And another ***author credit*** goes to LeeMarieJack, for making such a good suggestion as to what poor Dr Rossi might do with her life now...
Chapter Fourteen
It was with an inward sigh of resignation that Sam reflected that, on the whole, the situation might have been foreseeable, given Dean's complete lack of tolerance for delayed gratification before he was ever demonified.
With a wail of joy, Crowley threw himself at Dean, and clutched the taller man to his avuncular breast, rocking him and crying and mumbling in what was presumably supposed to sound like Yiddish, and thanking God for the miracle that had sent his beloved nephew back from the very clutches of the Angel of Death.
"Fet," Dean had whined like an embarrassed child, "It's okay, Fet, really, Fe-e-e-e-e-e-t."
Dr Rossi sat, frozen, the documents spilling from her hands, and stared. "Meeeep," she went.
Sam sprang to his feet, and launched himself at his brother. "Dean!' he howled, his wailing mixing with that of his 'Uncle Fergus', "Dean! You're alive! You're alive! Oh, you're aliiiiiiiiiive…"
"Sure I am, Sammy," Dean beamed, clutching at his sheet as he was squished into the most unlikely group hug, "I, uh, think I might've had one of my, you know, episodes."
"We thought you were deeeeeeead!" wailed Crowley.
"We did! We did! We thought you were deeeeeead!" added Sam.
"Meeeeep," went Dr Rossi, as one of the morgue attendants came to see what the noise was about. He took one look at Dean, and then he went 'Meeeeeep' too.
"Look, this is really touching, guys," Dean muttered softly, "And if you were a couple of hot women, I might enjoy it, but…"
"Shut up!" hissed Sam, sotto voce, "Thanks to you, we now have to explain you rising from the dead!"
"Wouldn't be the first time," grinned Dean. "Hey, watch the hands, dude."
"Believe me, I am not enjoying this ghastly display of family feeling any more than you are," grumbled Crowley, "I wouldn't hug my own family like this. Not unless it was in order to get a knife between somebody's shoulder blades…"
"So you will shut up and tolerate this ludicrous show of unconditional love, and you will act as though you like it," Sam growled.
"Hey, that Dr Rossi is kind of hot," commented Dean, "You think maybe we could ask her to join us?"
With a small noise of disgust, Sam let go of his brother, and made a show of wiping his eyes, as Crowley honked extravagantly into his much-abused handkerchief.
"Meeeeep," went Dr Rossi.
Dean sniffed at himself. "Hey, you think I could get a shower?" he asked the attendant, "I smell of disinfectant. And I'm kinda cold."
The open-mouthed man pointed down the corridor.
"Great!" Dean gave them a beam smile. "Hey, see if you can find my clothes, Sam," he said cheerfully, before disappearing.
"Wait!" called Dr Rossi, her paralysis breaking, "Wait! He's… you're… he's…" She subsided into utter bewilderment again. "But… he was dead, he was dead, he was definitely dead…"
Crowley sat down opposite the pathologist, radiating gentle reassurance. "My dear lady, I am as astonished as you are," the demon beamed at Dr Rossi, "And I'm sure that Sam would tell you that there is no doubt a perfectly rational explanation for this…"
"What? Oh, uh, yeah, well, you'd know," Sam stammered, "There are documented cases where, um, individuals who are suffering from, uh, hypothermia, can appear to be, well, to all intents and purposes, you know, dead, as in, not alive. Um."
"Hypothermia?" she echoed faintly.
"It's kinda cold out there today," Sam nodded vigorously, "And given his heart condition, maybe he just kind of, you know, went into a sort of, uh, suspended animation for a bit."
"Suspended animation?" Dr Rossi repeated. "The cessation of apparent life signs in response to a cardiac incident, with vital organs and brain function being preserved due to lowered core temperature…"
"Yes! Yes!" trilled Sam eagerly, "Just like that!"
"But he was dead," she insisted, a small note of hysteria creeping into her voice. "I checked, I checked, I certified him, that's my job, he was dead, he was really dead…"
"And now, he isn't," Crowley cut in smoothly. My dear doctor, I have faith that in this world, there are some things that science alone cannot explain." He took her shaking hands in his own. "Perhaps you just made a mistake; after all, you are only human, nu? Perhaps one day, medicine will find an explanation. But does it really matter? The important thing is, my dear, dear nephew is alive…"
Sam watched as Crowley reassured the utterly bewildered pathologist. He found that he was not at all astonished that the demon had risen to King of the Crossroads before establishing himself as King of Hell. He could make an eternity in Hell sound worthwhile, so it was probably no challenge at all to reassure a woman who was suddenly questioning her professional competence, her own eyes, and her very sanity. Selling ice to Eskimos would be a waste of Crowley's talents; he could sell Slayer albums to the Moral Majority, or Village People concert tickets to the Westboro Baptist congregation.
