Fic: First Star I See Tonight (Supernatural) 3/4
This is part III. Part I can be found here.
Title: First Star I See Tonight 3/4
Written for: sinfulslasher
Characters: Dean, Sam
Word Count: 14,667
Rating: PG-13 for language.
Disclaimer:I do not, nor have I ever owned any part of Supernatural. The characters were just so pretty-shiny, I had to borrow them.
Summary: Because Winchester luck dictates that Dean’s genie in a bottle could be neither Barbara Eden nor Christina Aguilera. Instead, he gets a fat guy with some serious hygiene issues and a mean streak a mile wide.
He didn’t like talking when he couldn’t hear. He was nine types of sure he sounded funny and it was hard to know if he was modulating his voice right. Sometimes he felt like he was screaming but Sam said he was barely loud enough to be heard. Other times, he ended up getting louder and louder, still expecting to hear himself over the ringing silence in his ears.
He would have given up talking completely if it hadn’t been a necessity. There was just too much going on, between research and Sam’s emo crap and even just normal stuff to constantly be passing notes back and forth. He could read lips thanks to the John Winchester school of survival and other random things. So he kept talking and wondered if it would ever not be weird to not hear himself.
On the second day, as he stared morosely at the laptop he’d been using to research genies, he glanced up at Sam and said, “Maybe I should just wish for my hearing back. That would count and he’d have to do it, right?” He’d said it offhandedly, but was desperate to try something.
Sam shook his head. “We don’t know how that works. Do you really want to try it without knowing how he operates? What if he screws something up even worse?”
And that was a fair point. Dean kind of hated him for it.
Weird as it was, they settled into a routine. Dean kept forgetting that he couldn’t hear. Not that he could ever stop being amazed that he was wrapped in silence. It was in his daily routines and habits. He had picked up the phone to call for carryout. He held the phone up to his ear before he realized what he’d done. He’d flipped the radio on in his bedroom and immediately flipped it off again. There were a hundred little things he had to find work arounds for, especially solutions that didn’t involve going to Sam every five minutes.
Sam didn’t seem to care. He just took everything and rolled with it. He didn’t let Dean sink into self-pity either. Any time it looked like he might be spinning his wheels, Sam would be there with a question, or a problem, or another book to look through. By the time Sam broached the topic of the case they were supposed to be doing, Dean was ready to murder his eternally perky brother. If he couldn’t brood or get roaring drunk, he needed to be out doing something.
Sam slid a note across the table one morning as he settled across from Dean with his breakfast.
I’m going to call Mark and hand off the Haxtun case. Last I heard, he and his cronies were in Idaho. Should be able to pick it up and take it off our plate while we work on this.
Dean scanned it and scowled. Their research wasn’t going anywhere. He was just as stone deaf today as he’d been the last three days. He was irritated and bored and more than a little ready to punch something.
He glanced up at Sam who was shoveling what looked to be the blackened remains of scrambled eggs into his face. Well, that explained why it smelled like something was burning. Instead of arguing about the case, he found himself asking, “Dude, what are you eating?”
Sam shrugged, avoiding eye contact.
“From now on, stick with sandwiches. Geeze. It’s not that hard, man. You’d think you threw all your food into and incinerator.”
Sam stuck his tongue out at him, but continued to eat his charred meal. There was a reason Sam still ate cereal for breakfast.
Before Sam could say anything else, Dean said, “Let’s take the Haxtun case.”
Sam paused, fork halfway to his mouth and frowned. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
“It’s an awesome idea.”
“But what about…”
“I need a break. Now. Let’s go.”
“But -”
Dean rose and closed the book he’d been reading. “I’m doing this. End of discussion. Are you coming or what?” Without waiting for Sam to answer, he turned and went to go pack a bag. Ten minutes later, Sam was waiting for him, leaning against his car. As Dean threw his bag in the trunk and moved to climb into the driver’s seat, he caught Sam talking to him out of the corner of his eye. He didn’t know what he’d actually said, but he could make a fair guess.
“I’m driving. If you don’t like it, then you can walk. I’m deaf, not blind.”
Sam settled into the passenger side of the car, frown entrenched on his face. To his credit, he didn’t try to dissuade Dean anymore. Dean felt his heart drop as the Impala shivered to life under him without her distinctive growl. Sam grimaced and flick the volume of the music down. Dean couldn’t for the life of him remember what was in the player, but he cranked it, mildly surprised when the thumping base line rumbling under his feet and he could feel his jeans vibrating against his leg. Sam’s pained bitch face was worth the second swooping in his stomach when he realized he could turned the volume up as loud as it would go and he still would not know which tape was playing.
He grinned at Sam instead, thumping his head to the beat and ignoring Sam’s pleas. He cranked it another notch and Sam’s hands went to his ears. He glared at Dean. Dean relented.
“Keep your hair on Samantha. It’s just a little music,” but he did let the volume drop to a more normal level, missing the thumping nearly as soon as it was gone. This was going to be a long drive.
A half hour later Dean wished he’d let Sam win the driving argument. His hands were starting to ache from the tight grip on the wheel and his neck was stiff from the tension sitting right between his shoulders. He’d hoped he would relax when he got pavement flying under him, but there was a lot of traffic and every time he passed a car or changed lanes he felt a little tenser. There were other cars everywhere and he kept seeing the motion from the corner of his eye. It felt like he was trying to look in several directions at once. And he couldn’t talk to Sam or rock out. He was in his own personal bubble and it was suffocating.
