Part 4

Sam shook his head at the absolute glee on his brother's face as he shimmied into a pair of boxers four days after his jaunt to the roof. "No more free shows for the nurses?"

"They'll have to pay now. I swear… There's no good reason for a man's ass to hang out like that." Dean plopped back onto the bed. 85. The number kept up a loop in his head, like a train on a track. "I'm so glad you told them to cut back on the drugs. I was getting seriously looped out."

"Well… I figured that maybe… it would help… but how are the dreams, Dean?"

"What dreams?"

"Your dreams."

"When are you and Bobby gonna get a hunt going?" Dean got up and dug around in his duffle for some pants. Eighty-five. Eighty-five. 85. Eight. Five. "You're just wasting resources sitting here with me. You should be out hunting down evil."

"What? Are you redirecting me?"

"Doing what?"

"I asked you a question."

"And I asked you one. I'm older… and injured… therefore my question is more important." He wanted a shirt too but his bandages had to stay on. "Where are my socks, man?"

"In there somewhere. Look, man. We're not going hunting without you and you need to talk about these dreams that have you waking up like… I don't know… like you wish this world was just a nightmare…"

"First off… I'm done with hunting. My eyes are shot. Second. You are perfectly healthy and able… so get to it… There's still plenty that needs killing. Three. I don't want you with me at the end… and Four! That's none of your damn business."

"Wait, what?" Sam's jaw dropped. "What? No! You think I'm just going to leave you alone now?"

"Look… I have limited options… I'm gonna look like hamburger when these things come off. Just… keep fighting the good fight and let me die in peace."

"Ellen and I are on to something. You can't just give up."

"Yeah, I can." Dean shoved his feet into his boots and yanked his gown off. "Look… if I try to get out of the deal… you drop dead on the spot and I didn't sell my soul to see you dead."

"You shouldn't have done it in the first place!"

"If I hadn't done it… you'd be dead now and I…" Dean trailed off, tears forming in his eyes. He gripped his brother by the shoulders. "My whole life… I've never been without you, not really… what do you think I'd do if you were gone?"

"What about me? My whole life, I've had you looking after me. What am I going to do? What am I supposed to do knowing that you're dead because of me?" He shook off his brother's arms.

"I needed you. I did. If I had to face him on my own… I would have let him take me."

"Fuck you, Dean! Fuck you to hell and back! Dad really fucked you up, you know that?" Sam turned around to avoid looking at his brother. "You just can't not try. I need you, too. What do I do after I hunt all those demons down? What do I do? Just… settle down somewhere? Have kids and tell them their Uncle Dean is in hell so that I could have that chance?"

"Maybe." Dean sniffed and wiped at his eye.

"It's Hell, Dean. Torment for all eternity and you want me to be okay with you in actual Hell?" Sam couldn't take it anymore and left the room.

"Leave my car here!" Dean called after him and sank onto the bed staring at the empty doorway. Didn't bother finding a shirt. Just sat still until the doctor walked in to remove the bandages. He wouldn't look at the nurse.

The doctor frowned. "Looks like there was some trauma to the burns on his shoulder. Did you walk into a wall, Dean?"

He just shook his head. The doctor sighed and worked to irrigate the irritated flesh and to rebandage the area. "I think you should keep the arm, shoulder and chest bandaged so that the ointment doesn't get on your clothes." Dean nodded, silently. The doctor frowned and looked to his nurse. "Where's the brother?"

"He's gone." Dean fought the urge to roll his eyes. "Just talk to me, doc. I want to get out of here."

"I really don't advise this but if you can't be swayed…" He took a deep breath to begin again. "Your eyesight may improve, Dean but it will never be perfect again." The doctor flashed a light in the damaged eye. "You will need corrective lenses in order to drive or even read but until you see an ophthalmologist… I couldn't tell you the extent of it."

"Do they make glasses with just one Magoo lens?" Dean cracked lamely.

"The burns on your cheek have healed to an extent that I believe eating will come easier in the days to come. It's very important to intake the proper nutrients. If you're not hungry, a protein shake would be a wise choice. Wash your hands constantly and avoiding the sun will go a long way to improving the skin. It will take time. In a few months even, you will see…" he trailed off as he realized his patient was no longer listening. "I think that you should see someone about getting help. The adjustment period may not be easy."

"I don't need a shrink. I'll just rent The Man Without A Face and watch Mel Gibson go."

"I know you didn't want to talk when we went over this the first time but I think we need a discussion now." The doctor pulled a chair up to the bed. "The burns you sustained are consistent with sulfuric acid. Flash burns are caused by intensely hot exposure to radiation, which is different than an acid burn but… I wish you could remember the accident. I can't follow a splash pattern and there's nothing but the consistency that suggests the flash burn… It really is a puzzle." He took a breath. "Do you remember what it felt like?"

