Sick Days - Chapter 3
Title: Sick Days
Summary: Dean's obsession with apparently random medical deaths mirrored from his past lands him and Sam in the middle of a deadly epidemic.
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None
Spoilers: Up to and including 'Born Under a Bad Sign'
Word Count: 2,450 for this part
Author's Note: Takes place in 2007 post 'Born Under a Bad Sign' with flashbacks to 1987. Many thanks to Amberdreams for the wonderful editing assistance. Master post can be found here.
~~~
Continued from Chapter 2
Green Bay General Hospital
As far as hospitals went, this one was quaint. It was upscale, but small - more like a glorified grouping of doctors’ offices. It was the kind of place that looked far more accustomed to dealing with tourists that fell off their bikes than actual emergencies.
It was enough to make Sam feel all the more guilty for letting Dean subject the staff and patients to pointless questioning. He sent one more warning glare towards his brother as they walked up to the front desk, but Dean was already locked in on his target.
“Hi there. I’m Agent Shaw and this is Agent Panozzo. We’re here with the CDC,” Dean told the young woman at the front desk with a barely visible flash of his phony ID.
“The CDC?”
The question didn’t come from the woman at the desk in front of them, but from behind them. Sam and his brother both turned to face the older woman who was now staring at them. One hand held a clipboard while the other rested on her hip. By the look of disbelief on her face Sam was pretty sure that they were screwed. That was until he saw her expression melt into relief.
“That’s right,” Dean replied.
“Incredible. I mean, no offense, but I wasn’t expecting a return call let alone agents arriving the next day.” She approached them, but stopped to look them over for a moment. “If you don’t mind my saying, they’re hiring them young aren’t they?”
Sam shared a glance with Dean before his brother answered. “Yeah, well, you caught us,” he said with a flash of an excessively charming grin. “This is our first assignment and they weren’t really going to look into it. But Panozzo here, he just loves the ocean and we could really use a chance to get our hands dirty.”
With gritted teeth, Sam resisted the urge to elbow his brother in the side. Even if he had been raised into it, Dean had to have been born with a brain defect to be able to lie as easily as he did. It was necessary to get them into places, but if Dean didn’t stop laying it on so heavy this lady was really going to put them to work.
“Regardless, I greatly appreciate you agents coming out. I’m Dr. Hammond,” she said as she extended her hand to them. “I’m the lead doctor here at the hospital. What have they told you so far about our situation?”
Maybe this was a blessing in disguise. Sam realized this was finally a chance to get some straight answers about the deaths here.
“Honestly, we really didn’t get the full briefing so maybe you could fill us in on the specifics and we could look into it from there,” Sam replied with a raised brow glance towards Dean.
“Of course. We can talk in my office, but I’m going to have warn you - this is going to sound crazy.”
“We live for crazy,” Dean assured her.
As much as Sam was hoping to use this as an opportunity to prove to Dean this wasn’t their sort of case, he could tell that his brother had the exact opposite intention. Dean didn’t even wait until they made it down the hall before going to work.
“There have been six cases plus the two new ones today, right?”
“As of right now, yes, that’s right,” she replied to Dean who instantly shot Sam a ‘told you so’ look behind the doctor’s back. “I know it doesn’t sound like something of epidemic proportions, but we just don’t get this sort of thing here. We really aren’t equipped to deal with something like this if the number of cases increases.”
They followed the doctor into her office and settled into the chairs she motioned them towards. Sam still couldn’t believe that there was anyway Dean was right about this.
“What exactly do you think ‘this’ is?” Sam asked. “From the reports, the causes of death don’t match. How do you know the deaths are related?”
“I admit, on the surface they look completely unrelated, however, in all cases it was just that the weakest system in their body that failed first. I attended to these patients myself. I have no doubt that there was an underlying disease that killed these people. The timeframe, the initial symptoms and the rapid decline were all the same.”