Finally, he’d had enough. He needed coffee. He pulled off maybe an hour into their drive at a little café aptly named Caffeine. He waited long enough for Sam to climb out of the car before making his way across the street to the little, green trimmed building.
When he walked in, the first thing he noticed was that there was motion everywhere. People talking and shifting in their seats. Staff wiping tables down. A couple dancing in the corner. It was nearly overwhelming. Dean felt distracted and small, like the walls were closing in, but he tried to power through the feeling. Everything was going to be fine. At the same time, he felt totally and absolutely alone. There were probably twenty people all crammed into the small space, and it was like he was on the other side of a glass barrier. He could look at them but they were separate.
Sam made his way up to the counter. Dean followed, less sure of himself in the organized chaos of the little coffee shop. The girl behind the counter was young, maybe twenty and blond. She was smacking gum in a way that Dean thought would have been annoying even if he hadn’t been trying to read her lips. He found that here, in a public place where the person he was reading wasn’t Sam, it was a lot harder than it had been in the bunker where it was quiet and still and Dean could concentrate.
The girl said something and Sam nudged him so Dean assumed he’d been asked what he wanted. “Just a coffee, strongest thing you’ve got.”
She gave him an odd look and Sam said something else. She smiled sadly at him but nodded. Sam paid and they made their way towards an empty table in the back.
Before they could reach their destination, Sam yanked him sideways just as his left arm was doused in hot liquid. He cussed and jumped away, yanking his over shirt off and taking stock of the damage to his pants. He’d just determined he’d need to run out to the car and grab a change of jeans when he found himself nose to nose with another man.
The man had leaned in, making up for their difference in heights by letting his bulk occupy Dean’s personal space. He was yelling, starting to go red in the face. Dean jerked back a step.
“What the fuck, man?”
The man turned absolutely livid and started waving his arms, gesturing to his coffee and his drenched button down shirt. He made a jabbing motion towards Dean, who slapped his hand away and tried to shove him back to get a little space between them.
The crowd in the café by that point had all turned to stare at Dean. He could feel their eyes on him. The man was yelling and back in his space. There wasn’t enough air in here. The man leaned in and Dean punched him. He ran for the door. If he didn’t get out soon he was going to run out of oxygen. The room felt too small, too tight. He needed out, right then.
He made it out the front door and around to the side of the building where he collapsed against the bricks, entirely sure that he wouldn’t be able to stand on his own. He let his head fall back, eyes closed, as he drug air into his lungs and tried to get the world to stop tunneling.
A few minutes later, a shadow fell across him and he peaked to find Sam standing a few feet away, coffee in hand. He held out a cup and Dean took it. He gulped down the coffee, barely registering the burning liquid.
Finally, when he felt he could talk without his voice cracking, Dean asked, “Did the guy call the cops?”
He turned to face Sam so he’d be easier to read. Sam shook his head but didn’t elaborate. “Why not?”
Sam shifted his weight and looked out into the parking lot beside them. “Sam?”
“I might have scared him a bit.”
“What did you do?”
Sam grinned up at him, sheepishly. “I kind of lost my temper.”
“You didn’t beat the guy up, did you?”
“Nah, just yelled a bit. I think I just surprised him when I got in his face. Sometimes I forget how tall I am.”
Dean snorted. Sam, all six-foot four of him, could cut quite the imposing figure when he wanted to. It had saved them from a couple of bar fights before.
“You all right?”
Dean grimaced. “Course I am. Just peachy.”
Sam took another sip of his coffee, but didn’t respond. They stood for another moment lost in their thoughts before Dean pushed off from the wall. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s blow this town.” He made his way to the car, fishing his keys out of his pocket. As they reached the Impala, he tossed the keys to Sam. “Your turn. I’m catching some shut eye before we get there.”
Sam opened his mouth to say something - to bitch in all likelihood, but Dean settled into the seat and closed his eyes, resolutely blocking out anything he might have said. He felt the car start and then it lurched forward as Sam pulled into traffic.
He ought to feel more disconcerted by the feeling of the car moving without being able to hear the whooshing of other cars or see where they were going, but he found it oddly relaxing. Without the distraction of Sam’s off-key humming or other cars, he felt himself relax back into the seat, some of the tension easing out of his shoulders. He was dozing in under ten minutes.
They arrived in Haxtun just over four hours later. Between the traffic and the construction, they’d had to do the same speed as everyone else. Even Sam was looking harried as they climbed out of the car in front of the local hotel.
The front desk was manned by a little woman wrapped up in a shawl who smiled all warm cookies and doting at Sam. Dean watched from the car as Sam turned into a little boy, dimples and everything, for the woman. Sam jerked his head in Dean’s direction and the woman looked over at him. She had to have been at least sixty. She smiled that same warm smile at him and Dean couldn’t help himself, he smiled back. He gave a little wave and saw her laugh, turning back to Sam.
Dean finished pulling their bags from the car and met Sam on the sidewalk, tossing him his duffel. “Got us a room upstairs. Place is pretty empty right now.”
Dean nodded and followed Sam back in and up an old staircase to the very end of the hall. The room had a window looking out over a stream and frilly white curtains. They dumped their bags on the beds and Dean sank down to sit on his.
“So, how do you want to do this?” Dean asked. Sam had done all the research. He didn’t know much about the case beyond the fact that they had one pissed off spirit.
“Figured we could go check it out and ask around this afternoon. Obit I found mentioned a burial, so it’s probably just a salt and burn.”
“Know where this guy’s buried?”
