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dime_liora“It was something... the way a person's life picked up speed, the way a life was like a bullet aimed at one final target, impossible to slow or turn aside, and like the bullet, you were ignorant of what you were going to hit, would never know anything except the rush and the impact.”
― Joe Hill, Horns
Dean leaves Sam long enough to go to the bathroom. That’s it. A simple piss and he’s going to be back, but sure enough it’s just the length of time his little brother needs to do something stupid. Dean comes back in to find Sam eyeballing his port and flexing his fingers.
He crosses the room in what feels like two steps and grabs Sam’s twitching hand. To be fair to his brother, which a tiny part of Dean can be, Sam isn’t really able to unhook himself at this point in his recovery.
To be unfair, a bigger part of Dean screams, Sam has put Dean through enough in the last few days and Dean doesn’t need to worry that Sam is going to unhook himself and fuck himself up worse falling out of the hospital bed.
“Sammy. You’re awake.”
Sam’s eyes are glazed with morphine, his lips dry and cracked, and Dean releases his brother’s hand to pluck up the cup and spoon ice chips into his brother’s mouth. And then, because Sam is a huge girl that has rubbed off on Dean, he slips chapstick out of his back pocket and carefully applies it to Sam’s mouth.
His brother’s shocked face is enough payment that Dean doesn’t even need a thank you.
“You’re not getting out of this bed until there’s no other choice. When the heat’s around the corner, Sam. That’s when we move you.”
He can see that his brother wants to say something, but all that emerges from Sam’s mouth is a croak. Dean takes over the conversation because one of them has to explain logic to the other and this duty always seems to be Dean’s anyway.
“You busted yourself up pretty bad Sammy. See, when you’re not the target you stand back and then it’s your job to take care of my lazy ass while I recover. But, instead, you got into that head of yours to jump in front of the bars and get hurt way worse than I would have. So now you gotta take your medicine.”
Sam groans and Dean feels the ghost of a grin cross his mouth. The first time in days.
“You love puns.” He feeds Sam more ice chips and looks around the room. “This is a pretty tiny fucking hospital. You ever notice that when they’re smaller they just seem to scale all the shit down? You would think they’d take some of it out, but nope. It’s like every hospital has rules about how much shit they gotta pack in a room. I think it’s how they justify how much they charge your HMO. Dry erase board with staff names? There’s an extra three thousand.”
Sam swallows and then opens his mouth and Dean spoons more ice chips in. He thinks, again, about Sam as a little boy. About playing airplane to feed Sam baby food. He should have laid off the fucking vegetable flavored ones. It would have saved him a lot of pain and suffering later in life.
“How do they justify all the money? I know what you’re thinking. We’re not paying for it so who cares? But you know what? Somebody shoulda put their foot down years ago. Somebody who mattered and coulda gotten it changed. Any way you look at it though it’s highway robbery. Makes what we’re doing a misdemeanor. At best. And the food. What about the food?”
Sam sucks on the ice chips and looks past Dean for a moment before focusing back on his brother. Dean can see from the sharpness in Sam’s eyes that his brother is too there. Sam needs to be doped up for this. Dean is aware that Sam will complain about this later, but for now Dean knows better. He pushes the morphine button and then sweeps Sam’s hair out of his eyes.
“Not that you’ve tasted the food here yet really, but you will eventually and you’ll complain about it non-stop. So, prepare for that. We both know how much you like to bitch.”
His brother gives him a look, not quite a bitchface but something close enough that Dean thinks maybe his brother is feeling a little bit more himself despite the opiate that Dean has released into his veins.
That’s good and bad.
“They got a lot of good things to say about your recovery Sammy. Doctor thinks it’s going to be just fine. So, there’s that. Doesn’t mean you should do it again, but it does mean that you need to follow the plan and get better ASAP. Which I know you’ll do, you overachiever.”
Sam swallows again and then moves his mouth. Dean leans down, ignoring the hospital breath Sam has to try to hear as clearly as possible whatever it is that Sam thinks is so important, he has to suffer to say it.
“Faster.”
