CHAPTER 2
Dean was cold. He smelled alcohol and urine. There was an annoyingly incessant sound, like a bird but higher, more mechanical, too perfectly in time to be natural. He could hear faint squeaks like a rubber ball against marble and the murmur of far-off voices. He could tell it was light, because the whiteness shown through his eyelids, and it made him mad that Sam had forgotten to close the curtains and turn the TV off last night. He didn't want to wake up yet, even if this motel did smell bad.
He figured he might as well close the curtain himself, or he'd never get back to sleep. He wanted to sigh before he opened his eyes, but for some reason he couldn't find the energy to take the right kind of breath. He kept breathing slowly, and he found he couldn't really move his eyelids either. The annoying robot-bird started chirping more, getting faster, and he wished it would stop. He tried again to open his eyes, and when he couldn't he started to freak out a bit. He tried desperately to call Sam for help, but his lips felt numb, and his tongue was dry in his mouth. He tried to swallow, but it wasn't working right.
Someone turned up the TV, because the noises were louder, and the voices were, too. He heard one that was distinctly female, and it almost sounded like she was really in the room, but that didn't make any sense...
Then he got very tired very fast, and he felt something cold shooting up his arm, like it was inside him, and it triggered a sense of familiarity, and just for a moment, he knew that he wasn't in a motel, that he was somewhere else, somewhere he'd been before, but before he could finish the thought, unconsciousness consumed him again, and he forgot about the bird and the TV and the curtain and he only knew the darkness.
* * *
When he came to again, it was just as cold as before.
Only this time, it was worse.
It was worse because he could tell that he was in a hospital now. He could identify the sounds and the smells. It was worse because he could feel the tubing meeting his arm and across his face, under his nose. It was uncomfortable and pinching, the tape pulling at the hairs on his skin, but the pain only a theory, because he was so numbed to it, all he felt were twinges and pressure.
But the worst part was that he remembered.
SAMMY!!! NO, PLEASE, NO.....
He was already screaming inside his head, begging the whirring and the beeping to stop sounding so rythmic, so sure, so certain that he had lived and his brother was-
He made it, I was just panicking, it wasn't real, he's NOT DEAD, please, god, PLEASE! Don't let it be, don't let him be dead...
Sam had to be just in the next room, beat and broken, but breathing and being. He was hurt, surely, but he wasn't...he couldn't be...
NO! GOD PLEASE, NO.....
And then he was slipping again, amidst the same steady sounds, the beeps of the machine counting his heartbeats and the whooshes of air being pressed in and out of his lungs for him, the squeaks of nurses and gurneys strolling or rolling idly by, the deafening quiet that was meant to be respect for the sick and only served to leave Dean scared sensless.
Amidst his fear and his panic and the horrible, horrible peircing dread that was cascading, a waterfall over him as he tried to convince his drug-logged brain that the memories were wrong, Sam wasn't dead, Sam was fine, he was here, he was alive, he was breathing, he was being...
Amidst denial, Dean slid into unonsciousness once more, unable to think, dream, remember, or even listen for the words from a doctor, a nurse, an angel or a devil that would either restart his world, or end it for good.
Sssaaaaammmmm......
* * *
"...up, honey? Can you open your eyes for me? Come on..."
The voice was homely, probably belonging to a pudgier woman with dark, curly hair that was cropped short around her slight double chin. He could imagine her oversized floral print shirt with random koalas or tucans. She was probably wearing Nikes from the late nineties. She probably had a beer-belly husband who still thought she was beautiful, two kids grown and in college, and one in high school. She probably loved her job, treated her patients like family, and went to church every Sunday.
Dean already hated her. He hated everything about her, and he still hadn't opened his eyes. He hated her voice and her stupid compassion, her shirt and her shoes and her gentle demeanor. He hated her whole family, her whole church, anyone who had ever met her.
Because she was making him wake up. She was making him face this.
"...to open your eyes now, darlin'. It's time to wake up..."
He didn't want to do it, he didn't want to be conscious, he didn't want to know if...if...
And now he had no choice, and he hated her.
"That's it, open those eyes for me."
He hated her with everything in him.
"There you go."
He could sense the bright flourescence from the room around him through the slits in his eyelids.
"Well welcome back, honey."
