"What the hell are you two doing here," Sam demands when he opens the motel room door, his eyes flicking from Dean to Elizabeth as she struggles with one of Dean's arms around her shoulders.
"I checked myself out," Dean replies in a hoarse voice. Elizabeth helps him farther into the room and over to one of the chairs, sitting him down and letting out a squeak when he pulls her down onto his lap.
"Liza, why didn't you just sit on him?"
"Sorry," she apologizes sarcastically," I really should've thought of that."
"I tickled her until she slid off the bed," Dean explains, poking at her side and making her squeak again. She glares down at him, barely refraining from poking him in the ribs and seeing how much he likes it. The only thing that stops her is the fact that he already looks miserable, swallowed up in a blue hoodie with a light sheen of sweat across his brow. "Besides I'm not gonna die in a hospital where the nurses aren't even hot."
"Oh please, Gunther was pretty good looking."
"That's true. If I had the energy I would'a climbed him like a tree." Sam raises an eyebrow and Dean shrugs. "What? Even straight guys would swoon around Gunther and I've never been accused of being straight." The couple turn to look back to Sam, Elizabeth taking in the deep bruises under his eyes and the messy hair that comes from running his fingers through it. She likes to think of it as his Serious Research Mood hairdo.
"You look like shit."
"How long has it been since you slept, Sammy?"
"Three days," Sam answers distractedly. "I've been scouring the Internet, calling every contact in Dad's journal…."
"For what?"
"For a way to help you. One of Dad's friends, Joshua, he called me back and told me about a guy in Nebraska, a specialist."
"You sound as bad as Liza. She's spent the last three days on the phone with Zane and Archer trying to find ways to keep me alive. Why can't all of you just let me die in peace?"
"Because we're stubborn asses," Elizabeth remarks, looking over at him again. "We also happen to love you despite all your flaws. Now, you sit here and watch cat videos on YouTube while Sammy and I pack." He pats her ass when she stands, waggling his eyebrows when she jumps and turns to look at him. "It's a good thing you're dying or I'd wipe that look off your face."
"You know you like being spanked, Liza."
"Still in the room," Sam calls, waving his arms. "No naughty talk until I'm not within hearing range."
"Oh please, Sammy, big brothers are supposed to scar little brothers for life."
Elizabeth gazes around as she gets out of the Impala, not at all impressed with what she's seeing. Instead of a nice building—or even a building at all—there's a large white tent set up in the middle of a muddy parking lot with a sign in front of it proclaiming it to be The Church of Roy Le Grange, Faith Healer. How anyone here doesn't go home even sicker than they already are is beyond her, but she won't look a gift horse in the mouth.
"I got you." Sam's words make Elizabeth look over at him as he helps Dean out of the passenger's side.
"I got it," Dean grunts, not wanting to feel weak by accepting Sam's help. "Man, you're a lying bastard. I thought you said we were goin' to see a doctor." Dean shuts the door, automatically reaching for Elizabeth's hand and twining their fingers together as they start to walk towards the tent.
"Technically," Elizabeth comments," he said we were going to see a specialist, and you can just suck it up, cupcake, because we're trying this out."
"Yeah, if he's so good at his job, then why is he doing it in a tent?"
"Reverend Le Grange is a great man," a passing woman remarks, Dean making a face at her words.
"That's nice." The next people they pass are a man and a police officer, the man arguing about how Le Grange is a fraud. Well, that's not helping Sam's case any. "I take it he's not part of the flock."
"Well, when people see something they can't explain, there's controversy," Sam argues.
"Yeah, but come on, Sam—a Faith Healer?" Elizabeth moves to stand in front of Dean, forcing him to stop with her hands on his shoulders and an expression that's just daring him to try something. He rolls his eyes but doesn't try to barrel past her. "Liza, this is ridiculous."
"I don't care right now," she states in a no-nonsense tone. "You are going to walk in that tent, you are gonna let that guy do whatever it takes to heal your stubborn ass, and you are going to keep your mouth shut about it because I will personally break every bone in your body if you don't. Is that understood?"
"Don't be so—"
"Is that understood?" He may be bigger than her, but even Dean knows not to test her when she gets into one of her moods.
"Yes, ma'am." He ducks his head and starts walking again when Elizabeth moves out of his way, Sam sending an amused look her way. "Y'all coming in or not?" Smiling, she loops her arm through Sam's and follows Dean into the tent, looking around at the metal folding chairs, the stage near the front, the microphone stand, and a nice piano set up on the stage.
"This is like some Time Lord shit, bigger on the inside and all that."
"A fire hazard is more like it." Dean points at the candles spread around on the stage and then at the very flammable fabric of the tent. "This place goes up in flames and you two are getting one hell of an I told you so after we die."
"Move it, dude," Sam says. When Dean attempts to protest Sam slaps the back of his head and leads the others to three chairs closest to the front, instructing Dean to take the aisle seat.
"Liza, do I really have to do this?"
"Every bone in your body," she reminds him without even looking at him.
An older couple walks up onto the stage, the man standing behind the lectern. He's obviously blind, the walking stick and sunglasses giving Elizabeth that much; tanned, a little on the heavy side, with white hair that's slowly disappearing from the top of his head. The woman that helped him up on the stage isn't much younger, her brown hair going gray in places.
"Each morning," he starts," my wife, Sue Ann, reads me the news. Never seems good, does it?" The crowd murmurs their agreement and Elizabeth spares a look Dean's way. He still doesn't look happy and he's paler than when they first got here, but he isn't complaining. "Seems like there's always someone committing some immoral, unspeakable act. But I say to you, God is watching and God rewards the good, and he punishes the corrupt. It is the Lord that does the healing here, friends, the Lord who guides me in choosing who to heal by helping me see into people's hearts."