“No. Not faster Sam.” Dean doesn’t sit up because he knows that Sam will have a response to that and they need to have this argument as best they can and get it out of the way now.
“Faster.”
“No. No, because they aren’t joking around about how bad this was Sam. They’re not wrong. They’re the experts and you’re just some dumbass that got impaled. So, when they say you’re down for a while you’re down for a while. You got me?”
And Dean can tell from the way Sam’s breath changes as it puffs against his cheek, from the way that Sam’s body goes a little bit more slack underneath him, that the morphine has really hit.
“Zugzwang. That.”
Dean is pretty sure that this isn’t his brother talking nonsense. That it means something, but Dean is damned if he knows what.
“Huh? Sammy what the hell does that mean?”
“Captain Black.”
And then Sam is asleep again, and Dean sits back and gently combs Sam’s hair back with his fingers. Makes it smooth and flat against his brother’s skull as he watches Sam’s chest move up and down.
It’s comforting to watch. It’s good to hear. Sam’s lungs working, the injured one and the healthy one. Sam’s heart pumping blood that is staying in his body without any deviation from the plan.
Dean doesn’t want to stop and think about where this could go. About what will happen when he has to pack Sam up and run. About what’s left for Sam to do.
Sam lived, and everything else is going to go just fine in obedience to the strength of Sam’s will.
Dean looks up when the door opens and closes. It’s the doctor, Dean can’t remember his name, who looks like he’s nervous. Dean tries his hardest to not freak out. This is too fast, too soon, and Dean can’t handle it.
“Sir? Mr. Winchester?”
He’s not sure why he gave his real name. When it caused raised eyebrows Dean had tried to play it off, spun some bullshit story about a stepfather and an adoption, and at the time it had seemed to go over.
Dean is starting to question that victory.
“Yes?”
The doctor takes a seat across the room, near the door, and opens the chart he’s holding.
“I have some questions about your brother’s medical history. Namely how accurate it is.”
He can’t figure out if this is a good sign or a bad sign. If the doctor is planning on kicking them out why would he bother to get more info on Sammy?
“It’s accurate.”
“Alright. It’s just that his name isn’t-“
“His medical history is accurate.”
The doctor sighs before closing his chart and rubbing the bridge of his nose. He looks exhausted.
“Mr. Winchester, I understand that you’re very stressed right now, and that you’re looking at your injured brother, but I would like you to understand that I am not here to make things worse for either of you. I’m a doctor, and my patient’s care comes first. No one here is going to turn you in to the police or turn your brother out into the cold. If you’re really worried about it then what I would suggest is that we find you something to do here in town that will allow you to pay his medical bills.”
Dean feels a hysterical laugh bubbling up and shoves it down.
“What could I possibly do around here that would pay this kind of medical bill?”
The doctor smiles at that, hands squeezing down on the chart briefly and making it creak before he gets a hold of himself.
“A fair question. Definitely a fair question. What we’re gonna do is this. We’ll keep on billing Mr. Harmon’s insurance. That way you’re only looking at the deductible, and that isn’t too bad. We’re a small hospital and we don’t have a lot of patients or employees. I don’t see a problem with you staying here with your brother if you’re ok with that chair. Does that sound good?”
It sounds…suspicious as hell. It sounds like the kind of thing that happens to people in TV shows and movies. The audience awws and the hero settles in, but that’s not what happens in reality. In reality Dean goes to jail and Sam ends up out on the street with two giant holes still in him.
“What’s the job?”
Dean can stay vigilant. Dean can watch out. And if the whole thing was real for a time? Well then Dean will be able to buy some time until Sam is mobile again.
“Funny you should ask that. Do you know anything about books?”
----
Dean waits for Sam to wake up again. His brother’s eyes are a little glassy, but he locks onto Dean quickly and stays locked on.
“Sammy. You will not believe what just happened.”
His brother lifts one eyebrow and twitches his hand. Dean picks up the ice chip cup, spoons two into Sam’s mouth.
“The doctor figured us out. Well. Partially. And you are looking at the local bookstore’s newest stock boy and cashier.”
