| He
drives like a man possessed. Sweaty hands
sliding as he grips the steering wheel, wet sheen on
his bare arms, green surgical scrubs clinging to his
body where the blood's sticking it to the
accompanying cuts in his chest. Underneath
he's naked but still too hot, feels like the scrubs
are made of leather not cotton. In the
passenger seat, slumped against the door, Sam is out
of it; shock and blood loss dragging him deeper and
deeper, blood seeping from the edges of the
makeshift dressing covering the worst of his wounds,
colouring the dirty white medical gown he's dressed
in. For the first few miles Dean thought he could hear the shrill cry of sirens and see the bright flash of lights in the Impala's rear-view mirror. Now he's not sure he didn't imagine it. Now, after what feels like a million miles and a hundred years, all he can see is the road, and all he can hear is the rush of blood through his ears, the hard, fast hammer of his heart and the laboured sounds of Sam's uneven, irregular breaths. Better than the voice, the voice whispering, taunting, commanding. 'Sick boy. Where will the baby come out?' Hanging on to the wheel with one hand, Dean leans across and pulls open the glove compartment, hitting Sam's knees with the flap, getting no reaction to the bump. He fishes around blindly amongst the papers, fake ids and weapons, cutting his fingers on the sharp edges as he refuses to take his eyes off the road - the last thing he needs to do is crash - until he finally touches the cool plastic of his cell phone and almost yells his relief out loud. Straightening the car, he flicks open the clamshell and presses '7', putting the phone to his ear, listening as it speed-dials the stored number, hears it connect, swears when it isn't answered on the first ring. Second… third… fourth…. "Yeah?" The voice sounds like it's owner hasn't woken up yet. "Bobby?" "Dean?" Waking up now, "What time is it? Where are you?" What happened? The unasked question hangs on the line. "Listen, we're in trouble. I need your help." He hates to ask, he always hates to ask, but he has no choice. He doesn't want to be alone with Sam any longer than he has to be, not yet, not until he's sure he's… him, completely. That stings more than the cuts on his chest. "Where's Sam?" Fully awake now, the tired blur gone from Bobby's voice. "Here. He's hurt, Bobby, and it's bad." Dean doesn't need to say he's hurt too - somehow, in some way - if he was fighting fit no way would he be making this call and Bobby knows it. "I'm at the Roadhouse." Damn. Fuck. Of all the places…. What the hell time is it anyway? No choice, though, and he knows it as he glances across at Sam's still form and tries to stop the exhaustion and horror from welling up as tears in his eyes. "We're an hour out." He claps the phone closed, drops it into his lap as he floors the accelerator. Help is at the Roadhouse, and despite disliking the place as much as Sam likes it, that's where they're going. It isn't the Roadhouse itself, even if it does give him the creeps - like that weird-ass bar in 'From Dusk Till Dawn' - it's the way that Ellen is with them, acting like she's their Mom, not that he's entirely sure how a mom would act but he guesses it's the way she does. Like that time she flew out to California following Jo and he had to drive them all back… it had felt wrong. They don't need a Mom - got this far without one. For so long it's just been him and Sam and the Impala - their sanctuary - and even when Dad had been with them those few times it had felt… odd, like John had somehow been intruding on something he wasn't a part of any longer. Dean hates himself for thinking it. But the truth is he doesn't want anyone muscling in on his relationship with his brother. He knows it and Sam knows it. Sam is attracted to affection like a moth to a flame and whenever anyone shows him any, Dean's can feel his manically possessive side kicking in to save Sam from himself, from everyone else on the planet. From getting hurt, he always told himself, and he was right. Isn't some stranger being kind to Sam the reason they're driving away from hell covered in their own blood? "Katie asked me to take a look, that's all." That sheepish tone, the puppy-dog eyes, the offering of the six-pack of his favourite beer. This wouldn't lead anywhere good. "It's an abandoned asylum, Sam! Remember the last one? Bad things always happen in those places." "It's an old maternity hospital, not an asylum! Besides, it's our job, Dean! And I promised." That fucking irritating, annoying