Chapter Eight
Sam's breaths came in shallow bursts. He squeezed his eyes shut against the pain. His side felt as if someone had dumped acid on it. Sam had woken up on the floor of his room, in agony. He had tried to stand up but that had been out of the question; the movement pulled at the stitches holding the incision together under layers of gauze bandages. Even when he'd attempted to get to his hands and knees and crawl to the cot, Sam had found that nearly impossible.
Whimpering in pain, Sam had only managed a few feet before giving up and sinking to the cold tile floor again. He had rolled onto his right side and stayed that way, trying to breathe through the deep, searing agony.
Sam didn't even look up when a hand slid a tray of food into his room. He didn't have the energy to crawl to the door to get it. His stomach boiled with nausea- a side-effect of the anesthetic, Sam guessed- so that even the thought of the hospital fare caused him to give a series of meaty burps that threatened to turn into retching.
Sam rolled over onto his back, tears leaking from his eyes at the pain in his left side, so that he wouldn't have to look at the tray.
He wished Dean was with him. Dean could always make him feel better no matter how badly he was hurting. Sam's brother would joke and tell dumb stories to try and take his mind off the pain and just let his younger sibling know he cared about him.
"No one cares about me here," Sam whispered out loud.
Sam sniffed and raised his right hand to wipe his face, "I want my brother. I want my Dad."
He began to cry, the force of the sobs tugging on the stitches and making Sam cry even harder. Curling up on his right side despite the pain, Sam pulled his knees up and did something he hadn't done since he was a child- he put his thumb in his mouth, the familiar gesture comforting.
Closing his eyes, Sam waited for the pain to either subside or kill him. He really didn't care which happened first; it was clear that his family wasn't coming for him and he only wished he would die before Bates could take anymore from him.
SPN
John stumbled into the Roadhouse two day after he'd bailed on Dean, looking haggard and worn.
"Dad! Where the hell have you been? What the hell were you thinking?" Dean immediately questioned his father before John had a chance to clear the saloon's threshold.
"I was thinking about Sam!" John snapped and Dean hesitated.
"Where were you?" the younger Winchester asked, no more heat in his voice.
"I went to see an old friend," John said brusquely, "Can I get a beer?"
Jo- who had been talking to Dean before his father entered the saloon- went around to the bar and fetched the old hunter a cold one.
John thanked the teen and sat down in the nearest seat. Dean sat down at the table across from his father and looked at him expectantly.
"Her name is Missouri Mosley," John said after taking a healthy swig of beer, "She's a psychic."
Dean's eyebrows shot up, "Psychic? What has that got to do with Sammy?"
John fished a piece of paper out of his pocket and unfolded it. Dean saw that it was the acceptance letter to Stanford.
"That was in Sam's duffel," Dean began; incensed that his father had gone through his brother's things.
"And it wasn't easy to get," John commented sourly, "Not with you watching the damn thing during the day and sleeping with it at night."
Dean sat back and folded his arms over his chest, "Why the letter?"
"Missouri can sometimes tell things about people if she touches some possession of theirs, usually it has to be something they have touched recently," John explained, "I figured your brother looked at this thing every damn day since getting it."
The words coming out of John's mouth were not spoken in anger; instead they were filled with sadness and regret.
Dean took a deep breath, "Did she sense anything, or whatever?"
John rubbed a hand down his face, "Sam's alive, Missouri was sure of that but… he's not in a good way."
Dean frowned, "What does that mean?"
Sam had been nabbed by some crazies who harvested peoples' organs so of course he wasn't in a 'good way'.
John's dark eyes filled with tears, "She sensed his aura was fading."
Dean's heart skipped a beat, "And?"
John licked his lips and took another swig of beer, "Missouri thinks Sam might be dying."
"No," Dean breathed, "No, he can't! Sammy can't die! We have to rescue him!"
"I know son, but Missouri said-" John began and Dean stood up angrily, seeming to tower over his father.
"Fuck that! Sam is not going to die! Missouri's wrong," Dean insisted.
John's gaze fell to the letter from Stanford, "I never should have let him go."
Dean shook his head, "No Dad. This was me; I should have known something was up. I'm his brother. Sam always used to tell me everything. I should have said something that night but I didn't… I couldn't… I was just too much of a chickenshit to speak up."
