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: Specific episodes of Supernatural mentioned are: "All Hell Breaks Loose, Part II," and vaguely "Phantom Traveler." Specific episodes of Dark Angel mentioned are: none.
Of Desire and the Status Quo
Chapter XXV: Long, Long Way From Home
Behind the rotting door stands a man, roughly late-sixties—though it's hard to tell through the gray-brown mop of hair, scars upon scars on his face, and slightly stooped stature—who doesn't have to look far up to Dean and Alec in order to look them in the eyes. He wears a baseball hat, a logo on the front that's too faded to tell the design of, and his clothes have seen better days, the vest and overalls well worn, like the house.
The man doesn't say anything at first, but Dean fills the void. "Bobby?" he asks, the expression on his face not quite a smile just yet, but edging into the—dare Alec think it?—territory of happiness. Or at least hopeful contentment.
Dean obviously had expected a more adverse reaction, and a frown starts to migrate into his face. "Who you talkin' 'bout, boy?" the man grinds out roughly, his voice gravelly. "There ain't no Bobby here."
To watch Dean's face fall is one of the most heartbreaking things Alec's ever witnessed. He'd never known who the Bobby guy was that Dean'd talked about, but he'd seen the significance in Dean's mannerisms. Finding out that the man in Bobby's house isn't the man Dean had anticipated…Alec can't imagine what it'd feel like. Though he has an idea, given how Dean looks now.
"What…" Dean stumbles, taken so far aback he actually looks faint. "What do you mean?"
"You deaf?" the man grumbles. "Don't know no Bobby."
"The man who had this house…"
A vague recognition passes over the owner, and he scratches his head briefly. "That ol' coot?" he asks rhetorically. "Last I hear, he snuffed it. Got this ol' thing offa auction."
Dean can't seem to say anything to this, so Alec steps in. "Sir, all due respect, he's" here, Alec gestures to Dean, "family. Hasn't seen Bobby in a long time, wants to make amends and all that. You sure you don't know anything else?"
The owner laughs, the sound like tires crunching over loose rocks. "Kiddo, I ain't never seen 'im," he says. "You migh' wanna check out a graveyard 'round here. Prob'ly in the ground there. If he gots any other family." Alec swallows, not wanting to glance over at Dean. The man turns irritated. "Now get offa my prope'ty. Hooligans…"
Before Alec can reply, the man shuts the door with a firm snap, a few pieces of wood separating themselves from the rest, and Alec has a strong feeling he wouldn't open the door again even if Alec knocked until his knuckles were bloody. It doesn't matter that Alec could break down the door in less than a second; he's extremely well-versed in telling if people are being truthful, and, grim as the man's statement was, he hadn't been lying.
Bolstering himself, Alec turns to Dean, the face that had previously been like a little boy's now morphing back into what it had been when Alec had first seen it. Battle-torn, world-shattered, horror behind every corner, even his mind not safe…
"Dean," Alec says lowly, putting a hand lightly on his shoulder. "There's nothing more we can do here."
"It's Bobby, Alec," says Dean, and Alec mutely registers how Dean had used his real name, and wishes he hadn't, because if the circumstances surrounding it had to be these, he'd rather go for "kid" for the rest of his life. "He's invincible." Alec can't find any words to help Dean out, so instead guides him back to the old Mustang once more.
Dean doesn't speak as they get back in the car, and Alec doesn't do anything either. They simply sit in the hot leather seats, Alec on the driver's side and not sure what to do, Dean in the passenger and in a kind of shocked state. Alec doesn't blame him, not in the least, although he does wish Dean would talk to him. Not that he's one for the girly moments either, but come on. He already has virtually no insight into the guy's mind; he doesn't need even more stonewalling.
"Dean," Alec starts hesitantly, looking over at his double. "You wanna get out of here? Keep driving?"
Alec's afraid Dean won't answer him, and instead of returning Alec's gaze, continues staring out the window at the barren landscape. "Not yet," he replies hoarsely. "The cemetery. Please."
Alec would have abided by Dean's desires even if he hadn't added the "please" to the end, and, wishing he didn't have to see Dean this way, Alec peels out of the driveway, putting the house that Dean had once known so well and now had betrayed him in one of the worst ways possible to the rearview, the wheels soon hitting paved cement.