"You must not berate yourself like this, dear lady," he insisted as Dr Rossi had some sort of professional, existential, anatomical and possibly geometrical crisis, "Just be grateful that your case load has suddenly become lighter! Or, if you are insistent that you find another career, did you do your own nails? Yes? You have such beautiful hands, my dear, I'm sure you would find a calling as a manicurist…"
Sam left the impromptu therapy session to head for the morgue and find Dean's clothes, then followed the sound of cheerful and off-key singing to the staff bathroom, knocking on the cubicle door.
"I'll leave your stuff here," Sam told his brother.
"Thanks, Sam," called Dean as the water shut off. "Hey, see if you could find me another towel will you, this one is pretty damned small, and…" there was a sudden shriek from the cubicle.
"Dean!" Gun in hand, Sam put his shoulder to the door and broke the lock.
Dean was standing, thankfully wearing a towel, and staring in horror at a small mark below his ribs. "She cut me open!" he shrieked in horror and indignation, "She cut me open! That woman cut me open!"
"What?" Sam lowered his gun, and peered at his brother's torso. On his right side was what appeared to be a small nick.
"Look!" Dean squawked, "She cut me open! That pathologist woman sliced me open!"
"Dean, it's barely a quarter of an inch long," Sam rolled his eyes, "It hardly counts as 'cutting you open'."
"It totally does!" protested Dean, "She totally sliced and diced me, for no reason at all!"
"Dean, stop ranting!" snapped Sam, giving his brother a hefty Bitchface #7™ (You Can Be Impossibly Unreasonable Dean, You Know That?). "Look, she's a pathologist, you're a, a, a, you were a corpse! Anyway, it's tiny. Jesus, you've had fuglies try to tear your limbs off, and you're worried about a little cut?"
"Why did she do that?" Dean wailed, "Why would anybody do that?"
"Oh, I don't know, maybe, because it's her job?" Sam rolled his eyes. "In order to establish a time of death, she'd have wanted to take your liver temperature, that's all, it won't even need…"
"My liver?" Dean's eyes bugged in horror, "She… she poked a hole in my liver?"
Sam scowled. "It's the most reliable way to establish the core temperature after death, in order to…"
"She poked a hole in my liverrrrrr!" Dean shrieked. "You can't do that! My liver is the third hardest working organ in my body! I need it!"
"Third hardest working?" queried Sam dubiously.
"After my dick and my tongue, obviously," replied Dean.
"Well, your brain certainly isn't even in the top ten," Sam opined trenchantly.
"But seriously, what kind of weirdo goes around cuttin' holes in a guy, then pokin' holes in his liver?"
"A pathologist confronted with a dead body, that's who!"
"It's gross!"
"She thought you were dead!"
"I wasn't dead, I just… popped out."
"Out? Out? Dean, people 'pop out' of their houses, to go to the store, to go post mail, to go return a measuring cup to a neighbour – they do not 'pop out' of their bodies to go steal cowboy boots!"
"Don't you dare drag my boots into it! This is all your fault!"
"It's… what?" Sam stared at his brother, his face becoming angry. "My fault?! My fault?! You're the one who couldn't wait until we had custody of your meatsuit again before you jumped back into it and ruined a perfectly good plan!"
"I had to get out of there," muttered Dean, "Between you, and your memories with sequins, and your hentai-propriety, and your disgusting taste in disgustingly badly written disgusting fan fiction that's just disgusting, I had to get out!"
Muttering something about wondering whether killing a big brother who'd already been certified as dead counted as murder, Sam found another towel in a nearby cupboard, and threw it at Dean. "Get dressed," he growled, "Then come out, and thank the pathologist for her professionalism, and be grateful that's all I did."
"She cut a hole in me," whined Dean.
"If you do not get with the program, so we can extract ourselves from this mess, I'll do worse than that."
"Ooooooh, I'm so scared," snarked Dean sarcastically.
Sam fixed his brother with a stony stare. "Dean, I mean it." He brandished his phone, and went for the multi-megaton fusion device. "I will call Becky, put her on speaker, and ask her to read a chapter from her latest work. And we'll see who pukes first."
Dean gaped in horror at his brother, then wilted under the searing power of the Bitchface #14™ (There Are Times When Your Behaviour Is So Reckless I Wonder If You Took Lessons As A Small Child).
"You're mean," he said in a small voice. But, never one to be down for too long, he brightened. "That pathologist really is kind of hot, though. And she's already had her hands all over the merchandise, so to speak, so do you think if I asked for her number, we could hang around for a few hours, and…"
"I'm dialling! I'm dialling!"
"Bitch."
...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo...
Leaving Dr Rossi contemplating a change of career, the brothers Winchester, plus their dog, plus one very annoyed demon, hit the road to head back to Sioux Falls.
