A/N: Same stuff applies as in the first chapter. Oh, and unfortunately I neither own Supernatural nor Dark Angel. Just this.
A/N part two: I really dislike it how this website cuts off chapter titles. The REAL title is the one that's shown in the chapter itself. Also, um…evidently when I wrote some of the prior chapters, I neglected to connect some facts. So, that being the case, the following has changed: Ian Harlan left with the nurses in the previous chapter (small paragraph added to the end of it), and Alec is NOT going with Max. I added an explainer in the previous chapter, and Max briefly expounds upon it here. I apologize profusely for this. I assure you, it will work out, and these errors are not in the chapters to come.
A/N part three: SUPERNATURAL RETURNED FINALLY. AND GREAT FUCKING EPISODE! Crazy Dean=LOVE.
A/N part four: Specific episodes of Supernatural mentioned are: none. Specific episodes of Dark Angel mentioned are: none.
Of Desire and the Status Quo
Chapter XVIII: No One Alive Who Is Youer Than You
Despite everything in him screaming not to do it, that it's not his responsibility and doesn't concern him, Logan rushes as quickly as he can—okay, maybe not as fast as if, for example, Max were in trouble, but faster than a saunter anyhow—to the operating room. When he reaches the door, he finds three nurses walking out, their expressions revealing not too much more than neutrality, but that doesn't mean anything. Dean could be dead or, hopefully, not.
Two of them look new to Logan, judging by the slightly nauseas and upset visages they carry that Logan's now close enough to see, and so they don't seem like they could care less about him. Dr. Harlan also passes him swiftly, but judging by his face and total lack of noticing Logan, something very unfavorable to him went down in the room. The last nurse, however, a woman he'd put at about fifty, places her somewhat arthritic hand on his chest.
"Sir?" she asks, commands really, and although Logan probably outweighs and outstrengths her, he gets the blinking red light silent warning that she's no-nonsense enough to bring him down like an adolescent. She jerks her thumb towards the door she just left. "Kid's in bad shape. You family?"
The nurse is obviously dubious, and Logan would be as well, but he has his mind made up. (Although he's fully expecting to put this under the Max Favors category.) "Something like that," Logan answers, hoping the nurse would accept the lie. But of course his luck isn't that good. "Cousin. Paternal side," he adds.
It's even more blatantly clear now that the nurse doesn't believe a word of what Logan is saying, but feasibly she can't detain him. Foremost, Logan infers that Dean is unconscious and thus can't vouch for or condemn him. Secondly, Dean's not in the hospital system, so they can't easily find out any family Dean may have. There's also the selfish reason that if the nurse forcibly makes Logan leave but Logan's legit, there would be a chance she could be sued. So she goes against her own instincts and steps aside, her shrewd eyes following Logan the whole way.
The first thing the hacker notices is the state of the three people in the room. He'd expected Dean to be out of it, and sure enough, the man is passed out, his body still as death. But what Logan didn't expect to see is Sam Carr also unmoving, currently resting at an odd angle on a counter, as well as the doctor Logan remembers reigned in the ER. Who is now peering at Dean like he's some sort of previously unidentified species of monotreme or something.
"What the hell happened here?" Logan asks, eyes switching between the three men, but voice centered on the only conscious one. "Dr. Connell?"
Jack turns around to face Logan, looking a bit affronted, but Logan really can't find the mind to care what the doctor thinks of him. He tries not to look at Sam or Dean, the both of them too eerily pale for comfort.
"Who are you?" Jack inquires, assessing Logan.
"Logan Cale," Logan answers. "Dr. Carr is my physician, and Dean is my…er…cousin."
Jack frowns, and Logan fears the worst. "Didn't peg this man for having much of a family," he observes. "There a reason your last names are different?"
Max is so owing him for this. It's way beyond his already nonexistent pay grade. "Winchester's his mom's name," Logan lies, schooling his face to be neutral instead of Shit, I'm lying to a freakin' doctor. "She changed it back after his father skipped out when he was a baby. Tragic, really."
Either Jack is phenomenally naïve in terms of reading people, Logan ponders, or he simply doesn't give a damn that Logan's lying. "You know, I swear the name sounds familiar," Jack muses aloud. "Just can't put my finger on why."