As it turns out, there are multiple cemeteries in the city—Alec feels he should have expected this, considering Sioux Falls is the largest city in South Dakota—so he pulls off the road and dials the number that would connect him to the Department of Public Health. The receptionist who answers the phone sounds like she'd rather be dead (pardon the pun) than be answering Alec's call, but gives him the location and plot number. She says there was no casket, only a tombstone, and Alec finds this odd, plans to ask Dean about it at a later juncture, but he thanks her anyway and drives out to Mount Pleasant Cemetery, thinking the name completely inappropriate.
It doesn't take them long to find the corresponding grave, the marble but surprisingly small stone engraved with the words:
ROBERT SINGER
1950-2018
OMNIS FALLACIÆ, LIBERA NOS, DÓMINE
Dean reads the epitaph in silence, before giving a somber chuckle. Alec regards him curiously. "There something funny?"
"'Omnis fallaciæ, libera nos, Dómine,'" Dean says, his recitation perfect, and as if Alec should know both what it means and the significance.
"What does it mean?"
"'Of every deceit, free us, Lord,'" he replies. Turning then to look at Alec, his face for a moment indecisive, he gives an indecipherable smile. "It's part of the Rituale Romanum. An exorcism."
Alec doesn't really want to speak ill of the dead, let alone someone Dean cares about, but he's a little unsure about a few things. "Wait…Bobby was exorcised?"
Dean almost manages to glare. "Of course not," he replies flatly. "It's—it's a sacrament, basically. It's an exorcism, but…the words are meant to be a purity sacrament, to get rid of the demon. And…and Sammy would have put it up as last rites."
His questions growing larger and larger, including how Dean is so certain it was Sam who had inscribed the words, Alec throws caution to the wind and sets himself up for more. "I suppose you have an answer for why there wasn't even a casket buried?"
"He would have been salted and burned on a pyre," Dean answers, in the same tone of voice one might have discussing breakfast. (Albeit a very depressing breakfast.) "It's what hunters do when another dies. It puts their spirits to rest."
Alec knows Dean's just lost someone extremely close to him, and Alec had thought Dean wasn't mentally psychotic, just had killer nightmares, but…salting and burning people? Hunters? Putting spirits to rest? He wonders if maybe he'd made a snap judgment at some point that really shouldn't have been so snap.
"A pyre," Alec repeats tonelessly, imagining a huge inferno with a corpse in the center. "Isn't that kind of what crematoriums are for?"
"You don't let a hunter go out in a crematorium," Dean seethes, like Alec had just gone into a church and sang George Carlin's signature song. "Jesus, kid."
"'M sorry," Alec mumbles, feeling like he's treading water and very close to drowning. "Manticore didn't exactly have 'Hunter Funerals 101' on its repertoire."
Dean takes a deep breath, running a hand over his face, the dimming sunlight casting shadows that make his features stand out in more relief than usual. "I keep forgetting you don't know about this," he says, shoving his hands in his pockets. "It's just the way you act…"
The words like me aren't uttered, but they're present in the air between them. Alec isn't certain whether he should feel complimented or uncomfortable at this; whether he should be grateful that Dean had stopped seeing Alec as a freak clone and rather like a hunter (whatever that means), or whether he should take Dean's "the way you act" as a jibe.
"It ain't a bad thing," Dean says, seemingly reading Alec's mind. "Just weird. I've never, uh…I've never road tripped with someone who didn't know even something as basic as an exorcism."
"Why? Am I in danger or something?" Alec inquires, suddenly thinking Dean's trying to insinuate that Alec will be possessed sometime soon.
"Probably not," Dean hedges, glancing Alec up and down. He can't really imagine why a demon would want to ride him anyway. Demons usually have a reason to do so, and Dean can't come up with any for Alec. "But if you find someone dodgy, say 'Christo,' and you should figure out real quick if you would've needed to know the exorcism."
"Would have?"
Dean chuckles at Alec's indignation, and then immediately subdues as he realizes he's fucking laughing while standing next to Bobby's grave. Ignoring Alec's eyes on him, Dean squats down to be level with the gravestone, wishing he had some sort of token to lay on the grass. But the only thing he owns besides his clothes is his ring and bracelets, and he knows beyond a doubt that Bobby wouldn't want him to give those up. Especially since it was Bobby who'd indirectly given him the pendant that Dean had worn for seventeen years. More than that, Bobby isn't—wasn't—big on jewelry in the first place.