The doctor moved a pile of patient folders to the center of her desk for them to see. Sam began thumbing through the folders.
At this point he no longer doubted that these deaths were connected, but what he didn’t know was how Dean had known. More importantly, he still wasn’t seeing anything that suggested whatever demonic story Dean had made up for this town.
“As you can see,” the doctor continued, “The problem is that we haven’t been able to identify the disease so the causes of death are currently labeled as unique events until our tests find something conclusive. We could really use additional resources to assist with the testing.”
”Sure,” Dean replied smoothly. “You can send your samples along to our lab. In the meantime we need to talk with the newest patients and their family. We’ll also need the contact information for the families of the deceased. Then we can get to work.”
“I’d hate for them to have to go through any more than they’ve already been through, but if you think it could help...”
“We need to check on every lead if we’re going to stop this thing.”
“I agree completely. Excuse me, Nurse Hess,” the doctor called towards a young woman who walked by the office. “These two young men are with the CDC. Could you please take them to see the Simmons?”
“Of course, Doctor. Please come this way.”
Before Dean even opened his mouth Sam knew the young, blond nurse perfectly fit Dean's fantasy version of what every nurse should be. He had to admit that he was doing some admiring himself, but at least he could work and drool at the same time - unlike his brother.
“She doesn’t have to tell me twice,” Dean whispered to Sam as they left the office.
Sam did his best to ignore his gloating brother until they made it to the small pediatric ward. Then he was back to ready to kill Dean. The little boy in the hospital bed was alone. His mother must be with his father and Dean had obviously caught on to that.
“I’m going to talk to the son, but my partner, he’d really like talk to the father if that’s okay.”
Sam glared at his brother who had sworn they were going to stick together here. “I think talking to the father can wait until after we talk to the son,” Sam replied pointedly.
“I don’t think it’s necessary to waste any more of this family’s time than we have to,” Dean shot back smugly.
Not being in a position to make a scene, Sam reluctantly waved Dean towards the boy’s room and looked to the nurse. “Yeah...if you could take me to Mr. James Simmons, we can get out of your way.”
Though he said it to the nurse, the last part was really a warning to his brother. He didn’t know whether or not Dean had heard him because his brother’s attention was fully on the boy by the time Sam was leaving with the nurse.
~~~
The Bay Motor Lodge - Green Bay Oregon - 1987
Dean sat huddled on his bed staring into the dark with his knees hugged to his chest. He hadn’t bothered to pull down the covers, change out of his clothes or even slip off his shoes. There was no way he could sleep. He wanted to watch TV, but he was afraid it would wake up Sammy.
He didn’t know what to think about what Sammy had told him and the more he thought about it, the more worried he got. Maybe Sammy had seen a ghost and maybe it was what Dad was hunting and maybe it was why Dad wasn’t here. What if it had Dad and was going to come for Sammy next?
In the darkness of the room he could just barely make out the small, still form of his sleeping brother snuggled under the covers. He wasn’t going to let anything take Sammy away like it had taken Mommy.
Sliding off the bed, Dean walked quietly to the closet. He had seen Dad hiding stuff up on the shelf in there when they’d first checked into the motel. Reaching up, he turned on the light switch in the bathroom and cracked the door to let a little light into the main room, but not enough to bother Sammy.
Trying to be quiet, he dragged a chair over to the closet. Even standing on it he still couldn’t quite reach the top shelf. He was getting frustrated when he saw the pile of towels in the bathroom through the cracked door.
He slipped through the door and came back out with a pile of big, white fluffy towels and heaped them up on the chair. Bracing himself against the edge of the closet, he climbed up onto the wobbly pile and snatched a hold of the dangling strap from Dad’s bag. Everything seemed fine until he realized how heavy the bag was.
The bag came off the top shelf just fine, but Dean went tumbling to the floor with it. He landed flat on his back beside the bag. As he tried to recover the breath that had been knocked out of him, he heard Sammy call out.
