OOC fic post: "Winchesters can do anything, kid. You remember that." (Agents of Fortune 8)
Previous Chapters
Author's Notes: Don't you just love these? I love them. It's where I get to cover my ass. So today we have magic cars and lots of medical. There will be more on super awesome magic Implala later. But yes, she is that awesome. And the medical . . . well, I'm not a med student, but I hope I'm not a moron. I even got an anatomy textbook and read up on treating bullet wounds. 494 is *ridiculously* lucky. And incredibly tough. If anyone out there with medical training would like to contradict me, please do so. But be warned, I'm gonna keep hitting you up with questions for the rest of the story. Which is only like 1/4 done. Also I have a snazzy map of Manticore that I whipped up. And their escape route. I'm a visual person and need crap like that to write escape scenes. Would anyone like to see it? I'll post it if you do.
That's it! On with the show!
Chapter 8
Sam felt his mind surface from the sea of dizzying images with a jolt. The bright light burned his eyes and something new burned its way up his arm. Like a slow fire under his skin. Hadn't he burned enough? "Dean, hurts." He didn't even try to move. He hadn't been able to in so long that he had forgotten how.
Someone was rubbing at his hand and arm. If he hadn't known better, he would have said they were trying to soothe the hurt. But he did know better; no one here understood anything but cruelty. He had no idea why he had even bothered calling for his brother. Dean couldn't help him. Dean wasn't there.
"It's okay. I've got you." Sam's eyes snapped open. He could have sworn they had done that already, but maybe they had closed again. He was looking at someone pulling a syringe out of the IV port in his left hand and carefully rubbing at his arm. He looked like Dean, but wasn't. "You aren't Dean."
"Over here, dumbass." The words were harsh, but the tone wasn't. Neither was the hand running through his hair when he looked over.
He had never felt more relieved in his entire damned life, and that was saying something. "Can we get the fuck out of here?" His head felt clear for the first time in, well, however long it was that he had been there.
"Already working on it, Sammy."
"It's Sam." The words fell out of his mouth automatically. He figured that soon it would really sink in that this was the first time he had actually laid eyes on his brother in nearly a year. But now wasn't a time for reunions. He pulled his hand free from Dean's double and moved to stand. He tried to swing his feet around but was caught.
"Let's try sitting up first." It wasn't Dean who spoke, but the other guy. 494, he called himself. Sam remembered that. "We won't get out of here any faster if you hit the deck." 494 and Dean pulled him into a sitting position, and Sam did have to admit that 494 had the right idea, because his head was swimming.
"I feel like crap."
"Thanks, Captain Obvious." Sam grinned a little at his brother's less than caring tone. The warm hand on the back of his neck more than made up for it. He felt his head clearing more by the second, and took stock of his surroundings.
"And you're alive to feel like crap,” 494 said. "Consider it a win." Sam turned his head to watch 494 scout around a little. "Looks like they ditched all your stuff, so no shoes. That'll make this fun." He came back to where Sam was sitting and shrugged on the backpack resting at the foot of the narrow gurney. "Least you got pants."
Any retort Sam thought about making was cut off as two people walked in wearing doctor's scrubs. Sam felt himself shrink back against Dean's hand in instinctual fear. 494 flinched visibly.
Dean went for his gun but came up empty handed, and moved in front of his brother. One of the newcomers reached for something on the wall, presumably an alarm. Then 494 was moving. Sam watched, stunned, as 494 shot across the room and snapped a leg up, his booted foot catching the man under the chin and forcing his head up and back with a sickening crack. Before the guy even hit the floor, 494 shifted, spun, and jammed a syringe into the other man's chest. Into his heart, Sam noticed, and then slammed the plunger home. The man had enough time to look startled before he too dropped.
"What the . . ." Sam felt his sentence trail off. His brain was functioning enough to question, but not enough to verbalize yet.
"Same stuff I gave you. But it's designed for an X5. I gave you a fourth of the dose. He got the rest. Come on. It's 0400. Shift change starts soon. We want to be away before then. You think you can handle a gun if I get you one?"
"Yeah," Sam said as he slid off the gurney and carefully onto his feet. He tried not to look at the bodies. Not because he had never seen one. He had seen more than most, in varying states of disrepair, most commonly chewed, but these men had died in front of him by non-supernatural means. That was a new one. One of them had been killed by the same stuff that he was pretty sure was keeping him upright. Uncomfortable to say the least. He rubbed at his arm. "When does it stop burning?"
"When it wears off. Think of it like a warning sign, because when it does, you'll drop like a rock." All three of them were edging towards the door now, unarmed. "Dean, you're in the middle," 494 ordered. Sam thought he sounded like he was used to being obeyed. Sounded like Dad. Sam would have given a lot for his father's rock solid presence right then.
"What? No way." Dean was never very good at taking direction. With someone to protect, Sam knew he wasn't going to start now.
"They want Sam's ability so they won't kill him. I'm worth twenty-eight million dollars, easy, and I'm also a unit commander. They don't want to start a riot or to lose that kind of cash, so they won't want to kill me. But you, Dean, they don't care. Get your ass off point."
Sam was grateful that Dean would at least listen to reason. "Don't worry, Dean. I'll protect you." He grinned like a smart ass when 494 and Dean reversed their positions. He had thought that shit that 494 had given him was just to keep him moving, but he was starting to feel God damned wired.
"Shut up, bitch." There it was. Sam felt like he had come home. Maybe he had. Dean had always been his only real constant.
"Jerk." The three of them slid out of the room that Sam was pretty sure was a ring of Hell. He knew Hell existed. He had sent things back to it.
494 led them down the hall, clearly ready to take on any danger that came for them. Sam wasn't sure that he trusted 494. After all, it was 494 who had kidnapped him and his brother. But Dean was trusting 494, and Sam trusted his brother with more than his life. He trusted his brother's instincts with every fiber of his being.
The danger, when it first showed, came from behind. A soldier of some sort called out in startlement as they met at a hallway intersection. Sam felt himself move before he thought much about it. Muscle memory and whatever 494 had fed into his bloodstream. He nailed the guy with a hard fist to the face, yanked him forward by the shoulder and jammed a knee into the guy's gut. The elbow to the back of the neck would ensure that the man stayed down. It only took a moment to divest him of his gun and less than a second for Sam to eject the clip, check it, slam it back into the gun, and chamber a round. "Don't stop on my account." He grinned at Dean and 494.
"That's my boy." Dean returned the grin. The day was looking up.
"What do you know, maybe we will make it out," was all 494 said as he started forward again.
"No room for doubters in this family, kid. Winchesters can do anything. You remember that." Sam vaguely wondered when Dean had adopted his own kidnapper.
"I'm not a Win - " 494 was rudely interrupted.
"Shut your mouth, kid. Your arguing privileges are totally revoked." Sam listened as the bantering continued down the hall. He didn't add much to the mix. He was up and thinking and could clearly handle his own body, but underneath the energy was what he assumed was going to be a crippling headache. He didn't feel much like talking. Dean was keeping a close and hypervigilant eye on him, but if he was going to be honest with himself, he found it pretty comforting. He missed having someone look out for him.