"He just wouldn't listen to me," John whispered and both Winchesters lapsed into silence.
Father and son looked up when Ash entered the main room, laptop open in his hands and a wide grin on his face.
"What are you two sad-sacks so down in the dumps about?" he asked cheekily.
Dean looked to the techie first, "Did you…? You didn't?"
"I did, amigo," Ash said confidently, "I know exactly where Sam is."
Chairs hit the ground when both Dean and John ran for Ash, squishing him between them as they peered at the computer screen.
"Dunhill Psychiatric Hospital?" Dean asked, "They have Sam in a nuthouse?"
Ash nodded, "According to this, the 'product' is housed in a place called the North Hall."
John grabbed the computer from Ash and set it down on top of the bar.
"I did some research on Dunhill and found out that the North Hall was once the residence for long-term and violent patients. It still is, but only on paper so the black market can harvest its organs in privacy. There also might be corruption among the faculty at large as well but-" Ash began but stopped when the Winchesters started for the door.
"Where are you going?" he called.
"Going to get Sammy," Dean replied, the answer obvious to him. Ash shook his head.
"You can't just walk in there," the techie protested.
"Why not?" John asked venomously.
"If these guys catch wind of anything and I mean anything fishy they'll pack up and disappear and you'll never see Sam again," Ash told them.
John wasn't convinced, "They'll never see us coming."
"The two of you can't do this… not alone anyway," Ash continued, "At least let Ellen call up some more hunters so you can take these guys out once and for all."
John paused. He hadn't been too sure about the young hillbilly but he had to admit he had a point. Back in Vietnam, not knowing how many enemies you were up against could spell the end for even the most seasoned soldier.
"All right," John allowed, "One day, that's all and then we're going to get my boy."
"Excellent choice, sir," Ash said in a fake British accent as if John had been deciding on a particular brandy instead of waiting twenty-four hours to rescue his youngest son.
Dean and John looked at one another for a moment and couldn't help but smile. They were going to get Sam back. Everything was going to be alright again.
SPN
Sam shivered even as sweat ran down his face in greasy rivulets. His temperature rose dangerously with fever and his thoughts turned muggy. He could feel unhealthy heat radiating out from the incision and the pain seemed bone-deep.
Sam could barely move when a nurse entered his room and approached him. She took out a medical thermometer and crouched down beside him.
"Where are you going to put that?" Sam asked- at least he thought he did, he wasn't sure if he'd even opened his mouth- and tried to squirm away when the woman pulled down the back of his drawstring pants.
"No," Sam protested in a raspy voice that he hardly recognized as his own.
God, he was just so hot… and cold. How could he be both hot and cold at the same time? Was that even possible? He wanted water- needed water- and a big wooly blanket like the one his Dad kept in the Impala's trunk for emergencies.
Sam was just about to ask the nurse if she would go get the blanket from the trunk of his father's Chevy but groaned in pain instead. He closed his eyes and took as deep a breath as he could. When Sam opened them again he was alone; the nurse had left. Sniffling with pain and embarrassment, Sam pulled his pants back up and curled into a ball.
He dozed fretfully for a while, waking in time to see Doctor Bates standing over him, needle in hand.
"Please… some… water," Sam begged hoarsely but the doctor ignored him. The physician picked up Sam's left arm and injected him with the liquid in the needle.
Sam watched through darkening vision as Bates left the room without looking back.
Maybe that was a lethal dose of morphine, Sam wondered- hoped- and chuckled humourlessly.
Sam slept some more and when he awoke Dean was with him. His older brother was sitting against the wall beside the door, legs bent with his hands dangling between his knees.
"D'n!" Sam cried happily, his voice cracking and he coughed harshly for a minute.
Dean smiled, his hazel eyes crinkling at the edges.
"You thought we'd forgotten about you," he said, his expression still happy but his voice was hard.
"But you're here now! That's all that matters!" Sam tried to sit up, cried out in pain and resigned himself to continue lying on the floor.
"Yeah, I'm here now," Dean answered in a distracted voice.
"Please help me up," Sam held his arms out to his brother but Dean ignored the gesture.
"I just came to say goodbye, Sam," Dean said and he was no longer smiling. He looked angry.
"What do you mean? You have to take me with-" Sam started coughing again, deep hacking coughs that made his lungs burn.
Dean shook his head, "You left us, Sam. You decided that Dad and I weren't good enough for you."