“Daddy?”
Quickly Dean shoved the dislodged contents back into the bag and scrambled to his feet. He hurried around the corner but his momentary relief was shattered when he saw that Sammy wasn’t actually talking to Dad. His brother was just looking at him.
“It’s just me, Sammy.”
“What doing?”
“Getting some stuff. Go back to sleep.”
“Me help.”
“No.” Dean thought for a moment before changing his mind. “Okay...maybe.” He forgot about the bag for a moment and instead walked the rest of way back to Sammy’s bed. “Tell me some more about that boy you dreamed about.”
~~~
Outside the Green Bay General Hospital - 2007
“The father didn’t see anything,” Sam told Dean as they made it back to the Impala.
“The kid did.”
Why was Sam not surprised? With as long as Dean had been talking to the boy Dean could have talked the kid into thinking anything. He was pretty sure that his brother didn’t even know that he was doing it half the time, but Dean was a king manipulator. If he was stuck enough on something, Dean would just keep forcing the facts until they fit.
He knew he shouldn’t have left Dean alone in there.
Dean must be able to tell that he was ignoring him, but he obviously didn’t care because he went on talking. “He saw a boy covered in blood - oh yeah, and he was transparent. That’s normal.”
“Being sick is scary. Some kids have active imaginations.”
“This was real.”
“How can you be so sure?” Sam asked.
“Because it was, okay?”
The intensity in Dean’s eyes was enough to make Sam drop that line of questioning. “Say that it was. What does it mean? You heard the doctors. These people are just sick. I talked to the nurse. The blood loss story was just something picked up out of context by some over imaginative reporter trying to make this into more than it is.”
“Like me,” Dean said.
“That’s not what I meant. It’s weird and the cases are probably connected, like the doctor said, but I just think this might be more of a problem for the actual CDC.”
“The boy in the hospital has two other siblings, neither are sick. And what about the fact that at least two of the other kids that died, probably all the kids, saw spirits associated with this?”
“And you know that because...”
“It was in the newspaper article.”
“Dean, I read the article. All it said was that the boys were hallucinating.”
“About the same thing. In our experience how many of the people who get locked up in nut houses are actually the only ones who know what’s really going on? A damn lot of them. Even if they are just sick, that doesn’t mean something’s not latching onto that.”
“Maybe...but maybe the healthy kids didn’t see anything and we're just dealing with a death omen here. It’s too late to talk to the other families tonight. You missed lunch. Come on, let’s go grab some dinner.”
“Nah, I’m good. You go ahead,” Dean said as he tossed the Impala keys to him.
Sam was so caught off guard by the action that he almost missed catching the keys. He stared at the them before looking at Dean like he was insane, because he obviously was. There was no way that Dean was just willingly leaving the car with him.
“What? Where are you going?”
“I’ve got some stuff to check on and I don’t need you hanging over my shoulder to do it.”
Something was seriously off here. Dean never went out of his way to ditch him unless he was worried about something or about to do something seriously stupid. The more he watched Dean, the less sure he was that his brother even looked like he felt that great.
Maybe it was just the angle of the outside building lights, but Dean’s face looked starkly pale. When Sam’s eyes moved down to Dean’s throat he saw that his brother kept swallowing awkwardly. That might explain why Dean’s voice sounded strangely rough.
“Still got something stuck in your throat?”
Dean must have caught the concerned expression on Sam’s face because he shrugged him off. “Dude, you need to chill out. Go find some hot chick to take back to the room. Just make sure to hang the ‘do not disturb’ sign. I totally don’t want to walk in on you loosing your virginity.”
Without waiting for Sam to decide how he wanted to respond, Dean shoved his hands into his pockets and turned to head down the street. No matter how much he wanted to, Sam knew there was no point in following Dean. His brother had obviously already made up his mind and then some. Sam’s only option was to figure out on his own what was really going on here.
