Fic: Capture the Flag 9/?
Title: Capture the Flag
Author: triquetralmoon
Rating: R
Genre: H/C (respiratory illness, PTSD)
Warnings: Swearing, violence, eventual flashbacks of graphic torture
Spoilers: Season 4, this is set in between Criss Angel Is a Douchebag and Sex and Violence.
Summary: A soldier in the war to stop the apocalypse, Dean is running himself into the ground as he runs away from his time in Hell. What he pegs as a simple sickness soon becomes something much more deadly. The Winchesters can never catch a break. For some soldiers, the war is never over.
Author's Note:: Posting another two at once. Really glad I haven't posted this to any communities yet. I'd be banned for spam!
Chapter 1 / Chapter 2 / Chapter 3 / Chapter 4 / Chapter 5 / Chapter 6 / Chapter 7 / Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Neil Patrick Harris
Dean closed his eyes and time sped forward. He could swear he had just shut them when he found himself being prodded awake by Sam.
"Hey, we're here."
Dean blinked several times, still feeling a bit pleasantly drugged. That didn't stop him from scowling when the paramedics lifted him out on the stretcher. It was tantamount to being carried like a baby. He was a Winchester! He had faced things these guys would need an extra pair of underwear to face. And here he was, being carted around like a toddler in a stroller at the mall.
Sam couldn't help but chuckle at his brother's expression, which was coming through loud and clear even though it was half covered by the oxygen mask.
The younger Winchester strolled along next to the stretcher as Rick and Chuck rolled it through the entrance of the ER. "They'll get you into a room and maybe we can find a good looking nurse that'll let you walk around in the hallway."
Dean gave the two EMTs one final glare as they transferred him over to a hospital bed. "You...better."
Sam lips grinned for a moment, but the smile didn't reach his eyes. His brother couldn't say more than a few words without needing to stop for a breath. Dean had gotten worse just since this morning, hell - just since they left the doctor's office. The words Dr. Finnegan had said were echoing in his head - that if Dean hadn't come in for treatment today... What if they were too late now? Sam shook his head to clear it of the overdramatic thoughts careening around his brain. He focused his attention on the nurses who were triaging Dean.
"These are his x-rays." Sam said, holding up the brown envelope.
"Hold onto those for now, hon. The doctor will be in to see you guys soon. You're a direct admit, so we'll just have someone check you over and then get you settled in a room upstairs."
To the delight of one nurse and the consternation of another, Sam stuck his nose in everything they were doing.
"What's his temp?" Sam angled his head to see the digital reading on the small vitals cart.
"Are you family?"
"Yes, I'm his brother."
"103.1. Do you know what his temp was before?"
"102.2, yesterday - I don't know what it was at the doctor's office today." Sam silently cursed himself for not familiarizing himself with Dean's medical records before they left.
Dean grunted. They were poking and prodding and treating him like he wasn't even there.
The more severe of the two nurses looked up, as if surprised to see him there.
"Hi . . . I'm the patient." Dean tossed a tight smile at her. The last dose of pain meds had been more than twenty minutes before, the peak of it wearing off - the burning twist in the left side of his chest returning slowly. He imagined it as a long fuse on a stick of dynamite - sooner or later the charge was going to blow.
The sweeter of the two, a young strawberry blonde who must have just graduated nursing school, came over to Dean and gave his elbow a gentle squeeze. "We'll get you feeling better, Mr. Morris. Just try and breathe nice and slow."
"Sam?"
"Yeah, man."
"If they want. . . to stick. . . tube," Dean motioned toward his throat, "No."
"What do you mean, no?" Sam startled.
"Always do. . . hate it."
"I know, man, but it is a life-saving measure. They don't exactly do it for kicks." Sam stared at Dean.