There was one other brief scuffle that ended with Dean and 494 being armed. Sam didn't intend to let them forget that it was the drugged up, fucked up one of their deranged little trio that had bagged a weapon first.
XXXXX
"So what we have here is a death trap," 494 said cheerfully as they all huddled in the corner. They could see open air beyond the door.
"Well, don't sound so cheerful about it," Dean grumbled as he peered past 494 out the doorway into the weird grey light of false dawn. Sam was a steady presence pressed back to back with him, covering the rear.
"See that building across from us?"
"Yeah."
"That's where the Impala is. Someone's coming, Sam."
"Can't shoot them until I see them. Can't see through walls, dude."
"Don't mind him, kid. He gets real snippy when his nap's been interrupted." Dean was more than happy to hear his baby brother's bitchiness. "Death trap?"
"Yeah. What we have is about one hundred yards of open space with no cover in sight. See those trees beyond?" 494 asked as he tried to find the threat he knew was there.
"Hard to miss, dude. It's a forest."
"Right. Patrolled by people that I promise can see you way before you can see them. They all have guns; some of them have sniper rifles. If we can get across, we'll have a minute at most before they circle the building and come in after us. It'll be fun."
"Oh, hell yeah. Just like going to the circus with Sammy." That was a mistake Dean only made once.
"Shut up," Sam snapped in a petulant tone. A second later, he pressed more heavily into Dean as he fired on the two guards coming around the corner. The report of the gun was uncomfortably loud in the small hallway. "You know what would be great? A friggin' suppressor. So maybe I wouldn't be announcing exactly where we are."
"Death trap, anyone?" Dean asked.
"Bring it," Sam said.
"You two first," 494 told them as he stepped out from in front of Dean. "And run.”
"But - " Sam was interrupted.
"Go," 494 outright ordered this time as he moved back behind him, just as more people came around the corner. "You guys don't actually want to do this do you?" 494 asked them, sounding doubtful, and then he yanked the first guy literally up off his feet. He swung him around and used him to absorb the impact from the taser electrodes that were shot at him. He dropped the man before the shock could hit.
Sam and Dean both took off like shots out the door, neither seeing 494 take a flying leap into the next man, hitting boot first and knocking several people into a tangled pile. 494 somehow kept his feet in amongst the failing limbs. It was instinct. An animal that lost its feet was one that never got up again. He punched the next guard square in the face, breaking her nose if not outright killing her. He didn't have time to care one way or the other. The mouth of the hallway was now filled with a litter of tangled bodies and limbs. Exactly what he wanted. The reinforcements would have to stumble and slow down to get past their comrades, or shoot from the far side of them. Their angle was terrible and most of them only carried tasers, which was one hell of a short range weapon. He spun and took off after the other two.
He put on a burst of speed when he hit open air, and blurred out of focus to Ordinary eyes. That apparently didn't stop one of the wire patrol from nailing him with a bullet to the shoulder. He stumbled for half a step and used that brief second of shocked numbness to recover his feet and make it to the car.
Damned good thing that all the vehicles were stored with their keys in them. Dean already had the doors opened by the time he skidded to a halt next to her rear bumper. All three of them dropped into the car and slammed the doors closed almost in unison. Dean turned the key and put her into reverse before their weight had even completely settled. 494 could have sworn she was purring.
There was a squeal of rubber on pavement as Dean whipped her out of the space, dropped her into third gear, and hit the gas. He would have been worried about someone blocking the road, except for the fact that one body wouldn't be enough to stop the car if Dean was willing to run them down. If Dean was willing to shoot them, he was sure as hell willing to hit them with a car.
"Turn right. Now!" 494 barked out. They would have been in a world of hurt if they had missed the only gate in or out.
"Shit, that's gonna fuck the paint job," Dean grumbled as the Impala's nose connected with the chain link fence, ripped it from its hinges, and then slipped under it out on the open road.
All three of them hunched down in the seats as shots were fired at them from behind. Alec swore as a bullet punched through the back windshield and then out the left back passenger window.
Dean was babbling a litany of "Please, baby, don't fail us now," over and over again as he pressed his foot down harder on the accelerator. Alec took the opportunity of the now empty back window, braced his good arm on the back of the seat, and took careful, if quick aim. His first shot missed anyway. The second hit. He shot out one of the front tires on the lead vehicle, causing it to spin and be broadsided by the next SUV, which had been crawling up the ass of the first. The third and fourth vehicles just swerved around them and kept coming.
"Hey, kid, hang on," was the only warning he got as Dean's foot came down hard on the brakes. He could hear the metal and inner workings of the car screaming in protest as she fish tailed so hard and fast that he was slammed into a door. He could have sworn she was going to swing a complete 360, but just as she was about two thirds of the way around, Dean slammed down on the gas and she shot forward. Wrong way down a one way road that Alec hadn't even noticed.
"This will never work," he said. There was no way that Manticore would miss where they turned. The road was damned near invisible, but the cloud of dust and burned rubber were pretty damned hard to miss. Manticore didn't employ idiots.
"It'll work," Sam stated with conviction. "She's never let us down before."
494 turned, watching anxiously for pursuit. He watched them bolt right past as if there was no sign that they had turned off the road. "What. The. Fuck."
"Told you she wouldn't let us down," Sam said with a grin.
494 slumped sideways and leaned against the right hand door, not wanting to put pressure on the gunshot wound. "She really hates me, doesn't she."
"She ain't just gonna take a liking to just anyone." Dean pulled into the breakdown lane, off the road as far as he could without putting the Impala in a ditch, and zipped along heading in the wrong direction until he found a turn off. "But she might come around."
Once they were no longer flagrantly breaking traffic laws and asking for a head on collision, 494 spoke. "Seriously, how did they miss us?"
"Magic," Sam replied from the front passenger seat. He was slumped sideways. "I feel like shit." It came out as a moan more than a statement.
"I'm not surprised." 494 said, and reached down into the footwell to grab the pack that Sam's chart was in. "They were feeding some nasty shit into your bloodstream." He could feel blood soaking hot through his T-shirt and figured he would have to do something about it soon. "And it's all designed to fuck with your head."
XXXXX
The reports were already coming in about X5-494's escape along with both Winchesters, the older of whom was utterly useless to Manticore. They didn't need any more X units based on his genetic code. That was one of the few things that Sandeman and the Committee agreed on. The Committee didn't want any more because X5-493 had been such a loss and 494 was nearly intractable. They felt that other X units like him spelled only disaster.
Sandeman had never felt the need to explain himself to Renfro. She had actually outright asked once. He had stated that 493 and 494 were special, and they would hardly remain that way if there was a horde of others like them. She had let it go after that. The man loved his secrets and he had plenty of them.
Renfro wasn't interested in how the three of them had made it out of the facility. 494 had been specifically trained to extricate himself from the most difficult of situations. That the two Winchesters had the same skill hardly surprised her. After all, they had already seen Dean work. There was no reason to believe that Samuel was any less capable. Of course, that hadn't stopped her from giving them a helping hand here and there as needed.
What did interest her was how they had disappeared. Literally.