“Only one cemetery in town.” Sam shrugged. “Can’t be that hard to find. I’ll pull their records tonight.”
He pulled his laptop out of his bag and set it on the table in the corner of the room, taking a moment to plug it into the wall to charge. “Let’s go find something to eat. I’m starving.”
Dean hesitated. The last thing he wanted was a repeat of earlier at the café. “Go on ahead. I’m good. Just going to grab a shower.”
Sam crossed his arms. “Dean, you barely ate breakfast and we didn’t stop for lunch. I can hear your stomach from here. There was a diner down the road. We can get it to go if you want and go scope out the building.”
And dammit, Dean could feel his stomach chewing on itself, partly because he was hungry and partly because this whole affair was hard. He’d never anticipated how difficult it would be to navigate even the little things when he couldn’t hear. He was beginning to think he’d have been better off sticking to the bunker till they fixed this.
“It’ll be fine. What are you afraid of?”
Dean scowled. “Being seen in public with you.” He scooped up his jacket from where he’d tossed it over a chair. “Fine, let’s go. Don’t want you fainting on me.”
Dean knew Sam was pushing his buttons because he wanted Dean to keep going. Sam was nothing if not persistent. He was surprised that his brother hadn’t tried to tip-toe around the issue. That was something of a coping mechanism for him, tread softly until he’d figured out exactly what would set Dean off, then act accordingly. Perhaps it was the fact that Sam had every confidence that they would figure out how to make the genie reverse the wish or maybe he was just trying to prove to Dean that Dean wasn’t as broken as he felt.
Manly or not, Dean almost ran when they reached the diner. He could feel a second panic coming on. Sam nudged him. “Do you want to wait here? I can get something to go.”
Dean glanced in the window. There were only two other patrons inside. One at the bar in the back and one in a booth by a front window. The woman at the register was in her thirties and looked bored to death. He could do this.
He pushed past Sam and walked through the door. The waitress looked up, but let them settle into a booth before she came over with menus. This lady was much easier to read than the one in the café and seemed less excitable.
“Hi, Welcome to Jerry’s. My name is Carla and I’ll be your waitress today. Can I get you something to drink?”
Sam smiled at her and rattled off his drink order. She turned to Dean and he gave her his best grin. “Just a coffee, sweetheart.”
She nodded jotted it down on the ticket, and left. She returned with a glass of water for Sam and Dean’s coffee and left again before they could blink. Dean took a moment to scan the menu. The burger selection was less than phenomenal, but they boasted having the best lasagna in the county three years running. He’d be the judge of that.
When Carla returned, she paused at their table. “You boys know what you want yet?”
Sam nodded. Dean missed what he ordered as he held up the menu for her to take. When she turned to Dean, he said, “Says here you’ve got the best lasagna in the county. Is it really that good?”
She finally cracked a smile. “Dale’s lasagna is to die for. It’s a secret family recipe. He won’t tell anyone how to make it.”
“How could I resist?”
He handed the menu back and she disappeared again. Dean looked up to find Sam smiling at him. “What?”
Sam shook his head. “So, Daniel Morse owned All That Glitters. The shop was sold to a developer who was buying up land to put in a strip mall. When they went in to survey the site, technicians claimed to hear voices in the walls and flickering lights. Their equipment reportedly went dead before they could do much.”
Sam was right, the case seemed pretty cut and dry. They talked to a few locals, but all anyone would say was that Morse had died and his children hadn’t been too broken up over it. When they broke into the old building, now an empty shell with peeling paint and cracks in the walls, they barely had to enter before the EMF went off. The ceiling lights overhead started to flicker as they got further in, but they never actually saw Morse. As far as Dean was concerned, it was all the proof they needed.
Which is why they went grave digging at midnight. Or rather, Dean was doing most of the digging. He’d appointed Sam the lookout because, recovered or not, he was still looking pale and the last thing he needed was for the kid to get sick again. Plus digging would work off some of the pent up energy he’d had for the last few days.
Unfortunately, digging also meant was unprepared for the cold hands that tightened around his biceps as he broke through the lid of the coffin. He had a moment to register the burning cold before he was sailing through the air. He landed hard against the base of a tombstone, weight crashing onto his wrist and he felt it give with a gut wrenching twist that nearly made him vomit. He struggled to sit up, trying to clear the pain induced fog that had settled around him. He had to find the ghost. Or Sam.
The spirit hadn’t gone far. It was on him in a second, gripping his ankle in an iron grasp. Dean kicked out, but didn’t his foot went straight through the spirit. The ghost started pulling him along the ground until he was clear of the other graves, then with one huge motion, swung him like a club and sent him airborne again. He crashed into an old oak tree, and his vision blacked out. He tried to blink away the darkness, but everything felt so heavy.
There was a rush of heat and then nothing but the empty floating of unconsciousness.
He came to again somewhere stringent. He was comfortable and floating nicely in a haze of half formed thoughts. Until he remembered that he’d been flung into a tree. He should be on the ground in the cemetery.
He pried his eyes open and was momentarily confused when white ceiling tiles met his gaze. Sam appeared in his direct line of vision, eyes creased with tight worry lines. Hospital then. Sam was speaking but he kept going in and out of focus, so Dean didn’t worry too much about it. He let his eyes drift close and fell back into sleep.
The next time he woke he was annoyingly lucid. His back ached. His shoulder ached. His head was throbbing where it had met the tree. All of which paled in comparison to the lancing pain in his wrist.