Dean did hate it. Sure, he was always completely out when they put the tubes in, but he woke up with this thing in his mouth, down his throat, and he could feel it heavy in his chest. Waking up with that kind of surprise was sort of like being strangled in reverse. There was more to it, though. Just the idea of it, being strapped down while people shoved things inside you, choking you, strangling you - he'd had that done to him. Hell, he'd done it to others. No nice sanitary sterile tubing, though. Rusty pipes, disgusting PVC that probably was chopped out of a sewage system somewhere. The minions of hell used anything that would cause pain, but still allow the person to live through it for awhile. Well, not live…but for their "bodies" to hold up. Dean felt his breath come quicker just thinking about it, imagining Alastair in a white coat while black-eyed nurses held him down.
"Heart rate is increasing. Pulse ox is dropping." One of the nurses turned and left, presumably to get the doctor. The other one, the young one, gazed at Sam. "Talk to him, try to calm him down."
"Dean, Dean! Listen to me, open your eyes, look at me!" Sam lowered the railing on the gurney and placed his hand on his brother's chest. "I'm right here. Concentrate on pushing my hand away, nice and slow."
Dean opened his eyes. He was here - here in this shitty hospital with his shitty sick body and his awesome baby brother.
"That's it." Sam said, keeping an eye on the monitor as Dean's heart rate decreased. "Good job, man."
"Not four." Dean wheezed.
The doctor came in, an incredibly young looking doctor. The theme from Doogie Howser began playing through Dean's head and a large grin began to play across his wan features. Sam knew immediately what Dean was thinking and pretended to cough in his hand, trying to remain serious.
"I heard you guys have x-rays to show?" the doctor said, a good-natured smile on his face. From his voice, they could tell that he wasn't as young as their initial assessment, but still definitely looked like he should be starting pre-med, not working in a hospital.
"Yes, sir." Sam's mouth quirked as he held up the large envelope. "Have 'em here." He didn't even think the guy would be able to reach the light-up board used to view radiology films. Trying to do the kid a favor, he took out the x-rays himself and attached them to the board. Sam had the decency to feel somewhat chastised when the kid grinned at him and flipped the x-ray around so it would be the right way.
The young doctor looked thoughtful for a moment while he gazed at the image of Dean's lungs. "Ew."
Both Dean and Sam gave him an incredulous look. "Did you just saw 'ew' about his insides?" Sam asked in disbelief.
The kid blushed, apologizing to Dean. "Yeah, sorry, just - your lungs hate you, man."
"That's the second time today we've heard that." Sam sighed.
"Well, we'll have a radiologist read your films to be sure, but it looks like you've got a lot of infection going on. Along with fluid over here, what looks like pleurisy over here. Are you feeling a lot of pain on your left side?"
Dean glanced at Sam and nodded his head.
"How long has that been going on?" Dr. Tyke M.D. leaned casually against Dean's bedside.
Once again, Dean glanced at Sam. It could have been the flush coloring his cheeks, but Sam could swear that his older brother was blushing. "'Bout two or three . . . weeks."
"What the hell, man?!" Sam couldn't help shouting out.
"Wasn't that bad."
Sam was practically burning holes into Dean with his eyes, a gaze intense enough to fry his brain even if he didn't have the fever. And Dean knew well enough what Sam wanted to say. Wasn't that bad, but was bad enough that you were sneaking the gunshot pain meds.
"Do you work in the mines?" the child-doctor asked.
Both brothers looked up, startled from being in the midst of their silent argument.
"No." Dean rasped.
"Anything like that - chemical processing? Something like that?"
Dean shook his head, another coughing fit starting that made him feel as if his lungs were paper and someone was holding them out to a flame - the burn singeing the edges, even as he felt the nauseating rumble of whatever was rolling around within them.
"The only possibility we could come up with were fires in a crematorium he did some work in," Sam answered for his brother, following his cover-up story from before. They couldn't exactly tell the doctors that they spent a good deal of their time burning bodies or fiddling around with the cremated remains of ghosts.
Dean blinked, the doctor was apparently a ninja - had managed to pull him up into a sitting position and started listening to his chest. "Breathe in?"
"You used proper precautions, correct? Funeral homes have to be up to code nowadays, masks and everything."
"Er," Dean wheezed, getting his breath back. "Problem if I didn't?" Of all the precautions their dad had taught the Winchester brothers, hazmat safety for burning bodies was never one of them.