XXXXX
Dean parked to the side of the office window, so that whoever was inside couldn't see the shot out windows. His baby had done good by them today. He needed to take her somewhere, maybe Bobby's, and clean her up. For now, he needed to clean his brother up some more. Al Pitrelli kindly paid for a five night stay and smiled pleasantly at the aging woman behind the counter. At least she hadn't used twelve pounds of make-up to hide the crow's feet she had earned over her lifetime.
He figured that they would only be staying until tomorrow, but if they left a few 'belongings' behind, it might throw the Nazi hit squad off the trail. He settled back into the car and pulled her around to the back. He and the kid both got out. Sam slumped limply in the seat. 494 held a hand out for the room key. "I'll get him inside while you get whatever you want from the trunk."
"Dude, he's a yeti."
"I can bench press a Buick."
"I'm gonna make you prove that someday, kid." But Dean tossed him the key, trusting him with Sam, because so far the kid had taken care of them. He circled to the back and popped the trunk. He had leaned in to pack their weapons, so he didn't see 494's blood soaked shoulder as he opened Sam's door and simply picked up the gangly teen with gritted teeth.
Dean hauled out the weapons bag as well as his and Sam's personal bags - he was glad to see that his kid brother hadn't forgotten how to pack - and a tarp. He closed the trunk and surveyed the damage quickly. Two blown windows and was that a bullet hole in her paneling? Jesus, he wanted to bang some heads together. "Sorry, baby. I'll take care of you soon." He then snapped the tarp out and used it to cover her and protect her interior from the elements, trusting her magic to protect her from thieves.
He slung the weapons bag over his shoulder, picked up their personal bags, and headed inside. He found Sam laying on the far bed in recovery position. 494 was sitting on the foot of the bed, reading through a sheaf of medical papers, held in his right hand, his left lay limply in his lap. "Hey." 494 looked up at him as he closed and locked the door. "Uh, hate to bother you, since I'm sure you'd rather take care of Sam, but - "
"Whatever, kid. Spit it out." All three bags went on the closer bed.
"Could you dig this bullet out of my shoulder? If I let it go until tomorrow it'll heal over, and I can't reach to do it myself."
Dean just blinked at him for a moment, wondering if he had heard right. The little shit had hauled Sam's bigfoot self in here with a bullet lodged in his shoulder. Dean hoped it was stuck in his shoulder and hadn't bounced around. "You're a little shit."
"What?"
"You heard me. When you get shot you're supposed to say something. Not carry storkish little brothers." He turned back to the door. "Let me get the kit." He went back out to the Impala and quickly got the first aid box out of the trunk. He wasn't sure what alarmed him more. The fact that the kid had gotten shot and had been dead silent about it, the fact that he had lugged Sam around anyway, or the fact that he had asked Dean, like Dean might actually deny him help.
He came back in, set the tool box down on the small round table in the corner, and started pulling out the things he would need. Suture kit, the small set of basic surgical tools, rubbing alcohol, the stained towels because removing bullets was always messy, the small but precious vial of anesthetic, a couple of syringes, and the jar of lidocaine. Honestly, if someone had told him that he would ever have to take a bullet out of someone he cared about without anything to deaden the pain for them, he would probably lose his cookies. Then do it anyway, if that were the only option.
This kind of shit was always a bad idea. Bullet wounds were dangerous, more than most people thought. Bullets tended to bounce around on an erratic path. It was hardly ever in one side and out the other like the TV shows made it seem. There was no such thing as a safe place to get shot. If you were lucky, all that happened was muscle damage and a broken or shattered bone.
He laid everything out on the nightstand along with a large package of gauze. Then he grabbed the ice bucket and went into the bathroom and filled it with water. Thank God the place was clean. More than worth the money paid for it. He came back out with the ice bucket and the bathroom trash can. He stopped cold as he got his first look at the kid's back and the sodden black-red mess coating the area under the left shoulder. "Jesus, kid." He jerked his head towards the unoccupied bed. "Lie down."
At least he didn't argue, just did as he was told. "You got this before we ever made it to the car, didn't you."
"Yeah. One of those punk little X7s caught me." Dean watched as the kid went a little limp and took that as a good sign, or at least a sign of trust.
"What the hell is an X7?" He pulled out the scissors and started to cut the sodden shirt off and out of his way. It wasn't good for anything besides a rag anyway. The kid could borrow a T-shirt.
"The kids in the woods." 494 held perfectly still as Dean packed a couple of small towels in around him. Bloodstains on bed spreads were such a pain in the ass. Dean used a washcloth and plain water to clean up the majority of the blood so he could see what he was actually dealing with.
"Nice tat, kid. That what you drew on me?" The tattooed barcode wasn't really anything he cared about at the moment; he just wanted to distract the kid as he applied the topical anesthetic and drew up a couple of syringes of the other.
"Who taught you how to do this?" Apparently 494 didn't feel like talking about the tattoo. His face pressed into the pillow as the wound continued to bleed. At least it wasn't with his pulse beat, which was pretty steady for someone with a bullet in their shoulder.
"An ER doc we helped out once. Unsurprisingly, the ER was being haunted. We came in and cleaned house. It was about three years ago. He offered to actually pay us, but Dad wheedled medical training out of him instead." Dean kept talking through the injections, then the hard pressure he applied to stop the bleeding. He didn't like the give he felt there. Broken bone. "Mostly niceties. Like medication and stuff. But that shit'll save a life. It sucks if someone goes into shock because patching them up hurts too damned bad."
Speaking of pain and shock, Dean didn't like the dead silent and limp way the kid was suffering through this. The novocaine might have been enough the take away the hurt around the wound itself, though Dean figured it only made it hurt less, and it wouldn't do jack shit to touch the deep burning, aching pain of a broken bone. Especially one that he was putting deliberate pressure on. He knew the kid was feeling it. There was a tic in the muscle just below his eye, one Dean knew he himself had when he was trying to not make noise while being patched up. The kid's other hand kept twitching like he wanted to white knuckle something. "Dad knew some already. He was in Vietnam. Doing God knows what, because he knows more than a normal Marine would. If there is such a thing. He doesn't talk about it. And we don't ask."
Dean was relieved to see that he had gotten the wound to stop bleeding for the most part. He paused while talking, in case the kid wanted to say anything, but he seemed to be putting his effort into not reacting. "Jesus." Dean wished he could just take the kid to a hospital. This was fucking cruel. He grabbed the alcohol. "He said that there were just never enough medics around and that the poor dudes had to sleep once in a while, so they all learned as they went. Dad taught us, because, well, hunting the midnight uglies isn't a job that comes with health insurance."
Now came the hard part. Dean traded the disinfectant for the medical tweezers. At least he could nearly see the bullet. It was wedged in the kid's collar bone. No bouncing around. Good. Damned good. "Sorry, kid. This is gonna hurt."
"Yeah." 494 swallowed hard. This was by far the least painful bullet extraction he had ever lived through. "Just do it."