Continue to Chapter 4
Summary: Dean's obsession with apparently random medical deaths mirrored from his past lands him and Sam in the middle of a deadly epidemic.
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None
Spoilers: Up to and including 'Born Under a Bad Sign'
Word Count: 2,450 for this part
Author's Note: Takes place in 2007 post 'Born Under a Bad Sign' with flashbacks to 1987. Many thanks to Amberdreams for the wonderful editing assistance. Master post can be found here.
~~~
Continued from Chapter 2
Green Bay General Hospital
As far as hospitals went, this one was quaint. It was upscale, but small - more like a glorified grouping of doctors’ offices. It was the kind of place that looked far more accustomed to dealing with tourists that fell off their bikes than actual emergencies.
It was enough to make Sam feel all the more guilty for letting Dean subject the staff and patients to pointless questioning. He sent one more warning glare towards his brother as they walked up to the front desk, but Dean was already locked in on his target.
“Hi there. I’m Agent Shaw and this is Agent Panozzo. We’re here with the CDC,” Dean told the young woman at the front desk with a barely visible flash of his phony ID.
“The CDC?”
The question didn’t come from the woman at the desk in front of them, but from behind them. Sam and his brother both turned to face the older woman who was now staring at them. One hand held a clipboard while the other rested on her hip. By the look of disbelief on her face Sam was pretty sure that they were screwed. That was until he saw her expression melt into relief.
“That’s right,” Dean replied.
“Incredible. I mean, no offense, but I wasn’t expecting a return call let alone agents arriving the next day.” She approached them, but stopped to look them over for a moment. “If you don’t mind my saying, they’re hiring them young aren’t they?”
Sam shared a glance with Dean before his brother answered. “Yeah, well, you caught us,” he said with a flash of an excessively charming grin. “This is our first assignment and they weren’t really going to look into it. But Panozzo here, he just loves the ocean and we could really use a chance to get our hands dirty.”
With gritted teeth, Sam resisted the urge to elbow his brother in the side. Even if he had been raised into it, Dean had to have been born with a brain defect to be able to lie as easily as he did. It was necessary to get them into places, but if Dean didn’t stop laying it on so heavy this lady was really going to put them to work.
“Regardless, I greatly appreciate you agents coming out. I’m Dr. Hammond,” she said as she extended her hand to them. “I’m the lead doctor here at the hospital. What have they told you so far about our situation?”
Maybe this was a blessing in disguise. Sam realized this was finally a chance to get some straight answers about the deaths here.
“Honestly, we really didn’t get the full briefing so maybe you could fill us in on the specifics and we could look into it from there,” Sam replied with a raised brow glance towards Dean.
“Of course. We can talk in my office, but I’m going to have warn you - this is going to sound crazy.”
“We live for crazy,” Dean assured her.
As much as Sam was hoping to use this as an opportunity to prove to Dean this wasn’t their sort of case, he could tell that his brother had the exact opposite intention. Dean didn’t even wait until they made it down the hall before going to work.
“There have been six cases plus the two new ones today, right?”
“As of right now, yes, that’s right,” she replied to Dean who instantly shot Sam a ‘told you so’ look behind the doctor’s back. “I know it doesn’t sound like something of epidemic proportions, but we just don’t get this sort of thing here. We really aren’t equipped to deal with something like this if the number of cases increases.”
They followed the doctor into her office and settled into the chairs she motioned them towards. Sam still couldn’t believe that there was anyway Dean was right about this.
“What exactly do you think ‘this’ is?” Sam asked. “From the reports, the causes of death don’t match. How do you know the deaths are related?”
“I admit, on the surface they look completely unrelated, however, in all cases it was just that the weakest system in their body that failed first. I attended to these patients myself. I have no doubt that there was an underlying disease that killed these people. The timeframe, the initial symptoms and the rapid decline were all the same.”