determination Sam got whenever he wanted to do something for all the wrong reasons - wrong reasons in this case being because some waitress at a restaurant had asked him to. "Why did you promise? You barely know this woman, Sam! And she's like, forty-five! Way too old for you." "That has nothing to do with it, and you're sick, Dean. She's nice, as in she's kind." They were back to sheepish, it wasn't a good sign. It was a sign that Dean was going to lose the argument and that in a couple of hours' time instead of rutting against one another in another too-narrow bed, they were going to be creeping around a dark building with ghosts in the walls and a history so sick it would put most demons to shame. "Kind as in she fed you pancakes with ice cream and hot chocolate sauce and now you're eatin' out of the palm of her hand?" "Vanilla ice cream, not chocolate." No point in delaying the inevitable. "Okay, Lassie, where is this place?" He knows he's possessive and jealous when it comes to his brother, but Sam's just the same, it just took Dean a longer time to figure it out. Sam's never stands between him and affection, he's just always stood between Dean and sex - sex with a girl. There's a term for it, one he learnt from a stranger in a bar. Cock blocking. It was a term he doesn't like attaching to his brother, besides, it's his own fault. That night, a millennia ago, a night in a strange motel when Sam was twelve and Dean was everything to him. No one to blame for Sam's behaviour but himself. Sure, he's improved better over the years, once he came to understand that he and Dean were the exception to a whole raft of rules but particularly that what they did in bed wasn't normal for two brothers. Sam's life though has never been normal, but when Dean told him he could get his brother and his father in trouble if he ever told anyway, it sealed Sam's mouth shut for a lifetime. Dean never minds Sam going with a girl in the few towns he hooks up. Sex with women is just sex. Sam understands it, and he lets Dean get away with it sometimes. Other times… Sam makes him put out to make up for it. So when Dean steps between Sam and kindness, he has to make up for it too. Love, affection, someone opening their arms and giving Sam a hug; that's so much more dangerous than Dean spending a couple of hours in some strange girl's bed. Offer the guy good food and a bed without semen stains and his loyalty knows no bounds. And it's why Dean dislikes the Roadhouse - it almost purports to be offering somewhere to belong, and the only place he wants to belong is with Sam, in the car, in motel rooms, on the open road. All this stuff rushes through his head as he drives, trying to keep his mind away from the fucking freaky shit they've left behind and the sick spirit of an insane, sadistic surgeon that for a while was inside him. Limbs no longer under his control; watching himself, watching the grey fingers of dead nurses holding Sam down, pressing into the flesh of his arms, the scarlet flash of dirty light off the bloodstained scalpel and the terror in his brother's eyes. Still twenty minutes out it starts to rain, and not the gentle summer kind; the hard, pelting storm kind that turns roads into skidpans and makes it impossible to see further than the hood of the car, despite the full beam of his headlights. He blinks to clear the blur from his vision, the windshield wipers on full pelt, and for a few minutes he can't tell whether it's the rain or his tears making visibility almost non-existent. He hears a groan and honestly for a second thinks he's made the sound himself. Then Sam shifts in the seat beside him, Dean glances over, scared to take his eyes from the road for too long, and sees his little brother clutch at his abdomen and bite back a cry. Dean reaches over, cautiously like he isn't sure he's welcome now, tentatively rubs one shoulder because like it or not he's still all Sam has. "Easy, Sammy. Almost there." He hopes his voice sounds steadier out loud than it sounds in his own head and Sam turns away from him, awkwardly towards the door and drops back into sleep. At least Dean hopes that's what it is. He presses two clammy fingers to the burning throat, finds the irregular pulse and breathes out, willing his own heart to stop pounding. "Stay with me, Sam. It'll be okay, just stay with me." The rain has eased by the time he slides the Impala to a stop in the mud outside the Roadhouse. The place is ominously dark but by the time he's killed the engine the door is opening and there are lights