"Hellfire and brimstone." Dean had spaced and answered automatically. He almost pulled a lame joke to cover but the doctor seemed to accept that as an answer.

"Yeah… yeah, I guess it would feel that way. How is the pain?"

"Nothing a little codeine won't help with."

"You've been on stronger painkillers." The doctor pointed out, referring to the chart in his hands.

"I don't want to get hooked and I'm okay on codeine. I've had it before."

"If it looks infected, I want to see you before it means amputation or further excising of the flesh."

"I know the signs." Dean nodded and pulled a T-shirt from his bag.

"Keep the splints on the elbow and shoulder and keep up your physio… at home if you won't come back here." When he saw nothing but impatience on the right side of his patient's face, he nodded. "I'll do the 'scripts." The doctor waved him off. The nurse lingered and helped without being asked.

"Thanks," he mumbled as she slid his shirt sleeve over his bandaged arm, then over his head.

Kneeling, she tied the laces on his boots, fixing the tops of his socks while she was at it. "Going home, huh?"

"Out of here." He shrugged. He fished his necklace out of his bag and tried to loop it over his head but he kept missing. She took it from him and carefully hung it around his neck. She caught the charm and turned it over.

"That's interesting." Her eyebrows furrowed. "I can honestly say that I've never seen one of these before."

"And you probably won't after I leave." Eighty-five. Eighty-five. Eighty-five.

"You know… it's not as bad as you think. The way you and your brother fight, you'd think it was the end of the world and your life was over."

He took his necklace back, suppressing a flinch at the feel of her fingers under his. "You always listen in on other people's conversations?"

"It's not listening in if the astronauts can hear the fight." She pointed out as she set out his jacket and gathered his bag for him. His wallet fell out and hit the floor, sending its contents onto the state issue linoleum. "How about you get in the chair and I pick that up?" She bent to gather the bills and cards.

Dean waited a beat to enjoy the view and snapped himself out of it. He sat in the chair, pulling his bag with him. When she straightened slowly, he waited and waited for her to give him his wallet. She tilted her head and held out a piece of shiny paper. He knew what it was. He had forgotten it was in there. He hadn't needed to look at it when she walked passed his door every day and night. Her hand shook as she held it out to him. "Is this why you didn't want me in your room?" She lifted it to her face. "This is not even in circulation anymore."

He looked away. She looked hurt and confused and it was his fault for keeping what he could of that world his mind had told him was perfection. "No, I know you can talk now. Why are you carrying this around?" Heat crept up his face.

Sam strolled into the room and tilted his head at his brother's red face. "Dude, did you swallow Rudolph or something?" Then he felt the tension in the room. "Dude?" She tossed the ad at Dean, threw his wallet at him and left the room. Sam stepped further into the room. "You don't so much as look at her for a week and the first conversation you have with her…" he let out a low whistle and grabbed the paper off the floor. "Holy sh--! Is this her? What did you do? Try to pick her up with this thing?"

"I didn't do anything…" Dean lowered his head. "Let's just get out of here."

--

Dean stared up at the building, if it could be called that. "Here?"

"You insisted on staying here. This is what I could find in your budget." Sam put the car in park and got out. "It's temporary… until you come to your senses."

"Thought maybe the crappiest place in town would make me change my mind?"

"I put up your lunch money and your prescription cash. Bobby put in the month's rent. You want to stay longer, get a job."

Dean followed his brother up the staircase to the apartment over the garage of some decrepit-looking house. It was clean but Ellen appearing from the bathroom with her hair in a ponytail and a scrub brush in her hand was probably the cause of that. "Hi, honey. How you feeling?"

"Be better with some of that morphine… and you know… a face." Dean shrugged, his bandages rustling under his shirt and jacket.

Ellen nodded to herself. "I'm almost done in here. Got you some clothes. When Sam said you'd be sticking around here, I figured you'd need more than just a few sets to see you through a week or two. I didn't know your size… Kind of had to go off the stuff you already had…"

Dean rifled through a couple of drawers of his brand of boxer-briefs, some undershirts and socks without holes in them. Then he scanned the closet full of hoodies and long-sleeve shirts. He had a '90s flashback for a moment and just thanked whoever was listening that forest green, gold, red and black were not mixed together on any one of those hoodies. Fashion from '83 to '95 should be stricken from everyone's memory, just to be polite. "Thanks, Ellen."

She tossed the scrub brush under the sink. "I sanitized the place, got you some groceries. I checked out the neighborhood."