The doctor moved a pile of patient folders to the center of her desk for them to see. Sam began thumbing through the folders.
At this point he no longer doubted that these deaths were connected, but what he didn’t know was how Dean had known. More importantly, he still wasn’t seeing anything that suggested whatever demonic story Dean had made up for this town.
“As you can see,” the doctor continued, “The problem is that we haven’t been able to identify the disease so the causes of death are currently labeled as unique events until our tests find something conclusive. We could really use additional resources to assist with the testing.”
”Sure,” Dean replied smoothly. “You can send your samples along to our lab. In the meantime we need to talk with the newest patients and their family. We’ll also need the contact information for the families of the deceased. Then we can get to work.”
“I’d hate for them to have to go through any more than they’ve already been through, but if you think it could help...”
“We need to check on every lead if we’re going to stop this thing.”
“I agree completely. Excuse me, Nurse Hess,” the doctor called towards a young woman who walked by the office. “These two young men are with the CDC. Could you please take them to see the Simmons?”
“Of course, Doctor. Please come this way.”
Before Dean even opened his mouth Sam knew the young, blond nurse perfectly fit Dean's fantasy version of what every nurse should be. He had to admit that he was doing some admiring himself, but at least he could work and drool at the same time - unlike his brother.
“She doesn’t have to tell me twice,” Dean whispered to Sam as they left the office.
Sam did his best to ignore his gloating brother until they made it to the small pediatric ward. Then he was back to ready to kill Dean. The little boy in the hospital bed was alone. His mother must be with his father and Dean had obviously caught on to that.
“I’m going to talk to the son, but my partner, he’d really like talk to the father if that’s okay.”
Sam glared at his brother who had sworn they were going to stick together here. “I think talking to the father can wait until after we talk to the son,” Sam replied pointedly.
“I don’t think it’s necessary to waste any more of this family’s time than we have to,” Dean shot back smugly.
Not being in a position to make a scene, Sam reluctantly waved Dean towards the boy’s room and looked to the nurse. “Yeah...if you could take me to Mr. James Simmons, we can get out of your way.”
Though he said it to the nurse, the last part was really a warning to his brother. He didn’t know whether or not Dean had heard him because his brother’s attention was fully on the boy by the time Sam was leaving with the nurse.
~~~
The Bay Motor Lodge - Green Bay Oregon - 1987
Dean sat huddled on his bed staring into the dark with his knees hugged to his chest. He hadn’t bothered to pull down the covers, change out of his clothes or even slip off his shoes. There was no way he could sleep. He wanted to watch TV, but he was afraid it would wake up Sammy.
He didn’t know what to think about what Sammy had told him and the more he thought about it, the more worried he got. Maybe Sammy had seen a ghost and maybe it was what Dad was hunting and maybe it was why Dad wasn’t here. What if it had Dad and was going to come for Sammy next?
In the darkness of the room he could just barely make out the small, still form of his sleeping brother snuggled under the covers. He wasn’t going to let anything take Sammy away like it had taken Mommy.
Sliding off the bed, Dean walked quietly to the closet. He had seen Dad hiding stuff up on the shelf in there when they’d first checked into the motel. Reaching up, he turned on the light switch in the bathroom and cracked the door to let a little light into the main room, but not enough to bother Sammy.
Trying to be quiet, he dragged a chair over to the closet. Even standing on it he still couldn’t quite reach the top shelf. He was getting frustrated when he saw the pile of towels in the bathroom through the cracked door.
He slipped through the door and came back out with a pile of big, white fluffy towels and heaped them up on the chair. Bracing himself against the edge of the closet, he climbed up onto the wobbly pile and snatched a hold of the dangling strap from Dad’s bag. Everything seemed fine until he realized how heavy the bag was.
The bag came off the top shelf just fine, but Dean went tumbling to the floor with it. He landed flat on his back beside the bag. As he tried to recover the breath that had been knocked out of him, he heard Sammy call out.