burning inside. Bobby is an incredible sight for sore, exhausted eyes. As much as he hates to need anyone except for Sam, hates for Sam to need anyone but him, he knows his own limits and knows he's not only reached them this time but has carried on over them into unfamiliar and dangerous territory. He pushes his door open, reaches to squeeze his brother's shoulder, and for a moment he isn't certain he can actually move from the car. Then Sam's door is being yanked open and pure instinct gets him moving in sheer panic. "Don't! ... Bobby!" "It's okay, Dean," Bobby's voice reassures him, before, "Jesus, son, what the fuck happened?" Dean guesses he doesn't really want an answer right there and then and moves around the car to helplessly watch Sam being lifted bodily out of the seat. He sees his brother's head loll forward and eases it back with heartbreaking tenderness against Bobby's shoulder, rubbing his thumb against San's temple once before locking the car and following them inside. Ellen's waiting for them. Bobby carries Sam over to the pool table and lays him carefully down, Dean's hand going under his head to stop his skull hitting the green baize. He doesn't wake up and immediately Ellen gets to work, cutting the white gown away around the bloodied patch over Sam's abdomen, eyes questioning Dean over the patch of green material stuck there. Dean flinches as she eases the soaked material from the wound clinging to it - the gaping tear out of which Sam's intestines had shown themselves before Dean had tucked them back inside. "What did that?" Bobby demands while Ellen fetches water and dressings. For a few long minutes Dean doesn't answer - can't find the words, can't locate his own voice amongst the memory of the one not his in his head. He stares at the pale face of his brother,lying still as his wound is cleaned, sterilised and stitched, and all he can think is that he was the cause of it; he did it. He cut the person he loves most in the whole world. Dad always said they were stronger together, but lately demons have been using one to get to the other, and Dean doesn't want to be the cause of his brother's pain any longer. He wishes he could walk away - get in the car and drive. But like he always finds Sam, Sam would find him, and he would have done more damage than any demon ever could. Finally two words make it passed Dean's lips - "The dead," - like that explains everything. He watches as the adults strip the rest of the medical gown from his little brother's body and suddenly he's six years old again, standing by helplessly as Dad removes Sam's torn trousers and shredded T-shirt to treat the wicked claw marks the wolf inflicted - just a side swipe in the final throes of dying, Dean was supposed to keep Sam away, but he'd been too curious, too fascinated not to get close enough to see a werewolf for himself, and Sam always did follow his big brother everywhere. His tears don't surprise him but they do embarrass him and he bites them back viciously before Dad… before Bobby - sees. "…Dean…. Dean!" His head snaps up and he focuses with difficulty on Ellen's face, "Are there any more wounds?" And Dead nods. Minutes pass, hours, maybe days - he isn't certain he would notice. Eventually they settle Sam, as patched up as he is going to be by them and drugged to the eyeballs with pink pills Ellen assures will keep the pain away, into Ash's bed, kicking the poor guy - who seems genuinely surprised to see the Winchesters outside his bedroom door - out to sleep on the pool table with its fresh dark blood stains. Sam has stitches where Dean can't imagine putting a needle, and only when he's peaceful under the grey, musty duvet does Ellen set her attention firmly on Dean. "Are you injured?" Dean looks up at her. He's already half on the floor where he plans to hold vigil over his brother. She's standing in the doorway with her hands on her hips and she reminds him momentarily of Jo. He shrugs. "Doesn't matter." "Like hell it doesn't. If Sam wakes up to find you dead we'll have a maelstrom on our hands." He snorts. "Not gonna die." He's certain of it - and he's certain now that he's himself and alone in his head - the darkness pulling at the edges of his consciousness is just exhaustion. Seventy-two hours? Eighty since he's slept? And not exactly low stress hours. His brain hurts more than his body and it feels as if it's already shutting down. "I'm fine. Nothing's bleeding." Not any more. "I just need some rest." She regards him like she doesn't believe him but relents in the end. "I'll