He was also alone. There was a chair pulled up next to his bed and Sam’s jacket was draped across the back, but Sam wasn’t in the room. It was midafternoon, judging by the light coming in his window. The door to his room was cracked, but not enough to distinguish anything in the hallway. Dean tried to shift so that he was sitting up, but between his wrist and his head, he had to bite back a curse and collapsed back onto his pillow.
He must have made some sort of noise because Sam’s head poked around the door. Seeing Dean awake, he smiled and came into the room, followed by a doctor in a white coat.
“Hey, Sleeping Beauty. Bout time you got up.”
“Don’t be jealous of my gorgeous looks, bitch,” Dean said, noticing for the first time that his throat might just be lined with sandpaper. Sam winced in sympathy. He grabbed a cup off the nightstand and filled it with water.
“What happened,” Dean asked after he felt a bit less parched.
“You don’t remember?” Sam’s expression tightened in warning. Dean had no clue what their cover story was, so he shook his head.
“You were on your bike. You hit a hole and went flying. Never been so scared in my life. You tried to take out a tree on the way down. The tree didn’t feel a thing.”
“Oh,” Dean said. “Did it look cool, at least?”
Sam punched him in the arm. Maybe he really had worried Sam. “So what’s the damage?”
Sam nodded towards the doctor. “He says you shattered your wrist. Broken in five places.” He waved his hand around, as if to emphasize the number. “They had to do surgery to set everything in place again. You’re going to be stuck in that thing for a couple of months,” he said. He gestured towards the heavily casted arm. “You’re lucky it didn’t require any hardware to set.”
“That’s me, one lucky bastard.” Dean made eye contact with Sam. He had to know if it was done. Had Sam gotten the ghost, or had he rushed Dean to the hospital? Sam gave a small nod before his eyes flicked to the doctor.
Dean glanced over at him to find the doctor looking at him expectantly. Dean glanced back at Sam who frowned. “Say that again doc. My brother can’t hear and he wasn’t looking at you.”
The doctor looked startled for a second before he straightened up. He made a quick set of gestures, eyebrows quirked in question. Dean just stared at him, mouth agape. “What?”
He glanced back at Sam, who was frowning. “Sorry, we don’t sign. It’s a fairly recent thing. Dean can read lips, though. Just speak clearly and slow down a little.”
Dean turned back to the doctor who was already snapping at Sam. “Why didn’t you tell us about this? It could have -”
“Whoa,” Dean snapped. “Hold it right there. First of all I am sitting in the room. Right between you as a matter of fact. Second of all, what difference would it make? You were setting my arm, not performing brain surgery.”
The doctor visibly checked himself. He turned to Dean. “I apologize. We take certain precautions for patients who have different communication needs. It is always important to tell your doctor things like this, even if they seem unimportant.”
Dean nodded, biting his lip. Laughing wouldn’t help the situation. “Okay, then. Sammy, you heard the man. Next time we take an ER trip, tell them I can’t hear up front.” Sam rolled his eyes but nodded. “So what’s the program, here?”
“You’ll be in that cast for six weeks. After that, we’ll move you over to a brace and start you on some physical therapies to strengthen your wrist and make sure you don’t accidentally hurt yourself again once it’s healed. For now, you need to use it as little as possible. Keep it in a sling as much as you can. No lifting, no writing, no driving. If you had any thoughts of learning to sign, use the other hand even once you’ve been cleared for the brace. Try not to twist that arm and be careful not to knock it into things. It’s going to be sore for a week or so, but the worst of the discomfort should ease by then. We’ll want to see you again in a couple of weeks just to make sure everything is healing up the way it should.”
“Awesome. When can I leave?”
“We’ve been monitoring your concussion. I’d like you to stay overnight, but there’s no reason you couldn’t be released tomorrow morning.”
“Just for the concussion?”
The doctor nodded. “Then I’m ready now. Let’s get this show on the road.”
“Mr. Gordon, I have to advise against that. You took a serious blow to the head. The fact that you can’t remember what happened proves it was fairly serious. I would strongly recommend you stay here.”
“Look, I appreciate the concern, but it’s not my first rodeo. I’m coming up on the 24 hour mark. I’m conscious, I’m lucid, and aside from a throbbing knot where my head met the tree, I’m fine. Sam knows what to watch for. If I start slurring or convulsing, you’ll be the first to know.”
The doctor looked over at Sam, who nodded. Finally he looked back to Dean. “Fine. I’ll agree to release you on one condition.”
“What’s that?”
“I’m going to step down the hall to get the paperwork. If you’re dressed and ready to go without your cousin’s help, in ten minutes, I’ll gladly sign the paperwork.”
“Uh, doc? I don’t know if you noticed, but I’ve got a giant cast on my arm. Not sure I can work shoelaces onehanded yet, much less buttons.” And as much as it sucked, he knew he couldn’t yet. He was well experienced with just how much he could do in a cast. What’s more, with only the tips of his fingers sticking out, he’d be lucky to zip up his jeans. This was going to suck.
“Oh, cast related help is fine. But you better get up and walk around and see if you’re still itching to leave.”
“Thanks, doc. See you in ten.”
The doctor blinked at him, but turned to leave. Dean turned to Sam. “Alright, where’d you stash my pants?”
Ten minutes later found Dean sitting on the edge of the bed, sore and exhausted, but definitely dressed and ready to go. He was teasing Sam mercilessly for disheveled state of his hair when the doctor walked in. He seemed surprised by the sight, but sighed and handed over the forms for Dean to sign. Another ten minutes and Dean was sitting in Baby ready to put this whole hunt behind him.