"Probably just one of those names, I guess." Not for the first time, Logan wishes Dean and his brother hadn't been so prolific or, quite frankly, strange in their crimes. It just figures Logan would only have the two screw up his life when they are supposed to be dead and the world is in turmoil.
"Sure."
Logan clears his throat, anxious to get away from the conversation. "So what the hell happened?" he repeats, his blue eyes stern. "When I left, Dr. Carr was totally fine, as was Dean, save for the shoulder anyway. Now they're both unconscious? What's the deal?"
Jack seems to Logan to be irked, but Logan has a thick stubborn streak in his veins when he needs to. Finally, Jack submits, "The patient had a neural panic attack, to the point of tachycardia, almost cardiac arrest. I put in an order for an EEG—I told Dr. Harlan to retrieve the neurologist to perform that exam—to see if it surfaces again, find out what went on. As for Dr. Carr, well, let's just say he got on the wrong end of a needle."
Logan, to be quite honest, is pretty damn freaked out by all of this, whatever his composed expression may say. He's a little surprised that he's not as freaked about Sam, but that's probably because, he surmises, neither Jack nor the previously exiting Ian seemed to be too concerned about him. What Logan's more shocked over—and he really, really wishes he could pass it off as just worrying about exposure, but knows he can't—is his concern for Dean's condition.
He's not exactly been subtle about his dislike for the man, and that hasn't changed even now, but there's just something about Dean's motionless, rigid form that strikes a chord within Logan. It's not even just the state of unconsciousness, for Logan's fairly sure this kind of thing has happened to Dean often, and Logan's used to the thing in general, but rather the distress that he can see plain as day on Dean's face. His body is still, but his eyes under closed lids are moving back and forth in a semblance of REM sleep, and yet Logan sincerely doubts he's dreaming of rainbows and unicorns. There's also the nearly unnoticeable moving of Dean's lips and accompanying sounds of what Logan can only describe as some sort of pain, and everything just leads to the conclusion that even in unconsciousness, when the mind is supposed to be pleasantly blank, Dean's is instead in overdrive, the ability to repress whatever sickening memories or thoughts he has when he's awake vaporized.
Logan tears his eyes away from Dean to look at Jack, and it's then that his mind fully registers what the ER doctor had said. "Wait…EEG?" Logan asks with a disturbed frown.
"It stands for electroencephalogram," Jack recites. "Measures brain waves to—"
"I know what it is," Logan interrupts impatiently. "But why are you going to give Dean one? I thought it was his shoulder that was messed up, not his brain."
He chooses not to mention the whole serial killer past thing, nor what he, Max, and the few others that know about Dean's appearance speculated and noticed. In particular the bit where Dean had muttered things that had very disreputable origins, things that were absurd to think were true, and yet about which Dean had such conviction. He's fairly sure it wouldn't help matters much. In addition, Logan's just as positive, if not more so, that Dean's brain is just fine, works like a charm. It's his memories, whether real or not, that are whacked, and with the intensity of them that Logan's seen, he feels there's a risk the EEG would imply Dean had epilepsy or some such, and it's already hard enough to hide a surgery and now ER interference without adding a new seizure case.
However, Logan's resistance means that Jack looks at him like, well, like he's got no medical experience whatsoever, nor any basic reasoning skills. "Mr. Cale, I'm afraid a reaction such that Dean had does not indicate a normal brainwave pattern. I would like to see it in detail, as well as I'm sure our neurologist will."
"What's to say it's not just a reaction to the drugs then?" Logan presses, in a last ditch effort.
Jack laughs it off. "The only drugs we gave him were morphine, and then during the panic attack a benzodiazepine. Neither of which would cause any sort of side effect such that Dean endured."
Logan has to concede that point, and although he himself thinks it'd be interesting to see an EEG, MRI, or the like of Dean's brain patterns, he knows he can't allow it to happen. "Well, Dr. Connell, I can't let you authorize that," Logan says.
"Mr. Cale, I don't think you appreciate the brevity of the situation," Jack protests. "With such an adverse reaction that Dean had, the best way to figure out what went on is to perform these tests—"
"And hospital law states that if, in the event of a patient being incapacitated or otherwise unable to decide what procedures should be done, then a family member shall decide instead," Logan intercedes again, stoic. "That would be me, in this instance, and I'm going to have to have Dean discharged, no tests." Logan glances at Dean again quickly, and then remembers, "But first perform the shoulder surgery. That I'll agree to."