find you some clothes." "Bag's in the car." "Then toss me the keys and I'll get 'em for you." Any other time… but he's too tired, and it's gonna be a long time before he lets Sammy out of his sight again. For a moment he's got no idea where the keys actually are. "On the pool bar," he finally remembers. The next thing he knows, quite literally, Ellen is pressing the keys of his beloved baby into his hand and dropping a back pack on to the hard floor next to him. He's on the floor on his knees with his forehead against the mattress, drool on his lips, one arm bent at an awkward angle and Sam's hand clutched in his own. "Thanks." "Get some sleep. You're both safe here." Not welcome, but safe. It's enough for now, until the morning and then they'll be out of here. His own injuries aren't visible as long as Ellen lets him strip alone… and for a second he doesn't think she's going to. But with a small nod she eventually leaves, closing the door behind her, and it's the morning before Dean realises he didn't asked if Jo was around. He makes it to his feet and throws the rusty bolt on the heavy door, relieved to finally be able to peel the hot, damp scrubs from his body which they're clinging to like a macabre second skin. The straight cuts on his chest are still angry and red, and he unzips the bag to find his first aid kit and the bottle of Jack Daniels he keeps in the bottom of it. But it isn't his bag he realises belatedly, it's Sam's. And although Sam has his own kit, he doesn't have the liquor. Adequately sums up his life he thinks morbidly, before he pulls himself together. He cleans and dresses his own wounds, pulls some clothes out of the pack. The jeans are too long, the warm, fleecy hoody too big. But he pulls them on anyway and breathes in Sam's scent - these thoughts are so strong! Your brother and you think I'm the evil one! - Sam's sweat on the hoody and the faint odour of stale urine in the crotch of the jeans; they seriously needed to visit a Laundromat pretty soon and he wonders if Ellen has a washer. Throwing the scrubs into a corner, Dean crawls onto the bed between Sam's back and the wall. Cautiously, carefully, needing the closeness, he moulds himself to his brother, one arm over his bare narrow hip the hand resting on Sam's thigh while the other he pushes under the pillow, under the crook of Sam's neck, and clutches one large hand in his own. Only then, certain Sammy can't move without waking him, does he close his eyes and finally, unwillingly succumb to sleep. He knows his nightmares are gonna be the worst ones yet. "Dean! Please… don't!" Oh God. God, no…he feels the cold metal of the rusted scalpel in the fingers of his right hand, the warm denim - the waistband of Sam's jeans in the other, clutched, twisting, roughly pulling the clothing from his brother's body as the rotting corpses dressed in nurses' uniforms - some sick twist on one of his favourite fantasies - struggle to get Sammy's T-shirt off over his head. He hears words spoken - his own voice coming from his own mouth - but it's not what he's screaming inside his own head and the other voice he can hear, taunting, teasing, calling him a sick fuck while all the time pushing the memories forward, insinuating other meanings, imposing its own interpretation. All the while he's fighting for control, trying to find a way to the area of his own brain that controls motor functions - Sam would be so proud, he'd make Sam so proud if Doctor Death - Abraham by his given name - didn't kill him first. Not Sam… anyone but Sammy! Hurt me! Cut me! The nurses have the white gown tied around Sam's struggling, straining body - Dean has no idea what his brother can see, but he can see the fight is futile - the dead are two deep around the operating table. They once worked here under the surgeon in Dean's mind - he raped each one of them and made them believe he treasured them. He carved up babies before they were out of the womb and started on their mothers as soon as the screaming started. And the nurses watched. They fastened the women into the restraints and passed the surgeon his instruments. Even in death they were loyal to him. Sam's jeans are on the floor, boxers following, and Dean stares in horror at the blunted blade in his own hand, passing over the head of Sam's cock, scraping vulnerable, sensitive flesh as Sam suddenly goes very, very still. There's no place for the baby to come out! Dean wants to laugh, because the other voice in his head is so deadly serious, but he can't laugh as he feels his own hands