"No masks?" the kid asked, moving the stethoscope and prompting another breath in.
Dean shook his head.
"Well, that might explain why you're so sick. Inhalation of bone dust is not exactly healthy." The kid put his hands in the pockets of his too-large white coat to stop himself from swinging his arms. It wasn't hard for Dean to picture the doc as a first grader; Sam used to fidget like that too - especially on the first day at a new school.
"What does that mean if that's the cause?" Sam asked worriedly.
"It doesn't change treatment much, excepting it might be a bit harder to fight off with normal antibiotics, and there may be an underlying inflammatory reaction that we'd have to treat. Let's not get ahead of ourselves. We need to get a biopsy, drain the effusion. Lots to do."
"Biopsy?" Sam nearly spat out. He didn't mean to sound so rude, but he felt like he was having stuff heaped on him. And biopsies are usually for...no, no, no, can't go there.
"I'm saying we need to test to find out what kind of bacteria and how best to treat it," the young doctor stated calmly. "The x-ray and lung sounds point toward pneumonia, we need to find out what kind."
"Oh. Okay. Sorry." Sam took a step back, realizing he was towering over the little squirt, who - to his credit - hadn't backed up at all.
"No problem, man. I get it. I'm a little brother too." Doogie scratched at his head and offered Sam and Dean a smile.
Both brothers smiled in return. The feel good moment was disrupted when an orderly and a nurse came in. "Dean Morris?"
Sam nodded.
"We're ready to transfer you upstairs."
"Sam, go get . . . coffee . . . some dinner." Dean uttered throatily, trying to stifle another round of violent coughing.
"Dean, I'm hanging around. Deal with it." Sam said firmly.
"I'm older. I tell you. . .what to do."
"Look, we'll go up to your room so I know where it is, then I'll go find Bobby once you're settled, okay?"
"Sam. . . the car."
Sam chuckled at the look of intense worry that crossed Dean's face, but it gave a sense of normalcy to this whole screwy situation. "Bobby knows better than to mess with her."
Part 10
Author: triquetralmoon
Rating: R
Genre: H/C (respiratory illness, PTSD)
Warnings: Swearing, violence, eventual flashbacks of graphic torture
Spoilers: Season 4, this is set in between Criss Angel Is a Douchebag and Sex and Violence.
Summary: A soldier in the war to stop the apocalypse, Dean is running himself into the ground as he runs away from his time in Hell. What he pegs as a simple sickness soon becomes something much more deadly. The Winchesters can never catch a break. For some soldiers, the war is never over.
Author's Note:: Posting another two at once. Really glad I haven't posted this to any communities yet. I'd be banned for spam!
Chapter 1 / Chapter 2 / Chapter 3 / Chapter 4 / Chapter 5 / Chapter 6 / Chapter 7 / Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Neil Patrick Harris
Dean closed his eyes and time sped forward. He could swear he had just shut them when he found himself being prodded awake by Sam.
"Hey, we're here."
Dean blinked several times, still feeling a bit pleasantly drugged. That didn't stop him from scowling when the paramedics lifted him out on the stretcher. It was tantamount to being carried like a baby. He was a Winchester! He had faced things these guys would need an extra pair of underwear to face. And here he was, being carted around like a toddler in a stroller at the mall.
Sam couldn't help but chuckle at his brother's expression, which was coming through loud and clear even though it was half covered by the oxygen mask.
The younger Winchester strolled along next to the stretcher as Rick and Chuck rolled it through the entrance of the ER. "They'll get you into a room and maybe we can find a good looking nurse that'll let you walk around in the hallway."
Dean gave the two EMTs one final glare as they transferred him over to a hospital bed. "You...better."
Sam lips grinned for a moment, but the smile didn't reach his eyes. His brother couldn't say more than a few words without needing to stop for a breath. Dean had gotten worse just since this morning, hell - just since they left the doctor's office. The words Dr. Finnegan had said were echoing in his head - that if Dean hadn't come in for treatment today... What if they were too late now? Sam shook his head to clear it of the overdramatic thoughts careening around his brain. He focused his attention on the nurses who were triaging Dean.