Running his calloused fingers along the exorcism words, feeling the cold stone that nixes his half-anticipation that he'd feel some sort of heat or spark or something. Something to show him that Bobby is still looking down or whatever, even though Dean doesn't believe in angels. Now it just reinforces that fact. If anyone he ever knew would become an angel, it'd be Bobby. If—no, when—he sees Sam again, and when they get through all of this back from Hell and Alec shit, he's going to say a big "I told you so." Angels. Whatever.
Even if he isn't Up There, though, Dean can still imagine that Bobby wouldn't want him to hang around all depressed over his death. Dean doesn't know how he died—probably some demon, and he'll find that out, he will—but Bobby would say it doesn't matter. That Dean needs to move on, damn it, and stop moping around like a fucking girl over something he can't change. Hell, Bobby wanted him to move on a mere three days after Sam had died. Bobby, Dean knows with a sad smile, would want a mourning fest for at most a day (he's not completely self-hating), and then after that, back to roaming the country icing supernatural pieces of shit.
"I'm sorry, Bobby," Dean says, so silently that Alec can barely hear it (though Alec thinks Dean wouldn't want him to, so he graciously disregards it). "Omnis fallaciæ, libera nos, Dómine."
Dean rises, taking a last glimpse of the headstone, and then Alec's shoulder to turn him around and walk through the rows of graves that they'd seen upon entering. Alec can't help but glance back, still wondering what Dean had been talking about, the whole demons thing remaining hard for Alec to comprehend. It's not that Alec can't believe a lot of stuff, because he can, but…demons are just so ideational that Alec can't really understand it. He wants to take Dean in faith, to trust that he knows what he's talking about—certainly the Latin was real, as well as Bobby—but he thinks, unfortunately, that for him it's just going to have to be a see it to believe it sort of thing.
Only, if demons are real, Alec's not entirely sure he'd want to see one in the first place. What was it Dean had said? Christo? Something that simple hadn't worked for The Exorcist. Alec wonders if it'd be enough in this case.
Doubtful. But not that Alec puts stock in the existence of demons and Hell and crap anyway. Really.
Sick of wringing her hands over her thoughts, Max stands up from her desk, rolling her neck, and walks out into Command, where things have been picked up more than when she'd last left, but still look like a bomb had gone off. Mole is talking to—okay, yelling at—one of the other transhumans, and, taking pity on the latter's terrified face, Max hurries over and puts her hands on both of their shoulders.
"Hey, break it up," she says firmly, exercising her I'm-the-leader-here-buddy voice. Looking to the smaller transhuman, she says in a slightly gentler tone, "Find something to do."
He scampers off, and she instead looks up at Mole, his cigar puffing away despite the numerous times in the past she'd told him to stop smoking the damn thing inside where everyone walked around. Mole scrutinizes Max, not in a specifically caustic way, but certainly not to the point of friendliness. Somehow, Max doesn't suspect Mole would ever exactly feel "friendly" towards her. Ah, well.
"Mole, calm down," she says, her back straight and unforgiving. "Look, this is hard on all of us, okay? Dix is my friend, too, and—"
She's cut off by Mole's snort, and is legitimately surprised. Mole decides it's worth elaboration. "Seems like Emo Winchester Guy is more up your alley these days."
"I thought you liked him," Max says truthfully, thinking back on how Mole had seemed amicable enough in terms of Dean.
"He's better than some people," Mole concedes, and the implication that he's talking about Logan is more than clear in his unsaid words. "But not when ours are on the line. Not when he's more freakin' important to you than the rest of us."
Max is astounded at the things coming out of his mouth. More important? "He isn't! You should know that!" she objects, showing more emotion than she meant to. "Besides, Alec's the one who ran off with him!"
Mole shrugs, as if that fact had occurred to him and he didn't may it any mind. "Can't blame him," he says levelly, and Max doesn't see it as a dig at her; rather, Mole's honest opinion. "He's got more to do with the guy. So what if he thought things were too stuffy up here, thought you were too much of a bitch in this whole thing than he deserved? Plus, it got Winchester out of the way, so what do I care?"
"You like Alec," Max tries again, putting the intonation this time on who she'd thought was the closest to a best friend as both men could have.
"I ain't gonna cry about it," Mole says, hoisting the shotgun that Max is pretty sure is welded to his hand up onto his shoulder. "I'm gonna figure out who to kill for this damn explosion, if you don't mind."
