Weaver, chapter 16

For a second, it looked like Sam was trying to center on him amid the panicked choking, and then he just went limp. Dean reached for his brother, but the help he'd called for arrived and jostled him out of the way. Doctor Fitzpatrick was still on duty and had apparently ignored Dean's request for a new doctor. Nurse Ratched was also still around. She looked at the candles and incense, the markings on the floor, and gave him the evil eye. Dean didn't care. He looked away from her and pinned his gaze on Sam, who looked even more still among the almost choreographed movements surrounding him. Dean felt ready to crawl out of his skin. He just needed Sam to move, to give some sign of life. A finger twitch would be enough.

He got nothing. Dean shifted back and forth between feet, looking away from the activity. It wasn't supposed to happen like this. It wasn't supposed to happen at all. He'd made a promise, to himself and to Sam, that nothing would happen to his brother while he was around. He was failing. He hadn't even been able to actively help, and who knew what Missouri's hoodoo had done, if it had done anything at all. Ratched looked over at him, then abandoned her post.

"That," she said, indicating mess on the floor; she looked irritated, "Is all against hospital rules."

"It's a religious thing," Dean said, really not giving a damn what the hospital rules were at the moment.

She narrowed her eyes and looked more closely at him, to the point Dean started to become uncomfortable with the attention. He darted his eyes back to Sam, whose face looked about the same color as the sheets beneath him and whose entire body remained limp and…dead. Dean swallowed hard and looked back to the nurse.

"Look, I'm sorry. But what about Sam?"

"Oh…" Ratched appeared embarrassed, only a slightly better look than pissed off. "He's okay. Better than okay, actually. He's fine."

"Fine?"

"We can't be sure until we run more tests, but it appears as though Sam's breathing and ox sats have returned almost to normal," Doctor Fitzpatrick said as he joined them. He looked completely flummoxed. "The confusion and excitement of waking up with a breathing tube down his throat probably resulted in him passing out, but as far as I can tell he's just sleeping. If there are any long term effects from his…ailment, we won't know what they are until he wakes up."

"He's fine," Dean said stupidly. The information swirled around in his head, getting lost amid the million different emotions he was feeling. "You're telling me he's really okay."

"Unless he shows differently when he regains consciousness, as I said. I didn't understand what was wrong with him in the first place, and I don't understand this." The doctor still sounded dazed, which only made Dean truly believe he was a quack. And that said a lot, coming from a guy who'd just used spices and invocations to help save his brother. It had worked. He felt shaky. "If I believed in them, I'd say his recovery was some kind of miracle."

Dean could say the same thing. Fitzpatrick returned to Sam's bedside and fiddled around with the chart, and then the machines still hooked up to Sam. Dean couldn't quite trust his legs to move yet, so he watched the nurses bustle and clean around Sam's bed from where he was. Ratched scowled down at the extinguished candles again. One of them had tipped over while the wax was still melted, and there was a hardened puddle on the floor. It almost looked like the candle had suffered a fatal wound and had bled out all over the floor. He laughed, though he didn't know why because it wasn't really funny at all. Ratched shot him another look, this one worried. He stopped laughing.

It took hours, it seemed, for the nurses to finally leave the room, Ratched imparting orders to never light candles around oxygen tanks ever again. It took hours after that for Dean to convince himself Sam really was sleeping without a demon chasing after his dreams and his breath. More hours still before he finally allowed himself to crash, sprawled on the damned uncomfortable hospital chair next to Sam's bed. And when he crashed, he crashed hard. The last thing he remembered was thinking it was embarrassing to fall asleep with his hand on Sam's forearm and the first thing he was aware of after waking again was that his hand was no longer on Sam's forearm.

He peeled his eyes open and tried to move. Tried being the operative word. He had no idea how long he'd been out, but there was a blanket on top of him and every muscle and joint felt out of whack. Dean fumbled his hand around, re-seeking his brother before he raised his head and went for a visual.

"Hey," Sam said. Croaked, really. Whatever. Sam was awake and gazing at him with a mildly amused expression on his still too pale face. "You're awake."

"So are you," Dean said. He sat up the rest of the way. He couldn't settle on relief or happiness as an emotion, knew he probably looked like an idiot. He followed that up with words. "And you're okay."

Fuck. That had somehow come out all chick-flicky, and Sam's expression morphed to show he recognized that. Dean shrugged it off, inwardly cringing at the unpleasant pull of his muscles. It was good to see his brother awake and looking almost normal again. It hadn't been that long, but it had been too long. He glanced down. The candles were gone, the floor clean. He frowned.

"It worked," Sam said, voice not improving with time. "Whatever you did."

"It was Missouri who saved your bacon, really, and luck. She's the one who figured out what it was. For the record, it wasn't a succubus. Actually, Missouri said it was a dream weaver. More like an incubus. Kinky." Dean shrugged again, like he could make Sam somehow forget that moment of genuine emotion he'd left surface. He would never let on just how hopeless he'd felt after Sam's admission into the hospital. He probably didn't have to. Sam kept looking at him. Dean looked at his watch. He'd been out for hours. "Oh, shit, I told her I'd call her."

Sam chuckled, which ended up in a fit of coughing. Dean leaned forward. Sam lifted a hand and waved him off weakly, regaining his breath with a ragged sigh. He didn't like the sign of weakness. He stood up and circled around the bed, as much to stretch his muscles as anything. He noted a small plastic pail on the small, moveable table attached to the side rails of the bed. He moved over, peering into it. Ice chips. He handed them to Sam, who took them with a shaky hand and popped a couple into his mouth.

"Face it, Dean, you'll never get on her good side now."