Part II --- Master Post --- Part IV
Title: First Star I See Tonight 3/4
Written for: sinfulslasher
Characters: Dean, Sam
Word Count: 14,667
Rating: PG-13 for language.
Disclaimer:I do not, nor have I ever owned any part of Supernatural. The characters were just so pretty-shiny, I had to borrow them.
Summary: Because Winchester luck dictates that Dean’s genie in a bottle could be neither Barbara Eden nor Christina Aguilera. Instead, he gets a fat guy with some serious hygiene issues and a mean streak a mile wide.
He didn’t like talking when he couldn’t hear. He was nine types of sure he sounded funny and it was hard to know if he was modulating his voice right. Sometimes he felt like he was screaming but Sam said he was barely loud enough to be heard. Other times, he ended up getting louder and louder, still expecting to hear himself over the ringing silence in his ears.
He would have given up talking completely if it hadn’t been a necessity. There was just too much going on, between research and Sam’s emo crap and even just normal stuff to constantly be passing notes back and forth. He could read lips thanks to the John Winchester school of survival and other random things. So he kept talking and wondered if it would ever not be weird to not hear himself.
On the second day, as he stared morosely at the laptop he’d been using to research genies, he glanced up at Sam and said, “Maybe I should just wish for my hearing back. That would count and he’d have to do it, right?” He’d said it offhandedly, but was desperate to try something.
Sam shook his head. “We don’t know how that works. Do you really want to try it without knowing how he operates? What if he screws something up even worse?”
And that was a fair point. Dean kind of hated him for it.
Weird as it was, they settled into a routine. Dean kept forgetting that he couldn’t hear. Not that he could ever stop being amazed that he was wrapped in silence. It was in his daily routines and habits. He had picked up the phone to call for carryout. He held the phone up to his ear before he realized what he’d done. He’d flipped the radio on in his bedroom and immediately flipped it off again. There were a hundred little things he had to find work arounds for, especially solutions that didn’t involve going to Sam every five minutes.
Sam didn’t seem to care. He just took everything and rolled with it. He didn’t let Dean sink into self-pity either. Any time it looked like he might be spinning his wheels, Sam would be there with a question, or a problem, or another book to look through. By the time Sam broached the topic of the case they were supposed to be doing, Dean was ready to murder his eternally perky brother. If he couldn’t brood or get roaring drunk, he needed to be out doing something.
Sam slid a note across the table one morning as he settled across from Dean with his breakfast.
I’m going to call Mark and hand off the Haxtun case. Last I heard, he and his cronies were in Idaho. Should be able to pick it up and take it off our plate while we work on this.
Dean scanned it and scowled. Their research wasn’t going anywhere. He was just as stone deaf today as he’d been the last three days. He was irritated and bored and more than a little ready to punch something.
He glanced up at Sam who was shoveling what looked to be the blackened remains of scrambled eggs into his face. Well, that explained why it smelled like something was burning. Instead of arguing about the case, he found himself asking, “Dude, what are you eating?”
Sam shrugged, avoiding eye contact.
“From now on, stick with sandwiches. Geeze. It’s not that hard, man. You’d think you threw all your food into and incinerator.”
Sam stuck his tongue out at him, but continued to eat his charred meal. There was a reason Sam still ate cereal for breakfast.
Before Sam could say anything else, Dean said, “Let’s take the Haxtun case.”
Sam paused, fork halfway to his mouth and frowned. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
“It’s an awesome idea.”
“But what about…”
“I need a break. Now. Let’s go.”
“But -”
Dean rose and closed the book he’d been reading. “I’m doing this. End of discussion. Are you coming or what?” Without waiting for Sam to answer, he turned and went to go pack a bag. Ten minutes later, Sam was waiting for him, leaning against his car. As Dean threw his bag in the trunk and moved to climb into the driver’s seat, he caught Sam talking to him out of the corner of his eye. He didn’t know what he’d actually said, but he could make a fair guess.
“I’m driving. If you don’t like it, then you can walk. I’m deaf, not blind.”
Sam settled into the passenger side of the car, frown entrenched on his face. To his credit, he didn’t try to dissuade Dean anymore. Dean felt his heart drop as the Impala shivered to life under him without her distinctive growl. Sam grimaced and flick the volume of the music down. Dean couldn’t for the life of him remember what was in the player, but he cranked it, mildly surprised when the thumping base line rumbling under his feet and he could feel his jeans vibrating against his leg. Sam’s pained bitch face was worth the second swooping in his stomach when he realized he could turned the volume up as loud as it would go and he still would not know which tape was playing.
He grinned at Sam instead, thumping his head to the beat and ignoring Sam’s pleas. He cranked it another notch and Sam’s hands went to his ears. He glared at Dean. Dean relented.
“Keep your hair on Samantha. It’s just a little music,” but he did let the volume drop to a more normal level, missing the thumping nearly as soon as it was gone. This was going to be a long drive.
A half hour later Dean wished he’d let Sam win the driving argument. His hands were starting to ache from the tight grip on the wheel and his neck was stiff from the tension sitting right between his shoulders. He’d hoped he would relax when he got pavement flying under him, but there was a lot of traffic and every time he passed a car or changed lanes he felt a little tenser. There were other cars everywhere and he kept seeing the motion from the corner of his eye. It felt like he was trying to look in several directions at once. And he couldn’t talk to Sam or rock out. He was in his own personal bubble and it was suffocating.