Mole cuts off Max's response by walking away, and she stands there, frozen, wondering how everything had gotten so fucked up. Was it really only a few days ago that business in T.C. was under control, to the best of its ability? That she and Alec were running it to the best of their ability, and were even getting along? That the only huge roadblock was the government and White? For whom they were getting close to coming up with a solution, anyway?
Would everything have gone to seed even if Dean hadn't shown up when and how he did? If her and Alec's positions were switched—disregarding Sam; er, X5-453, that is—would this have all happened the same way? Or is something special about Dean and Alec that inevitably messed with the fragile infrastructure they'd set up? Who does the fault lie with, then? Dean for appearing? Alec for going off God knows where with him? Her for enabling Dean? Rade for fixing him up? Logan for bringing him to the hospital? Cindy for finding him and bringing him to her apartment? Whomever had brought him back in the first place? Who?
Max pinches the bridge of her nose, feeling a migraine coming on. Truly, she does love what she's done for the people who suffered Manticore, creating a city where they can live, but sometimes, she just wants to have a girls' night out with Cindy, watch a cheesy chick flick, confess all her woes and concerns while Cindy listens and offers advice. Stroll down to Crash, order a pitcher of beer, and talk and laugh with Cindy, Sketchy, Herbal, everyone, forgetting her cares for just those scant hours.
Now, though…
She doesn't regret the T.C. founding, she doesn't, and she doesn't regret one tier of the chain of command she's set up. Doesn't regret that one awkward day when she walked up to Alec and asked him to please be her second-in-command, after which he'd been shocked, but covered it up valiantly before shrugging a yes. Doesn't regret having Mole be essentially the order keeper, making sure the other transgenics know just where their loyalties would have to lie and who they'd have to defer to, or get the hell out. Doesn't even regret having Logan stay as far away from T.C. as possible—it's for his own good; not just the toxins, but because she couldn't live with herself if Logan got caught in some crossfire of a shootout.
Not wanting to, but knowing she should, Max walks over to the almost completely demolished computer terminals, her sensitive nose picking up some of the acrid-smelling aftereffects of the bomb still lingering amongst the wreckage. There's a transgenic, an X4 who had worked in Manticore's demolitions and munitions department, kneeling next to the base of the terminal, his slightly inhuman hand over his mouth in contemplation.
"Brannan," she greets, coming up alongside him. "Have you determined anything?"
He looks up at her, amber eyes solemn. "Not much," he says. "I think it was set off by a trigger of some sort, instead of a detonator or incendiary, but…with the computers all in pieces, I can't tell what would have done it."
Brannan's face is indecisive, and Max narrows her eyes shrewdly. "There's something else," she observes. "What is it?"
"I—I don't know…" Brannan replies unsurely. "There's just this weird stuff on the floor over here that doesn't make any sense."
Max leans down to where Brannan is, peering at a thick line of something that's mostly charred, stuck fast to the base of the terminal. "You got any idea?" she asks. "Maybe it's some kind of accelerant."
Brannan shakes his head, takes out a knife, and scrapes some of the substance onto it. Holding it up to Max, he suggests, "Smell it."
She looks weirdly at him, but does so anyway. Immediately, she leans back, repulsed. "Damn," she coughs. "Too strong to be powder, isn't it?"
Brannan purses his lips in agreement, and regards his knife distastefully. "No powder or component of any bomb I've ever seen would cause this, or smell like this, either. I'll try and identify it, but I just don't know."
Standing back up and patting Brannan's shoulder, Max sighs. "Thanks," she says gratefully. "Hopefully it'll help figure out who did this."
The X4 doesn't look optimistic, but he nods anyway. "I'll try, Max."
Granting him a small smile, Max makes her way around some of the other transgenics in Command and out into a hallway that's thankfully uninhabited. Sitting down against a wall and staring at the opposite, she sets her chin on her pulled up knees, suddenly feeling weary, and wishing she had something to distract her. She would gladly have helped out with figuring out what the hell happened with the explosion, but she's not sure she could handle the furtive glances in her direction by more than the odd member of T.C., like they thought she was to blame or something ridiculous. She's not a sissy, to be sure, but she's afraid she'd lose her temper and alienate people.