"You got it." Dean tried to be gentle, but the fact of the matter was that he had to wiggle the tweezers around a little until he felt metal on metal. Still the kid made no noise. Even his dad would have let something slip by now. "Stuck in your bone kid, which must be made of friggin' titanium by the way. I'm gonna have to twist or yank." That got him a nod. "You're using up my entire year's supply of compassion here, kid. Anything after this - " He braced his other hand under the wound, got a grip on the bullet, and pulled back quick and hard. The kid finally made a noise as the bullet abruptly came free. " - you or Sammy get hurt and I'm just gonna give you a Band-Aid and tell you to suck it up." He dropped the tweezers and bullet on the nightstand with a small clatter and applied more pressure to get the wound to stop bleeding a second time.
"Better than I usually get." The kid's voice was tight and quiet, half-muffled by the pillow he was lying on.
"Yeah, I'm kinda gathering that. Which, I will have you know, makes them fucking bastards." He hadn't missed the way the kid had flinched right along with Sam when those medical type people had come into the room. He let up on the pressure and was pleased to find that it had stopped welling blood again. He wasn't sure how much the kid could afford to lose. "Not much I can do about the broken bone." It was as close to an apology as he was going to get. He started with the stitches. "You'll have to suck it up on that one." He prayed it would heal right.
"Not a problem. It'll heal fine. Two weeks and I won't even have a scar."
"Kid, I'm good but let's not push it." The stitches were quick. Those he had real practice at.
"Perk of being an X5. We're made to heal like that. Faster and better than an Ordinary. Just . . . I'm a little too good at it. If we had left the bullet in I would be in a world of hurt by tomorrow. Immune system would have nearly killed me because it can't kill a bullet like it could an infection. Been there, nearly done that. It sucked."
Dean tied off the last stitch and used the now pink water in the ice bucket to rinse the blood off his fingers. He watched as the kid got his good arm under him and pushed himself up. He wished the kid would just sleep. He'd earned it, but Dean let it go. Stubborn. Just like the rest of them. Just like a Winchester. Dean rested a hand over the barcode for a moment. Like he would do for Sam. "Almost done."
Dean dabbed anti-bacterial cream over the bullet hole he had just finished stitching up in 494's shoulder. Then he gently taped a heavy gauze pad over it and sat back in his chair. "That local still working?”
"Some. We metabolize things faster than Ordinaries.”
Dean nodded as he wiped his hands on one of the much abused towels, avoiding the areas that were soggy from blood and antiseptic. After a moment, he grabbed the kid's ruined shirt and, using it as a rag, dipped a clean part in the ice bucket and used it to clean the rest of the blood off 494's back. Afterwards, he tossed it into the trash can with the bloody gauze and alcohol wipes. "Ordinaries. Is that your word for the rest of us?”
"Yeah.”
"Good to know. You allergic to anything?”
"I don't need to take anything.”
"Yeah, sure.” Dean noticed he hadn't actually answered the question. He pulled a bottle out of his own zip lock, going on the theory that 494 was closer to him than to Sam, and put it in 494's hand. "Take one of those anyway. If you have a high medication tolerance, then those should help but not put you out.” If he was going to ignore Dean's question, he could figure out if it would kill him on his own.
494 watched as Dean got up and went over to the other bed, where Sam was lying curled up on his side, just the way he had been left. Dean sat on the edge of the bed and checked Sam's pulse and breathing, then laid the back of his hand against Sam's forehead, checking his temperature. He clearly didn't like it, because he yanked up the other half of the bedding and tucked it over Sam. 494 knew Sam must be pretty chilled. Psy-Ops was always freezing. The cold was part of how they slowed down their subject's metabolism to make them easier to manage. Since Dean seemed busy, 494 put the pills back into the portable ER, as he'd taken to calling it in his head.
"Don't suppose you know what they gave him, do you?” Dean asked him. "Or when the last time he would have eaten? He's freezing.”
"You don't get fed in Psy-Ops. And the medication-chemical list is in the packet. I don't recognize all of it.” He carefully tested his range of motion with his injured shoulder and tried not to wince. He and Dean both knew his collar bone was broken and his arm should be in a sling. Not even to mention the bruising, trauma, and muscle damage. 494 was silently grateful that Dean had shot his shoulder full of anesthetic before he had even known what was happening. He could and had sat silently while bullets or shrapnel had been dug out of his hide with nothing to deaden the pain, but it was something he liked to avoid. In his opinion, bullets hurt worse coming out than going in, and wounds like that had to be stitched from the inside out. "They don't want you horking and choking to death while they aren't looking. You get a nutrient-glucose IV drip. At least for the first couple of weeks. Then they, um, make other arrangements.”
"I swear sometimes, humans are the worst evil there is. And you take that bottle back out of the kit where you think I didn't see you put it and take one of those pills.”
494 stopped moving and his eyes narrowed at Dean. "I don't take orders from you. You're not my CO.” He was annoyed to notice that Dean wasn't even watching anymore; his attention was back on his brother.
"You don't have a CO at all anymore, in case you missed that. I sort of figured that you might have picked up on it when they shot you with live ammo when we both know that they have tranquilizers.” He shot 494 a dirty look. "That was a dirty trick to pull, you know, when you kidnapped me. Anyway, since you don't have a CO, I figure that we go by seniority here. How old are you?” He was examining Sam more closely now that 494 wasn't in danger of bleeding to death. His jaw tightened as he ghosted his hands over his little brother's arms, which he had pulls back the blankets to examine, noticing the numerous small puncture wounds, the bruising on one hand from previous IVs, not to mention the one that they had left in deliberately. There was bruising on his wrists, and when he checked, on his ankles and chest from restraints. Dean looked up as 494 finally replied.
"Twenty-one.” 494 grinned. "Old enough to do all the fun stuff. And to not need to be taken care of.”
"You just keep dreaming that dream, Little Toaster. And when you haven't just been shot, you can do all that fun stuff. Until then, I'm pulling age rank. Take that damned pill. There's no reason for you to sit there in pain.”
"I don't want to be taken off guard. They'll come after us. And what the hell are you talking about, Little Toaster?”
"I told you that they won't put you out. Just take the edge off.” He pointedly ignored the question about the toaster.
"I won't be defenseless.” It was nearly a snarl.
Dean watched him for a long moment then stood and crossed over to the Overnight Bag. 494 tensed. Tonight he had learned what the ‘Extremely Paranoid' version of ‘The Usual' was. Dean pulled out one of the Glocks, its clip loaded and tied to the grip with a rubber band. Dean efficiently freed it, loaded it and chambered a bullet, then marched over and put it into 494's uninjured hand. "Now you're not defenseless. Would you please take the damned medication?”
"You're insane. I could shoot you.”
"Yeah, but why the hell would you?”
494 took the bottle back out, checked the name to make sure he really wasn't allergic to it and dry swallowed one of the pills.
"So besides the fact that he hasn't eaten a damned thing in a week, any other ideas about what might be wrong with my brother?
"I can make a few guesses. Based on the file.”
"Then could you get on with it?” Dean flipped through the papers blindly. Besides the bruising, which was pretty bad, Sam was sickly pale, and looked like he hadn't slept the entire time those bastards had had him. He also looked like he was in pain, but Dean didn't know how to fix it until Sam could tell him what the problem was. He didn't want to give him another medication on top of whatever else he had in his system. Sam had clearly used up any energy he had left during their escape. Even so, most of that energy had been whatever 494 had given him.
"I know they gave him stuff to force his psychic gift.”