"These are his x-rays." Sam said, holding up the brown envelope.
"Hold onto those for now, hon. The doctor will be in to see you guys soon. You're a direct admit, so we'll just have someone check you over and then get you settled in a room upstairs."
To the delight of one nurse and the consternation of another, Sam stuck his nose in everything they were doing.
"What's his temp?" Sam angled his head to see the digital reading on the small vitals cart.
"Are you family?"
"Yes, I'm his brother."
"103.1. Do you know what his temp was before?"
"102.2, yesterday - I don't know what it was at the doctor's office today." Sam silently cursed himself for not familiarizing himself with Dean's medical records before they left.
Dean grunted. They were poking and prodding and treating him like he wasn't even there.
The more severe of the two nurses looked up, as if surprised to see him there.
"Hi . . . I'm the patient." Dean tossed a tight smile at her. The last dose of pain meds had been more than twenty minutes before, the peak of it wearing off - the burning twist in the left side of his chest returning slowly. He imagined it as a long fuse on a stick of dynamite - sooner or later the charge was going to blow.
The sweeter of the two, a young strawberry blonde who must have just graduated nursing school, came over to Dean and gave his elbow a gentle squeeze. "We'll get you feeling better, Mr. Morris. Just try and breathe nice and slow."
"Sam?"
"Yeah, man."
"If they want. . . to stick. . . tube," Dean motioned toward his throat, "No."
"What do you mean, no?" Sam startled.
"Always do. . . hate it."
"I know, man, but it is a life-saving measure. They don't exactly do it for kicks." Sam stared at Dean.
Dean did hate it. Sure, he was always completely out when they put the tubes in, but he woke up with this thing in his mouth, down his throat, and he could feel it heavy in his chest. Waking up with that kind of surprise was sort of like being strangled in reverse. There was more to it, though. Just the idea of it, being strapped down while people shoved things inside you, choking you, strangling you - he'd had that done to him. Hell, he'd done it to others. No nice sanitary sterile tubing, though. Rusty pipes, disgusting PVC that probably was chopped out of a sewage system somewhere. The minions of hell used anything that would cause pain, but still allow the person to live through it for awhile. Well, not live…but for their "bodies" to hold up. Dean felt his breath come quicker just thinking about it, imagining Alastair in a white coat while black-eyed nurses held him down.
"Heart rate is increasing. Pulse ox is dropping." One of the nurses turned and left, presumably to get the doctor. The other one, the young one, gazed at Sam. "Talk to him, try to calm him down."
"Dean, Dean! Listen to me, open your eyes, look at me!" Sam lowered the railing on the gurney and placed his hand on his brother's chest. "I'm right here. Concentrate on pushing my hand away, nice and slow."
Dean opened his eyes. He was here - here in this shitty hospital with his shitty sick body and his awesome baby brother.
"That's it." Sam said, keeping an eye on the monitor as Dean's heart rate decreased. "Good job, man."
"Not four." Dean wheezed.
The doctor came in, an incredibly young looking doctor. The theme from Doogie Howser began playing through Dean's head and a large grin began to play across his wan features. Sam knew immediately what Dean was thinking and pretended to cough in his hand, trying to remain serious.
"I heard you guys have x-rays to show?" the doctor said, a good-natured smile on his face. From his voice, they could tell that he wasn't as young as their initial assessment, but still definitely looked like he should be starting pre-med, not working in a hospital.
"Yes, sir." Sam's mouth quirked as he held up the large envelope. "Have 'em here." He didn't even think the guy would be able to reach the light-up board used to view radiology films. Trying to do the kid a favor, he took out the x-rays himself and attached them to the board. Sam had the decency to feel somewhat chastised when the kid grinned at him and flipped the x-ray around so it would be the right way.
The young doctor looked thoughtful for a moment while he gazed at the image of Dean's lungs. "Ew."
Both Dean and Sam gave him an incredulous look. "Did you just saw 'ew' about his insides?" Sam asked in disbelief.
