Darkest Side of Black- Chapter 9
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What has happened so far:
With only a couple of months to spare until Dean's deal with the crossroad's demon comes due, Sam and Dean travel to Nevada, towards the outskirts of the Mojave Desert. Dean goes in search of a fun hunt, a Chupacabra, of all things. Sam's motives run deeper.
Somewhere in the area, lives an Indian Chief of the Cahuilla tribe, renown for their knowledge in deals with supernatural beings and deities.
Separated from each other by a sand storm, Dean finds himself attacked by a creature that seems, at first, too cruel and vicious to be anything but a nightmare.
Driven to drunkenness after a second and just as brutal attack that proves to him that the creature is very much real, Dean demands that they change motels.
The following morning, Dean finds new bruising on his wrists and plans on fighting the monster that keeps on attacking him. After some research, Dean dismisses the fact that it might be a Succubus because of the bat-like aspect of the monster. Instead, as he adds night terrors to his search, Dean figures he's facing a Hag, a form of Goblin that attacks people in their sleep by sitting in their chests.
When Sam leaves to meet with Ahtuapu, the Indian Chief, Dean starts turning the room into a trap for Goblins.
In the Cahuillas' camp, Sam stumbles across a mourning group and the Chief confesses that he's known Sam was a hunter all along His tribe needs one, and if Sam manages to figure out what is making the young men of his tribe commit suicide, Ahtuapu will help him with Dean's deal.
Ahtuapu tells Sam about the attacks, how no one ever hears anything, how the victims refuse to tell what has happened to them until the day they kill themselves. Researching older cases, Sam finds out that this isn't the first time it has happen, discovering clusters of young men suicides since 1997 in California.
Dean visits the coroner that did the autopsy on the latest man who killed himself and is told that all victims had the same hormone in their blood work. He also sees the odd growth of cells that the doctor has pulled out of the latest body.
The nature of the attacks the victim had suffered and the similarity between his bruises and Dean's makes him think that the same thing that attacked him, attack the Native American boys at the camp.
Dean finally figures out what the monster is: a mutate Djinn, bent on sodomizing young men until they tell everyone what has been done to them. The African tribe that had first encountered such a thing had called it a Popobawa.
At the camp, Dean acts as bait to kill the Popobawa and lets Sam believe that they are hunting a Succubus.
The monster, stronger than him, breaks Dean's right wrist and is about to attack him once again when Sam, who had been sent on a wild goose chase by his brother, finds the two and distracts the Popobawa long enough for Dean to kill it.
Chief Ahtuapu thanks the Winchesters for their help and gives Sam, as he had promised, the means necessary to break Dean's deal. A powerful spell that will protect Dean from any kind of action that would cause him harm. After it is done, no man, beast or supernatural being can ever break Dean's skin.
Sam drives Dean to a clinic and forces him to have his wrist checked. While waiting on Dean, Sam remembers Dean's previous comments about an evil 'bat-man' when he was drunk and realizes that the monster that they'd just killed couldn't possibly be a succubus as Dean let him believe. Instead of holy-water and a exorcism, Dean had killed the monster with just a knife.
Sam figures that Dean knows more than he's letting on and that the only way for him to have that extra knowledge is if Dean himself had been a victim of thing that had been attacking young men at the Indian camp.
On their way to Bobby's, Sam confronts Dean about his doubts and sends Dean into a brutal flashback that almost kills Dean.
After making sure that Sam will not divulge his secret to Bobby, Dean escapes to sleep while Sam and Bobby plot to put the spell into action and prevent Dean from being taken by the crossroad's demon.
Spooked by a nightmare and with the knowledge of what had been found inside the other men attacked by the Popobawa, Dean seeks help in a clinic outside of Bobby's area.
The doctor who sees him discovers that he has in fact a mass growing near his stomach and strongly advises him to surgery.
Dean agrees and sets the date for two days from there... exactly at the same time that Bobby and Sam plan to drug him and mark his body so that no external source can ever harm Dean. Including well meant doctors trying to cure him.
This is what happens next...
THE DARKEST SIDE OF BLACK
CHAPTER /(O|O)\\NINE
The water was lazily slapping against the shoreline, producing a gentle flapflapflap sound that was only interrupted by the occasional call of one bird or another.