Finally, he’d had enough. He needed coffee. He pulled off maybe an hour into their drive at a little café aptly named Caffeine. He waited long enough for Sam to climb out of the car before making his way across the street to the little, green trimmed building.
When he walked in, the first thing he noticed was that there was motion everywhere. People talking and shifting in their seats. Staff wiping tables down. A couple dancing in the corner. It was nearly overwhelming. Dean felt distracted and small, like the walls were closing in, but he tried to power through the feeling. Everything was going to be fine. At the same time, he felt totally and absolutely alone. There were probably twenty people all crammed into the small space, and it was like he was on the other side of a glass barrier. He could look at them but they were separate.
Sam made his way up to the counter. Dean followed, less sure of himself in the organized chaos of the little coffee shop. The girl behind the counter was young, maybe twenty and blond. She was smacking gum in a way that Dean thought would have been annoying even if he hadn’t been trying to read her lips. He found that here, in a public place where the person he was reading wasn’t Sam, it was a lot harder than it had been in the bunker where it was quiet and still and Dean could concentrate.
The girl said something and Sam nudged him so Dean assumed he’d been asked what he wanted. “Just a coffee, strongest thing you’ve got.”
She gave him an odd look and Sam said something else. She smiled sadly at him but nodded. Sam paid and they made their way towards an empty table in the back.
Before they could reach their destination, Sam yanked him sideways just as his left arm was doused in hot liquid. He cussed and jumped away, yanking his over shirt off and taking stock of the damage to his pants. He’d just determined he’d need to run out to the car and grab a change of jeans when he found himself nose to nose with another man.
The man had leaned in, making up for their difference in heights by letting his bulk occupy Dean’s personal space. He was yelling, starting to go red in the face. Dean jerked back a step.
“What the fuck, man?”
The man turned absolutely livid and started waving his arms, gesturing to his coffee and his drenched button down shirt. He made a jabbing motion towards Dean, who slapped his hand away and tried to shove him back to get a little space between them.
The crowd in the café by that point had all turned to stare at Dean. He could feel their eyes on him. The man was yelling and back in his space. There wasn’t enough air in here. The man leaned in and Dean punched him. He ran for the door. If he didn’t get out soon he was going to run out of oxygen. The room felt too small, too tight. He needed out, right then.
He made it out the front door and around to the side of the building where he collapsed against the bricks, entirely sure that he wouldn’t be able to stand on his own. He let his head fall back, eyes closed, as he drug air into his lungs and tried to get the world to stop tunneling.
A few minutes later, a shadow fell across him and he peaked to find Sam standing a few feet away, coffee in hand. He held out a cup and Dean took it. He gulped down the coffee, barely registering the burning liquid.
Finally, when he felt he could talk without his voice cracking, Dean asked, “Did the guy call the cops?”
He turned to face Sam so he’d be easier to read. Sam shook his head but didn’t elaborate. “Why not?”
Sam shifted his weight and looked out into the parking lot beside them. “Sam?”
“I might have scared him a bit.”
“What did you do?”
Sam grinned up at him, sheepishly. “I kind of lost my temper.”
“You didn’t beat the guy up, did you?”
“Nah, just yelled a bit. I think I just surprised him when I got in his face. Sometimes I forget how tall I am.”
Dean snorted. Sam, all six-foot four of him, could cut quite the imposing figure when he wanted to. It had saved them from a couple of bar fights before.
“You all right?”
Dean grimaced. “Course I am. Just peachy.”
Sam took another sip of his coffee, but didn’t respond. They stood for another moment lost in their thoughts before Dean pushed off from the wall. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s blow this town.” He made his way to the car, fishing his keys out of his pocket. As they reached the Impala, he tossed the keys to Sam. “Your turn. I’m catching some shut eye before we get there.”
Sam opened his mouth to say something - to bitch in all likelihood, but Dean settled into the seat and closed his eyes, resolutely blocking out anything he might have said. He felt the car start and then it lurched forward as Sam pulled into traffic.
He ought to feel more disconcerted by the feeling of the car moving without being able to hear the whooshing of other cars or see where they were going, but he found it oddly relaxing. Without the distraction of Sam’s off-key humming or other cars, he felt himself relax back into the seat, some of the tension easing out of his shoulders. He was dozing in under ten minutes.
They arrived in Haxtun just over four hours later. Between the traffic and the construction, they’d had to do the same speed as everyone else. Even Sam was looking harried as they climbed out of the car in front of the local hotel.
The front desk was manned by a little woman wrapped up in a shawl who smiled all warm cookies and doting at Sam. Dean watched from the car as Sam turned into a little boy, dimples and everything, for the woman. Sam jerked his head in Dean’s direction and the woman looked over at him. She had to have been at least sixty. She smiled that same warm smile at him and Dean couldn’t help himself, he smiled back. He gave a little wave and saw her laugh, turning back to Sam.
Dean finished pulling their bags from the car and met Sam on the sidewalk, tossing him his duffel. “Got us a room upstairs. Place is pretty empty right now.”
Dean nodded and followed Sam back in and up an old staircase to the very end of the hall. The room had a window looking out over a stream and frilly white curtains. They dumped their bags on the beds and Dean sank down to sit on his.
“So, how do you want to do this?” Dean asked. Sam had done all the research. He didn’t know much about the case beyond the fact that they had one pissed off spirit.
“Figured we could go check it out and ask around this afternoon. Obit I found mentioned a burial, so it’s probably just a salt and burn.”
“Know where this guy’s buried?”
“Only one cemetery in town.” Sam shrugged. “Can’t be that hard to find. I’ll pull their records tonight.”
