Such Damn Good Days
Title: Such Damn Good Days
Author: innocentculprit aka solosundance
Genre: Gen, PG-13 for language, h/c
Characters: Dean, Sam, doctors
Disclaimer: I don't own them, I just love them.
A/n: written for roque_clasique 's birthday fic meme to the prompt: Sam went to med school not law school. One night in the ER, Dean is brought in. They haven't seen each other for years.
They were so pleased to see him, Sam's heart plummeted.
Because he wasn’t, like, late or anything. There could be no recriminations. Nobody had their coat half on, stood by the exit doors whey-faced and gagging for beer. There was just Miles, Chowdri and Callaghan hanging around the Nurses’ station. A gaggle of over-stimulated interns.
“Yay, Doctor W!”
“Listen, Sam, Blackwood said you had to take the special case in curtain four.”
“Yeah and you have to guess what you’ve got.”
Miles held the patient notes way high up above his head which made Sam sigh. Because ... seriously.
“You guys are full of shit.”
Blackwood Attending. Good, because Blackwood didn’t like crappy, med-school games.
“Give us your best guess.”
“Don’t you kids have a bar to go get obnoxious in?”
“Best guess, Sam.”
Play along, maybe they’d go away. He spoke rapidly. “Spotty baby, diaper full of radioactive waste ... mother from hell hates doctors?”
“Nah ah.”
“Gross old guy with a broom-handle stuck up his ass?”
“Hey, creative. But nah.”
“Listen, I have serious bored before the punch-line issues. ”
“Aw, Samster. So sorry. You get the wacko.”
“Fuck,” Sam said. He could already see Blackwood on the horizon and he retrieved the notes with a single, deadly-accurate snatch. “Like, funny, cute wacko or mass-murdering wacko?”
“Came in possible OD. We’re waiting on blood work and a psych consult. This dude is spaced.” Laura Callaghan preened at him. “And oh my lord, aggressive.”
“Keeps spewing up his guts too,” Miles added as Sam walked away. “Have a great night.”
“Hey, Sam.” Blackwood passed him. “Yeah. Curtain four. Let me know if you need Security on stand-by.”
Wait a minute. Security were always on fucking stand-by weren’t they?
“I’ll be fine.”
Sam twitched the curtain and went into battle.
He’d scanned the notes while walking. Guy found in a gutter. Gave the EMTs the name John. Facial injuries consistent with an assault. No alcohol in his system but behavior suggestive of narcotics. Lacerating wound right anterior deltoid. Dehydration. Talking crazy.
“John,” he said. “Hi.”
A bloodied khaki teeshirt, a pair of scummy-looking jeans, two oil-covered boots and a duffel were dumped on the chair by the bed. The guy lying down had one arm crossed over his face, pulling the IV line taut, and the other braced on the side of the bed. Under the gown his chest was rising and falling rapidly and he had an emesis basin propped on his belly.
“Feeling any better?”
“I need to get the hell out of here.” The voice was raspy and faint.
“Well ... not before we’ve checked you over.”
“And you can keep your fucking head-doctors away from me.”
“Stats seem a bit wayward, John. Can you tell me what you’ve taken?”
Janet, the new nurse on the block, had come in behind him.
“Need a look at his face,” she said. “But he won’t let me.”
“John, you going to let Janet here take a look at your -”
“My face. Yeah I heard. And no. Just tell me when I can leave.” The muscles on the injured arm bunched, elicited a hiss of pain and then a violent tug at the IV which seemed illogical and vaguely familiar to Sam, sent the basin to the floor with a clang. “Fuck!” John shouted. “Fuck this shit! Just ... fuck!” He kept the arm over his face.
Doesn’t like the light? Embarrassed about facial scarring? Had been on the six o’clock news?
The chest was still heaving up and down. Sam took everything Janet was holding in her hands and motioned her away.
“Security?” she mouthed and he shook his head.
Janet was still in the generally short-lived period of thinking doctors were big damn heroes. She practically batted her eyelashes at him as she left.
Sam tipped the gloves, the swabs and the tape on to the nearest cart and turned back to John.
“So you want to tell me what happened to you?”
A wheezy laugh. “I got jumped by a shapeshifter. Tricky sonofabitch that looked like another tricky sonofabitch. Like, exactly like him.”
“OK.” Sam felt his heart squirm. One thousand one hundred and eighty three days and counting. Since he’d heard anything like that. And while it made his heart squirm, it made everyone else page a psych consult. “That would suck. I see you’ve been given an anti-emetic shot. That helping?”
“Is it fuck. Think I’m gonna ...”
Nice work, Sam. Send the nurse away.