Dean was lying in the dry grass, fingers of one hand skimming through the swinging water, beer bottle all but forgotten, clenched precariously between two digits of the other hand. He was looking at the clouds, watching them go by at the speed of the winds in the stratosphere like it was a slow moving car race.
Out there, with nothing but wild ducks on the water and beetles on the ground, the world was simple; uncomplicated. Moving at the speed of one slow turn of the planet.
It was not every day that one found himself wishing he was a beetle. The bug kind, not the famous music band kind.
Even though Dean was fully aware that neither Sam nor Bobby could have guessed the importance of that day for him, it was hard not to take it personally when both men turn out to be too busy to drink one lousy beer with him. Reason and logic were fine and dandy on a good day, but on that day, they weren't doing a damn thing for the sharp pain and the tightness growing inside Dean's chest.
He guessed that being ignored was better than the alternative. Sam and Bobby treating him like some delicate flower that couldn't be left alone because of what had happened and always fearful that a single disappointment might shatter him.
It was bad enough that Sam had figure out most of what had happened. The looks Sam had given him all the way to Bobby's place…
Then, and still now, it made Dean feel less than human, made him feel like there was this giant stain in front of him and that, when people looked, that filth was all that they would ever see.
Dean turned his head and looked at the quiet waters, his eyes squinting and pulling at the tight skin of his face. Sunlight shimmered over the surface, giving off rich golden tones that made it look warmer than it actually was. It looked inviting enough…
Decision made, Dean drank the rest of his beer and started taking off his clothes. There was never anyone around; he and Sam had spent enough summers there to know that. Besides, the only two people who could walk in on him skinny-dipping where currently locked in the same room, working some case for some stranger that Dean would never even get to know.
It was as close to being all alone in the world as a person could get.
/(O|O)\\
"What the hell happened to you?"
Sam hadn't intended to sound so harsh, but when Dean walked in, he hadn't been able to stop himself.
Dean's hair was plastered to his forehead, his lips were pale white and there were blotches of wetness in his shirt and pants.
"Did it start raining?" Sam tried again, peering at the opened window in the kitchen.
He and Bobby had been so engrossed in finishing the last details of the spell's ink before Dean came back that they hadn't taken notice of either weather or time passing by. Only when the last ingredient had been added and all that was missing was Dean, did they realize that he hadn't returned yet.
The window, however, showed Sam only a setting sun in a dark but cloud free sky.
"I was at the lake," Dean offered sheepishly. He had that lopsided grin on his face that both Sam and Bobby recognized as Dean being slightly drunk.
"And what? Fell in?" Sam offered, sounding slightly alarmed at the possibility. Dean drunk, Dean drowning in the lake... They were so close now... if something happened to Dean before they had a chance to perform the ritual, Sam knew he would never forgive himself.
Sam reached out, briefly touching Dean's cold skin before Dean flinched away. The brief contact was enough for Sam to realize that his brother was freezing cold.
Bobby, silently observing the brothers' interactions, cleared his throat. "This ain't California, boy," he pointed out, grabbing a dishtowel and throwing it Dean's way. "The water on that lake must be cold as a witch's tit by now."
Dean grabbed the towel in midair and used it to soak most of the water dribbling from his hair into his neck. "Yeah, I hear you... think I'm gonna grab a hot shower."
Bobby exchanged a look with Sam before nodding to Dean. "You do that," he said gruffly. "We'll have that beer when you look less like of an icicle."
The second Dean was out the door, Sam was already grabbing three beers and pulling the crushed pills out of his pocket.
"You sure that will knock him out for the amount of time we need?" Bobby whispered, watching as Sam expertly grabbed a piece of paper to work out an improvised funnel to pour the fine powder in to one of the beers. It didn't look like this was the first time Sam had done something like this.
Sam caught Bobby's questioning look. "It was the flu," he started, a faint blush galloping from his neck up. "Dean's fever was high and he was being kind of pig-headed about what he would and would not take, so I... slipped him his meds... and then there was the time he was shot in the ass-" Sam stopped himself, watching Bobby's eyebrow raise. "Yes, this will knock him out for long enough."
They had already set the space they would use in the basement of Bobby's house. A blanket had been spread out on the floor over the necessary sigil, an exact replica of the one that they would need to draw on Dean's skin. The ink and the candles were already there, everything set to start the minute they had Dean ready.