“Daddy?”
Quickly Dean shoved the dislodged contents back into the bag and scrambled to his feet. He hurried around the corner but his momentary relief was shattered when he saw that Sammy wasn’t actually talking to Dad. His brother was just looking at him.
“It’s just me, Sammy.”
“What doing?”
“Getting some stuff. Go back to sleep.”
“Me help.”
“No.” Dean thought for a moment before changing his mind. “Okay...maybe.” He forgot about the bag for a moment and instead walked the rest of way back to Sammy’s bed. “Tell me some more about that boy you dreamed about.”
~~~
Outside the Green Bay General Hospital - 2007
“The father didn’t see anything,” Sam told Dean as they made it back to the Impala.
“The kid did.”
Why was Sam not surprised? With as long as Dean had been talking to the boy Dean could have talked the kid into thinking anything. He was pretty sure that his brother didn’t even know that he was doing it half the time, but Dean was a king manipulator. If he was stuck enough on something, Dean would just keep forcing the facts until they fit.
He knew he shouldn’t have left Dean alone in there.
Dean must be able to tell that he was ignoring him, but he obviously didn’t care because he went on talking. “He saw a boy covered in blood - oh yeah, and he was transparent. That’s normal.”
“Being sick is scary. Some kids have active imaginations.”
“This was real.”
“How can you be so sure?” Sam asked.
“Because it was, okay?”
The intensity in Dean’s eyes was enough to make Sam drop that line of questioning. “Say that it was. What does it mean? You heard the doctors. These people are just sick. I talked to the nurse. The blood loss story was just something picked up out of context by some over imaginative reporter trying to make this into more than it is.”
“Like me,” Dean said.
“That’s not what I meant. It’s weird and the cases are probably connected, like the doctor said, but I just think this might be more of a problem for the actual CDC.”
“The boy in the hospital has two other siblings, neither are sick. And what about the fact that at least two of the other kids that died, probably all the kids, saw spirits associated with this?”
“And you know that because...”
“It was in the newspaper article.”
“Dean, I read the article. All it said was that the boys were hallucinating.”
“About the same thing. In our experience how many of the people who get locked up in nut houses are actually the only ones who know what’s really going on? A damn lot of them. Even if they are just sick, that doesn’t mean something’s not latching onto that.”
“Maybe...but maybe the healthy kids didn’t see anything and we're just dealing with a death omen here. It’s too late to talk to the other families tonight. You missed lunch. Come on, let’s go grab some dinner.”
“Nah, I’m good. You go ahead,” Dean said as he tossed the Impala keys to him.
Sam was so caught off guard by the action that he almost missed catching the keys. He stared at the them before looking at Dean like he was insane, because he obviously was. There was no way that Dean was just willingly leaving the car with him.
“What? Where are you going?”
“I’ve got some stuff to check on and I don’t need you hanging over my shoulder to do it.”
Something was seriously off here. Dean never went out of his way to ditch him unless he was worried about something or about to do something seriously stupid. The more he watched Dean, the less sure he was that his brother even looked like he felt that great.
Maybe it was just the angle of the outside building lights, but Dean’s face looked starkly pale. When Sam’s eyes moved down to Dean’s throat he saw that his brother kept swallowing awkwardly. That might explain why Dean’s voice sounded strangely rough.
“Still got something stuck in your throat?”
Dean must have caught the concerned expression on Sam’s face because he shrugged him off. “Dude, you need to chill out. Go find some hot chick to take back to the room. Just make sure to hang the ‘do not disturb’ sign. I totally don’t want to walk in on you loosing your virginity.”
Without waiting for Sam to decide how he wanted to respond, Dean shoved his hands into his pockets and turned to head down the street. No matter how much he wanted to, Sam knew there was no point in following Dean. His brother had obviously already made up his mind and then some. Sam’s only option was to figure out on his own what was really going on here.
Continue to Chapter 4