"I'm hungry," complained Dean, "All that bein' dead really takes it out of a guy. Look out for somewhere we can get chow, Sam.'
"I refuse to eat at the same table as you," snapped Crowley from where he was crammed up against the back door, trying to get as far away from Jimi as possible. "I refuse to eat in the same room as you. In the same building as you. In the same town as you. In fact, I refuse to eat in the same country as you. Give my regards to Bobby."
"Hey, where are you goin'?" asked Dean.
"France," muttered the King of Hell before disappearing. Jimi let out a contented humph, and stretched out across the entire back seat.
"Well, I'm sure we can manage without 'Uncle Fergus'," said Dean. "We can stop somewhere to eat, then Baby will get us back to Bobby's."
"Sure, Dean," yawned Sam, too tired to argue with his brother.
"Am I keepin' you awake, bro?" grinned Dean.
"Yeah," replied Sam, "It was a long drive, and maybe you don't need to sleep, but I'm wrecked."
"Well, you can nap," Dean told him, "I'll find a drive-through or something."
"Okay," Sam slumped against the passenger door, his eyes sliding closed. "Oh, and Dean?"
"Yeah?"
"I expressly forbid you to possess me ever again."
"Well, no problemo, now the Living Sex God has his own awesome self back," grinned Dean, "In fact, I think I should probably celebrate by sharing that awesomeness with the female population. I did hook up with a pathologist, when we were workin' that case in Maine, remember the one where the bodies were turnin' up with their hearts gone? Well, you spent so much time at the library, so she and I, well, let me just tell you that pathologists have to know how to do all sorts of interesting examinations, even on dead people, and…"
A soft snore indicated that Sam was asleep.
"Huh, figures," Dean muttered, "The minute I try to educate him, he goes to sleep. He's ungrateful, you know that?" he said to the dog in the back seat.
The sound of a snuffling snore indicated that Jimi was asleep too.
"Pair of lightweights," sighed Dean.
He drove into the night, just enjoying the feel of his Baby rumbling over the tar, eating up the miles, the engine purring, the feel of her coming to him through the wheel, his number one girl ticking over just as she should, when suddenly…
"What the…?" Dean sniffed, and screwed up his face. A terrible smell wafted to his nose. He flapped a hand, but the smell became stronger. "Oh, Jesus H. Christ, Baby is something wrong? Is something burning?"
He checked the gauges on the dash, and assured himself that nothing was amiss. Carefully, he manoeuvred so as to check the soles of his boots. "It's not you is it, Jimi?" he said to the dog, "You're not snorin' dog breath at me, are ya, because seriously, we're talkin' the stench of Hell, here…"
Sam snuffled in his sleep, shifted slighty, and another wave of smell rolled over Dean.
"Huh? Oh, gross!" He reached across and poked Sam's shoulder. "Stop it! Stop it, you disgusting thing!"
"Hrmph? Wha'?" muttered Sam sleepily. "Dea'? What?"
"Stop it!" Dean insisted. "Stop doing that!"
"Doing what?" Sam yawned, struggling towards wakefulness. He stretched his arms. Then broke wind with some musicality.
"That!" Dean snapped. "Stop doing that!"
"Huh?" Sam blinked at him. Then passed gas again. "Hey, I can't help it."
"You totally can!" Dean yapped. "Sam, I forbid you to do… that in my car! Fuck me, that's vile!"
"It's your own fault," said Sam, "Stuffing all that crap into my body. You know what they say, Garbage In, Garbage Out." He frowned, winced, leaned ever so slightly sideways, and… "Oh, I feel better for that."
"Well I don't!" yelped Dean, "Don't point it at me! Open your window!"
'No," griped Sam, "I'm goin' back to sleep." He slouched against the window once more.
"I'll put you in the trunk," threatened Dean.
"I'll put you in a devil's trap," countered Sam. "As thou sows, so shalt thou reap."
"Don't you get biblical on me," snarled Dean.
"I'm not," shrugged Sam with a yawn and another flourish of flatulence, "I'm gettin' gastrointestinal on you."
"Sam, I FORBID you to fart in my car!"
"Well, I forbade you to eat that hamburger. Which, in Deanese, apparently, means 'Go right ahead and do that', so…" He went right ahead and did that.
"But you'll suffocate me!" Dean whined.
"You won't suffocate. You're a demon. You can't suffocate."
"There's always a first time!"
"Well, no big deal, I'll turn the car around; I know where to find a pathologist who can check your liver temperature, you jerk."
"Bitch."
So, now they have to find a way to dedemonify Dean before he commits, uh, Deanery again. What will it entail? Whom will it discombobulate? Will Bobby let Dean keep the cowboy boots? And will Crowley bring enough pain au chocolat back from France? Feed the bunny reviews so we can find out!