push apart his brother's legs in a perversion of how he's done it before and his own fingers are used to hold the flaccid cock out of the way. He's touched Sammy like this before. But not like this. With love, not violence. No. You sick boy. Your own brother! He looked to you for protection and you made him suck you off then fucked him. Even when he was too young to know what it meant that you had his hand around you, jerking you off. Sick fuck. Dean recognises the words. They don't belong to a clinically insane surgeon who tortured his victims in this place a hundred years before the Winchester sons were even born. They belong to him - words that have played through his own mind a million times over the years, regrets for ever putting the brothers on a path they couldn't ever turn from. Why did Sam never stop him? Why didn't Dad…? Not that he ever wanted to stop. He loves Sam, so much, drawn to him in a way no one had ever drawn him. And that… that had just manifested itself in a way it was always going to between two boys who had always shared a bed, always shared everything. Nightmares. Even dreams. Everyone is to blame but you! He hears Sam's scream before he even knows what is happening, what he's doing. The blade is slicing through the soft skin at Sam's perineum. Somewhere for the baby to come out of…. Dean screams too - silent outside his own body - stops fighting and concentrates on the hand holding the blade. Focuses on it, blots out the hot slick of Sam's blood, the heart shattering sounds of his un-dulled pain, the warmth of skin he loves, skin he's kissed and now he's cutting …. NO! STOP! His right arm swings up suddenly - he feels the spirit within him, surprised, shocked, and the sharp sting as the blade slices into his own chest. The surgeon screams, out loud and into Dean's mind, deafening, shocking, raging. Dean loses control and the scalpel is taken to the base of Sam's cock. I'll cut it off! Is that what you want? Would you like me to cut off your brother's manhood? No more taking him into your hand as you drive, no more sucking him as he does. You could keep it then, keep it safe. He'd never have anyone else, Dean… would always be yours. Sam's eyes are wide, somewhere beyond terror as the blade bites into sensitive softness. He makes a sound in his throat, a sound Dean never, never wants to hear again as long as he lives so he centres himself, focuses again and with an effort he lifts his hand away from Sam's groin. Mine! Abraham fights back, gripping Dean's right wrist with his left, but Dean takes that back too, everything he is focusing on just two parts of his own body. The blade comes up, Sam shifts quickly, turns against the grey hands holding him down, and the scalpel catches in his gut, slicing through him, through skin and muscle and thin layer of fat to graze his intestines. Dean's shout in his own head overwhelms Sam's cry of blazing agony. He brings the blade across his chest, cutting himself deep before finally getting it to his throat. I'll kill us both! I'll send us both to hell if you don't stop. You won't…. Try me, asshole! You think I wouldn't die rather than kill my own brother? You're the SICK FUCK around here. Pressing the blade in so that it bites into the hollow between his throat and collarbone. GET OUT OF MY HEAD! The nurses have backed off, aware of their master's struggle. Sam is half sitting up, mouth an 'O' of horror as he watches his own guts start to push out through the split in his abdomen. Dean pushes the scalpel and feels Abraham too backing off; feels more of his body come under his control. GO! He almost collapses when he's freed. The fire in his chest from the two cuts he made to himself takes the breath from him for an instant, then he's dropping the scalpel and reaching for Sam, pressing his hand over the long open wound before Sam can pull away from him. "I'm sorry," he babbles, "so sorry, Sammy, so fucking sorry…." "Dean? God..." his words snag on the rise of a sob in his throat and Dean feels like sobbing a little too. "Lie back." "Fuck you!" Almost hysterical. "I'm not lying on this thing! Get me outta here!" "Just do it, Sam! I gotta get you patched up, Bro, else when you stand up your guts'll fall out all over the floor." Laughter that feels insane bubbles up in his throat, bile behind it. There's nothing in the room of any use, just rusted instruments, their own torches hanging from the ceiling on meat hooks, swinging back and forth in slow arcs, providing the only light. Reaching down, Dean tears a wide strip of green