The kid blushed, apologizing to Dean. "Yeah, sorry, just - your lungs hate you, man."
"That's the second time today we've heard that." Sam sighed.
"Well, we'll have a radiologist read your films to be sure, but it looks like you've got a lot of infection going on. Along with fluid over here, what looks like pleurisy over here. Are you feeling a lot of pain on your left side?"
Dean glanced at Sam and nodded his head.
"How long has that been going on?" Dr. Tyke M.D. leaned casually against Dean's bedside.
Once again, Dean glanced at Sam. It could have been the flush coloring his cheeks, but Sam could swear that his older brother was blushing. "'Bout two or three . . . weeks."
"What the hell, man?!" Sam couldn't help shouting out.
"Wasn't that bad."
Sam was practically burning holes into Dean with his eyes, a gaze intense enough to fry his brain even if he didn't have the fever. And Dean knew well enough what Sam wanted to say. Wasn't that bad, but was bad enough that you were sneaking the gunshot pain meds.
"Do you work in the mines?" the child-doctor asked.
Both brothers looked up, startled from being in the midst of their silent argument.
"No." Dean rasped.
"Anything like that - chemical processing? Something like that?"
Dean shook his head, another coughing fit starting that made him feel as if his lungs were paper and someone was holding them out to a flame - the burn singeing the edges, even as he felt the nauseating rumble of whatever was rolling around within them.
"The only possibility we could come up with were fires in a crematorium he did some work in," Sam answered for his brother, following his cover-up story from before. They couldn't exactly tell the doctors that they spent a good deal of their time burning bodies or fiddling around with the cremated remains of ghosts.
Dean blinked, the doctor was apparently a ninja - had managed to pull him up into a sitting position and started listening to his chest. "Breathe in?"
"You used proper precautions, correct? Funeral homes have to be up to code nowadays, masks and everything."
"Er," Dean wheezed, getting his breath back. "Problem if I didn't?" Of all the precautions their dad had taught the Winchester brothers, hazmat safety for burning bodies was never one of them.
"No masks?" the kid asked, moving the stethoscope and prompting another breath in.
Dean shook his head.
"Well, that might explain why you're so sick. Inhalation of bone dust is not exactly healthy." The kid put his hands in the pockets of his too-large white coat to stop himself from swinging his arms. It wasn't hard for Dean to picture the doc as a first grader; Sam used to fidget like that too - especially on the first day at a new school.
"What does that mean if that's the cause?" Sam asked worriedly.
"It doesn't change treatment much, excepting it might be a bit harder to fight off with normal antibiotics, and there may be an underlying inflammatory reaction that we'd have to treat. Let's not get ahead of ourselves. We need to get a biopsy, drain the effusion. Lots to do."
"Biopsy?" Sam nearly spat out. He didn't mean to sound so rude, but he felt like he was having stuff heaped on him. And biopsies are usually for...no, no, no, can't go there.
"I'm saying we need to test to find out what kind of bacteria and how best to treat it," the young doctor stated calmly. "The x-ray and lung sounds point toward pneumonia, we need to find out what kind."
"Oh. Okay. Sorry." Sam took a step back, realizing he was towering over the little squirt, who - to his credit - hadn't backed up at all.
"No problem, man. I get it. I'm a little brother too." Doogie scratched at his head and offered Sam and Dean a smile.
Both brothers smiled in return. The feel good moment was disrupted when an orderly and a nurse came in. "Dean Morris?"
Sam nodded.
"We're ready to transfer you upstairs."
"Sam, go get . . . coffee . . . some dinner." Dean uttered throatily, trying to stifle another round of violent coughing.
"Dean, I'm hanging around. Deal with it." Sam said firmly.
"I'm older. I tell you. . .what to do."
"Look, we'll go up to your room so I know where it is, then I'll go find Bobby once you're settled, okay?"
"Sam. . . the car."
Sam chuckled at the look of intense worry that crossed Dean's face, but it gave a sense of normalcy to this whole screwy situation. "Bobby knows better than to mess with her."
Part 10