His eyes were open, and she looked just like he'd thought she would.
The room was ICU, everything about it was typical. Too clean, too white, too cold.
But not empty. And somehow, emptier than he'd ever seen a room be before in his life.
"Hey, Dean."
It was Bobby. Bobby was here. Bobby was in Dean's hospital room, sitting awkwardly in a plastic chair with metal legs, looking at Dean like he was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen.
And Dean hated him. He hated seeing Bobby there when all he wanted to see was Sam there, and he still couldn't make words right, the tube was gone from his throat, and his eyes were open at half-mast, and he could tell that he was propped up, casted everywhere, covered in gauze and IV's and tape and...and...
Healing.
No, no please...
"Sssssss..."
Dean wanted to scream, to shout the words, but he could only slur a single letter, couldn't move to make a fist or kick or punch or anything.
He felt the first hot tear slide out the crease of his left eye and down the side of his face, past his ear, absorbed by a bandage somewhere.
"Ssss..Sssssss..."
Bobby stood up and walked over to him. Dean realized the pudgy nurse he hated had been gabbering away for a while, mentioning pain medication and stitches and being just fine in a week or two. But she was leaving now, out of the edge of his peripheral vision, backing out of the room with a look like compassion and consideration on her face, probably a face that promised prayer for his loss.
No, no no no, tell me he's fine...
Bobby was standing next to him now, a wholly unfamiliar look on his face, his hand reaching up to lay on Dean's slinged shoulder, his eyes looking oddly shiny and full.
"Sssssssss...Sss....Sssssss..."
Dean could feel it now, he could tell it was coming, could feel the second tear slipping down the dried track of the first, could see Bobby's first begin to fall, could feel the strangled sensation, the sobs about to build and be loosed, the complete and total pain that was just ready to pounce, to crash, to cascade...
"I..."Bobby screwed his face up, obviously trying to control himself and failing drastically, "I'm so...so sorry, Dean. Sam, Sam's gone, he, he didn't-" he gulped, a hitch the was a sob but a gasp at the same time,"-didn't make it. He's gone."
And Dean cried. He cried for all he was worth, all Sam was worth, and Sam was worth every tear the world had ever cared to shed, because Sam was gone, his brother was dead, and Dean was alive, and he'd crashed the car, and he hated the car, and he hated Boby even as the man cradled him in his arms, and he hated the bandages and the light and the drugs and the bed, and Dean cried and hated god, and he sobbed out the first words he'd been able to manage since he'd crawled up beside Sam's dead body when they'd wrecked.
"W-why," he sobbed into Bobby's jacket, clutching his arm and hating him, "wh-h-hyyyy..."
* * *
He sold the car for parts.
It could've been fixed. It could have been redone, remade. It could've been completely fixed.
He stripped it himself, and sold the parts.
Two weeks had seen his stitches healed, his shoulder better, his leg still casted, and his hair still unevenly cropped, a couple staples across one side.
Two weeks had him at Bobby's house, taking his meds, eating his food, resting his leg, keeping himself out of trouble.
Two weeks had him not talking, relying on the drugs to sleep, staring at his hands, or staring at the wall, or staring at the floor, or staring at the parts of the car he hadn't yet sold.
Two weeks had Bobby worried about him, Ellen bringing clothes and food for him, even Jo showing up for no reason other than to realize she should probably just leave.
It had been two weeks, and nothing had changed.
Sam was still dead.
Dean didn't bother with suicide; Sam wouldn't like it. He didn't bother with crying after the first few days; Sam would've been sad. He didn't bother trying to pretend he was fine; Sam would have been upset with the lies.
And Sam was still dead.
Dean didn't bother with the hunt either, at least not yet. He knew he'd end up having to do something, and he couldn't stand any more loving faces of people he now hated, he couldn't stand anyone thinking they could treat him like family when his only family in the world was gone. He couldn't take anymore compassion or company or people looking at him. He would eventualy go back to the job, would eventually need the hunt, would eventually be the hunter John had been, minus the problem of kids, minus a partner, minus anyone at all. But not yet; hunting was something he did...was supposed to do with Sam.
And Sam was still dead.
And Dean was still caught in the torrent, the flood, the cascade.
For all he knew, it might never go away.