He pulled his laptop out of his bag and set it on the table in the corner of the room, taking a moment to plug it into the wall to charge. “Let’s go find something to eat. I’m starving.”
Dean hesitated. The last thing he wanted was a repeat of earlier at the café. “Go on ahead. I’m good. Just going to grab a shower.”
Sam crossed his arms. “Dean, you barely ate breakfast and we didn’t stop for lunch. I can hear your stomach from here. There was a diner down the road. We can get it to go if you want and go scope out the building.”
And dammit, Dean could feel his stomach chewing on itself, partly because he was hungry and partly because this whole affair was hard. He’d never anticipated how difficult it would be to navigate even the little things when he couldn’t hear. He was beginning to think he’d have been better off sticking to the bunker till they fixed this.
“It’ll be fine. What are you afraid of?”
Dean scowled. “Being seen in public with you.” He scooped up his jacket from where he’d tossed it over a chair. “Fine, let’s go. Don’t want you fainting on me.”
Dean knew Sam was pushing his buttons because he wanted Dean to keep going. Sam was nothing if not persistent. He was surprised that his brother hadn’t tried to tip-toe around the issue. That was something of a coping mechanism for him, tread softly until he’d figured out exactly what would set Dean off, then act accordingly. Perhaps it was the fact that Sam had every confidence that they would figure out how to make the genie reverse the wish or maybe he was just trying to prove to Dean that Dean wasn’t as broken as he felt.
Manly or not, Dean almost ran when they reached the diner. He could feel a second panic coming on. Sam nudged him. “Do you want to wait here? I can get something to go.”
Dean glanced in the window. There were only two other patrons inside. One at the bar in the back and one in a booth by a front window. The woman at the register was in her thirties and looked bored to death. He could do this.
He pushed past Sam and walked through the door. The waitress looked up, but let them settle into a booth before she came over with menus. This lady was much easier to read than the one in the café and seemed less excitable.
“Hi, Welcome to Jerry’s. My name is Carla and I’ll be your waitress today. Can I get you something to drink?”
Sam smiled at her and rattled off his drink order. She turned to Dean and he gave her his best grin. “Just a coffee, sweetheart.”
She nodded jotted it down on the ticket, and left. She returned with a glass of water for Sam and Dean’s coffee and left again before they could blink. Dean took a moment to scan the menu. The burger selection was less than phenomenal, but they boasted having the best lasagna in the county three years running. He’d be the judge of that.
When Carla returned, she paused at their table. “You boys know what you want yet?”
Sam nodded. Dean missed what he ordered as he held up the menu for her to take. When she turned to Dean, he said, “Says here you’ve got the best lasagna in the county. Is it really that good?”
She finally cracked a smile. “Dale’s lasagna is to die for. It’s a secret family recipe. He won’t tell anyone how to make it.”
“How could I resist?”
He handed the menu back and she disappeared again. Dean looked up to find Sam smiling at him. “What?”
Sam shook his head. “So, Daniel Morse owned All That Glitters. The shop was sold to a developer who was buying up land to put in a strip mall. When they went in to survey the site, technicians claimed to hear voices in the walls and flickering lights. Their equipment reportedly went dead before they could do much.”
Sam was right, the case seemed pretty cut and dry. They talked to a few locals, but all anyone would say was that Morse had died and his children hadn’t been too broken up over it. When they broke into the old building, now an empty shell with peeling paint and cracks in the walls, they barely had to enter before the EMF went off. The ceiling lights overhead started to flicker as they got further in, but they never actually saw Morse. As far as Dean was concerned, it was all the proof they needed.
Which is why they went grave digging at midnight. Or rather, Dean was doing most of the digging. He’d appointed Sam the lookout because, recovered or not, he was still looking pale and the last thing he needed was for the kid to get sick again. Plus digging would work off some of the pent up energy he’d had for the last few days.
Unfortunately, digging also meant was unprepared for the cold hands that tightened around his biceps as he broke through the lid of the coffin. He had a moment to register the burning cold before he was sailing through the air. He landed hard against the base of a tombstone, weight crashing onto his wrist and he felt it give with a gut wrenching twist that nearly made him vomit. He struggled to sit up, trying to clear the pain induced fog that had settled around him. He had to find the ghost. Or Sam.
The spirit hadn’t gone far. It was on him in a second, gripping his ankle in an iron grasp. Dean kicked out, but didn’t his foot went straight through the spirit. The ghost started pulling him along the ground until he was clear of the other graves, then with one huge motion, swung him like a club and sent him airborne again. He crashed into an old oak tree, and his vision blacked out. He tried to blink away the darkness, but everything felt so heavy.
There was a rush of heat and then nothing but the empty floating of unconsciousness.
He came to again somewhere stringent. He was comfortable and floating nicely in a haze of half formed thoughts. Until he remembered that he’d been flung into a tree. He should be on the ground in the cemetery.
He pried his eyes open and was momentarily confused when white ceiling tiles met his gaze. Sam appeared in his direct line of vision, eyes creased with tight worry lines. Hospital then. Sam was speaking but he kept going in and out of focus, so Dean didn’t worry too much about it. He let his eyes drift close and fell back into sleep.
The next time he woke he was annoyingly lucid. His back ached. His shoulder ached. His head was throbbing where it had met the tree. All of which paled in comparison to the lancing pain in his wrist.
