FACING YOUR DEMONS

Chapter 6

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Having snagged himself another candy bar and an armful of National Geographics, Sam settled himself in to read a particularly engaging article about the life-cycle of the dung beetle. He'd been trying to ignore the irony of a dentist having a candy vending machine in his waiting room at all; but then, this guy was so unorthodox, it was probably his way of making more business for himself. Sam grinned as he sunk his teeth into the creamy, cavity-inducing chocolate; he had to give the guy kudos.

He'd barely got past the first paragraph when the door to the treatment room was flung open and Dean scurried out, drool bib flapping merrily around his neck.

"S'mmy," he slurred; "m' f'lin' better … c'mon, less'go."

The fact that he sounded like he was gargling cement didn't reinforce the conviction behind his plea.

Sam put National Geographic down on the table beside him; the dung beetles would have to wait.

"Dude," he cajoled; "you're not better, you gotta let Doctor Walker do his job; what's wrong?" He looked over Dean's hunched shoulder to see Walker emerging from the treatment room after his errant patient.

"He's a slippery sonofabitch; did his escape act while I was setting up the IV;" Walker smiled calmly at Sam as if having panic-stricken patients making a break for freedom was the most normal thing in the world.

Approaching the brothers, he reached out to slowly and calmly grasp Dean by the elbow.

"But … m'better," Dean turned sharply and began to back away, coming to an abrupt halt against the rock-solid wall of his brother.

"Dean, you're not," Sam corrected, he glanced up at Walker; "is everything alright?"

The dentist nodded. "Yeah, I think I might have been a bit too honest about what I needed to do," he sighed; "I mentioned that I might have to do a couple of …" he silently mouthed the word 'extractions' and shrugged contritely.

"C'mon," he coaxed; "we haven't got the good stuff into you yet." Pausing for a moment, he waited to see if he was making inroads; "trust me buddy, this whole job'll be one long party when we've got you tanked up with that!"

Dean's head swivelled between the two men as he glanced nervously around him like a cornered animal; and Sam knew that the dung beetles would be waiting a while longer.

xxxxx

Standing beside the big black chair which currently contained his brother in the treatment room, Sam trieed to be at once supportive and invisible. As tense as a coiled spring, Dean looked more like someone trapped in a medieval rack than sitting in a big padded chair.

He gave Dean's shoulder a quick squeeze in a subtle show of unity as Walker quietly, and with consummate care inserted a valium drip into a vein on the back of Dean's cold hand which was clenched around the arm of the chair in a vice-like grip.

"Honestly," Walker murmured, turning away from his patient; "this stuff is liquid gold."

Dean didn't look entirely convinced, and looked even less impressed when Walker turned back to him with a plastic face mask attached to a long tube in his hand.

"Now, have a pull on this while we're waiting for the valium to work."

Dean hesitantly reached up to swat it away as Walker placed the mask over his nose and mouth, but Sam quietly moved in to lift his hand away; "it's laughing gas dude, it'll make you feel awesome."

Sam's reassurance was all that was needed for Dean to grudgingly accept the mask.

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Both men saw the moment when Dean's eyes began to glaze over. Sam let out his own sigh of relief as he looked over to Walker.

"He won't be any m-more trouble now," Walker muttered amiably; "t-thanks Sam, nothing more you need to do now."

Sam nodded, watching Dean's eyelids drooping lower and lower as he sunk bonelessly into the chair's soft black upholstery. He knew that was his cue to leave, and let Walker get on with his work.

With a quick backwards glance, he quietly stepped out of the treatment room and closed the door behind him.

Dung beetles were beckoning.

xxxxx

Sam sighed and looked at his watch. An hour and a half had passed since he'd left Walker to work on Dean. He'd heard a drill, and occasional voices, an incomprehensible murmuring sound which he assumed was Dean, but nothing more.

He'd eaten three candy bars, drunk enough coffee to keep himself wired for a month and gone through Walker's entire collection of National Geographics. Over the time Dean was under the dentist's care, he'd moved on from dung beetles to the flora of the Siberian tundra, the arts and crafts of the Quechua people of Ecuador and now he was currently absorbed in a fascinating piece about fish populations in the Yangtze river.

He glanced up on hearing the sound of a door opening just in time to see Walker appear from his treatment room, pulling off a pair of latex gloves.

Instantly forgetting all about the Giant Yangtze Sturgeon, Sam leapt to his feet.

"How is he?"

Walker nodded; "he'll be fine," he replied matter-of-factly; "I've removed an infected tooth, and drained a very large abcess …"

Sam's nose wrinkled in disgust and he held up a hand as if to say 'stop right there!'

Walker wiped the back of a hand across the unscarred half of his forehead. "He was in a terrific amount of pain, Sam," he sighed; "of course, it wasn't helped by him cutting his mouth to bits because he'd tried to do my job himself."

Sam's jaw dropped; "he what … ?"

Walker nodded; "you said on the phone that his face swelled up real suddenly?"

Sam nodded mutely

"Yeah, well I'm guessing that was because he'd spent that n-night trying to yank the damn thing out with, hell knows what – a knife, pliers?" Walker hesitated; "it's like a freakin' war zone in there."

"The moron …" Sam let out a breath shaking with a mixture of shock and anger.

"Don't be too harsh on him," walked shrugged; "desperation is a t-terrible thing, and I think he's learned his lesson."

Sam pinched the bridge of his nose. "Listen, thanks doc, I really appreciate your help."

Walker shrugged and twitched at the same time; "s'my j-job," he replied modestly.

"So, I can take him home now?"

"Yeah, sure," Walker nodded, "He'll need antibiotics, I'll write out a prescription for him."

Walker turned to walk back toward his treatment room, but momentarily paused. "Oh Sam, there was something else I discovered while I was in there."

Sam froze; "what?"

There was a brief silence as Sam heard an ominous snorting chuckle coming from within the treatment room followed by some incomprehensible babblings which he couldn't quite understand but he would have been prepared to swear were about butterflies.

"Did you know he's extremely sensitive to nitrous oxide?"

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tbc