"Wait.” Dean blinked. "To what?"
XXXX
Author's Notes: Don't you just love these? I love them. It's where I get to cover my ass. So today we have magic cars and lots of medical. There will be more on super awesome magic Implala later. But yes, she is that awesome. And the medical . . . well, I'm not a med student, but I hope I'm not a moron. I even got an anatomy textbook and read up on treating bullet wounds. 494 is *ridiculously* lucky. And incredibly tough. If anyone out there with medical training would like to contradict me, please do so. But be warned, I'm gonna keep hitting you up with questions for the rest of the story. Which is only like 1/4 done. Also I have a snazzy map of Manticore that I whipped up. And their escape route. I'm a visual person and need crap like that to write escape scenes. Would anyone like to see it? I'll post it if you do.
That's it! On with the show!
Chapter 8
Sam felt his mind surface from the sea of dizzying images with a jolt. The bright light burned his eyes and something new burned its way up his arm. Like a slow fire under his skin. Hadn't he burned enough? "Dean, hurts." He didn't even try to move. He hadn't been able to in so long that he had forgotten how.
Someone was rubbing at his hand and arm. If he hadn't known better, he would have said they were trying to soothe the hurt. But he did know better; no one here understood anything but cruelty. He had no idea why he had even bothered calling for his brother. Dean couldn't help him. Dean wasn't there.
"It's okay. I've got you." Sam's eyes snapped open. He could have sworn they had done that already, but maybe they had closed again. He was looking at someone pulling a syringe out of the IV port in his left hand and carefully rubbing at his arm. He looked like Dean, but wasn't. "You aren't Dean."
"Over here, dumbass." The words were harsh, but the tone wasn't. Neither was the hand running through his hair when he looked over.
He had never felt more relieved in his entire damned life, and that was saying something. "Can we get the fuck out of here?" His head felt clear for the first time in, well, however long it was that he had been there.
"Already working on it, Sammy."
"It's Sam." The words fell out of his mouth automatically. He figured that soon it would really sink in that this was the first time he had actually laid eyes on his brother in nearly a year. But now wasn't a time for reunions. He pulled his hand free from Dean's double and moved to stand. He tried to swing his feet around but was caught.
"Let's try sitting up first." It wasn't Dean who spoke, but the other guy. 494, he called himself. Sam remembered that. "We won't get out of here any faster if you hit the deck." 494 and Dean pulled him into a sitting position, and Sam did have to admit that 494 had the right idea, because his head was swimming.
"I feel like crap."
"Thanks, Captain Obvious." Sam grinned a little at his brother's less than caring tone. The warm hand on the back of his neck more than made up for it. He felt his head clearing more by the second, and took stock of his surroundings.
"And you're alive to feel like crap,” 494 said. "Consider it a win." Sam turned his head to watch 494 scout around a little. "Looks like they ditched all your stuff, so no shoes. That'll make this fun." He came back to where Sam was sitting and shrugged on the backpack resting at the foot of the narrow gurney. "Least you got pants."
Any retort Sam thought about making was cut off as two people walked in wearing doctor's scrubs. Sam felt himself shrink back against Dean's hand in instinctual fear. 494 flinched visibly.
Dean went for his gun but came up empty handed, and moved in front of his brother. One of the newcomers reached for something on the wall, presumably an alarm. Then 494 was moving. Sam watched, stunned, as 494 shot across the room and snapped a leg up, his booted foot catching the man under the chin and forcing his head up and back with a sickening crack. Before the guy even hit the floor, 494 shifted, spun, and jammed a syringe into the other man's chest. Into his heart, Sam noticed, and then slammed the plunger home. The man had enough time to look startled before he too dropped.
"What the . . ." Sam felt his sentence trail off. His brain was functioning enough to question, but not enough to verbalize yet.
"Same stuff I gave you. But it's designed for an X5. I gave you a fourth of the dose. He got the rest. Come on. It's 0400. Shift change starts soon. We want to be away before then. You think you can handle a gun if I get you one?"
"Yeah," Sam said as he slid off the gurney and carefully onto his feet. He tried not to look at the bodies. Not because he had never seen one. He had seen more than most, in varying states of disrepair, most commonly chewed, but these men had died in front of him by non-supernatural means. That was a new one. One of them had been killed by the same stuff that he was pretty sure was keeping him upright. Uncomfortable to say the least. He rubbed at his arm. "When does it stop burning?"
"When it wears off. Think of it like a warning sign, because when it does, you'll drop like a rock." All three of them were edging towards the door now, unarmed. "Dean, you're in the middle," 494 ordered. Sam thought he sounded like he was used to being obeyed. Sounded like Dad. Sam would have given a lot for his father's rock solid presence right then.
"What? No way." Dean was never very good at taking direction. With someone to protect, Sam knew he wasn't going to start now.
"They want Sam's ability so they won't kill him. I'm worth twenty-eight million dollars, easy, and I'm also a unit commander. They don't want to start a riot or to lose that kind of cash, so they won't want to kill me. But you, Dean, they don't care. Get your ass off point."
Sam was grateful that Dean would at least listen to reason. "Don't worry, Dean. I'll protect you." He grinned like a smart ass when 494 and Dean reversed their positions. He had thought that shit that 494 had given him was just to keep him moving, but he was starting to feel God damned wired.
"Shut up, bitch." There it was. Sam felt like he had come home. Maybe he had. Dean had always been his only real constant.
"Jerk." The three of them slid out of the room that Sam was pretty sure was a ring of Hell. He knew Hell existed. He had sent things back to it.
494 led them down the hall, clearly ready to take on any danger that came for them. Sam wasn't sure that he trusted 494. After all, it was 494 who had kidnapped him and his brother. But Dean was trusting 494, and Sam trusted his brother with more than his life. He trusted his brother's instincts with every fiber of his being.
The danger, when it first showed, came from behind. A soldier of some sort called out in startlement as they met at a hallway intersection. Sam felt himself move before he thought much about it. Muscle memory and whatever 494 had fed into his bloodstream. He nailed the guy with a hard fist to the face, yanked him forward by the shoulder and jammed a knee into the guy's gut. The elbow to the back of the neck would ensure that the man stayed down. It only took a moment to divest him of his gun and less than a second for Sam to eject the clip, check it, slam it back into the gun, and chamber a round. "Don't stop on my account." He grinned at Dean and 494.
"That's my boy." Dean returned the grin. The day was looking up.
"What do you know, maybe we will make it out," was all 494 said as he started forward again.
"No room for doubters in this family, kid. Winchesters can do anything. You remember that." Sam vaguely wondered when Dean had adopted his own kidnapper.
"I'm not a Win - " 494 was rudely interrupted.
"Shut your mouth, kid. Your arguing privileges are totally revoked." Sam listened as the bantering continued down the hall. He didn't add much to the mix. He was up and thinking and could clearly handle his own body, but underneath the energy was what he assumed was going to be a crippling headache. He didn't feel much like talking. Dean was keeping a close and hypervigilant eye on him, but if he was going to be honest with himself, he found it pretty comforting. He missed having someone look out for him.