Sam sucks in a breath and chokes on his ice chips. The coughing makes his brother’s face go pure white like the medical gown so close to it, and Dean panics. He hits the call button and tries to calm Sam at the same time, murmuring nonsense as he lifts his brother’s arms carefully and then rubs Sam’s chest. He can feel the thickness of the bandages underneath and they only serve to fuel the panic he’s trying so hard to hide.
By the time the nurse arrives Sam is already getting it under control, but his face is still incredibly pale and Dean watches as the nurse hits Sam’s morphine button for him and settles his arms back down at his sides. She gives Dean a look, questioning, and Dean nods and waves her off. Once she’s gone he settles in next to Sam again and takes his brother’s hand.
“Guess I shouldn’t try to make you spray milk from your nose either.”
The look Sam gives him is not kind, but Dean is glad to see it. It’s the liveliest Sam has looked in some time.
“So yeah. I got a job. To pay the deductible on your bills Mr. Harmon. There’s another reason to be an overachiever when it comes to recovery.”
Dean watches Sam lick his dry lips, and then Sam squeezes his hand once.
“Take off. I’ll find you.”
He laughs, because there’s nothing else to do.
“No.”
“Dean.”
“What’s sunsong?” It isn’t right, Dean knows it, but his brain isn’t exactly at top performance levels, and he’s basically giving up on even trying for recall. He just wants to change the subject before Sam starts a fight.
“What?”
“Exactly.”
Sam frowns and then shakes his head.
“Dunno.”
“Who’s Captain Black?”
That one is right, and there’s a shadow on Sam’s face before his brother squeezes his hand and shakes his head.
“Why?”
“It’s what you said. Before. When you were going back under.”
Sam lifts a sardonic eyebrow and Dean resists the urge to pinch his brother.
“Morphine.”
It’s a fine answer, but Dean isn’t sure it’s true. There was something there for a moment on Sam’s face. Something like recognition, or even concern, but it’s gone and Dean doesn’t have the energy to chase it. If Sam is going to remember he will. Most likely at the least convenient time for Dean possible.
He settles back into the soft chair with his fingers still linked with Sam’s and hits the remote to turn the TV on. Sam doesn’t argue, and they watch together in companionable silence.
----
Dean’s first day at the bookstore coincides with Sam’s first battery of serious recovery tests. Sam is both sorry to have Dean gone and glad. His brother doesn’t get to enjoy how well Sam handles the breath test, but he also isn’t there to hear the less positive aspects of Sam’s expected recovery.
They’re leaning more towards the longer period before Sam will be able to leave the hospital. Their projected amount of physical therapy for Sam to move from walker to quad cane, they’re not even willing to guess how long before he walks unassisted, is incredibly depressing. Sam imagines them trying to get the walker in and out of the Impala, making up stories for it during investigations, and using it to maneuver around graveyards.
Just the attempt has Sam on the verge of a panic attack, and with the way Dean’s been acting Sam isn’t certain that subsuming the fear won’t end with Dean in a hospital bed next to his.
When it is almost too much Sam grips his hand closed and imagines that Dean is holding it. He thinks of the sensation of Dean’s fingers linked with his. It’s a common enough occurrence, but since Dean spent all of last night and the night before doing it Sam doesn’t have to strain to pull it to the forefront of his mind.
The doctor, Jorgenson Sam has learned, is very good at his job. His bedside manner is perfect, and he delivers everything with a straightforward but hopeful inflection. Sam wants to punch him in the face and he doesn’t know why.
They’ve moved Sam to liquids and soft food, and Dean arrives just in time to grin devilishly and then grab Sam’s spoon and tray. For half a second Sam thinks Dean is going to eat his dinner, but instead Dean scoops up a full spoonful of applesauce and makes a train noise before zooming the spoon to Sam’s lips.
It is only logical that Sam bypasses the spoon and bites his brother’s hand. It’s what Dean has earned.
Dean, for his part, keeps his shriek quiet. He takes the path of drama in waving his hand all over and hissing like he’s in a ton of pain. Sam isn’t impressed.
“I’m just trying to be helpful.”