Sam's stomach flopped one more time as he thought about what he was doing. They were about to drug Dean, drag him to the basement, strip him and give him what was tantamount to a tattoo... all of that without his knowledge or consent.
On any given time, it would be enough to make Sam's skin crawl at the abuse; now, just a few days after he had learned about Dean's sexual assault...
When Dean came back, freshly showered and greeting them with an honest smile, Sam almost lost the battle with his rebelling gut and threw up. Instead, he swallowed the bile and offered an answering smile of his own as he handed Dean his beer.
The beer.
One day, Sam was sure, Dean would forgive him for this as well. Probably sooner than Sam would ever forgive himself.
/(O|O)\\
Sam hated candlelight and the way it hit skin.
Preoccupied by the more complex parts of the spell, Sam hadn't given much thought to the matter of Dean's bruised body being exposed to Bobby's view once they stripped him and started to paint the symbols on his body.
He had, however, expected the candlesticks that they would be using to light Bobby's basement, to be too dim and weak for the Bobby to make much of the patterns spread throughout Dean's skin.
Candlelight, however, sucked. It reflected off Dean's healthy skin like gold, accentuating the darker areas where the bruises were. It was impossible not to see the big bruise on Dean's chest, the one that looked like a butterfly and that Sam had allowed himself to ignore the first time he'd seen for the bizarre shape that it had; it was impossible to deny that the circular brands of darker flesh around Dean's wrists were from someone -something- pressing hard and pinning him down.
To his credit, Bobby didn't say a word.
Neither of them was up to talking much, either way. What they were doing was grim enough that they just wanted it done and over with. Talking would only be a waste of time.
Between the two of them, they carried Dean's unconscious body to the basement as soon as the laced beer knocked him out. Bobby left the task of stripping Dean to his boxers to Sam, busying himself with lighting candles and getting bowls and brushes ready around the blanket on the floor.
After that, they lost themselves in the ritual itself. Each symbol needed to be painted in a certain location, while uttering certain words, all done in a specific order.
Sam cringed as Bobby's applications drew him closer and closer to Dean's bruised chest; he could see Bobby's jaw working harder to keep himself from saying anything. Inside, Sam knew that the older man's brain was already working on the puzzle before his eyes.
The whole thing took them over half an hour and by the time they were done, Bobby's knees were not too happy with him and Sam was sweating.
Dean, on the other hand, was shivering on the floor. Despite the wool blanket that they had put down in hopes to offer some form of barrier in between Dean's skin and the cement floor, it wasn't enough to keep the almost naked man warm.
"Damn," Bobby let out, sitting back against the wall. He pulled his cap off, watching their handy work. Dean looked like the end result of a five year old let loose with a bottle of iodine.
The 'paint' that had resulted from the mix they'd made had a yellow-ish tinge to it that turned more of a red-tone when in contact with skin. And Dean was covered in the stuff, almost from head to toe.
"Now what?" Bobby asked, watching as Sam took a similar position to his, leaning against the opposite wall.
"We wait... I guess," Sam offered with a tired sigh.
Since the night before the hunt at the Cahuillas' camp, Sam couldn't really remember the last time he'd slept for more than one hour here and there. The last couple of days had been spent in a daze of trying to get the spell working as fast as they could and falling asleep only when he really had no other choice.
What had happened to Dean while Sam all but stood right there in the room with him had only made Sam realize that he couldn't risk it anymore. Dean was vulnerable as he was, as all humans were in their mortal condition. The only difference was that, for everyone else, dying meant facing the great unknown; for Dean, it meant a straightforward ticket to Hell.
Now that they had a chance at actually saving Dean, Sam wanted to make sure that the spell was in effect as soon as possible.
Fifteen minutes later they were still sitting there, Dean was still shivering on the floor and nothing had changed. Bobby was beginning to lose his patience, as he soft-whistled some tune that Sam couldn't recognize and Sam had ran out of nails to bite.
"Maybe that's it," Bobby offered, cutting through the silence. "Maybe the symbols just stay on until he washes them off or something."
Sam bit his lip. "I don't know... from what the Chief told me, there was suppose to be something else."