There was one other brief scuffle that ended with Dean and 494 being armed. Sam didn't intend to let them forget that it was the drugged up, fucked up one of their deranged little trio that had bagged a weapon first.
XXXXX
"So what we have here is a death trap," 494 said cheerfully as they all huddled in the corner. They could see open air beyond the door.
"Well, don't sound so cheerful about it," Dean grumbled as he peered past 494 out the doorway into the weird grey light of false dawn. Sam was a steady presence pressed back to back with him, covering the rear.
"See that building across from us?"
"Yeah."
"That's where the Impala is. Someone's coming, Sam."
"Can't shoot them until I see them. Can't see through walls, dude."
"Don't mind him, kid. He gets real snippy when his nap's been interrupted." Dean was more than happy to hear his baby brother's bitchiness. "Death trap?"
"Yeah. What we have is about one hundred yards of open space with no cover in sight. See those trees beyond?" 494 asked as he tried to find the threat he knew was there.
"Hard to miss, dude. It's a forest."
"Right. Patrolled by people that I promise can see you way before you can see them. They all have guns; some of them have sniper rifles. If we can get across, we'll have a minute at most before they circle the building and come in after us. It'll be fun."
"Oh, hell yeah. Just like going to the circus with Sammy." That was a mistake Dean only made once.
"Shut up," Sam snapped in a petulant tone. A second later, he pressed more heavily into Dean as he fired on the two guards coming around the corner. The report of the gun was uncomfortably loud in the small hallway. "You know what would be great? A friggin' suppressor. So maybe I wouldn't be announcing exactly where we are."
"Death trap, anyone?" Dean asked.
"Bring it," Sam said.
"You two first," 494 told them as he stepped out from in front of Dean. "And run.”
"But - " Sam was interrupted.
"Go," 494 outright ordered this time as he moved back behind him, just as more people came around the corner. "You guys don't actually want to do this do you?" 494 asked them, sounding doubtful, and then he yanked the first guy literally up off his feet. He swung him around and used him to absorb the impact from the taser electrodes that were shot at him. He dropped the man before the shock could hit.
Sam and Dean both took off like shots out the door, neither seeing 494 take a flying leap into the next man, hitting boot first and knocking several people into a tangled pile. 494 somehow kept his feet in amongst the failing limbs. It was instinct. An animal that lost its feet was one that never got up again. He punched the next guard square in the face, breaking her nose if not outright killing her. He didn't have time to care one way or the other. The mouth of the hallway was now filled with a litter of tangled bodies and limbs. Exactly what he wanted. The reinforcements would have to stumble and slow down to get past their comrades, or shoot from the far side of them. Their angle was terrible and most of them only carried tasers, which was one hell of a short range weapon. He spun and took off after the other two.
He put on a burst of speed when he hit open air, and blurred out of focus to Ordinary eyes. That apparently didn't stop one of the wire patrol from nailing him with a bullet to the shoulder. He stumbled for half a step and used that brief second of shocked numbness to recover his feet and make it to the car.
Damned good thing that all the vehicles were stored with their keys in them. Dean already had the doors opened by the time he skidded to a halt next to her rear bumper. All three of them dropped into the car and slammed the doors closed almost in unison. Dean turned the key and put her into reverse before their weight had even completely settled. 494 could have sworn she was purring.
There was a squeal of rubber on pavement as Dean whipped her out of the space, dropped her into third gear, and hit the gas. He would have been worried about someone blocking the road, except for the fact that one body wouldn't be enough to stop the car if Dean was willing to run them down. If Dean was willing to shoot them, he was sure as hell willing to hit them with a car.
"Turn right. Now!" 494 barked out. They would have been in a world of hurt if they had missed the only gate in or out.
"Shit, that's gonna fuck the paint job," Dean grumbled as the Impala's nose connected with the chain link fence, ripped it from its hinges, and then slipped under it out on the open road.
All three of them hunched down in the seats as shots were fired at them from behind. Alec swore as a bullet punched through the back windshield and then out the left back passenger window.
Dean was babbling a litany of "Please, baby, don't fail us now," over and over again as he pressed his foot down harder on the accelerator. Alec took the opportunity of the now empty back window, braced his good arm on the back of the seat, and took careful, if quick aim. His first shot missed anyway. The second hit. He shot out one of the front tires on the lead vehicle, causing it to spin and be broadsided by the next SUV, which had been crawling up the ass of the first. The third and fourth vehicles just swerved around them and kept coming.
"Hey, kid, hang on," was the only warning he got as Dean's foot came down hard on the brakes. He could hear the metal and inner workings of the car screaming in protest as she fish tailed so hard and fast that he was slammed into a door. He could have sworn she was going to swing a complete 360, but just as she was about two thirds of the way around, Dean slammed down on the gas and she shot forward. Wrong way down a one way road that Alec hadn't even noticed.
"This will never work," he said. There was no way that Manticore would miss where they turned. The road was damned near invisible, but the cloud of dust and burned rubber were pretty damned hard to miss. Manticore didn't employ idiots.
"It'll work," Sam stated with conviction. "She's never let us down before."
494 turned, watching anxiously for pursuit. He watched them bolt right past as if there was no sign that they had turned off the road. "What. The. Fuck."
"Told you she wouldn't let us down," Sam said with a grin.
494 slumped sideways and leaned against the right hand door, not wanting to put pressure on the gunshot wound. "She really hates me, doesn't she."
"She ain't just gonna take a liking to just anyone." Dean pulled into the breakdown lane, off the road as far as he could without putting the Impala in a ditch, and zipped along heading in the wrong direction until he found a turn off. "But she might come around."
Once they were no longer flagrantly breaking traffic laws and asking for a head on collision, 494 spoke. "Seriously, how did they miss us?"
"Magic," Sam replied from the front passenger seat. He was slumped sideways. "I feel like shit." It came out as a moan more than a statement.
"I'm not surprised." 494 said, and reached down into the footwell to grab the pack that Sam's chart was in. "They were feeding some nasty shit into your bloodstream." He could feel blood soaking hot through his T-shirt and figured he would have to do something about it soon. "And it's all designed to fuck with your head."
XXXXX
The reports were already coming in about X5-494's escape along with both Winchesters, the older of whom was utterly useless to Manticore. They didn't need any more X units based on his genetic code. That was one of the few things that Sandeman and the Committee agreed on. The Committee didn't want any more because X5-493 had been such a loss and 494 was nearly intractable. They felt that other X units like him spelled only disaster.
Sandeman had never felt the need to explain himself to Renfro. She had actually outright asked once. He had stated that 493 and 494 were special, and they would hardly remain that way if there was a horde of others like them. She had let it go after that. The man loved his secrets and he had plenty of them.
Renfro wasn't interested in how the three of them had made it out of the facility. 494 had been specifically trained to extricate himself from the most difficult of situations. That the two Winchesters had the same skill hardly surprised her. After all, they had already seen Dean work. There was no reason to believe that Samuel was any less capable. Of course, that hadn't stopped her from giving them a helping hand here and there as needed.
What did interest her was how they had disappeared. Literally.