"Or into their wallets," Dean mutters as almost everyone in the tent calls out an amen.
"You think so, young man?" Elizabeth snorts when Dean realizes he's been caught, his mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water and his eyes going wide. She nudges Dean with her elbow and then nods at Roy, her expression the stern one that comes out whenever her niece says something rude.
"Sorry."
"No, don't be. Just watch what you say around a blind man because we got real good hearing." The people around them laugh at that, even Roy manages a smile, but Dean still looks uneasy. "What's your name, son?"
"Dean."
"Dean." Roy nods with another smile, gesturing for Dean to join him. "I want you to come up here with me." Applause starts up and Elizabeth gives Dean's hand a reassuring squeeze.
"I'm good, Liza."
"No you're not," she argues just loud enough for him to hear," and you won't be good until you let him work his mojo on you."
"Young lady, why don't you walk your friend up here," Roy suggests. "Maybe he'd be less apprehensive with a good friend."
"You got it." She stands and forces Dean up as well, guiding him over to the stage and then up the short set of stairs until he's standing in front of Roy. "What's your name, ma'am?"
"Elizabeth Mayson."
"Pleased you all could make it." She nods until she remembers he can't see it, then blushes hard and shares a look with Dean
"Uh, yeah, thanks." Roy places a hand on Dean's shoulder, still smiling, though it's beginning to get a little creepy since no normal person should smile that much.
"Are you ready, Dean?" Dean looks Elizabeth's way with a scowl, but the look she gives him has him scared enough not to complain too much about it.
"What if I'm not a believer like the rest of these people," he asks.
"No worries, you will be when this is over." Then Roy turns his head to look out at the crowd, continuing to speak to them. "Pray with me, friends." Like a kid scared of the monster under his bed, Dean reaches out for Elizabeth's hand and holds it tight enough to make her wince in pain. The hand Roy has on Dean's shoulder moves up to grasp the side of his head, Dean looking uncomfortable at the action, but keeping his mouth shut.
"It's alright," she whispers. "You're gonna be okay."
"Alright, now." Dean grows paler if possible, swaying and making pained expressions before slowly sinking to his knees in front of Roy.
"I have you, Dean." Elizabeth kneels beside him with her free arm wrapped around his waist, continuing to murmur against his ear. "It's gonna be okay, I'm still here." Dean starts swaying again, his eyes crossing just before he falls back against Elizabeth, unconscious. "Dean! Come on, wake up! Wake up!"
"Give it a second, Miss Mayson." Sam storms up the stairs and drops down beside Elizabeth, helping her support the dead weight. Panic makes her lungs seize, her breath stuck in her throat as she cradles his limp body in her lap. Please say we didn't just fuck everything up.
With an intake of breath that shakes his entire body, Dean's eyes snap open and he looks around him at Sam and Elizabeth. "Liza," Dean rasps, pointing at something over her shoulder. She turns to look, but only sees Roy and nothing that would cause the sudden look of fear on Dean's face.
"It's okay," she promises, kissing his hairline. "I've got you, you're safe now."
"What do you mean a guy's heart gave out the same time Dean got healed," Zane demands over the phone, leaving his bedroom and making his way to the kitchen where the coffee is waiting for him.
"I mean exactly that," Elizabeth returns. "We checked with the coroner and found out that the guy died at the exact second Dean was healed. Sam says not to look a gift horse in the mouth, Dean's getting a little obsessed over the whole thing, and I don't know what to think, so I called you." Zane makes a face as he pours creamer into his coffee, stirring it absently as he thinks through it all. "You still there, Zane?"
"Last I checked." He nods even though Elizabeth can't see and he takes the coffee mug with him into the living room, plopping down on the couch in front of the TV. It's almost noon in Oklahoma and the only show of interest that's on is that Doctor Who show that Archer and Liza are obsessed with. He runs a hand through his hair, the ends sticking up all over his head as he settles on watching Home Improvement. "I can't think of anything that could do what you described, Liza."
"Alright, well, thanks anyway." He can hear her disappointed sigh over the phone and it tears at him since he knows how much she cares about Dean. No matter how much they had fought during their childhood, they'd grown close as teenager and now Zane's waiting on the day that they announce their feelings to the public—the public being himself, Sam, and Bobby.
"Hang on and I'll ask Archer if he knows anything about it."
"Is Archer still rooming with you?" Zane looks over his shoulder at his bedroom, remembering the past few weeks vividly.
"Uh, yeah, it's working pretty well since we're hunting together a lot now." So it's half a lie, but he and Archer do hunt together when a case pops up, but they mainly have sex and argue over whether Batman or Superman would win in a fight. Obviously, Batman would win, all he has to do is shoot Superman up with Kryptonite and the fight will be over.
"Call me back when you find out?"
"No, just hang on a sec." He sets his phone down on the low coffee table beside his cup before walking back into his bedroom where Archer is sprawled across the bed, the covers tangled around his legs and his drool coating one of Zane's favorite blue pillowcases. He's going to be on laundry duty for a week. "Archer," he calls, shaking the other man's shoulder. "Come on, it's time to get up."
"Don't wanna," Archer grumbles, turning onto his side so that his back is facing Zane.
"Liza's on the phone and needs advice about a case." Archer makes a noise of annoyance, but still doesn't get out of bed, so Zane does something that would cause Archer to hop out of bed in about ten seconds flat. "You asked for it, man." Zane crosses the room and pulls the curtains open, sunlight flooding the room and making Archer sit straight up in bed, leveling a glare in Zane's direction.
Zane's blue eyes widen when he realizes how much of a mistake he's made, trying to sprint out of the room only to have Archer tackle him to the ground with a shout.
Can't I just cancel Monday mornings?