Bobby scratched his beard and set his gaze on the painted figure on the floor. "Well, has the Chief ever actually seen one of these rituals in his life time?" he pointed out, dusting his hands against his jeans and gearing up to get to his feet. "Because these things tend to be made to look more than what they really are on paper and then in re-"
Bobby stopped himself at the same time that Sam jumped to his feet.
At first, neither could be sure if what they were seeing was real or merely a trick of the light. There was a faint shimmer around Dean's head, a blink-and-you've-missed-it glow that went in and out of focus the harder they tried to stare at it.
Soon though, there was no mistaking the golden light that ignited in the patterns drawn on Dean's face and spread throughout the entire design, like a fuse lit on fire, racing from head to toe in the sleeping hunter's skin.
Once it reached the two symmetrical marks on the soles of Dean's feet, the golden light dimmed back to a soft glow before disappearing altogether.
Sam and Bobby released the breath that neither realized he was holding.
"Now it's done," Sam announced, feeling the weigh of the words sinking heavily against his heart.
/(O|O)\\
Dean woke with the distinct feeling that he had overslept and missed something important. He hadn't felt like that since Sam's high school graduation day, when he'd spend the night before hunting a pack of werewolves that had left a deep and shiny, clawed souvenir on Dean's side and had over slept.
His brain was too foggy to immediately tell him where he was and what was going on, but the numbers on the cell phone that Dean grabbed from the nightstand told him that it was still early morning.
There was still some time until he had to meet up with the doc. So why couldn't he shake off that feeling that something was wrong, that he was missing something?
Dean got to his feet, surprised to feel his body stiff and slightly aching. The bruises he'd collected over the past days were beginning to fade and other than his wrist, there was no reason for Dean to be feeling like he'd spent the last couple of hours doing the most intense workout he could remember.
Dean looked at the arms sticking out from the sleeves of his tee-shirt, half expecting to see the muscles quivering in exhaustion there. The last thing he remembered was having a beer with Sam and Bobby, the three of them lost in some idle chatter about the craziest hunters that either had worked with.
Had he really gotten that drunk that he couldn't remember getting to bed? Truthfully, it wouldn't be the first time it happened when they were at Bobby's, enjoying some downtime. But this time had been different; this time Dean was saying goodbye, enjoying every second of their company.
Passing out stinking drunk hadn't been in his plans.
Well, at least his night had been blessedly bizarredreams-free, Dean realized as he wiped the crust from his eyes.
Shuffling his feet in the direction of the bathroom, Dean wondered where the others were. Sam and Bobby had been so busy the last few days that he wasn't even sure if they'd slept at all.
Dean, on the other hand, had slept deeper than he'd managed in a very long time, possibly ever since his father's death.
Something was off.
Dean set the shower running, listening to the familiar gurgle of water climbing up rusty pipes from the boiler at the back of the house and up to the shower head. It had always taken forever to take a warm shower in Bobby's place.
Looking at the mirror was like trying to drive past a car crash and not take a look. Dean tried to see past the pale face and the sunken eyes, hoping he could get a clue why his brain was feeling so off.
His shirt caught his gaze instead. More exactly, the tear on the shirt.
A couple of years back, in some summer month or another, when Dean and Sam had been hunting a couple of water spirits in the swamps of Mississippi, one of the nasty things had bled all over Dean's shirt. When they went back to their motel room, Dean had cleaned it as best as he could, but there had been one stain that he hadn't been able to get rid of. He had literally ripped the shirt trying to get the stain off.
Instead of declaring the shirt as a lost cause, like most people would have, Dean kept wearing it, merely turning it around and wearing the shirt with the tear on the back, instead of the front.
It was a good shirt. Dad had loved it when he still used to wear it. Dean loved that shirt.
But he never forgot about the tear. The tear that was staring right back at him from across the mirror.
Dean knew that he was slightly drunk last night when he had taken a shower and dressed that shirt. Not drunk enough, however, to forget about the damn tear that revealed way too much skin than what he was willing to show, even amongst family. And given that Dean knew he wasn't prone to sleep-stripping, the only logical conclusion was that someone had undressed him and then, at some point and for whatever reason, had redressed him.
The realization that someone had undressed him without his knowledge or consent, descended over Dean's spine like a bucket of iced water. He'd been used and abused, just like before, just like with the...