Sam's eyes went wide with shock, "That's not true, Dean!"
"We needed you, Sam, and you just didn't care!" Dean snapped, "You didn't want to help us save people anymore, you didn't want to help us find the thing that killed Mom!"
"Dean, please," Sam begged, tears welling up in his eyes.
"No Sam, not this time," Dean stood up and dusted his hands off, "You made the choice to have a 'normal' life and this is what you got. I'm finished with babysitting you."
Sam struggled to sit up again, fighting through the pain and managed it. He felt something in his left side tear and a sudden warm gush of liquid soaked his shirt.
"Dean," Sam pleaded, "Don't go, please. I think I'm dying."
Sam watched in horror as Dean shook his head, "I have to Sam."
"No! Dean! Dean! Come back! Please!" Sam shouted as loudly as he could. His brother opened the door and stepped out into the hall, locking the door after himself.
"Dean! Please! Don't leave me alone!" Sam continued crying and slumped onto his left side.
Sam stared despondently at the pool of crimson liquid that was quickly growing larger around him for a moment before he closed his eyes and fell into darkness.
SPN
Bates thanked his lucky stars that he hadn't lost the boy with the green eyes. It had been a close one, for sure, first with the infection and then the fool tearing out nearly all of his sutures.
He was lucky that Elridge and Peters had been on their way to bring another kid in for blood extraction and had heard the boy frantically calling out for someone named Dean.
Despite that little speed bump, M-BSPN666 seemed to be recovering quickly and Bates couldn't wait to try out a new technique on him.
He had received a shipment of synthetic corneas from some close friends of his and they had asked him to try some human experimentation with them. They had only been tested on animals so far and the results had come back positive. If the corneas worked on human subjects than they could shrink the number of people waiting for donors. Even though Bates was in the organ harvesting business, he specialized in larger organs so his income was not threatened by the possible success of the synthetic corneas. Besides, eye transplants didn't sell well on the black market anyway, they were far too delicate and complicated- too many things could go wrong and then the client would be very, very unhappy. And an unhappy client was never a good thing. They could go to the authorities and then it would be all over.
Bates had decided to use the boy with green eyes as a guinea pig- somewhat reluctantly- because the procedure was relatively harmless and would likely not put the boy's life in danger. Besides, if the corneas worked, they would be no different than a natural transplant.
Arthur Bates stepped outside of North Hall to enjoy the crisp autumn air and the orange and red leaves carpeting the lawn of the Dunhill Psychiatric Hospital, singing The Who's 'I Can See For Miles' under his breath as he went.
SPN
Sam fought weakly against the orderlies. His legs still wobbled traitorously and his head swam when he was suddenly being forced to stand after lying down for so long.
"Please, it's too soon,' Sam begged, "I'm not ready."
As usual, the orderlies were immune to Sam's pleading. Sam stopped talking, deciding to conserve his energy and instead tried to tug his arms out of the orderlies' hold.
Sam almost couldn't believe it when the elevator opened up on the floor where the operating room was.
Tears of fear sprang out in Sam's eyes and he whimpered. He was marched through the double doors and greeted by Bates.
"Today is a very special day!" the doctor informed him. Sam cringed away from the man.
"No, please," Sam begged and renewed his struggles, "Don't take anything else!"
"You're going to rip your stitches again if you continue on like that," Bates admonished, completely ignoring Sam.
The orderlies got the young man onto the table, forcing him onto his back and strapped him down. Tears leaked from Sam's eyes as he stared at the bright overhead light.
"This shouldn't hurt," Bates said as his masked face appeared above Sam.
"Please let me go!" Sam choked out and wriggled uncomfortably when the doctor forced the gas mask over his face.
The bright light above seemed to fill up the entire ceiling, its rays stretching out in a rainbow of colours for a long second before Sam lost consciousness.
Author's Note:
1. Thanks to RainbowBetty, cold kagome, MysteryMadchen, AshleyMarie84, Samstruck, L.A.H.H, mandancie, DianaLadris802, Jeanny, SamDeanLover28, Sparkiebunny, BonanzaRocks, scootersmom, SPN Mum, BranchSuper, judyann, 2012summerstar, nightmaresalive, doyleshuny and Guest for reviewing.
2. Thanks to everyone who alerted, favourited or followed this fanfic.
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