She can't stop her imagination from presenting her with what this day could possibly have been, had Dean never crossed paths with anyone. More likely than not, she'd currently be in a heated argument with Alec, over something that probably wasn't very important, and Mole would be cleaning his shotgun, Joshua working hard on another of his personality portraits, some of the younger X-series throwing an old football around, paying no attention to the fact that it was low on air, and the laces were coming undone.
Instead, she's sitting in an empty hallway, the overhead lights flickering every so often, her Second off with his double, her it's-complicated cyber-hacker sullen over her insistence upon finding out what's up with Dean, her closest friend out in Seattle with normal humans and most likely worrying herself about everything (or bitching, it's hard to tell with Cindy), her medic trying to patch up their best computer manipulator from wounds that make Max sick.
She wonders where Alec and Dean are, what they're doing. How far they've gotten. Are they still in Seattle, just holed up somewhere and talking or fighting it out? Or had they somehow emigrated over to Fort Lauderdale or some such? She hates that she has no idea, and she hates that Alec won't even answer her calls. Most of all, she hates that she doesn't think she can give up her fascination with Dean until everything is hashed out, which, given the current parameters, won't be anytime soon.
"To the hospital?" Alec asks once they get back in the car, watching Dean take one of the last sips left in the whiskey bottle he'd been nursing.
Coughing a little against the too-large swig, Dean shakes his head. "Can't," he says, still far from processing Bobby's death, regardless of the "closure" he'd gotten. "Without Bobby's help, we'll just have to work harder. I'll futz with the shoulder later."
Alec clenches his jaw, but guides the car back onto the freeway, where he knows Dean would come up with some idea on how to locate Sam. They're about twenty minutes down the interstate when Dean groans, and puts a hand to his forehead, pressing his thumbs into his temples and squeezing his eyes shut.
"Dean?" Alec asks mutedly. "You all right?"
"Yeah, I jus'…" Dean's words run together, and he curses again, trying to fight through the dizziness. "I dunno wha's 'appening…"
"I'm sorry, man," Alec apologizes sincerely, his face drawn.
Dean looks sluggishly over at him, and reads his expression. "You…you son of a bitch," he slurs, the anger in his words undiluted. "Drugged me…"
Dean's down for the count before Alec can even think of answering, his form slumping within the seatbelt's hold, head lolling uselessly against the door. On his other side, Alec takes a deep breath, putting an elbow on the window frame and resting the side of his head on his fist, right hand kept loosely on top of the wheel. He'd done his homework soon after Dean had proclaimed they were going to Sioux Falls, taking advantage of the few naps Dean had succumbed to in order to locate various hospitals or clinics around the area. There were a good number in Sioux Falls itself, and Alec had certainly noted those, but on the off chance Dean would try to pull something, Alec had committed outliers to memory as well.
Which is how he knows there's a hospital in Luverne, Minnesota, about ten minutes out. He hadn't thought Dean would stage too much of a coup if Alec dug his heels in, but to make things easier on everyone, he'd half-heartedly congratulated himself on the foresight to grab some Benadryl when they'd last rummaged through an abandoned mini-mart. Pouring the liquid into Dean's alcohol wasn't hard to wrangle, seeing as how Dean had more lapses in attention as they'd gotten closer to Bobby (and, indirectly, Sam). And while Alec feels bad about it, the tricking Dean, he knows it's for his own good. Plus, it's not like Alec had jabbed him with a needle pumped full of hard-core drugs. Benadryl isn't going to do anything harmful.
Alec just needs it to last until he can get Dean in to see a doctor to fix up his shoulder, and then he'll withstand any blowup Dean will undoubtedly give him. Dean's wrath would be temporary; Alec's afraid that much longer with his shoulder screwed up won't do either of them a lick of good.
Picking a parking space close to the entrance, Alec makes sure Dean's still conked out—he is—and strolls quickly into the hospital, all charm and swagger to the female receptionist as he asks for a wheelchair and someone to assist him with Dean. Of course he doesn't actually need the aid, but better to look the fretting brother than a freak transgenic. He's just hoping that Luverne doesn't get much television reception, or at least that the people are too Canadian-like to care. So far, so good, anyway.
It's a male orderly that ends up accompanying him out, hefting Dean's inert body from the seat of the car into the standard wheelchair and setting him in a secure position before heading back into the lobby. He doesn't speak much, doesn't even ask Alec what's wrong with Dean, and Alec infers it's because when it comes right down to it, the orderly is probably not going to be interacting with either man beyond this point, so why ask? Honestly, Alec's kind of grateful. It gives him time to completely sort out his cover story within his mind.