XXXXX
Dean parked to the side of the office window, so that whoever was inside couldn't see the shot out windows. His baby had done good by them today. He needed to take her somewhere, maybe Bobby's, and clean her up. For now, he needed to clean his brother up some more. Al Pitrelli kindly paid for a five night stay and smiled pleasantly at the aging woman behind the counter. At least she hadn't used twelve pounds of make-up to hide the crow's feet she had earned over her lifetime.
He figured that they would only be staying until tomorrow, but if they left a few 'belongings' behind, it might throw the Nazi hit squad off the trail. He settled back into the car and pulled her around to the back. He and the kid both got out. Sam slumped limply in the seat. 494 held a hand out for the room key. "I'll get him inside while you get whatever you want from the trunk."
"Dude, he's a yeti."
"I can bench press a Buick."
"I'm gonna make you prove that someday, kid." But Dean tossed him the key, trusting him with Sam, because so far the kid had taken care of them. He circled to the back and popped the trunk. He had leaned in to pack their weapons, so he didn't see 494's blood soaked shoulder as he opened Sam's door and simply picked up the gangly teen with gritted teeth.
Dean hauled out the weapons bag as well as his and Sam's personal bags - he was glad to see that his kid brother hadn't forgotten how to pack - and a tarp. He closed the trunk and surveyed the damage quickly. Two blown windows and was that a bullet hole in her paneling? Jesus, he wanted to bang some heads together. "Sorry, baby. I'll take care of you soon." He then snapped the tarp out and used it to cover her and protect her interior from the elements, trusting her magic to protect her from thieves.
He slung the weapons bag over his shoulder, picked up their personal bags, and headed inside. He found Sam laying on the far bed in recovery position. 494 was sitting on the foot of the bed, reading through a sheaf of medical papers, held in his right hand, his left lay limply in his lap. "Hey." 494 looked up at him as he closed and locked the door. "Uh, hate to bother you, since I'm sure you'd rather take care of Sam, but - "
"Whatever, kid. Spit it out." All three bags went on the closer bed.
"Could you dig this bullet out of my shoulder? If I let it go until tomorrow it'll heal over, and I can't reach to do it myself."
Dean just blinked at him for a moment, wondering if he had heard right. The little shit had hauled Sam's bigfoot self in here with a bullet lodged in his shoulder. Dean hoped it was stuck in his shoulder and hadn't bounced around. "You're a little shit."
"What?"
"You heard me. When you get shot you're supposed to say something. Not carry storkish little brothers." He turned back to the door. "Let me get the kit." He went back out to the Impala and quickly got the first aid box out of the trunk. He wasn't sure what alarmed him more. The fact that the kid had gotten shot and had been dead silent about it, the fact that he had lugged Sam around anyway, or the fact that he had asked Dean, like Dean might actually deny him help.
He came back in, set the tool box down on the small round table in the corner, and started pulling out the things he would need. Suture kit, the small set of basic surgical tools, rubbing alcohol, the stained towels because removing bullets was always messy, the small but precious vial of anesthetic, a couple of syringes, and the jar of lidocaine. Honestly, if someone had told him that he would ever have to take a bullet out of someone he cared about without anything to deaden the pain for them, he would probably lose his cookies. Then do it anyway, if that were the only option.
This kind of shit was always a bad idea. Bullet wounds were dangerous, more than most people thought. Bullets tended to bounce around on an erratic path. It was hardly ever in one side and out the other like the TV shows made it seem. There was no such thing as a safe place to get shot. If you were lucky, all that happened was muscle damage and a broken or shattered bone.
He laid everything out on the nightstand along with a large package of gauze. Then he grabbed the ice bucket and went into the bathroom and filled it with water. Thank God the place was clean. More than worth the money paid for it. He came back out with the ice bucket and the bathroom trash can. He stopped cold as he got his first look at the kid's back and the sodden black-red mess coating the area under the left shoulder. "Jesus, kid." He jerked his head towards the unoccupied bed. "Lie down."
At least he didn't argue, just did as he was told. "You got this before we ever made it to the car, didn't you."
"Yeah. One of those punk little X7s caught me." Dean watched as the kid went a little limp and took that as a good sign, or at least a sign of trust.
"What the hell is an X7?" He pulled out the scissors and started to cut the sodden shirt off and out of his way. It wasn't good for anything besides a rag anyway. The kid could borrow a T-shirt.
"The kids in the woods." 494 held perfectly still as Dean packed a couple of small towels in around him. Bloodstains on bed spreads were such a pain in the ass. Dean used a washcloth and plain water to clean up the majority of the blood so he could see what he was actually dealing with.
"Nice tat, kid. That what you drew on me?" The tattooed barcode wasn't really anything he cared about at the moment; he just wanted to distract the kid as he applied the topical anesthetic and drew up a couple of syringes of the other.
"Who taught you how to do this?" Apparently 494 didn't feel like talking about the tattoo. His face pressed into the pillow as the wound continued to bleed. At least it wasn't with his pulse beat, which was pretty steady for someone with a bullet in their shoulder.
"An ER doc we helped out once. Unsurprisingly, the ER was being haunted. We came in and cleaned house. It was about three years ago. He offered to actually pay us, but Dad wheedled medical training out of him instead." Dean kept talking through the injections, then the hard pressure he applied to stop the bleeding. He didn't like the give he felt there. Broken bone. "Mostly niceties. Like medication and stuff. But that shit'll save a life. It sucks if someone goes into shock because patching them up hurts too damned bad."
Speaking of pain and shock, Dean didn't like the dead silent and limp way the kid was suffering through this. The novocaine might have been enough the take away the hurt around the wound itself, though Dean figured it only made it hurt less, and it wouldn't do jack shit to touch the deep burning, aching pain of a broken bone. Especially one that he was putting deliberate pressure on. He knew the kid was feeling it. There was a tic in the muscle just below his eye, one Dean knew he himself had when he was trying to not make noise while being patched up. The kid's other hand kept twitching like he wanted to white knuckle something. "Dad knew some already. He was in Vietnam. Doing God knows what, because he knows more than a normal Marine would. If there is such a thing. He doesn't talk about it. And we don't ask."
Dean was relieved to see that he had gotten the wound to stop bleeding for the most part. He paused while talking, in case the kid wanted to say anything, but he seemed to be putting his effort into not reacting. "Jesus." Dean wished he could just take the kid to a hospital. This was fucking cruel. He grabbed the alcohol. "He said that there were just never enough medics around and that the poor dudes had to sleep once in a while, so they all learned as they went. Dad taught us, because, well, hunting the midnight uglies isn't a job that comes with health insurance."
Now came the hard part. Dean traded the disinfectant for the medical tweezers. At least he could nearly see the bullet. It was wedged in the kid's collar bone. No bouncing around. Good. Damned good. "Sorry, kid. This is gonna hurt."
"Yeah." 494 swallowed hard. This was by far the least painful bullet extraction he had ever lived through. "Just do it."
"You got it." Dean tried to be gentle, but the fact of the matter was that he had to wiggle the tweezers around a little until he felt metal on metal. Still the kid made no noise. Even his dad would have let something slip by now. "Stuck in your bone kid, which must be made of friggin' titanium by the way. I'm gonna have to twist or yank." That got him a nod. "You're using up my entire year's supply of compassion here, kid. Anything after this - " He braced his other hand under the wound, got a grip on the bullet, and pulled back quick and hard. The kid finally made a noise as the bullet abruptly came free. " - you or Sammy get hurt and I'm just gonna give you a Band-Aid and tell you to suck it up." He dropped the tweezers and bullet on the nightstand with a small clatter and applied more pressure to get the wound to stop bleeding a second time.