Dean placed his hands over the healing bruises, the warm touch of his own fingers doing nothing to erase the memory of the creature's cold touch, of its icy grip.
He had killed that thing, Dean was sure of it. If he closed his eyes, Dean could still feel his blade going into to the Popobawa's soft belly and the gush of warm blood coating his fingers. The thing had been dead for sure, if not by Dean's blade, then certainly by the fire where Sam had burned it.
Dean had believed that it was safe to sleep once again, but he could now see how wrong he'd been.
In a haze, Dean tore the offensive shirt off and jerked his boxers down before jumping into the shower.
His teeth were chattering against each other even though the whole bathroom was slowly filling with steam. Everything around Dean had a strange and faded glowy feeling, like he was trapped inside a lying lamp.
Dean closed his eyes hard enough to see white spots and braced himself against the wall. The scalding water was doing nothing for the cold that was growing inside him, stronger and stronger.
He was over-reacting, a distant part of Dean's brain insisted, even as panic rose and screamed at him, shouting that he'd been wrong, that the bat monster was still alive, that it had somehow come to Bobby's place and attacked him again. That somehow, the thing was impervious to knives dipped in lamb's blood; that somehow it was immune to being burned. That even beyond its grave, it was still fucking Dean in more ways than one.
Maybe it wasn't even a Popobawa... maybe it was something so horrendous that hunters hadn't even gotten around to naming it yet; maybe Dean hadn't really killed it after all, because he could still feel the thing's presence right behind him, right now, pressing against his back; maybe Sam had tricked him and never burned the thing...
Maybe, maybe, maybe...
Each one crushed against Dean's shoulders, pushing him further and further down until his knees touched the wet floor. His lungs were burning for air and even through the wetness of the shower, Dean could feel the tears leaking from his eyes.
He had no idea why he was crying; no idea why he couldn't seem to take a lungful of air.
The only thing that Dean knew was that he wasn't safe in there anymore. He couldn't stay under Bobby's roof and let that thing have him again. He had to get out, as fast as he could.
Dean didn't even think about turning the scalding water off; he didn't even stop to grab the bag that he'd packed to take with him to the hospital. Instead, he merely threw on the first pair of jeans and shirt that he could find and grabbed his car keys, not stopping for one second to think what he was going to do next.
He just ran.
/(O|O)\\
Dean had sat behind the wheel in all sorts of conditions in which he really, really shouldn't be behind a wheel.
There was that time when he'd knocked his head so hard that he was seeing double, but Sam was bleeding on the seat next to him so, really he had no choice in the matter. He'd managed to drive mostly in a straight line the entire time, even if the white stripe parting the two lanes of the road kept on wavering and doubling ahead of him.
There was that time when he'd been too drunk to drive, but dad was passed out in the seat next to him and really, after the mess that they'd left behind at the bar where, true, they'd been hustling, but not cheating on anyone. They'd both been three shits to the wind by the time the mob started out for blood and really, staying in the parking to sleep it off was, again, not an option.
Then there were a couple of times Dean could barely remember driving, when he had been hunting alone, but he knew he must have, because he could remember finishing the hunt and then the next thing he could recall was of being in his motel room, passed out in various spots that went from the front door to the bathroom. All Dean could be sure after those times was that he must've driven there himself, because there was no Sam and no dad to do the driving for him.
All of those times, all of those reckless situations, and never once had Dean crashed the Impala. Come close to do it, yes, scarily so, but never put a dent on it.
Now, driving with nothing on his mind but the constant thought of gottagetaway!gottagetaway!gottagetaway!gottagetaway! to keep him company, Dean had no idea where he was going or what he was going to do next. Just that he had to be on the move.
Lost in his need to escape, to keep going forward, it was almost too late when Dean saw a kid step out of nowhere, right in front of the Impala. Time slowed down to a crawl and Dean stared at the face of the little kid he'd been seeing everywhere lately.
By the time Dean's brain informed him that that kid couldn't be real, that he was imagining him, it was already too late. He'd reacted accordingly, cutting the wheel hard to the left to avoid hitting the imaginary child. Unfortunately for the very real SUV driving in his direction in the other lane, Dean wasn't able to doge him as well.
/(O|O)\\
Some people have all the luck, even if most of it is bad luck.