A distressed hitching of breath came from John and Sam didn’t know why, but it tripped a whole bunch of switches that had been dormant since about the second year of med school. He swiped up the basin, got to John just as he swung his legs from the bed.
Spine arching. Head dropping. Diaphragm descending. Rapid and forceful evacuation of stomach contents in three ... two ... one ... A perfect example. And holy crap, it seemed to hurt like hell. And holy crap, holy crap ....
“Dean?”
Sam got puked on. The IV line popped out, sent fluid cascading over the floor. The wound began bleeding again. There was maybe three seconds of eye to eye contact before Dean said, “Super,” and his plunging blood pressure sprawled him into Sam’s wide-spread arms.
---------
Laura Callaghan was pretty sure that emergency medicine was not where she belonged.
Another shift. Another bunch of annoying people and impending disasters. And the ones who were really good at this shit? They were scary tough. Miles wouldn’t make it. Chowdri maybe. And as for the smoking-hot, long-limbed Resident with a mysterious past ... none of them would ever be as good as him.
“Hey, Sam still here?”
“Yeah, he’s with the OD from last night.”
“My God, that guy? Did psychs never show?”
“Yeah, they showed. Winchester made them go away again.”
She could see Sam standing by the water cooler trying to look unobtrusive. Which was pretty difficult.
Blackwood, coat over his arm, face like thunder, was already stalking him and Callaghan couldn’t help her little drift over to listen in.
“What the hell, Sam? You finished four hours ago. We got things covered. You’re in there stroking the guy’s forehead for fuck’s sake. Why? Why are you doing that? You’re a doctor for crying out loud.”
“I don’t know. He just got to me.”
Blackwood winced. “Oh Christ.” He noticed Callaghan. “Don’t ever be like that, all right?”
Sam gave her a look that plainly said fat chance.
“Why’s he still here anyhow?”
“He’s just starting to calm down a bit,” Sam said quickly. “We had to start over with the stitches. And ... well, with everything really. And he’s clean.”
“Really? So just plain old crazy?” Callaghan bugged her eyes.
“Yeah. Maybe. Plain old crazy, on his own, bleeding, panicked and ... like, a human being who’s been crapped on a lot.”
“Really?” she said again. “He is?”
“All right, Dr Winchester.” Blackwood looked pissy. Like, Senior Attending Physician pissy. “I want you out of here in ten minutes. Your panicky friend will be perfectly well taken care by Dr Callaghan.”
Laura preened.
--------
Dean was winding up to get off the bed again.
Sam stopped him. He’d been making the same move, the same, repetitive don’t-fight-me press to the chest, every ten minutes or so since about four am. The unsteady thump of blood under bone was as familiar as it had ever been. “OK, Dean, I have three words to say to you. Advanced. Airway. Management.”
“Just ... don’t give me any of that clever shit, dude. I can’t fucking breathe here.”
Sam kept his hand where it was. “I’m kidding. You need to keep calm. I think the stuff they’re pushing for the puking is making you panicky.”
“You told them that?”
“Yeah, I told them.”
“And they believe you?”
“I’m a doctor, dude.”
“Yeah. I forgot.”
“Listen, I’ve got ten more minutes. They’re going to get even more pissed if I don’t go. And suspicious. You want to stay John Nobody, right?”
“Ten minutes?” Dean said, poking at the line. He tensed to push off the bed. “I can’t re-live three fucking years in ten minutes, Sammy.”
“Jesus, Dean, look at you. You’re a mess.”
“Yeah, and you ... shit, Sam, you’re a doctor!”
Sam wished his stupid, beat-up brother didn’t suddenly sound so proud of him. So stunned and awed and proud.
“Long as you don’t do anything to scare anybody, or fall on your face ... they should let you go soon. They’ll give you something to take for the wound, to keep infection away. They’ll make a follow-up appointment. You should keep it.”
Dean looked at him curiously. “Like in normal life?”
“Here,” Sam said, taking a card from his pocket.
“No, Sammy. This is good. I mean, this is all good. You’re good.”
Sam knew he was good, all right. He was fast-track, spectacular, born for the ER good. Even Blackwood thought so.
“Take the card. One day, something will happen. Dad’ll go missing, or you just ... won’t want to do this crap on your own anymore. Or some sonofabitch’ll bust your head open and you’ll ... you’ll need the card.”
“Just go, Sam.”
Dean looked miserably pale, sweaty, wouldn’t let go the basin. Wound all clean and stitched and dressed like Dean’s wounds were never cleaned and stitched and dressed.
Sam glanced out into the corridor, looked down at his watch. One thousand one hundred and eighty four days.
Such damn good days. He was so good at this.
Shit. They were going to miss him.
“No,” Dean said, dropping his head back on the pillow with a weary thump.
Sam reached for his forehead. Stopped counting.