There’s a smudge of dirt on Dean’s cheek, and Sam is dying to clean it off. He can’t though, so he reclaims his spoon and eats the applesauce grumpily. It’s still too hard to make full sentences, so Sam needs to be strategic with his words.
“So, it turns out I’m a great stock boy. Like, just totally awesome.”
He pushes down the applesauce and looks over Dean’s shoulder at the window and then back to his brother.
“Out there? Like Norman Rockwall.”
“Well.”
Dean laughs, forced but there, and Sam is willing to take it.
“Always gotta be the know-it-all, even when you can barely talk. You got a collapsed lung to bounce back from how about you don’t fight with me?”
Sam huffs and takes another bite of applesauce.
“But seriously. It could not be any more old school out there. The streets are tiny, the shops are all old-fashioned. The one I’m working in? It has one of those old iron cash registers that’s huge and fancy and has the tabs that pop up every time you make a sale.”
Sam thinks about that for a second, eyes roaming around the hospital room before landing back on Dean to have him continue the story.
“And the owner is ancient. Probably the second oldest person I’ve ever met after that math teacher you had.”
Sam feels his lips purse in annoyance. He hates when Dean brings that asshole up. Dean didn’t have to deal with her cheek pinching habits. Dean knows it too because he laughs at Sam the second he sees his face.
“Yeah. So that’s nice. There’s like two cops, and a little shop next to the bookstore. It’s probably the size of a convenience store. And then there’s a pharmacy with the fancy sign and like one pharmacist that knows everybody’s names. A diner with a waitress named Phyllis. An auto shop that has no lift. I don’t how the fuck they think they’re going to fix anything serious with that.”
Sam puts the applesauce down and looks back at the window. He wants to see this. Dean’s not a bad storyteller, but in the end Sam has always experienced things first hand. Dean looks at Sam for a long time, looks back at the window, and then he leans forward and talks very softly.
“Ok. They’re gonna start dragging you out of this thing soon to make you walk around anyway. So, if you’re very good and don’t breathe too deep in excitement I’ll take you to the window.”
Sam finds himself nodding like a four-year-old and instantly feels embarrassed. Dean ignores it, smiling indulgently before lifting Sam carefully out of the bed and taking him to the window. The IV stand and the monitoring equipment don’t have to reach far. The window is close to the bed in the little room.
Dean takes him right up to the glass and Sam sees exactly what his brother meant. There’s a main street with businesses and then there’s a smattering of houses outside of it. There’s no apartment buildings and no slums. It’s all just perfect, an idyllic village set in the center of what appears to be a great forest. Sam studies it carefully, trying to figure out which building is Dean’s new job.
And then the voice is back.
Good luck, Captain Black.
Sam feels his pulse spike, hears the machine registering it behind him. Dean is rushing him back to the bed but Sam can feel his hands shaking as something in the back of his head tells him that he knows that. He knows it but he doesn’t know why. Something about a town, Something about Norman Rockwell.
But that’s crazy. That’s the morphine because it was Dean that said it was Rockwell. It was Dean that told him about the place. Not that voice talking in his head. Not that ominous warning he can’t understand or shake.
Sam feels his face being turned. His chin is in Dean’s hand and Dean is right in his face breathing slow and steady, breath smelling like cheese and meat.
“Listen to me Sammy. Listen to me. It’s alright. It’s alright. Everything is fine. I’m right here and so are you so you gotta calm down. Match my breathing. Breathe with me.”
But Sam can’t. Something is coming for them. Something has come.
Dean lifts his hand and distantly Sam knows that his brother is still there, but he feels like he’s thousands of miles away on Mars looking down.
His palm lands on Dean’s chest, solid and sure, lifting and falling slow and steady despite the beat underneath it that betrays Dean’s fear.
“Sammy. Look at me. I won’t let anything else bad happen to you. I’m here. Look at me. Nothing’s going to happen to you while I’m around. I mean it.”
And Sam finds his breath. He follows Dean’s breathing, pushing hard on the panic and trying to keep in mind that whatever it was that set it off it wasn’t something supernatural. It’s somehow connected to the injury. It’s the rebar poles’ damage to him that’s making him think that the world is falling part. He’ll ask the doctor about it. He’ll get a good explanation then.