It was hard to forget the guy that Dr. Tyler had just finished admitting to bed nineteen; it was even harder to believe that he had actually managed to get himself into a car crash on his way to being admitted to the hospital for a procedure that would determine if the tumor that had been found in his abdomen just two days ago was malignant or not.
The good part of this guy's luck? He had smashed his car against an SUV and had walked out of it without a single scratch on him. Well, there was some bruising, extensive bruising, but Dr. Tyler had noticed that before, when he'd come to her clinic that first time. They weren't from the car crash at all.
The thing that had struck her as odd at the time of their initial consultation was his reaction, or lack thereof. The news she'd delivered had warranted no reaction whatsoever. No surprise, nothing.
Most people, after hearing that there is a large mass growing inside of them, apart from pregnant women, tend to react a bit more dramatically to the news. Some faint, Some yell. Some cry.
They all react.
And certainly he could have already known what was wrong with him before seeing her, searching her for a second opinion, but Tyler doubted that was the case. He'd been genuinely curious to see what she would find out, honestly invested in knowing what was wrong with him.
And certainly, the tall young man in the leather jacket hadn't struck her as someone who would start crying over bad news, no matter how nasty it might be...
But his reaction had just been... odd. Off the normal tracks.
If she hadn't know any better, she would have said that young Mr. Singer looked like he'd lost a bet.
And there had also been the issue of his intensive preservation of personal space. Some people were just reserved, Tyler knew that. One couldn't really work in healthcare and not realize that personal space meant different things for different people. But most people didn't start sweating or looking for the nearest exit when you breached their personal space for any professional reason.
Most people didn't felt the need to protect themselves or control what went on around them to that extent unless they have a pretty good reason for it.
Given the extend and location of those bruises in Mr. Singer's body, Tyler would say that he must've had his reasons.
Still, Singer had been in control on the day of their previous appointment. Nervous, jittery even, but in control.
The man she had met at the ER, fresh out of a car accident, was the complete opposite of that. Medically, she could assume that it was just a reaction to a near death situation. Speeding car meets equally speeding car head-on, and the end result was, in the best-case scenarios like this one, two shell-shocked drivers.
Personally... Tyler would bet a month's pay that there was something else.
Singer wasn't nervous because life had flashed in front of his eyes; he was nervous because he was stationary, no longer able to move forward. He was running from something and Tyler was sure it wasn't just his medical condition.
Still, unless something medically relevant or illegal was involved, it was none of her business. Her business was to determine what sort of mass was growing inside that young man's abdomen and, if possible, take it out and send him on to live the rest of his life.
The procedure in itself was simple enough. Just a small incision on the left side, about two inches above the navel.
Tyler had long learned that there was no point in wishing things went one way or the other. Disease was disease and no amount of best wishes would ever do a thing about it.
Still, she always found herself rooting for her patients, wishing for the best outcome.
In the case of the troubled Mr. Singer, she wished that the mass was benign and that she would be able to extract it without further complications.
"He's ready for you," Karen, the OR nurse called out to her, hands in the air as she pushed the swinging doors with her hip.
Tyler nodded, turning the flowing water off with her right elbow. It was time to go and find out whether that young man's story would have a happy ending.
He was already lying on top of the table, one arm extended to the side with an IV line already pumping a sedative into his system. Tyler neared his face, seeing him struggle to get a look at her.
"How are you feeling, Mr. Singer?" she asked, noticing the unfocused eyes and droopy eyelids. One more push of anesthetic and he'd be under for the procedure.
A hand, whose grip shouldn't be that strong at that stage of the anesthetic process, grabbed her wrist.
Tyler took a step back, startled and looked at her patient's fingers, curled around her own gloved hands.
"Get… I need you to… out… I need it out," the young man mumbled, forcing the stream of words past his half asleep brain and numb lips. "I need it out… please…"
Tyler blinked and took a deep breath. The intensity of the young man's green eyes was startling and had given her goose bumps. She found herself nodding, even though she knew she was making a promise that she wasn't sure she could keep. Still, it wouldn't hurt to give the troubled young man a little peace of mind before he went under. Odds were, he wouldn't even remember talking to her when he woke up.
The hand grabbing her went lax and the struggling eyelids finally fell over Mr. Singer's eyes. Only then was Tyler able to move and request a new set of gloves. It was time to work at keeping her promise.