-ends-
Author: innocentculprit aka solosundance
Genre: Gen, PG-13 for language, h/c
Characters: Dean, Sam, doctors
Disclaimer: I don't own them, I just love them.
A/n: written for roque_clasique 's birthday fic meme to the prompt: Sam went to med school not law school. One night in the ER, Dean is brought in. They haven't seen each other for years.
They were so pleased to see him, Sam's heart plummeted.
Because he wasn’t, like, late or anything. There could be no recriminations. Nobody had their coat half on, stood by the exit doors whey-faced and gagging for beer. There was just Miles, Chowdri and Callaghan hanging around the Nurses’ station. A gaggle of over-stimulated interns.
“Yay, Doctor W!”
“Listen, Sam, Blackwood said you had to take the special case in curtain four.”
“Yeah and you have to guess what you’ve got.”
Miles held the patient notes way high up above his head which made Sam sigh. Because ... seriously.
“You guys are full of shit.”
Blackwood Attending. Good, because Blackwood didn’t like crappy, med-school games.
“Give us your best guess.”
“Don’t you kids have a bar to go get obnoxious in?”
“Best guess, Sam.”
Play along, maybe they’d go away. He spoke rapidly. “Spotty baby, diaper full of radioactive waste ... mother from hell hates doctors?”
“Nah ah.”
“Gross old guy with a broom-handle stuck up his ass?”
“Hey, creative. But nah.”
“Listen, I have serious bored before the punch-line issues. ”
“Aw, Samster. So sorry. You get the wacko.”
“Fuck,” Sam said. He could already see Blackwood on the horizon and he retrieved the notes with a single, deadly-accurate snatch. “Like, funny, cute wacko or mass-murdering wacko?”
“Came in possible OD. We’re waiting on blood work and a psych consult. This dude is spaced.” Laura Callaghan preened at him. “And oh my lord, aggressive.”
“Keeps spewing up his guts too,” Miles added as Sam walked away. “Have a great night.”
“Hey, Sam.” Blackwood passed him. “Yeah. Curtain four. Let me know if you need Security on stand-by.”
Wait a minute. Security were always on fucking stand-by weren’t they?
“I’ll be fine.”
Sam twitched the curtain and went into battle.
He’d scanned the notes while walking. Guy found in a gutter. Gave the EMTs the name John. Facial injuries consistent with an assault. No alcohol in his system but behavior suggestive of narcotics. Lacerating wound right anterior deltoid. Dehydration. Talking crazy.
“John,” he said. “Hi.”
A bloodied khaki teeshirt, a pair of scummy-looking jeans, two oil-covered boots and a duffel were dumped on the chair by the bed. The guy lying down had one arm crossed over his face, pulling the IV line taut, and the other braced on the side of the bed. Under the gown his chest was rising and falling rapidly and he had an emesis basin propped on his belly.
“Feeling any better?”
“I need to get the hell out of here.” The voice was raspy and faint.
“Well ... not before we’ve checked you over.”
“And you can keep your fucking head-doctors away from me.”
“Stats seem a bit wayward, John. Can you tell me what you’ve taken?”
Janet, the new nurse on the block, had come in behind him.
“Need a look at his face,” she said. “But he won’t let me.”
“John, you going to let Janet here take a look at your -”
“My face. Yeah I heard. And no. Just tell me when I can leave.” The muscles on the injured arm bunched, elicited a hiss of pain and then a violent tug at the IV which seemed illogical and vaguely familiar to Sam, sent the basin to the floor with a clang. “Fuck!” John shouted. “Fuck this shit! Just ... fuck!” He kept the arm over his face.
Doesn’t like the light? Embarrassed about facial scarring? Had been on the six o’clock news?
The chest was still heaving up and down. Sam took everything Janet was holding in her hands and motioned her away.
“Security?” she mouthed and he shook his head.
Janet was still in the generally short-lived period of thinking doctors were big damn heroes. She practically batted her eyelashes at him as she left.
Sam tipped the gloves, the swabs and the tape on to the nearest cart and turned back to John.
“So you want to tell me what happened to you?”
A wheezy laugh. “I got jumped by a shapeshifter. Tricky sonofabitch that looked like another tricky sonofabitch. Like, exactly like him.”
“OK.” Sam felt his heart squirm. One thousand one hundred and eighty three days and counting. Since he’d heard anything like that. And while it made his heart squirm, it made everyone else page a psych consult. “That would suck. I see you’ve been given an anti-emetic shot. That helping?”
“Is it fuck. Think I’m gonna ...”
Nice work, Sam. Send the nurse away.
A distressed hitching of breath came from John and Sam didn’t know why, but it tripped a whole bunch of switches that had been dormant since about the second year of med school. He swiped up the basin, got to John just as he swung his legs from the bed.