He was also alone. There was a chair pulled up next to his bed and Sam’s jacket was draped across the back, but Sam wasn’t in the room. It was midafternoon, judging by the light coming in his window. The door to his room was cracked, but not enough to distinguish anything in the hallway. Dean tried to shift so that he was sitting up, but between his wrist and his head, he had to bite back a curse and collapsed back onto his pillow.
He must have made some sort of noise because Sam’s head poked around the door. Seeing Dean awake, he smiled and came into the room, followed by a doctor in a white coat.
“Hey, Sleeping Beauty. Bout time you got up.”
“Don’t be jealous of my gorgeous looks, bitch,” Dean said, noticing for the first time that his throat might just be lined with sandpaper. Sam winced in sympathy. He grabbed a cup off the nightstand and filled it with water.
“What happened,” Dean asked after he felt a bit less parched.
“You don’t remember?” Sam’s expression tightened in warning. Dean had no clue what their cover story was, so he shook his head.
“You were on your bike. You hit a hole and went flying. Never been so scared in my life. You tried to take out a tree on the way down. The tree didn’t feel a thing.”
“Oh,” Dean said. “Did it look cool, at least?”
Sam punched him in the arm. Maybe he really had worried Sam. “So what’s the damage?”
Sam nodded towards the doctor. “He says you shattered your wrist. Broken in five places.” He waved his hand around, as if to emphasize the number. “They had to do surgery to set everything in place again. You’re going to be stuck in that thing for a couple of months,” he said. He gestured towards the heavily casted arm. “You’re lucky it didn’t require any hardware to set.”
“That’s me, one lucky bastard.” Dean made eye contact with Sam. He had to know if it was done. Had Sam gotten the ghost, or had he rushed Dean to the hospital? Sam gave a small nod before his eyes flicked to the doctor.
Dean glanced over at him to find the doctor looking at him expectantly. Dean glanced back at Sam who frowned. “Say that again doc. My brother can’t hear and he wasn’t looking at you.”
The doctor looked startled for a second before he straightened up. He made a quick set of gestures, eyebrows quirked in question. Dean just stared at him, mouth agape. “What?”
He glanced back at Sam, who was frowning. “Sorry, we don’t sign. It’s a fairly recent thing. Dean can read lips, though. Just speak clearly and slow down a little.”
Dean turned back to the doctor who was already snapping at Sam. “Why didn’t you tell us about this? It could have -”
“Whoa,” Dean snapped. “Hold it right there. First of all I am sitting in the room. Right between you as a matter of fact. Second of all, what difference would it make? You were setting my arm, not performing brain surgery.”
The doctor visibly checked himself. He turned to Dean. “I apologize. We take certain precautions for patients who have different communication needs. It is always important to tell your doctor things like this, even if they seem unimportant.”
Dean nodded, biting his lip. Laughing wouldn’t help the situation. “Okay, then. Sammy, you heard the man. Next time we take an ER trip, tell them I can’t hear up front.” Sam rolled his eyes but nodded. “So what’s the program, here?”
“You’ll be in that cast for six weeks. After that, we’ll move you over to a brace and start you on some physical therapies to strengthen your wrist and make sure you don’t accidentally hurt yourself again once it’s healed. For now, you need to use it as little as possible. Keep it in a sling as much as you can. No lifting, no writing, no driving. If you had any thoughts of learning to sign, use the other hand even once you’ve been cleared for the brace. Try not to twist that arm and be careful not to knock it into things. It’s going to be sore for a week or so, but the worst of the discomfort should ease by then. We’ll want to see you again in a couple of weeks just to make sure everything is healing up the way it should.”
“Awesome. When can I leave?”
“We’ve been monitoring your concussion. I’d like you to stay overnight, but there’s no reason you couldn’t be released tomorrow morning.”
“Just for the concussion?”
The doctor nodded. “Then I’m ready now. Let’s get this show on the road.”
“Mr. Gordon, I have to advise against that. You took a serious blow to the head. The fact that you can’t remember what happened proves it was fairly serious. I would strongly recommend you stay here.”
“Look, I appreciate the concern, but it’s not my first rodeo. I’m coming up on the 24 hour mark. I’m conscious, I’m lucid, and aside from a throbbing knot where my head met the tree, I’m fine. Sam knows what to watch for. If I start slurring or convulsing, you’ll be the first to know.”
The doctor looked over at Sam, who nodded. Finally he looked back to Dean. “Fine. I’ll agree to release you on one condition.”
“What’s that?”
“I’m going to step down the hall to get the paperwork. If you’re dressed and ready to go without your cousin’s help, in ten minutes, I’ll gladly sign the paperwork.”
“Uh, doc? I don’t know if you noticed, but I’ve got a giant cast on my arm. Not sure I can work shoelaces onehanded yet, much less buttons.” And as much as it sucked, he knew he couldn’t yet. He was well experienced with just how much he could do in a cast. What’s more, with only the tips of his fingers sticking out, he’d be lucky to zip up his jeans. This was going to suck.
“Oh, cast related help is fine. But you better get up and walk around and see if you’re still itching to leave.”
“Thanks, doc. See you in ten.”
The doctor blinked at him, but turned to leave. Dean turned to Sam. “Alright, where’d you stash my pants?”
Ten minutes later found Dean sitting on the edge of the bed, sore and exhausted, but definitely dressed and ready to go. He was teasing Sam mercilessly for disheveled state of his hair when the doctor walked in. He seemed surprised by the sight, but sighed and handed over the forms for Dean to sign. Another ten minutes and Dean was sitting in Baby ready to put this whole hunt behind him.
Part II --- Master Post --- Part IV