The kindly receptionist—who, although submitting to Alec's charisma, is obviously not going the route Harmony had, if her wedding ring and matronly aura is anything to go by—tells Alec a surgeon—since Alec had already convinced her they'd previously seen a GP, who confirmed the need for it—would be with them momentarily, and can he please have a seat in the lobby?
Alec does as he's told, watching Dean uncertainly, continuously warring with himself as to whether drugging Dean was the best route to go. He's grateful this hospital is one of the ones who doesn't ask for insurance anymore; Alec hadn't thought to fake a card, and although he has some hustled cash on him, it's not enough to cover a surgery, he knows that. The internal battling lasts until the doctor that the lovely receptionist had indicated comes over, alerting Alec out of his haze. It's a woman physician this time, late twenties and quite well-structured, if Alec can say anything about it, her long, honey-colored hair tied up in a messy bun as she looks down at Dean and then to Alec.
"I'm Dr. Noelle Stephens," she introduces calmly. "What is it that brings you here?"
"It's my brother, ma'am," Alec says respectfully, deciding to use his and Dean's resemblance to his advantage. "It's stupid, really…we were throwing a football around, and he'd had problems with his left shoulder in the past—college sports and stuff—but it hadn't bothered him for a while, so, y'know. Guess he caught the ball wrong or somethin', because it all just went to shit from there. We were pretty sure it was a rotator cuff thing, since he'd been in the hospital before, but we wanted to make sure it wasn't too serious. We live just a few towns over and saw a doc there, but they didn't have any real surgery equipment, and since this is the closest place with all that, they suggested we come here."
It's a grand lie, Alec thinks, and he's pretty sure (read: hopes) Dean would compliment him, had Dean not been, you know, a casualty of it. Noelle peers into Alec's face, her striking hazel eyes focusing as if they're ocular polygraphs. Alec feels rather unnerved, but she seems to deem him truthful, and motions in front of her.
"What are your names?" she asks while Alec wheels Dean down a hallway.
"I'm Alec," Alec replies. No damage in giving her their real first names, after all. "My brother's Dean."
"Here we are," she says as they arrive in a room labeled, aptly, "Surgery." "Now, Alec, would you mind telling me why your brother is unconscious? Surely it's not to do with the injury."
Alec tries not to glare at her—Lady, would you just treat him already?—thinking that would be counterproductive. "Honestly?" he says, irony intended. "Dean nearly had a fit about going to the hospital. Guy hates 'em. A dose of Benadryl in his Coke, and everything went a lot smoother."
"Uh huh," Noelle says flatly, doing that shrewd gaze thing again to where Alec can't tell whether she's actually buying into his bullshit or completely not but humoring him anyway. Only seeing too-innocent candor in Alec's eyes, she leans back, instead focusing on his "brother."
Paying no regard to him, she feels the shoulder he'd previously alluded to, gently prodding the muscles and joints. A delicate frown appears between her eyebrows as she hits a certain spot, and she glances at Dean's face, the concentration there making Alec think that she notices something in his unmoving expression that he can't.
"It's been set right," she says, once again turning to Alec, "but there's definite swelling, and it's the kind of thing that could certainly be involved with a rotator cuff. I'll have to speak with his attending—"
"No," Alec spurts, before he can stop himself. Noelle raises an eyebrow. "I mean…" He can see he's not getting anywhere by trying to fool her—he wonders if she has brothers herself—and sighs. "All right, look. It's a really long story, but short version is, we got someone we need to find, but who's hard as hell to track. Kind of have to do it on the down low, too, and his shoulder really is busted, that much I'm sure of. As you could tell, we'd had it reset, but we had to…er…leave before we could get the surgery done. The guy's so damn hardheaded that doping him up was the only way I could get him into a hospital."
Noelle's expression is nowhere near encouraging and Alec begins strategizing on ways he could get Dean out of here while causing the least carnage. "Okay, Alec," she says, putting a minute emphasis on his name, letting him know she's skeptical on that front, too, "here's the deal. I don't owe either of you any favors, and I could very well get fired for not going through protocol on this. What you just said to me? There are a million ways that can be construed, and most of them would not be in your or Dean's favor, hear me? Now, one of two things is going to happen here. Either I pretend I didn't just hear any of that, and you get Dean's GP on the phone, or you start talking real fast as to why I should do this for you."