Jack's face is pure aversion, but his hands are tied, and both men know it. "I'll go see to Dr. Harlan," he says finally, giving Logan a final baleful look before walking out of the OR, presumably to retrieve Dean's surgeon. Logan exhales in relief, in truth a little shocked the doctor didn't pick up on Logan's pure bullshit he just proclaimed.
"You do that," Logan says with a smarmy smile. When the door to the room closes, Logan hurries into action. Apologizing to Sam's still mostly unconscious body, he goes for Dean instead, knowing that between the two men, Max would much rather Logan save Dean than save Sam who is, after all, in a hospital.
Logan takes a quick look at Dean's IV to commit it to memory just in case. It's only a standard saline drip—Logan guesses they'd already gone through the more potent drugs for his condition—and, although making a note that Rade, T.C.'s medic, should probably put Dean back on that particular drip, he pulls out the needle in Dean's wrist, twisting the valve to the off position.
Logan knows Dean's physique means there's no way he can get him out of the hospital without dragging the man on the floor. And, however the hospital staff may be oblivious on some occasions, he's pretty sure they'd be against him pulling an unconscious, formerly seizing body out of the building. So, for one of the very rare times he's glad he's paralyzed from the waist down, Logan walks out of the room towards the nurse's station.
The woman looks up, and has vague recollection on her face, but Logan's not going to play that up. He puts on an a-little-too-campy countenance and turns the worry up to eleven, so to speak.
"Sir?" she asks, falling for the façade.
"I need a wheelchair!" Logan exclaims, putting in the knees buckling thing for good measure. "I'm under experimental treatment, but it's not working. I need a wheelchair!"
The nurse, her priorities first to aid patients and second to logic her way through it, hurries to retrieve Logan what he'd asked for, and helps him into it. "I'll go phone a doctor," the nurse says, already heading to the phone behind her desk.
"No," Logan protests from his new position in the chair. "I—I mean, you should probably go get my specific doctor, Dr. Connell. He'll know what's wrong."
The nurse once again is frowning, but Logan's earnestness has been perfected, and she succumbs, walking off down the hall to get the physician. Logan knows he's got precious little time, so once she's out of sight, he jumps out of the chair and runs over to the emergency room, awkwardly maneuvers Dean into the contraption, and without further ado, wheels the man towards the back entrance where they'd initially come in. He's fully aware he's broken a law or two, but Max's approval is more important to him at the moment.
Logan's nearly scared out of his skin when he looks up and is confronted with a very familiar, very livid brunette. And when he says scared, he means scared; he isn't proud enough to deny that. "Holy God, Max!" he exclaims. "You're gonna put me in the hospital!"
"I don't believe in God," Max says offhandedly. "And you're…" She trails off as she sees Dean, her face an odd heterogeneity of anger at Logan and worry for Dean. "What'd you do?"
"What'd I do?" Logan protests. "Nothing! I just left the room for them to do the surgery thing, and the next moment the guy's convulsing!"
Max places her hands on her hips, a common stance for her. "And what'd they say was the cause?"
"Panic attack," Logan says, knowing Max's want of having every little detail is just a coping mechanism. "They don't know why. They wanted to do an EEG and some other crap to him, but I thought it prudent to get him out before they performed all sorts of tests on him and potentially find out some…unsavory things."
Max sighs. "Thanks, Logan," she says. "But the docs are kind of right—we should have an EEG done and maybe other stuff to possibly get an insight as to what the hell's going on with him."
"Yeah, he's reverting to his psycho self," Logan says before he can think it through.
His arm is wrenched around his back immediately, and Max is seething in his ear. "Don't," she whispers viciously. "Don't even."
Logan nods, and she releases him, making Logan wonder if he should check himself into the clinic for shoulder surgery just in case. "We should get him out of here," he suggests.
"Yeah," Max agrees, her eyes flicking to the still down for the count Dean. "We anticipated this. I brought Shane, Damen, and Kalinda to help out. They're going to…requisition some medical equipment. You're going to drive Dean back to T.C.; Mole and Joshua are gonna meet you there. Alec wanted to come, but…I thought that might not be the best thing at the moment. Considering."