material from the base of the scrubs Abraham had dressed him in before he'd woken to find himself a prisoner in his own head. He push Sam's guts back inside him, a slippery rope of intestine against his sweaty hands, before closing the wound and pressing the green material to it. Then he turns his head and still holding the makeshift dressing in place he vomits hard, throwing up all over the filthy floor. "Dean…." Sammy's voice sounds smaller than it has done in so many years and Dean has a flash of that night in their shared motel bed, when he took his little brother's, hard cock into his hand for the first time. "It's okay, Sam." Dean spits out the vile bits stuck against his teeth before helping Sam up off the table. The blood is drying, forming the glue that he hopes will stick the green material to the wound. It's a gruesome solution, but the only one he can think of. There's blood running down Sam's thighs but Dean is loath to check that other cut. "We need to get out of here." Sam nods, one arm around Dean's shoulders for support - a gesture of trust that almost makes him howl with relief - and walks with his legs together, shuffling along as quickly as he can as Dean can only imagine the agony of his injuries. "Dean…." "Not now, okay?" "Are you all right?" "Jesus Christ, Sammy…." He wants to cry or scream. "I almost kill you and you're asking me if I'm all right." They're at the bottom of the stairs now, the ones that lead up to the main doors. He feels his brother tense as the first step pulls at his wounds. "Not you… you'd never hurt me…." "You're so sure?" But now isn't the time for that conversation. "You're right," he reassures, "you're right." He mutters the words as he tightens his arm around Sam's waist, helping him as much as he dares, trying his best to carry most of his brother's weight. "Wouldn't hurt you. Love you, Bro, so fucking much…." Dean wakes with the same words on his lips, tears in his eyes, on his cheeks, and Sam's uneven gaze staring straight at him, gentle fingers in his hair. "Nightmare?" Sam whispers, and the urge to laugh is almost unbearable. "Jeez, of course it was a nightmare, Sammy…. I hurt you…." "No, you didn't. Doctor Abraham hurt me, used you to do it and that isn't your fault." His words are as heartfelt as every other word of absolution he's ever spoken to Dean, only slightly slurred by the chemicals in his bloodstream and the exhaustion tempting him back to sleep. You didn't wreck my life, you didn't kill Dad, you didn't turn me into an incestuous bastard who's automatically going to hell for blowing his older brother. "You fought him, Dean. And don't think I don't know how you got him to let go." Dean tries for a smile. "We're gonna have to talk about it, aren't we?" "Yeah, but later. No'tonight." Just fine by him. One arm's still under the pillow under Sam's head, he's lost all feeling in it but he doesn't care. "You're gonna be so sore in the morning, Dude." He brings his other hand up to cup gently around the side of Sam's throat, thumb brushing the rough cheek and jaw. "I'm so sorry…." "Stop apologising." Sam closes his eyes for a moment, leans into the intimate touch. "Sore now. Bet you are too." "I'm fine." He's lying, Sam knows he's lying but for once he doesn't push it. "We're at the Roadhouse, aren't we?" "Yeah." "You don't like it here." He leans in closer, touching first his lips to Sam's forehead then dropping his head to bring them eye to eye. "No choice, Sammy. I was… scared. Wasn't sure if he'd gone or not, not completely." "I'm sure." That unfailing trust again. One day it would break his heart. "I know. Me too. Wouldn't have let me be alone with you otherwise." Gentle, warm lips touch the tip of his nose. "I love you too." Sam's words really are slurring now, one into the next; the drugs pulling him under. "Go back to sleep." The last thing he hears before Sam's soft snores is, "Dean, 'is Ash's bed?" "How did you guess?" "Think I'm sleepin' ona jack plug." "Sorry, man. Motel in the mornin', I promise. A nice one too, no cheap stinkin' place with dead roaches in the pool and rats in the shower." Sam's already asleep and Dean knows it. "A big, Kingsized bed - screw the expression on the manager's face - and a shower that'll blast us into next week. And I'm gonna buy you the best breakfast you've ever tasted - pancakes with maple syrup, blueberries and thick bacon cooked to a crisp just as you like it, good coffee and ice cream milkshakes. And I'm gagging you, Sammy, just so you don't make friends with the waitress…." |