Alec's been relatively calm so far about everything, save for an outburst at Max earlier and the whole punching Dean thing (okay, come on, that last was totally justified! Dean was going to strangle her), but now he's frankly more than a little fed up. He'd dragged his ass all the way out to South Dakota to see some dude Dean had been close to back whenever, only to find out that he'd died, and then right after, Dean's intent was to keep driving along interstates until he got an epiphany or something about how to find his damn brother. Alec had had to frickin' drug him to get his shoulder taken care of, and now some doctor is telling him she won't treat him just because he may have fibbed a little?
Hell to the fuck no.
"Listen, lady," Alec says, his voice dangerous enough to even make Noelle cautious. "Dean's gonna have a coronary if he wakes up and finds himself in another hospital, not to mention be pissed at me because I slipped him Benadryl, not to mention probably hit on you, and I'm about done with this whole fucking thing, so you know what? You fix him up now, or I'll make you fix him up. And that's something neither of us wants. Understand?"
Noelle wouldn't say she's fearful of her life or any kind of crap like that—she's handled more irate family members and patients than Alec, even in just her few years of actual practice and residency—but beneath Alec's fury, she can see he's actually not just worried about Dean, but about at the end of his rope with whatever's been going on. She's not intimidated by Alec in the least, and honestly, what harm could come to sewing up a rotator cuff? It's a straightforward, routine surgery, anyway. Moreover, it isn't like the hospital is exactly overrun with patients, and really, a rotator cuff? It isn't something that screams sketchiness, like a gunshot or stab wound or something. (And besides, both Alec and Dean are way too goal-oriented and obviously smart to hurt a doctor.)
Against her better wishes, Noelle heaves a sigh. "All right, fine," she says, like she's walking up to a firing squad. "But first things first, if he does have a rotator cuff injury, I'll need to either take or see scans of it. I can't just—"
"Just go with it," Alec protests, thinking there has to be at least some commonalities. "Okay, Dean said his previous doctor had said something about two of the four tendons being severed. Dean couldn't really tell what the MRI scans were, but that they had to bring in a separate surgeon."
"Alec," Noelle chastises, "injuries like this can't just be done on the fly. I need to see what I'm dealing with here. Or I could completely render Dean's arm immobile."
"Hear he's gotten that a lot lately," Alec grouses, thinking on how Dean had told him not only Carr, but Rade and whatever surgeon he'd had, had let him know just how touchy this kind of thing is. "Come on. Please?"
Noelle stares at him, looks at his desperate face. Unfortunately, she's not inclined to take this huge of a gamble. "I'll at least need to take an ultrasound."
Alec assumes they're not just used for pregnancies, then, though he's also pretty sure that they don't take a long time to perform. "Fine," he says in aggravation, hoping Dean's body doesn't spontaneously decide he's done with experiencing the sedative's effects.
Alec had been right—the ultrasound didn't take a horrifically long time, and although it's obvious Noelle would have preferred an MRI, her face suggests she received a clear enough picture. Armed with that, she turns to Alec. "Can you get him up on the table by yourself? I can call an orderly—"
"I got it," Alec protests, and Dean's total deadweight, but Alec's carried him before, as well as much heavier things in the past. It doesn't take long to place him in a relative sitting position up on the table, and Noelle walks to an over-sink counter, drawing out some liquid painkiller into a syringe.
"All right, now get his shirt off," she commands. Alec does so, tossing the garment off to the side, and Noelle steps forward. "Even though he's knocked out right now," she explains, inserting the needle into Dean's arm and depressing the plunger, sending the morphine through Dean's bloodstream, "it wouldn't be a good idea to risk him awakening and having him not anesthetized. Open surgery isn't a walk in the park if you're not."
Getting her tools together and deciding Alec would work well enough as an RN—it isn't like this simple kind of surgery really requires med school—she puts on gloves and a mask, wordlessly instructing Alec to do the same. He obliges, though his expression is rather startled. She can't really explain it, but something tells her that he would be more than sufficient in assisting her; something about his disposition and stance of pure concentration.
"Okay, now hold him steady," she orders, bringing the scalpel down to Dean's arm, the instrument drawing a line of red as the skin breaks open. "By the way…I hope you've got a strong stomach on you, pal."