"Yeah. She can wait a little longer." Dean messed around with Sam's chart, trying to fill in the gaps his impromptu nap had created. It was all Greek to him. Apparently doctors and nurses all failed penmanship. "You really are all right, though, Sammy?"

"I feel…okay. Been better," Sam said cautiously. Dean looked up. Sam wasn't looking at him anymore, instead staring at the wall with a far off expression on his face. "Tell me what happened."

"Not much to tell on my end," Dean said, uncomfortable with discussing it in their present location and with the tone of Sam's voice. "You wouldn't wake up. The doctors here are morons. Missouri called and gave me something she thought might help. Herbs and incantations, can you believe that shit? Anyway, I'm more interested to know how you beat the thing."

"Actually, I'm not sure."

"Sam?"

"I don't remember much, only bits and pieces."

Sam swallowed a couple times, closed his eyes. Dean frowned. He pivoted toward the door slightly, ready to go holler for help if he had to. Sam's brain seemed to be functioning just fine, but that didn't mean there was nothing wrong with him at all; he looked like crap. Then again, Dean had always suspected hospital gowns were designed to make sick people appear even sicker. Dean pursed his lips. He didn't like that thought, and he didn't like that Sam didn't have much recollection. He held off calling for help. It wasn't like the staff was happy with him, what with the whole open flame/oxygen tank thing.

"But it's dead, right?" Dean said. "You must have killed it, or you wouldn't be awake."

His brother opened his eyes and just stared for a moment. Dean swore Sam's face became even whiter, and the look in his eyes…it wasn't good. The sheer gladness he felt to have Sam back in the land of the living was quickly becoming marred by unease. Sam's general bad color and weakness were bad enough to witness, but there was something more. He knew it.

"Yeah," Sam said quietly at last, and with a quick smile that did nothing to alleviate the look in his eyes. "Of course."

That was Sam's "this kid is not all right but doesn't want to talk about it" brush-off. Dean would recognize it from a mile away. Under any other circumstances, he'd be cool with that. Considering this was the first conversation he'd had with his brother in nearly…shit, how many days was it?…he was far on the other side of the spectrum from cool. He glanced toward the door again, and found the hallway frustratingly void of people. When he looked back Sam darted his gaze away, fixed his attention on the wall again.

"Sam, what's wrong?"

"Nothing." There was that fake, nervous smile again. Sam didn't even bother to direct it at him. "Why would you even ask that?"

"Gee, let me think. Probably has something to do with you being nearly dead for a couple days and because you're acting weird now."

"I've been nearly dead for a couple days, I think I'm entitled to some weird time, Dean."

Dean sighed. He walked back to the side of the bed and sank down onto the chair, putting himself directly in Sam's line of sight. He wasn't surprised when his brother changed his focus to the natty hospital blanket covering his legs. Disappointed, but not surprised.

"Hey," he said. "Tell me what's going on in that head of yours."

"I…" Sam's voice was still gravelly, but it was thick now as well. He darted a glance up, then away again. "Nothing."

That was when Dean finally figured it out. He felt like an idiot for not even considering it until now. It was pretty clear it had been on Sam's mind since the moment he woke up.

"You really are awake, you know."

Sam started breathing faster and he picked at the blanket. Dean leaned forward, tempted to grab his brother's fidgety hands and stop him from tearing the blanket apart. Something told him that wouldn't be a very good move, so he watched and waited. It didn't take a genius to figure out the Weaver had taken on his form in Sam's dream. Anything he did now he had to do carefully.

"You've said that before," Sam blurted at last. "I don't know. I don't know if that's true, or if this place is real or if you're you."

Shit.

"You killed it, Sammy. I'm me," Dean said. His mind raced with ways he could possibly make Sam believe that. He stood up again and leaned closer. "Feel me. I'm solid."

Sam's nostrils flared, and he still wouldn't look up. Dean couldn't take it anymore. He took matters into his own hands, or arms as it were. He grabbed Sam by one shoulder, used his other hand to turn his brother's face toward him.

"Look me in the eye and try to tell me I'm not me."

He watched Sam go through a multitude of emotions, thought he was getting a mere peep at what the Weaver had done to Sam in his dreamscapes. That damned thing had better be dead. If it wasn't, Dean was going to find a way to make it dead, preferably a messy, bloody, satisfying way. He relaxed slightly as Sam finally settled on relief.

"Dean," Sam said softly.

"Yeah."

"It's really you. I'm awake." Aw, shit, Sam was doing that teary-eyed thing now. His kid brother had quite the array of weapons in his expression arsenal. Dean averted his eyes slightly, looked at Sam's cheekbone. "I should have known. You look like ass, and you smell like crap. I'd never dream that."

"Hey," Dean said, indignant but relieved in his own right. He let go of Sam's shoulder, cuffed his brother lightly on the jaw before he sat back in the chair. "Watch it."

"Seriously, dude. You should see yourself."

"Well, it's not like I've had a bunch of nurses come around, strip me and give me sponge baths like you've had." Dean smiled beatifically. "I don't know, Sammy, but I think three times a day is a bit excessive. One of them was a bit handsy, too."

"Sponge baths?" Sam squeaked.

"Oh, yeah."

"Uhm, Dean? You know I think I feel okay to leave. Something tells me they're going to be curious about my quick recovery around here and start asking questions we can't answer. We should go."

Dean couldn't help it. The more Sam babbled, the more his smile turned into a grin. He shook his head.

"Dream on, Sammy," Dean said, enjoying the open-mouthed, dismayed look on Sam's face. "Dream on."

The end!

A/N: That's it, that's all she wrote. Part of me kind of wants the guys to go to Snoqualmie for real...maybe I should do that, since my muse is not cooperating at all in the Winchesters' current venture. Thanks to all for putting up with me figuring this place out:)

sbgrrl