Max's face pauses on discomfort, but then neutralizes and she proceeds to make some hand signals in the shadows to Logan's right; three X-series emerge, and sneak soundlessly into the hospital. Max is about to go in herself when Logan puts his hand on her arm. He hadn't missed Max's explanation of Alec's whereabouts, but he saw the conflict in her eyes, and chooses to not—as has been his modus operandi as of late—mention it. "I appreciate your foresight," he says, "but Mole? Isn't he rather antagonistic towards Dean? I mean, he did clock him, right?"
Max laughs, smiling despite the grim circumstances. "You shoulda seen him," she says. "'Course he didn't say anything in front of T.C., but he volunteered for this. He was in the armory—where else?—and I talked to him; turns out, guy's got some sort of respect for Dean. Kind of like with Alec, come to think of it. It's great. I mean, Mole won't show it—you know how he is—but I think Dean's made it into his good graces, at least to an extent. Which is hard to do."
He shouldn't feel it, but Logan can't help the sting that grates him temporarily. Not that he necessarily lives to procure the lizard-man's approval, but still. Logan's been around the man for months upon months, and the guy hasn't liked Logan, no matter what. And yet Dean, who'd been more unconscious around Mole than conscious, had suddenly, inexplicably, gained the transhuman's respect.
It isn't even just that Logan's an Ordinary, either, like he'd thought. Dean's, after all, an Ordinary as well, and does Mole disregard him? Evidently not. Somehow, in a course of events that totally escapes Logan's high IQ, Dean's up with Alec (and isn't that an enigma in and of itself) on Mole's shit list. Logan's not pleased with it all, and plans on figuring everything out. However, whatever his feelings, he has to be objective in this one instance. Dean's just another injured person, and realistically, Mole and Joshua are the two best people for the job of bringing him back through the tunnels. And Logan's going to do his own part damn well.
"Okay," he finally accedes. "I'll drive him. Then what do you want me to do? Drive back here to help you guys transfer the goods?"
Max apparently doesn't pick up on Logan's want to assist. "No, we've got a truck here that we can use. Maybe you can just try to find out some more info on Dean, if that's possible. Could help."
"I can help read the EEG—"
"We have Rade, Logan," Max disrupts. "Please. We've got to deal with our own on our own right now."
And the sting is back in full force. Logan glimpses a moment, and reaches towards Max's hand that's still covered with her bike gloves. To his now near-depressing disappointment, instead of holding Logan's hand in hers, she shies away and wheels Dean towards Logan's car. He supposes he shouldn't be surprised when Max opens it, obviously somehow having manufactured a key without his knowledge. He can see she's straining to handle Dean with care, but Logan doesn't think she'd appreciate any offers he could give. So he simply gets in the driver's seat and shuts the door, waiting for Max to finish.
He can't resist glancing in the rearview mirror, however, only to see Max ever so briefly brush her fingers across Dean's cheek, like she's caressing an old friend. But, as always, Logan bites his tongue. He's rarely understood Max in matters of the heart, and if anything, Dean's place in it he'll never understand. He acknowledges that. (Sort of.)
Max closes the back door and comes around to the front, to speak through the open window. "Logan, I know you don't understand this," she says, her brown eyes solemn. You've got that right, Logan thinks cynically. "I'm not sure I completely do either. But I have to help Dean. I care about him, in spite of everything that's happened, or whatever Dean may have done in the past. You've just got to trust me on this. Please. He needs me. And I think we can help him through whatever demons are roiling around in his mind. Just—please, Logan."
It doesn't really placate him, but Logan's aware that Max is serving up her kind of truce, which means he has to masochistically sign on the dotted line. "Okay, Max," he replies without fanfare. "I'll talk to you soon. Good luck."
Max gives him a somewhat sad smile, and then vanishes into the dark, a mere blur as she slips into the hospital. Logan sighs, and then turns around to look at Dean, his face—so in turmoil yet still annoyingly handsome—twitching like it had. And Logan wonders if it's only the medical issue, or if Max was right and Dean really is suffering, and has been suffering, beneath that beautiful façade.
