FACING YOUR DEMONS

Chapter 7

Who said medicine has to be nasty?

xxxxx

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

"What d'you mean?" Sam felt his heart beginning to race; "is he okay?"

Walker nodded calmly. "Well, see the thing is, nitrous ox-oxide is commonly and legitimately used in medicine all the time, but it's also been used, in the past, as a recreational dr-drug to induce a feeling of – uh – euphoria."

Sam stared at him; "laughing gas?"

Walker nodded again; "yeah, so he's okay. Sorta, very okay."

"He's just very, very happy," he added with an apologetic smile.

Sam meekly followed the dentist into the treatment room, slightly nervous of what he might discover; the intermittent sniggers and incoherent rambling emanating from that direction didn't exactly fill him with reassurance.

Peering through the door, the knot of concern in his chest tightened as he saw Dean, sprawled bonelessly in the big black chair, drool bib hanging crookedly around his neck. He noted that Dean seemed distracted, his vacantly glazed eyes and right index finger slowly following something unseen in haphazard patterns around the room.

A faint glimmer of focus crossed Dean's eyes as he spied Sam standing in the doorway and a crooked, soppy smile split his ludicrously swollen face, revealing a damp wad of bloody gauze stuffed into his cheek.

"Sh'mmy," he slurred; "c'mon shee th'flutterbyes."

Sam turned to Walker; "butterflies?" he mouthed with a frown.

Walker shrugged again. "One of the less common side-effects of nitrous is hallucinations. Apparently your brother's seeing butterflies."

Sam stared at Walker, his eyes asked the question.

"What?" Walker replied; "it could be worse, at least butterflies are nice." he paused in thought for a moment; "guy last week was seeing a giant rat called Neville."

"Butt-tyflies," Dean crooned drunkenly, gradually slipping further down into the padded curve of the chair; "Sh'mmy comesheeth'butty-fies."

Sam cleared his throat and affected his gentlest, most reassuring voice as he approached the chair. "Hey dude," he sing-songed; "how's your mouth?"

Dean sniggered wetly around the gauze wad; "not mofs; flutty-byes." He pointed up toward the ceiling, his unfocussed eyes and finger once again following the path of something that seemed to be moving in an erratic circle above his head

Sam grimaced, pinching the bridge of his nose as he crouched closer to Dean.

"Yeah, the butterflies are cool Dean," he muttered patiently, taking care to humour his brother; "how's your tooth?"

Dean turned and gazed up intently at Sam, squinting as he tried to focus on his brother's face. His faintly bruised mouth opened as if he were attempting to speak, but his words, such as they were, were cut off by a ribbon of wet, bloodstained gauze which tumbled from between his parted lips, and unravelled wetly down his chin.

"Sh'thhmmy," he spluttered, as a bead of drool chased the gauze down his chin.

"Yes Dean?" Sam replied, quietly inching closer to the chair.

"Why, Sh'mmy?" Dean continued in his, thus far, unsuccessful quest to focus on Sam's face, drifting cross-eyed in the process; "why?"

"Why what Dean?" Sam asked carefully, "what's wrong?"

"Why," Dean repeated hesitantly; "need't know Sh-ham."

Noting Dean's brow, seemingly furrowed with concern, Sam squeezed Dean's shoulder in a discreet effort to ease his distress. "What d'y need to know bro? c'mon, you can ask me anything, you know that."

Dean licked his lips, grimacing as his tongue tangled in the stray gauze; "why're they called butt'flies?"

"Huh?"

"Why not cheesheflies?" Dean queried absently with a lop-sided shrug; "or toashtyflies?"

Sam wilted with a relief and looked up at Walker.

"How much did you give him, man?"

xxxxx

Dean's eyes had begun to drift away from Sam, drooping almost to closing.

Sam glanced up at Walker for reassurance; reassurance which he rapidly received.

"Of course the valium doesn't help," the smiling man explained as he walked over to the chair and began a gentle, but thorough exercise in replacing the loose gauze; "with the nitrous and the valium in his system, he's as mellow as a weekend at Woodstock, but it should wear off in a few hours."

Sam's eyes bulged; "a few hours?"

Walker nodded. "Other than the butterflies he's fine; I promise you."

Sam pulled in a deep breath and scraped a hand through his hair; "Is he okay to go now?"

"Yeah, sure," the dentist replied; "he m-might need some help getting to your car."

He handed Sam a small brown bottle of tablets. "Here's the antibiotics, and I should really see him again in about a w-week," Walker paused before he gave Sam a knowing smile; "but I'd guess that's not gonna happen, so I'll leave it with you to just call me if he gets any problems. He's gonna be sore for a few days, but that's normal; nothin' to worry about."

Sam nodded smartly and clapped Walker on the shoulder; "thanks doc," he mumbled hesitantly; "I think."

Pondering on how he was going to take Dean out to the Impala, Sam hesitated in thought. Dean was no lightweight, and he was deeply subsided into the padding of the chair. Even stoned out of his mind, would Dean appreciate being picked up and carried out of the building? More to the point, would Sam really want to inflict that indignity on Dean in front of Walker and anybody else who happened to be in the vicinity. It was Sam who had convinced Dean to face his demons, to give up his precious control and trust a stranger, and he'd be damned if he was going to betray that trust.

He decided to go with carrying only as an absolute last resort. Trying to walk Dean carefully and discreetly out of the building was the way to go and that meant that getting Dean vertical was suddenly Sam's immediate priority.

"C'mon dude," he coaxed holding out a hand in Dean's direction; "up you come!"

Dean lay in the chair; that same soppy smile playing over his swollen, drool-glossed lips, and stared silently at an empty space around six inches above the top of Sam's head.

"Red butty-fly," he announced to anyone who may have been interested.

Sam sighed. "Don't make me carry you outta here, dude," he cajoled; "c'mon help me out here."

Dean apparently couldn't rationalise the purpose of the outstretched hand, so Sam guessed he needed to be a little more direct in his approach. Moving in closely, he bent over Dean, and slid both his arms around and under his brother's back to haul him out of the chair and hopefully to his feet.

He congratulated himself briefly as Dean's lax body, seemingly quite secure in the circle of Sam's arms, meekly allowed itself to be pulled upright into something resembling a sitting position on the side of the chair.

"Hey, that's great dude, now lets see if you can sta… WOAH!"

Sam flailed as Dean, apparently feeling the need to reciprocate Sam's 'hug', threw his unco-ordinated arms around his brother's neck in a crooked and asphyxiation-inducing embrace.

"Love you too Sh'mmy," Dean murmured, homing in for a sink-plunger of a kiss which Sam only just managed to duck away from, crushing his vocal chords in Dean's iron grip in the process.

"I've got a two-hundred mile drive with this," Sam squeaked breathlessly to the chortling dentist, gradually turning maroon.

"Trust me, he'll either fall asleep or snap out of it soon," Walker replied, making little effort to conceal his mirth as he watched Sam make a slow cautious way out of the surgery, seemingly wearing, rather than leading the clinging figure of his brother.

"And you mind those butterflies," he added with a grin.

xxxxx

tbc