing the foot of his bed, leaving a gap of at least a yard between the two pieces of furniture. Then he snatched the laptop from the desk and settled into the chair, propping his feet up on the bed and balancing the laptop on his upper legs. Down to business. The first thing on tonight's agenda: his email to Becca. Becca's run-in with the shapeshifter had exposed her to Sam's other life, so he could write to her with refreshing honesty. It occurred to him that Becca knew more about his hunting lifestyle than Dean knew about his life at Stanford. That's just wrong, Sam thought, then concentrated on his email.
Becca,
I need your help. Dean's sick. No, hurt. Well, both, actually. We were hunting a creature that had grabbed a couple of kids. We freed the kids, unharmed, and Dean tasered the rawhead with 100,000 volts, but he accidentally electrocuted himself while doing it. The creature's dead, but Dean suffered a massive heart attack. The doctors say there's nothing they can do. They give him a month to live at the outside. I can't accept that. I won't.
Dean's not a pillar-of-the-community type, but he's a good man. He's saved a lot of people doing what we do. When I was little, I thought he was a superhero. Indestructible, you know? He's always looked after me, and I feel like I'm letting him down, the one chance I have to return the favor. I know I shouldn't ask, but…do you or your parents have any connections or clout with any hospitals? Dean needs a heart transplant, ASAP. I guess the doctors here have written him off as an unsuitable transplant patient. No money, very little time. Dean's my brother and he deserves to live.
Please, Becky, if you can help, let me know.
Sam
After he sent Becca's email, Sam glanced through his inbox impatiently. Only two replies from yesterday's mass mailings. Both hunters offered their sympathy, but they had no useful information to pass on to him. Sam sighed, then doggedly started searching the internet, starting with some of the more esoteric sites Dean had bookmarked.
Three hours of intense but ultimately fruitless researching later, Sam was ready for a break. He set the laptop on his bed and rose, heading for the kitchenette. He downed a bottle of water from the fridge in several long gulps, then started to pace the room, restless. It took less than ten steps to get from the kitchenette to the front door, even dodging around his recently vacated chair. Sam paced like a caged animal.
Easy, Tiger, ghosted through his thoughts in Dean's amused tones from after their scuffle in his living room at Stanford.
Abruptly, Sam ceased pacing, making a beeline for the duffel by his bed. He picked it up and pawed through its contents quickly, locating and removing his father's journal. Sam stacked the pillows, impatiently kicked off his shoes, then stretched out full length on his bed, settling in to read. He heard Dean's voice again—Dad's single most valued possession—as he opened the notebook, determined to read it cover to cover, if that was what it took to find a cure.
Sam skimmed over the entries at the beginning, unwilling to get caught up in their family's past tragedy while he was trying so hard to prevent the current one. He painstakingly read through all the articles, sketches and notes Dad had made about all the supernatural creatures he'd studied or encountered, the overwhelming bulk of the journal's contents. He winced over the article on Roosevelt Asylum, then kept on reading the next pages.
An hour later, Sam stopped reading, tapping a finger against the page. Something wasn't right; he'd read from Dad's notes ever since he'd started hunting, but something was missing now. He frowned in thought. Names and numbers. Dad had kept a list of contacts—fellow hunters and whatnot—on a few pages in the middle of the book. Sam had definitely read past that part. He flipped through the rest of the journal. Nothing. The list of contacts had been removed.
Or has it? Sam closed the journal, then opened its back cover, staring at the plain brown endpaper. The front of the journal had a leather insert with a few business cards and stray notes tucked into it, but the back was simply papered. Sam dug his pocketknife out of his jeans and carefully cut a slit in the endpaper, close to the bottom, then gently probed underneath the paper with the knife. The blade connected with something hidden underneath and he extracted it, nudging the object out into the open. It turned out to be a few sheets of folded notebook paper. Sam unfolded the pages and saw a list of names and telephone numbers, in his father's distinctive half-cursive print. Eureka.
Or as Dean would say, Yahtzee.
In no time, Sam's cell phone was in his hand and he dialed the first name on the list. "Hello, is this Ted Anderson? My name is Sam Winchester. My Dad is John Winchester…"
Sam explained what he needed to everyone who answered their phone and left voicemails when he couldn't reach the actual person. Some of the hunters had also received an email from him. A few hung up when they heard "John Winchester," but most heard him out. Uniformly, they could offer nothing to help him in his hunt for a cure, a way to help Dean, although several promised to call him back if anything else occurred to them.
Once every name on the pages was contacted, Sam read the rest of Dad's journal, then finished reading the last book he'd taken to the hospital that morning. The third time he nodded off—only to snap awake as the open book landed on his chest—Sam reluctantly called it quits. He made a quick trip to the bathroom, made sure the alarm was set, and tumbled into bed, then fell into exhausted sleep.
tbc
A/N: I've become very fond of M&M stories or scenes, ways to sneak in a meaningful reference to Dean's candy of choice, peanut M&Ms. Hopefully, you also liked my explanation of why Dean glommed onto peanut M&Ms in the first place.
I'm also trying to walk the fine line between TMI and writing enough to give you a sense of the days passing in
what is mostly a talking heads story. Thanks to everyone for continuing to read this and comments are always appreciated;-)