"It's not safe, I know." Sam bit out, anticipating his brother's gripes.

"Not the safest, no… but I reckon Dean can take care of himself." Ellen waved off Sam's ire. They had already been over this and there would be no more fighting over it. "There's a pharmacy about six blocks away." She gestured with her shoulder and a head jerk in the direction. Hunters knew how to give directions North, South, East, West. Dean would figure it out. "A convenience store across the street from that. Two blocks over is a market. Bobby found a TV and bought a cheapie DVD player at a pawn shop four blocks the other way, which is next to a movie rental place. Bobby brought a bunch of menus of places that deliver."

"Ellen?"

"Yeah, Dean?"

"I'm 29, not 9."

"Come sit." Ellen instructed and watched him trudge over to a pair of mix-matched chairs set near a card table. Without asking, she shoved him into a chair and began pulling at the bandages on his face. She put a knee in his gut to keep him still while she made her inspection. "Skin grafts?" Dean nodded but turned his eye away, moisture welling. "Looks like they took some flesh out." Another nod. "Okay, sweetie. I had to see it for myself." She removed her knee and pulled the other chair up to sit directly in front of him. "I know you don't like the way it looks now but… know that it was worse a couple of weeks ago. Sam and I are working on a way out of this deal, whether you like it or not." Dean nodded slowly. "Maybe it's better that you sit still a while. There's a park seven blocks that way, in a better neighborhood. Good place to get some air and do some physio in the shade. Got you a dart board, sport. Once you get your glasses, you can practice."

It was like having a mother again… or maybe not a mother but an awesome aunt. Dean blinked away the moisture in his eye. "Sam, I'm gonna go find the pharmacy. Stay a while, huh?"

"I'll go." Sam leapt off the wall he was holding up. Ellen shook her head at him.

"He's gotta find his own way, Sam. I'll get dinner on the table." Ellen held her hand out for Dean. "What they got you on?"

"Tylenol-codeine for the pain." Dean rifled through the scripts, shutting his bad eye so he could make out the doctor's bad handwriting. "Eye drops for the bad eye. Ointment for the grafts and burns. List of approved dietary supplements cause…"

"He hasn't been eating and he needs the nutrients anyway because… well, because." Sam shrugged but hovered in the doorway.

"I'm surprised you're not on something stronger for the pain." Ellen tsked.

"I asked for it." Dean reassured her.

"He acts like Speedy Gonzales on crack on codeine anyway." Sam snorted.

"I need your wallet." Dean stood and shucked his jacket. He grabbed a light hoodie from the closet but didn't put it on. Sam reluctantly gave Dean all the cash that was in it. Dean counted the cash from his wallet and put it all together. "Guess I'm gonna have to learn how to budget if this shit is expensive to get at the pharmacy."

"Yeah." Sam managed a laugh at the pained expression on his brother's face. The look said 'damn, if only I'd paid attention in math of money' and 'budgets are for geeks like you' alternatively.

Dean escaped the claustrophobic confines of his new home. A block away, he pulled on the hoodie and smoothed the hood over his face. She had taken his bandages but given him a socially-acceptable alternative. Thank God for Ellen Harvelle. For the next five blocks, his footsteps kept him company. Eighty-five. Eighty-five. Eighty-five. He absently stretched his left shoulder. It, too, complained in similar fashion. Eighty-five. Eighty-five.

He knew he had a light sheen of sweat on his face when he reached the pharmacy. There was a line and a wait. Head down, he kicked around the aisles and avoided human contact where at all possible. He didn't realize what was happening until his vision swam with spots. He grabbed a shelf to steady himself. Breathe, he told himself. After an agonizing moment, he took in a huge gasping breath. After six of those, his vision returned and focused on a case of Ensure. At least there were flavors. He picked up one in every flavor in case one or another sucked. Then he felt the shaking in his hands. Fuck it all. He popped one little bottle off its ring and had to sit on the floor to open the damned thing. He gulped half and waited awhile before sipping the rest. The shaking subsided. A couple of customers stepped over him and didn't give him a second glance.

When he heard his name called, he stood slowly and carried his mess with him. The pharmacist rang him up and didn't even bat an eye at the six-minus-one item. What gave the pharmacist pause was the condition of the customer and the meds he was handing out. "I think we need to call your doctor on this one." He held back the Tylenol-3 and reached for the phone.

"No, I asked for it."

"Son, this is not going to help you with the pain." The pharmacist leaned on the counter to peer under the hood. "I'm not a doctor but these little things are not going to help."