/(O|O)\\
It was the freakiest accident ever seen. Never in the history of surgical interventions in that hospital, or any other for that matter, had anyone heard a similar tale. It seemed too unreal to be true.
The dead bodies lined up at the door of the OR, however, attested to the seriousness and reality of the situation.
Electrical malfunction, they were calling it.
The end result had been powerful lights exploding on people's faces and the fire that issued when those sparks connected with the extremely volatile material lying around.
Two of the nurses had come out with mild burns. The anesthesiologist and Dr. Tyler, the ones closer to the big surgical lights above the patient, had been hit by shards of the exploding glass. Dr. Tyler had died instantly.
Surprisingly enough, the patient had been the only one left unharmed, miraculously escaping both the flying glass and the fire.
/(O|O)\\
Dean woke in stages. The smell hit him first and it was the only thing that he needed to find out where he was. The why took a little bit longer but as soon as he remembered what he'd gone to the hospital to do, everything else came rushing back.
His hand, weighing far more than any hand had a right to weigh, struggled to reach his stomach. The telltale patch of gauze and tape that should've been there, was conspicuously absent. Nothing but smooth and warm skin beneath his fingers.
Dean's brows furrowed. There should have been something there, small as it was, even if all the doc had done was take a small piece to analyze.
Fumbling for the call button that Dean guessed to be somewhere near his head, he pressed down as soon as his fingers brushed against the piece of plastic.
A red eyed nurse answered his call a couple of minutes later. Her face was puffy and her nose just as red as her eyes.
"You're awake," she said, trying to put up a smile in her face that only made the lurking sadness stand more obvious. "I'll warn Dr. Ty-"
Dean noticed the way she bit her own lip, stopping the word from exiting her mouth at the same time that her eyes flooded with fresh tears.
"-I'll warn Dr. Marcon that you're awake," she whispered, beating a hasty retreat from the room.
Something had happened. Something bad had happened.
"Wait!" Dean called out, sitting up in his bed. The room did a quick spin on him, only to settle into a somewhat steady focus after a second. "Tell me what's wrong? Where's Dr. Tyler?"
The nurse's carefully maintained posture crumbled in front of Dean's eyes at the mention of the doctor. Tears began falling freely from her eyes as the woman took a step closer to the bed and sobbed.
"There was an acc… accident in the OR," she said. "Dr. Tyler and Dr. Benson… they're dead."
Dean's fingers drifted to his stomach again, slowly realizing why there was no sign of an incision there. "When was this?" he asked, needing to make sure. The suspicion alone was already making his heart race.
"It was a miracle that you were okay," the nurse said, her face lighting up for a brief moment as she looked at him and probably saw how close to being the third victim he'd been. "The whole OR was practically destroyed while you were under," she added with a whisper before leaving.
Dean felt the room do another weird flip that, this time, had nothing to do with him making any sudden movements. His heart was pounding against his chest and, like a distance siren, he could hear the alarms going off at the other end of the leads attached to his chest.
He'd done this, Dean was sure.
He wasn't certain about the details, but he knew that this had happened because of him, because of what he had inside of him. Because of the thing that had put that disease inside of him.
Dean had killed those two people. That was on him, because he'd searched for help outside the hunters' community; because he'd been too chicken shit to face this on his own.
And now, two perfectly innocent people were dead because of him, because somehow the Popobawa's touch prevented others from fixing what the damn monster had done to him.
On impulse, Dean grabbed the wires sticking from under his hospital gown and pulled them out, listening to the shrill sound coming from the monitor before it was silenced.
Dean had to get out of there. It seemed like everywhere he turned, he caused nothing but trouble and pain.
He'd put Sam and Bobby at risk because the Popobawa had followed him to Bobby's place; he had almost killed the guy driving that other car because of some kid that Dean kept hallucinating everywhere he turned; and now Dr. Tyler was dead because she had tried to help him.
He was poison. And the only antidote was to spare others of his presence.
/(O|O)\\
After figuring out that Dean wasn't actually hiding in the back yard, like when they were kids, and that he was no where to be found, for one insane minute Sam wondered if this was all an after effect of the spell. Some fine print that they had missed, where it clearly said that the reason why those who were under the spell's protection were never harmed was because they were gone and thus, no one could touch them.
