A Bump in the Night 2/2
A Bump in the Night
Summary: A simple salt and burn takes a turn when the spirit throws Sam into a tombstone. Teen Spirit 'verse.
A/N: What year is this set in? Honestly I don't know. Supernatural's timeline is whack. I went by dates of birth and worked it out from there but if it's wrong... shhh.
(Apparently I never posted part two of this on my LJ. Sorry!)
Chapter Two
You would think that a blood-stained teenager would garner immediate attention in an emergency room but it turns out that Dean's definition of an emergency differs from that of the stern-faced woman at the front desk. There's no whirlwind of activity, no rushed footsteps or urgent voices. The woman looks Sam up and down critically, hands Dean a clipboard and a pen, and directs them to take a seat.
Dean's mouth is open to argue, his hand balling up into a fist that yearns to slam itself down on the counter top, but at his side, Sam makes a noise of disapproval and tugs on Dean's shirt. Or he loses his balance and tightens his grip while regaining it. Either way, Dean decides that the kid has been on his feet long enough and if that coincides with obeying the woman's command, well, fine.
They sit in the waiting area, and then in a small curtained cubical, for an unbearably long time. Sam curls into a little ball on the hospital bed, quietly miserable. Dean feels a lot like punching something, except that he knows that it won't help anything. It makes him want to punch something harder.
Silently, he prays to Castiel, which feels only slightly less pointless than punching something. Cas doesn't arrive. Dean tries pacing for a while but there really isn't room for it in the cubical so he settles back into the hard plastic chair at Sam's bedside and glares at the curtains, willing them to open.
“Dean?”
“Yeah?” He looks to Sam and immediately jumps to his feet, snatching up a nearby emesis basin. He shoves it in front of Sam just in time.
“That's it. There we go. You're okay. Let it out.” Dean murmurs comforting nonsense. He squeezes onto the edge of the bed so he can tuck Sam against his side and help him to stay upright while he vomits.
Sam is fucking tiny.
Dean should be used to it by now. It's been months but there's still a part of him that expects Sam to be at least a foot taller and a hundred pounds heavier. He'd forgotten, or maybe he never really appreciated, just how small the kid was at thirteen. It's weird, how easy it is to support Sam's entire weight with a single arm wrapped around his skinny convulsing shoulders. How easily both of them manage to fit on the narrow hospital bed. How shamelessly Sam melts against him. Sam hasn't been this clingy since... well, since he was thirteen. The first time. It's kind of adorable. Or it would be, if Sam wasn't blowing chunks.
A doctor doesn't show up until just after Sam's second puke attack. A tall woman with dark curly hair escaping an exhausted ponytail. She clucks sympathetically.
“Experiencing some nausea, I see.”
No shit, Dean wants to say but he holds his tongue. Sam nods tightly. He drops his head on Dean's shoulder, curling his fingers around the hem of Dean's shirt. Dean rubs his back reassuringly.
“Let's have a look, shall we?” The doctor - her name tag says Smith or Schmidt or something similar, Dean forgets it instantly - is swift and gentle, deftly parting blood-stuck strands of hair with her gloved fingers. The wound is a jagged split in the skin, still leaking sluggishly. Angry and swollen. Dean winces, remembering the sharp crack Sam's head had made when it struck the tombstone.
The doctor presses her lips together as she inspects Sam's injury. “That's quite a bump.” Her eyes, light blue and quite pretty, actually, move to Dean. “Did he lose consciousness at all?”
“Maybe for a moment,” Dean guesses.
The doctor takes a penlight from her top pocket and shines it in Sam's eyes, first one, then the other. Whatever she sees makes her mouth turn down.
“Can you tell me what year it is, Sam?”
“Twenty-sixteen.” Sam takes a beat but he answers correctly.
“And what year were you born?”
“Nineteen-eighty - oh, no. Um... two thousand and... and...” Sam trails off helplessly. He glances up at Dean, apologetic. “I can't remember.”
“That's okay,” the doctor says, even though it obviously isn't. Worry squirms nauseatingly in Dean's stomach. Not only because Sam's forgotten his fake birth year but because he can't do the simple maths to figure it out. What if Sam's brain is bleeding? What if it's swelling inside his skull? “How about the president? Can you tell me his name?”
Distress is rising in Sam, flushing his cheeks. He's not used to failing tests and he isn't exactly nailing this pop quiz. Sam licks his lips anxiously, his eyes darting back and forth as he searches for the answer.
“Is this necessary?” Dean snaps, irritation building in response to Sam's growing upset. “Shouldn't you be doing some sort of scan or an x-ray or something?”
Doctor Smart or Sharp or whatever ignores Dean's tone with an easy indifference that can only come from years of experience with stressed and snappy family members.
“I am going to order a scan.” She makes a note on her chart. “And I'll send someone in to stitch the wound. Hopefully you won't have to wait long. We're a little slammed tonight.”
The wait is interminable.
Sam runs out of stomach contents to evacuate fairly quick but that doesn't stop him from continuing to try. He shakes and retches and clings to Dean with clammy little grabby hands and finally, terribly, Sam crumbles into tears.
“Aw, kiddo,” Dean says helplessly, stomach sinking. He smooths his hand up and down Sam's spine.
“I want my Dean.” Sam sobs, which makes Dean want to start smashing things until it somehow grants Sam's wish. If he could make himself a teenager again, he'd do it in a heartbeat.
“I am your Dean. I just got older.” It feels like a lie. He knows that it's not the same. He isn't the same person he was at seventeen, just like Sam isn't the same person he was when he was thirty-three. Both of those people are gone now. Dean has lived too much and Sam too little.
“I want Dad.”
The poor kid sounds all of five years old. He looks it, too, rubbing away tears with the palm of his hand. Flushed cheeks and tasselled hair, soggy and sad and breaking Dean's heart into freaking pieces. It feels like someone is stomping on his chest.
“I know, Sammy. I'm so sorry.” Dean isn't sure what he's apologizing for. For not saving Dad. For not being Dad. For not finding a way to make Sam an adult again or for not stopping Sam from rattling his brains on a tombstone.
“I want to go home.”
Is Sam talking about the bunker? The Impala? The nineties? 'Home' is a somewhat intangible concept for Winchesters. With none of these options available to him Dean does the only thing he can; he tightens his grip. He draws Sam closer until the kid is almost in his lap, wrapped up tightly in his arms. He rocks side to side, gently so he doesn't start Sam spewing again. It reminds him of childhood nights in motel rooms, trying to get a chubby toddler Sammy to go to sleep while Dad did research under lamplight at the table, a comparison that Sam would undoubtedly find incredibly offensive were he not concussed as all hell. If Dean closes his eyes he can almost pretend that they're both back there, somehow safe in the innocent optimism of childhood. He strokes Sam's hair and rubs his back and murmurs reassurances in place of a lullaby. Sam buries himself in Dean's chest and gets Dean's shirt all wet with tears and probably snot and maybe more blood from his sticky hair.
There's a faint whooshing sound, a rush of moving air, announcing Castiel's long awaited arrival. Dean is so relieved that he doesn't even care that Cas just caught them in the middle of the world's sappiest chick-flick moment.
“'bout time,” he tells the angel suddenly standing at the bedside.
Castiel ignores Dean's tone in the exact same way the doctor had. He frowns down at Sam, brows knitted together in concern, and reaches out his hand.
The End
A/N: Reviews will get to ride on a rollercoaster.