"It's doctor approved," her voice came from somewhere behind him. "I was his floor nurse. Dr. Gilbert had his concerns but they could agree on that script."

"Hi, Carmen." The pharmacist set the phone back down. He tapped the bottle on the counter. "This is a low dose. What was Wes thinking?"

"That I have to do for myself and I can't be drooling my life away." Dean bit out. He downed the remainder of the shake he'd opened and almost tossed it at the trash can a few feet away but clenched it in his fist, instead. He stepped closer and guided the bottle into the can before returning to the counter where Nurse Carmen and Pharmacist Dumbass were discussing his meds. He cut in. He was tired and he didn't actually know if he could make the six blocks back to his apartment. "Look, the morphine knocked me on my ass. As it is… codeine makes me act like a speed junky. I don't even take it as prescribed. I do three in a day. Not four or six or whatever the bottle says. I just want to go home."

Pharmacist Dumbass looked to Carmen, who shrugged. He handed over the bottle, then scribbled his number on a bag. "You call me if you think that stuff isn't cutting it after you've increased to the correct dosage."

"Whatever." Dean counted out the cash and slapped it on the counter. Didn't wait for change or a receipt. He only made it to a bench outside before he had to rest. He felt like he was going to puke from the heat but he didn't dare take his hood off.

"A 'thanks' would be nice."

"I didn't need your help." Dean sat back on the bench but didn't look at her.

"You know what, Winchester?" Carmen stepped into his line of sight. "You're a prick. I was very close to forgiving you. I figured it was fate because I saw you sitting on the floor of a drugstore on the verge of passing out. I figured… that's what I was supposed to do. I don't know what your damage is but I wash my hands of you. Have a nice life."

"Bye," Dean muttered as she stomped away, and looked at his bag. It was going to be heavy to carry six blocks home. He opened the pill bottle and popped one into his mouth. He washed it down with strawberry flavored Ensure. Damn… that shit tasted better than it had when he was a kid. He felt the rumble in his bones about a minute before the Impala turned the corner. Sam sat and didn't look at him. "That's my car."

"You can't drive it, Blinky," Sam called out but didn't look at him.

"You can borrow my car… for three months. And then you have to hand it over to Ellen."

"What?" Sam screeched and threw the car in park. He was grinding his teeth as he loomed over his brother. "Ellen gets your car? What happens when you get some glasses?"

"Dude…" Dean sighed. "I know you guys are looking and… I appreciate it but… I'm dead in 85 days. So… for 85 days, you take care of Baby. Then Ellen gets her."

"Why Ellen?" Sam tried to let his anger go but he figured if he kept Dean talking, there would be some talking some sense into him. "Why not Bobby?"

"Bobby? Is a Ford man. Ford. I mean… Not Bobby." Dean sipped his shake but didn't make a move to get off the bench. "No Ford-lover will own my Chevy." He kept his head level enough to keep the hood securely on his head but did make an effort to look at his brother. "Ellen doesn't have much left. After Jo…"

"Dude… Jo was not your fault."

"Yeah, well… I don't have a daughter and the only person I love near as much as she loved Jo… well… I can't give you to her… I'll give her the Impala."

"Dude… shut up." Sam shook his head, the heat of his anger dissipated with his brother's skewed reasoning.

"Do me a favor…" Dean cleared his throat. "In the event that you aren't successful… when I die… I'll be here. Don't come in 84 days. Come in 86. Just… give me a day. Okay? Don't be here when the hounds come for me."

"Dean…" There went his anger again.

"I mean it… I don't want you here when the Hellhound comes for me. Just wait a day, then you come do the salt and burn or… whatever other pansy shit you're gonna do." He licked his dry lips and felt a little cooler when a stray breeze whipped up his hoodie and over the sweat drying on his face. "Stick with Ellen, man. You might not need her or anything like that… but even giving her the Impala is not enough for me. I was joking about giving you to her but… She's a mom, dude. Let her feel useful."

"Is that why you let her clean up the place and buy you stuff and stick a knee in your gut?"

"Yeah." Dean laughed with his brother. "Still can't believe she did that."

"I can." Sam sat next to his brother. "It's really not that bad. I mean… I know that it's… not your face anymore but… it could have been much, much worse."

"We're not gonna go all Oprah on a bus stop bench. Come on. Let's get back. Ellen will be pissed if you don't eat what she cooked."

"Me? What about you?"

"You're eating mine, too. So she doesn't feel bad. Seriously… I can't eat." He waved the bottle in his hand at his brother. "I'll take care of myself, Sammy… but I gotta… stay put."

"Come on. She's the one that sent me after you. I was gonna leave your stubborn ass on whatever corner you passed out on."

TBC