The second conclusion that Sam had come to was that their plan had backfired and the crossroad demon bitch had came ahead of schedule because of their attempts to weasel out of the deal and collected Dean's soul out of spite.
He couldn't decide which option left a worse taste in his mouth.
The idea that Dean might have just up and left them didn't even crossed Sam's mind. For one, Dean had left all of his things behind.
The presence of a packed bag in his room, however, gave Sam some pause.
"Maybe he never got around to unpacking it?" Bobby suggested from behind him, watching the hurricane of displaced clothes and towels that Dean had left in his wake.
There was a trail of water that drifted from the flooded bathroom to the room Dean had been in. The dripping water in the middle of the kitchen's ceiling had been their first clue that something was wrong.
Sam shook his head. He knew that pack. "No," he said as he looked at the bag he knew to be Dean's favorite. The one he took everywhere with him, even if he was only going to be gone a few hours. Usually, it was packed with guns and weapons. The one he was looking at now had a pair of sweaters and some shirts. Harmless stuff; normal stuff, and so, so very unlike Dean. "No, he was planning on going some where," Sam mused, twisting the shirt in his hands. "I have no idea what happened here."
"Maybe this has something to do with the Popobawa you guys killed?" Bobby offered, breaking the silence.
It took Sam a full minute to realize what Bobby had just said, a minute during which he was sure his mouth was hanging open like some gaping fish. "The-the what now?"
Bobby arched an eyebrow, a clear sign that he did not appreciated being treated like an idiot. Again.
Sam had hoped that the older man wouldn't be able to connect the dots, but even he knew that that was just wishful thinking.
"Cut the crap, Sam. I wasn't born yesterday," Bobby started, his face growing red as he went on. "I saw the damn marks in Dean's chest, the butterfly shape. That shit's classic of a Popobawa's attack. And if that wasn't enough, there was the jittery way you two dumb heads had been acting since you arrived here, like two scared pups. So, now," he paused, taking a step closer to Sam and daring him to lie in his face again, "how about you tell me what the hell happened and you skip the fairy tale this time!"
Sam gulped. He couldn't. Sam knew he couldn't betray Dean like that.
But there was no way that his worried-about-Dean brain would be able to come up with a story good enough to fool Bobby. If he and Dean had been thinking straight, they would've known that there never was a story good enough to fool Bobby. The man knew them better than they knew themselves and right now, Sam needed that. Dean needed that.
"You better sit down, Bobby," Sam started, allowing the weariness that he'd been trying to hide for the past days to finally reach his voice. "You're not going to like what I'm about to tell you."
It didn't take long for Sam to realize that talking about what had happened to Dean was just as bad as finding it out for the first time. He kept waiting to see the recrimination in Bobby's eyes, the accusation that Sam had been too slow to figure out something that had taken Bobby a couple of clues to guess, but he never saw any of those feelings in the older man's eyes.
He saw tears, though, and that was even worse than anything he could have expected.
"Why didn't you boys call me?" Bobby whispered when Sam's voice broke and he couldn't talk any further. "I could've-"
Sam sighed. Too much had gone wrong and no amount of second-guessing was going to solve that. Even if it hurt like hell.
The shrill of Bobby's phone ringing from the kitchen startled them both. It wasn't one of the fake numbers Bobby spread across the hunters' community; no call for the FBI or the NSA or even the local police. Just plain Bobby Singer's phone.
"Yes?" Bobby's gruff voice answered, tone saying clearly that there had better be a good reason for this call because otherwise there would be hell to pay.
"Mr. Singer, this is the County Hospital calling. We have your nephew, a Dan Singer here with us," the male voice said from the other side. "There's been a problem and we'd appreciated if you could come here as soon as possible."
Sam saw the color draining from Bobby's face and took a step closer, trying to listen to both sides of the conversation.
"What problem?" Bobby pressed.
"I'm sorry, sir, but I'm not at liberty to say over the phone. If you could please come to our facilities, we'll be happy to provide you with all the information that you need."
The dial tone hit Bobby's ear with a visible slap and Sam stared at the other man. What the hell had just happened?
"Dan Singer?" Sam asked.
Bobby swallowed, his color not improving one bit. "I guess we know where Dean is."
AN: As always, my deepest thanks to jackfan2 , whose watchful eye makes this all the more readable.