What scares Logan is that he fears he doesn't care as much as he thinks he ought. He shakes it off before he does something he regrets, though, and shoves the car into gear, Bessie's tires squealing as she peals out of the parking lot and heads towards the toxic haven.
"Mole like Sad Fella," Joshua observes as he and Mole sit by the manhole, waiting for Logan to show up with the precious cargo.
Mole grunts, glaring at the dog-man. "I don't like anyone," Mole objects, cocking and uncocking his twelve-gauge in boredom and irritation. "Let alone some pretty boy depressive."
Joshua shakes his large head, and Mole gets the exasperated feeling that he's in for some very unwanted canine psychoanalysis. "Sad Fella kinda Alec," Joshua chuckles. "Mole like Alec. Like Sad Fella."
Yep, psychobabble shit that Mole doesn't get. "That Winchester guy isn't like Alec," Mole objects. "I don't like Alec either, mind you."
Joshua stares at his counterpart, expecting a better response. His expression doesn't change, just continues meaningfully.
"Stop that, or I'll make you stop," Mole snaps, aiming his gun. Joshua stares. Mole sighs. "Fine. Fine. What do you want from me?"
Joshua smiles, his uneven teeth strangely unfrightening, like the rest of him. "Mole help Sad Fella. Mole helped Alec. Now help Alec's twin."
"Not a twin," Mole grumbles impatiently. "And what the hell makes you think I, of all people, can help this guy? He decked me, if you remember."
What Mole had initially somewhat agreed with about Joshua, his humanity and observational skills despite his ailed cocktail, now came back to bite him in the ass, and he wonders how exactly people dealt with this sort of thing. Give him a target, and Mole's your guy. But stick him in a situation where he's completely out of his element, out of his whole damn periodic table, and he's as clueless as a human child.
"Try Mole's best," says Joshua, paying no mind to Mole's affronted expression as he places his hand on the man's scaly shoulder. "Maybe Sad Fella listen."
"Okay, enough with the Fella thing," Mole snipes. "Alec, Max, Winchester, not that hard."
Joshua shakes his head again. "Dean," he corrects earnestly. "Winchester hurt people. Dean hurt by people."
"Fucking fortune cookie mumbo jumbo," Mole mutters, before standing up and stomping away to lean up against a pile of decaying crates away from Joshua. Which certainly does not allow time for Joshua to actually sprout seeds of truth about Dean's condition in Mole's mind. 'Cause there's no way Mole's going to feel sorry for the bastard. Hell no. Ever. Never ever.
Luckily for him, before his kernel of conscience can be left to its own devices, the squealing rumble of Logan's car echoes through the alley, and Mole's striding over before the vehicle is even turned off. Walking around the side, he yanks open the door, silently leaving Joshua to speak with Logan about everything that transpired and what would transpire.
But what Mole thought was the better job he's not so sure anymore. "Fuck," he says, seeing Dean's figure.
Ever since the guy had infiltrated all of their lives, Mole's been slightly caught off-guard, whatever he might say. And now, it's even worse. Mole hadn't seen Dean unconscious when he was first brought in; he'd been off intimidating some X6s or something. The only time he'd seen the guy was the fateful confrontation between himself and Dean, and later Dean and Alec. Sure, the guy had gotten a little of Mole's respect, but come on. In a city full of morose transgenics, some new blood who didn't seem to be afraid of any of them was bound to make a mark in Mole's record.
So seeing Dean like this makes Mole pause for a minute. Last time he'd seen Dean, the man had had his shoulder shot to hell, and yet was still cursing everyone and making off like he was just fine. Now, though…well, Mole's no medic, but he can see Dean's even more screwed than before. His shoulder looks like it was set right, but it's still bleeding profusely, staining the cheap fabric of Logan's car's seats, his skin is no longer the sun-browned color of being outside in non-Seattle climates, but rather pale as the countless death Mole's seen.