Spine arching. Head dropping. Diaphragm descending. Rapid and forceful evacuation of stomach contents in three ... two ... one ... A perfect example. And holy crap, it seemed to hurt like hell. And holy crap, holy crap ....
“Dean?”
Sam got puked on. The IV line popped out, sent fluid cascading over the floor. The wound began bleeding again. There was maybe three seconds of eye to eye contact before Dean said, “Super,” and his plunging blood pressure sprawled him into Sam’s wide-spread arms.
---------
Laura Callaghan was pretty sure that emergency medicine was not where she belonged.
Another shift. Another bunch of annoying people and impending disasters. And the ones who were really good at this shit? They were scary tough. Miles wouldn’t make it. Chowdri maybe. And as for the smoking-hot, long-limbed Resident with a mysterious past ... none of them would ever be as good as him.
“Hey, Sam still here?”
“Yeah, he’s with the OD from last night.”
“My God, that guy? Did psychs never show?”
“Yeah, they showed. Winchester made them go away again.”
She could see Sam standing by the water cooler trying to look unobtrusive. Which was pretty difficult.
Blackwood, coat over his arm, face like thunder, was already stalking him and Callaghan couldn’t help her little drift over to listen in.
“What the hell, Sam? You finished four hours ago. We got things covered. You’re in there stroking the guy’s forehead for fuck’s sake. Why? Why are you doing that? You’re a doctor for crying out loud.”
“I don’t know. He just got to me.”
Blackwood winced. “Oh Christ.” He noticed Callaghan. “Don’t ever be like that, all right?”
Sam gave her a look that plainly said fat chance.
“Why’s he still here anyhow?”
“He’s just starting to calm down a bit,” Sam said quickly. “We had to start over with the stitches. And ... well, with everything really. And he’s clean.”
“Really? So just plain old crazy?” Callaghan bugged her eyes.
“Yeah. Maybe. Plain old crazy, on his own, bleeding, panicked and ... like, a human being who’s been crapped on a lot.”
“Really?” she said again. “He is?”
“All right, Dr Winchester.” Blackwood looked pissy. Like, Senior Attending Physician pissy. “I want you out of here in ten minutes. Your panicky friend will be perfectly well taken care by Dr Callaghan.”
Laura preened.
--------
Dean was winding up to get off the bed again.
Sam stopped him. He’d been making the same move, the same, repetitive don’t-fight-me press to the chest, every ten minutes or so since about four am. The unsteady thump of blood under bone was as familiar as it had ever been. “OK, Dean, I have three words to say to you. Advanced. Airway. Management.”
“Just ... don’t give me any of that clever shit, dude. I can’t fucking breathe here.”
Sam kept his hand where it was. “I’m kidding. You need to keep calm. I think the stuff they’re pushing for the puking is making you panicky.”
“You told them that?”
“Yeah, I told them.”
“And they believe you?”
“I’m a doctor, dude.”
“Yeah. I forgot.”
“Listen, I’ve got ten more minutes. They’re going to get even more pissed if I don’t go. And suspicious. You want to stay John Nobody, right?”
“Ten minutes?” Dean said, poking at the line. He tensed to push off the bed. “I can’t re-live three fucking years in ten minutes, Sammy.”
“Jesus, Dean, look at you. You’re a mess.”
“Yeah, and you ... shit, Sam, you’re a doctor!”
Sam wished his stupid, beat-up brother didn’t suddenly sound so proud of him. So stunned and awed and proud.
“Long as you don’t do anything to scare anybody, or fall on your face ... they should let you go soon. They’ll give you something to take for the wound, to keep infection away. They’ll make a follow-up appointment. You should keep it.”
Dean looked at him curiously. “Like in normal life?”
“Here,” Sam said, taking a card from his pocket.
“No, Sammy. This is good. I mean, this is all good. You’re good.”
Sam knew he was good, all right. He was fast-track, spectacular, born for the ER good. Even Blackwood thought so.
“Take the card. One day, something will happen. Dad’ll go missing, or you just ... won’t want to do this crap on your own anymore. Or some sonofabitch’ll bust your head open and you’ll ... you’ll need the card.”
“Just go, Sam.”
Dean looked miserably pale, sweaty, wouldn’t let go the basin. Wound all clean and stitched and dressed like Dean’s wounds were never cleaned and stitched and dressed.
Sam glanced out into the corridor, looked down at his watch. One thousand one hundred and eighty four days.
Such damn good days. He was so good at this.
Shit. They were going to miss him.
“No,” Dean said, dropping his head back on the pillow with a weary thump.
Sam reached for his forehead. Stopped counting.
-ends-