"Better than I usually get." The kid's voice was tight and quiet, half-muffled by the pillow he was lying on.
"Yeah, I'm kinda gathering that. Which, I will have you know, makes them fucking bastards." He hadn't missed the way the kid had flinched right along with Sam when those medical type people had come into the room. He let up on the pressure and was pleased to find that it had stopped welling blood again. He wasn't sure how much the kid could afford to lose. "Not much I can do about the broken bone." It was as close to an apology as he was going to get. He started with the stitches. "You'll have to suck it up on that one." He prayed it would heal right.
"Not a problem. It'll heal fine. Two weeks and I won't even have a scar."
"Kid, I'm good but let's not push it." The stitches were quick. Those he had real practice at.
"Perk of being an X5. We're made to heal like that. Faster and better than an Ordinary. Just . . . I'm a little too good at it. If we had left the bullet in I would be in a world of hurt by tomorrow. Immune system would have nearly killed me because it can't kill a bullet like it could an infection. Been there, nearly done that. It sucked."
Dean tied off the last stitch and used the now pink water in the ice bucket to rinse the blood off his fingers. He watched as the kid got his good arm under him and pushed himself up. He wished the kid would just sleep. He'd earned it, but Dean let it go. Stubborn. Just like the rest of them. Just like a Winchester. Dean rested a hand over the barcode for a moment. Like he would do for Sam. "Almost done."
Dean dabbed anti-bacterial cream over the bullet hole he had just finished stitching up in 494's shoulder. Then he gently taped a heavy gauze pad over it and sat back in his chair. "That local still working?”
"Some. We metabolize things faster than Ordinaries.”
Dean nodded as he wiped his hands on one of the much abused towels, avoiding the areas that were soggy from blood and antiseptic. After a moment, he grabbed the kid's ruined shirt and, using it as a rag, dipped a clean part in the ice bucket and used it to clean the rest of the blood off 494's back. Afterwards, he tossed it into the trash can with the bloody gauze and alcohol wipes. "Ordinaries. Is that your word for the rest of us?”
"Yeah.”
"Good to know. You allergic to anything?”
"I don't need to take anything.”
"Yeah, sure.” Dean noticed he hadn't actually answered the question. He pulled a bottle out of his own zip lock, going on the theory that 494 was closer to him than to Sam, and put it in 494's hand. "Take one of those anyway. If you have a high medication tolerance, then those should help but not put you out.” If he was going to ignore Dean's question, he could figure out if it would kill him on his own.
494 watched as Dean got up and went over to the other bed, where Sam was lying curled up on his side, just the way he had been left. Dean sat on the edge of the bed and checked Sam's pulse and breathing, then laid the back of his hand against Sam's forehead, checking his temperature. He clearly didn't like it, because he yanked up the other half of the bedding and tucked it over Sam. 494 knew Sam must be pretty chilled. Psy-Ops was always freezing. The cold was part of how they slowed down their subject's metabolism to make them easier to manage. Since Dean seemed busy, 494 put the pills back into the portable ER, as he'd taken to calling it in his head.
"Don't suppose you know what they gave him, do you?” Dean asked him. "Or when the last time he would have eaten? He's freezing.”
"You don't get fed in Psy-Ops. And the medication-chemical list is in the packet. I don't recognize all of it.” He carefully tested his range of motion with his injured shoulder and tried not to wince. He and Dean both knew his collar bone was broken and his arm should be in a sling. Not even to mention the bruising, trauma, and muscle damage. 494 was silently grateful that Dean had shot his shoulder full of anesthetic before he had even known what was happening. He could and had sat silently while bullets or shrapnel had been dug out of his hide with nothing to deaden the pain, but it was something he liked to avoid. In his opinion, bullets hurt worse coming out than going in, and wounds like that had to be stitched from the inside out. "They don't want you horking and choking to death while they aren't looking. You get a nutrient-glucose IV drip. At least for the first couple of weeks. Then they, um, make other arrangements.”
"I swear sometimes, humans are the worst evil there is. And you take that bottle back out of the kit where you think I didn't see you put it and take one of those pills.”
494 stopped moving and his eyes narrowed at Dean. "I don't take orders from you. You're not my CO.” He was annoyed to notice that Dean wasn't even watching anymore; his attention was back on his brother.
"You don't have a CO at all anymore, in case you missed that. I sort of figured that you might have picked up on it when they shot you with live ammo when we both know that they have tranquilizers.” He shot 494 a dirty look. "That was a dirty trick to pull, you know, when you kidnapped me. Anyway, since you don't have a CO, I figure that we go by seniority here. How old are you?” He was examining Sam more closely now that 494 wasn't in danger of bleeding to death. His jaw tightened as he ghosted his hands over his little brother's arms, which he had pulls back the blankets to examine, noticing the numerous small puncture wounds, the bruising on one hand from previous IVs, not to mention the one that they had left in deliberately. There was bruising on his wrists, and when he checked, on his ankles and chest from restraints. Dean looked up as 494 finally replied.
"Twenty-one.” 494 grinned. "Old enough to do all the fun stuff. And to not need to be taken care of.”
"You just keep dreaming that dream, Little Toaster. And when you haven't just been shot, you can do all that fun stuff. Until then, I'm pulling age rank. Take that damned pill. There's no reason for you to sit there in pain.”
"I don't want to be taken off guard. They'll come after us. And what the hell are you talking about, Little Toaster?”
"I told you that they won't put you out. Just take the edge off.” He pointedly ignored the question about the toaster.
"I won't be defenseless.” It was nearly a snarl.
Dean watched him for a long moment then stood and crossed over to the Overnight Bag. 494 tensed. Tonight he had learned what the ‘Extremely Paranoid' version of ‘The Usual' was. Dean pulled out one of the Glocks, its clip loaded and tied to the grip with a rubber band. Dean efficiently freed it, loaded it and chambered a bullet, then marched over and put it into 494's uninjured hand. "Now you're not defenseless. Would you please take the damned medication?”
"You're insane. I could shoot you.”
"Yeah, but why the hell would you?”
494 took the bottle back out, checked the name to make sure he really wasn't allergic to it and dry swallowed one of the pills.
"So besides the fact that he hasn't eaten a damned thing in a week, any other ideas about what might be wrong with my brother?
"I can make a few guesses. Based on the file.”
"Then could you get on with it?” Dean flipped through the papers blindly. Besides the bruising, which was pretty bad, Sam was sickly pale, and looked like he hadn't slept the entire time those bastards had had him. He also looked like he was in pain, but Dean didn't know how to fix it until Sam could tell him what the problem was. He didn't want to give him another medication on top of whatever else he had in his system. Sam had clearly used up any energy he had left during their escape. Even so, most of that energy had been whatever 494 had given him.
"I know they gave him stuff to force his psychic gift.”
"Wait.” Dean blinked. "To what?"
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