In the meantime, Sam narrows down on Dean until his brother is literally and figuratively his whole world. Stays there until Dean has him under control.
And then a nurse and the doctor are rushing in and Dean is pushed away from him. Moments later the heat of the morphine rushes into his veins and Sam is falling into sleep.
This couldn’t be Heaven.
Dean sits beside Sam’s bed and takes long slow breaths of the air inside the hospital room. It tastes bad, and he wishes they had windows that would open. Not that it’s a feature in any hospital, but this one is so old and different Dean kind of hoped for a second it would break protocol.
Sam is sleeping now, eyes moving at a rapid pace behind his eyelids, and Dean thinks of the doctor’s stern warning not to over excite Sam before leaving the room. The guy is nice, but Dean will be damned if he needs to be told how to take care of his little brother. If he hadn’t shown Sam the window Sam would have gotten up to see it himself.
He stands, stretches to crack his back, and then steps into the bathroom and sees a smudge of ink from the bookstore on his cheek. He turns the water on hot and wonders how much that drove Sam crazy.
Not that Sam can clearly tell him.
They’ve got a long road ahead of them, and Dean has to figure out how to navigate it. It’s all well and good for him and Sam to sleep here in the hospital as long as they need Sam to stay, but what about after? When Sam’s released he’ll still need therapy. He’ll still need care. And they can’t reliably get that on the road.
His boss, and how fucking weird is that phrase in his head, told him that there’s a room for rent upstairs. Dean wonders if maybe Sam would agree to that. It’s a short walk from the hospital. An even shorter drive if Sam isn’t able to do that by then.
They could stay, for a while, just to get Sam literally back on his own two feet. And then what?
Dean knows that Sam dreamt of this, well not this but of the whole settling down mythology. And yet now that it’s here Dean can see that Sam doesn’t want it. That he really wants to move on to the next thing. Whether he thinks that’s necessary to keep Dean from dipping on him, or if that’s just Sam now, Dean isn’t sure.
What he is sure about is that Sam needs the care. Sam needs the time.
And Dean is going to make sure he gets it.
He strips down and washes in the sink, an old practice made easier by the hospital’s climate control, and then heads back into the room. Sam didn’t finish his applesauce and Dean polishes it off before reclining in the big chair and drifting off to sleep.
For just a moment he thinks that he hears two sets of breathing, but it’s just Sam sleeping and dreaming, riding on the morphine.
Sam and Dean. That’s all he hears.
Dean dreams sporadically, something in the darkness creeping up on Sam, something coming for his brother in the silences between the wind rushing through the trees and the squeaks of non-slip rubber soles on hospital floors. Something chasing without remorse or pause.
When he wakes up he’s pretty sure his neck is made of iron, and he almost resents Sam in the comfortable hospital bed. Almost.
Sam sleeps through Dean leaving for the bookstore. He goes about his duties as quickly as he can, eager to get back before Sam is served dinner to make sure that his picky brother at least gets that down.
Except when he comes back Sam’s tray is empty and his brother is using one hand to type sluggishly on the laptop. Dean leans around the screen to look at what his brother is looking at as well.
SparkNotes on Catch-22.
Dean sighs, closes the laptop, and then sits beside Sam. His brother is obviously pissed.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing? A book report? You’re supposed to be resting and watching trash TV.”
Sam gestures at the laptop as if that explains everything and then points around the room.
“Wrong.”
His brother’s face is grim, and Dean follows Sam’s gaze before returning his own to his brother’s expression.
“What’s wrong?”
Sam gestures again and Dean shakes his head.
“I don’t get it. What’s wrong Sammy? The hospital room? It’s pretty standard.”
Sam’s face gets incredibly petulant, a Greek mask version of his usual bitchface.
“Town.”
Dean blinks, brain processing that, and then leans in and takes Sam’s hand.
“It’s just a town Sam. We’ve been to a hundred of them. I don’t get what you’re trying to say.”
“Doctor. Street. People. Wrong.”
Oh shit.
The doctor warned Dean that Sam was without real oxygen for a while. That the combination of that and the head trauma from when Sam originally hit the ground could combine badly with the painkillers and cause paranoia and panic.