He's twitching like he's got electroshock going through him, even though Mole knows it's even worse than that, given the pained look on Dean's face. What's the most terrible, though, that Mole can see is Dean's eyes, Dean's hands. Before, Dean's eyes were hazel fury, emotionless and yet emotion-filled at the same time, adjusting to whatever new environment he was put in like a kaleidoscope. Now they're scrunched in the throes of what Mole can't picture; his hands are clenched into white-knuckled fists, but not the fists that pounded against Mole's face. They're fists of what are only used for staving off hurt in lieu of anesthetic, or of trying to not let anyone sense the feelings running through them. Dean's got it, and Mole's not sure what to do.
Mole wishes Dean were just another Ordinary that he could hate, just another Logan that he could dismiss as oblivious to the transgenics' plight, oblivious to what they're going through. And while Dean's as annoying to Mole as an Ordinary is, there's no way Mole can write Dean off as normal, as another of the human, faceless mass that hates Mole and his kind. There's something different about Dean, and although Mole can't quite point it out, he knows it like he knows he's part reptile.
It's not so much the horrible condition Mole assesses Dean's in that makes him want to give the guy a second chance. It's the possibility that maybe there really is an Ordinary in the world who could comprehend the extent of the transgenics' problems, who's been through the hell that they had. And if what he's overheard of Max's conversations is true, well, maybe even more hell. That's enough for Mole.
Fully intending to deny any accusations that he's going soft, he picks up Dean with little effort, making sure to watch the guy's head—hell if he knows if Dean has a concussion—and grimacing but ignoring the fact that Dean's blood is starting to stain his shirt. It's not so much that he's overprotective about fashion; rather, T.C. isn't exactly overflowing with clothing choices. In fact, Mole's got about two shirts to his arsenal, and this is one of them.
"You got this, Dog Boy?" Mole asks gruffly, referring to getting the debrief from Logan. From the looks of it, Joshua and he would be a while. Mole's pretty positive the process would go faster if it were with him—owing to that Logan doesn't like him very much—but on the other hand, Joshua walking in with an unconscious and bleeding Dean would be a lot more likely to cause questions. Whereas with Mole, not only do people generally just not want to talk to him, but they'd probably just figure that Mole had given Dean a Talking-To, and Max had commanded him to bring him in to Rade. Win-win, the way Mole sees it.
He makes quick time in the tunnels, his thick, scaly skin repelling most of the sensations of the sewer grime, and his superior strength allowing Dean to be virtually unmoved throughout the trip. The only difficulty, actually, is about three quarters of the way through, when Dean gives an especially violent shudder, accompanied by a loud mumbling, only the tone of pure whimpering up for deciphering. Mole crunches down on his cigar a little tighter—he won't feel anything but irritation for Dean,goddamn it!—but keeps going, in the back of his mind wondering if Rade would actually be able to patch him up. He'd seen the feisty woman work near miracles, but he has a bad feeling a lot of this would be up to Dean.
A couple minutes later sees Mole and Dean arriving at the other end of the tunnel, the manhole cover already open, and Rade waiting at the top with her arms folded across her breasts, conserving the heat from her standard green field jacket.
Her expression akin to as if she'd been sucking on a particularly sour lemon, a kind of revulsion at the fact that she's being called on in the middle of the night to treat an Ordinary. An Ordinary who she'd seen attack both Max and Alec, insult her people, and then indirectly cause Max to be blind to all he'd done, as well as neglect her duties for T.C. Mole's only guess as to why Rade is actually there is because Max hadn't told her it's Dean she'd be attending.
"Oh, come on," she gripes, impatiently brushing a piece of hair out of her eyes. "I'm supposed to treat him?" Just because she'd already inspected Dean earlier and didn't completely hate the man doesn't mean she wants to have anything more to do with him. Dean can't change what he is, after all: one of Them.
Disbelieving of what he's about to say, Mole sighs. "The guy needs your help, Rade," he says with a wince of annoyance. "Pretend he's one of us, if you want. Just check him over, will ya?"
Still perturbed, Rade humors him, putting her fingers to the pulse point on Dean's slightly feverish neck, mentally calculating his heart rate, and then feeling around his now not dislocated shoulder, despite herself becoming unsatisfied as her hand comes away covered in Dean's blood—his plain, unenhanced blood. Glancing at Dean's expression and taking in his tight, pained face, she makes up her mind, giving into her stubbornness.
"Follow me," she says brusquely. Completely succumbing, she finishes, "And bring Dean with you. I'm gonna fix his pretty little ass up."