He saw the latter yesterday, and he’s seeing the former now.
“Sammy. It’s just a town ok? It’s just a little town. They’re weird because we’re not used to staying in them. Because we’re not used to getting lucky with them. But it’s nothing beyond that. The doc said-“
“Captain Black.”
Sam’s said it once before hasn’t he? Dean casts back in his memories and tries to pick out what the context was. Sam was post-surgery. Sam had just escaped death. Sam was too messed up to know what he was really saying.
“Who’s Captain Black, Sam? I don’t know that name. I don’t know why you keep saying it. I’ve met at least half of the town by now and nobody with that name has come out of the woodwork.”
Sam’s mouth puckers, and his hand plucks at the sheet draped over him as Dean watches him fight his own brain.
“Captain Black. Character.”
“A…a book character? You think there’s something wrong because of a book character?”
Sam flushes, color suffusing his overly pale cheeks and looking too dramatic on his face. Dean reaches out and takes Sam’s constantly moving hand, comfortable with the gesture if it will just take that look off of Sam’s face.
“No. Voice. Voice said.”
Dean looks around the room, and then back at Sam. Stir crazy maybe? Sam always makes fun of him for not being able to sit still, but his brother has never been much better. Maybe that’s the real problem.
“Stay here. Just a second.”
A voice. Maybe something Sam heard while under the drugs? The EMTs were in the ambulance alone with Sam, the doctor and the nurses were alone with Sam in the operating room, so maybe somebody said it then. Something Sam carried in the back of his brain that’s surfacing now that he’s a little clearer.
Dean finds the head nurse at the station and points to Sam’s room with his thumb.
“Any chance he can go on a little ride? I’ll go real slow, no wheelies. Promise.”
She giggles, nods, and then puts on a serious face.
“I’ll get him all set up if you’ll help lift him, but don’t leave the hospital grounds and no longer than a half hour. Got it, mister?”
The last is said flirtatiously, and Dean leans on the counter and waggles an eyebrow just to see her blush.
“Aye aye, captain.”
Something about it sends a shudder down his spine, Sam’s paranoia infecting him.
“Ok. Come with me, let’s bust him loose.”
Dean rolls Sam slowly down the halls and out the back door he’s been using to get to the little parking lot. Sam is taking shallow breaths, eyes moving everywhere over the parking lot as Dean rolls him to the Impala. He takes his brother’s hand, the left one that isn’t attached to the side of Sammy’s chest that has a hole in it.
“Sam. Do you see Baby?”
Sam nods, his eyes moving back and forth between Dean’s face and the Impala.
“Feel her.”
Dean puts Sam’s hand on the car that is their home, keeps his own over Sam’s. The metal is smooth, shiny, and warm from the sun. More than once this has been Dean’s way to steady himself. To put the world’s spinning back to the appropriate speed.
His little brother’s hand eventually relaxes under his. His body goes slack and he looks from Baby back to Dean.
“Dumb.”
“Yeah. Sure. It’s dumb. But it’s also working.”
Sam grunts, face disgruntled and slightly petulant.
“It always works for me. When I’m afraid, when everything seems treacherous, when I don’t know where we’re going. This is our home Sammy, but it’s also our escape route. You see how little time it took to get you here? Something, anything, goes wrong and I’ll have you out of here. Lickety split. I’m keeping my eyes peeled Sammy. But there ain’t nothing to worry about yet except your health.”
There’s a long silence where Sam keeps his hand on Baby. Then he turns it in Dean’s loose grip and closes it weakly around the flesh that is warming up in the sun.
“You.”
Dean lifts an eyebrow. It’s his turn to be unable to talk.
“You home. You escape.”
Something shifts in Dean’s chest. Something stirs and spreads making his fingers tingle and his cheeks flush. It’s a feeling Dean hasn’t had in a long time.
“Don’t be a girl.”
There’s no malice in the words. Dean can’t manage that right now and Sam seems to know it. His little brother smiles and squeezes his hand once weakly before he gestures toward the hospital. Dean rolls him back in.
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