The Woods are Lonely, Dark and Deep
16. One Step Beyond
The clutch and brake should work in harmony my ass, Hudak thinks as she grinds towards Hibbing, almost mowing down a raccoon taking an early morning stroll in her determination not to stall the truck, no, tank, no strike that, fucking prototype horseless carriage from the year dot that Bobby set her up with. The old man explained the whole clutch-brake deal with as much patience as he could muster, desperate as he was to get back to Dean, and she thanks God he also spent five minutes giving her the Cliffs Notes version of hotwiring an automobile because she jounces to a halt several times on the way into town and spends long moments teasing the engine back to life, wondering how she could have reached thirty-cough without learning the finer things in a life of crime.
She stalls the beast for the last time on her driveway, makes a quick supply run for fresh clothes and, sweet Jesus, coffee, grabbing the machine and a vacuum pack of Colombian and dumping them on the back seat of the Jeep. She races back inside to take a leak and a thirty-second shower, phones to let Matty know she thinks she's found some Bender tracks and is heading back out to search some more, please hang onto the dog for a few more days, and grabs a pack of Oreos.
As far as breaking and entering Swenson's office is concerned, it's the old-fashioned way - through the yard and a sharp tap with the butt of her revolver to the glass in his back door, and she thinks there's no way in hell she's letting Bobby Singer and the Winchesters leave town without showing her how to pick a lock.
The office shows no signs of Sam's rampage all those weeks ago; it's in perfect shipshape order, books and papers packed away, a new chair. Hudak starts opening cabinets, pulling drawers, rifling through boxes, finds nothing but ibuprofen and a few bottles of antiseptic, curses and packs them anyway because fever meds and a river of antiseptic will be some use even if they aren't the antibiotics Bobby is hoping for.
She's absorbed in what she's doing but not so absorbed that she doesn't hear the creak behind her. She whirls around, dropping the pack and reaching to her holster for her gun, stops, gapes.
"What the hell are you doing here?"
Bobby can't sit still, paces up and down the kitchen, stands in the doorway, listens, paces up and down the hall, and finally can't stand the suspense.
He pushes the half-open door, peers around it into the bedroom, sees Sam's long legs and huge feet splayed out, his brother curled up between them in a fetal position, face buried in Sam's chest, Sam holding him upright. Asleep, he mouths at Bobby, and he nods over towards the bed.
Dean stirs as Bobby lifts him back off Sam, struggles feebly, offers a ghost of a smile when he sees who it is. His face is white, his cheeks two hectic splotches of pink, and his eyes are fever-bright.
"We got you, boy," Bobby breathes, and he holds Dean close for a minute, wiping sweat-spiked hair away from his forehead. He frowns at the heat emanating from Dean's skin as Sam groans, stretches cramped muscles and then moves in to lift his brother back up on the bed.
"C'n walk…" Dean mumbles, trying to shake off his brother's arm, but Sam ignores his efforts, swings him up as his brother bites back a cry, and lays him down.
"He's running a fever," Sam mutters.
It's no surprise: it was inevitable really. Bobby is already rooting out a thermometer, inserting it briefly in Dean's ear until it beeps. He clicks his tongue. "So-so… 101.5 degreees." He glances up at Sam. "The only way is up," he says grimly. "Jeez, where is that pay-by-the hour motel with the ice machine when you most need it…"
He parks the thermometer on the nightstand. "Okey dokey. Time to see if that bag of Bender's has anything that might help instead of hinder," he says. "I'll be back." He pauses at the door, turns around to look back at them. "Sam… why don't you spend some time talking to your brother now he's awake," he says, and although the words are innocuous enough Sam knows they're loaded with things unsaid, a subtext that's quite clearly telling him to talk to his brother while he still has the chance.
Dean twitches nervously as Sam pulls up the sheet and blankets, tries to push them away. "S' hot…" he mumbles. "Too hot…"
"You're running a fever Dean. It'll be chills in a few minutes."
"Hrts…"
Sam pulls a chair up close to the bed, grasps Dean's hand, tries to calm the tremors. "Where does it hurt, Dean?" he asks and he knows what the answer will be.
"E'vrwhere…"
Bobby comes back in, carrying a bottle of pills and a glass of water. "Vicodin. Should help with the pain and the fever," he says, shaking out one of the pills onto Sam's palm.
Sam stares at it doubtfully. "Think it's okay for him to have this on top of everything else he might have been taking?"
"No," says Bobby, blunt as always. "But he's only flaked out like that because he's too worn down to cry out, kid. At this point if there's anything we can give him for some relief we should give it to him."
Sam gazes at the pill for a minute, thinks numbly that Bobby's words reek of palliative care for the terminally ill. Dean's eyes spin crazily in their sockets as Sam lifts up his head, and he half expects to see a couple of jackpot signs. "Dean… open up kiddo. This'll help with the pain." His brother accepts the pill, choking a little on the cool water before gulping it greedily.
"Not too much, Dean… you'll be sick," Sam cautions, and lowers him back down, smiling at the frown of irritation his brother's features form.
"Fucktard," Dean slurs. "Fuckin' fucktard, Lee… no. No." He hits out, almost knocks the glass from Sam's hand, opens his eyes wide and stares right into Sam's face. "Fucker," he mutters, a note of spite underlying the weakness. "S' red pills. Pink too. Missy… says so… now."
Bobby's eyes widen. "Well, that's something to go on." He leaves the room, returning a couple of minutes later with the black bag. He sits on the bed, empties the bottles out on the blanket and they rummage through whites, blues, yellows, two-color combos, until Sam pounces on one: a bottle containing two red pills, holds it up.
"Secobarbital… I don't know what that is. Bobby, do you know what that is?" He hands the bottle to the older man, pokes through the rest of the meds, looking for any that are pink, snatches them up. "Fluoxetine… that's familiar…" He thinks hard, wishes to fuck he had his laptop and a handy wireless connection to piggyback, plucks the answer from a dusty filing cabinet in an empty office somewhere in the basement of his brain. "Prozac. That's Prozac, Jess had some." He looks up at Bobby. "Any ideas on the red ones?"
Bobby is staring at the two remaining reddish pills, the kind of look that tells Sam that yes, he damn well does know what they are. "You know something," he prompts, glancing swiftly back at his dazed brother when he hears a faint moan. "What are they? Bobby?"
Bobby sighs. "Bad news, kid. Bad news is what they are." He rubs his chin hard. "Red devils. A real mean drug to get hooked on… barbiturate, real addictive." He eyes Sam for a minute. "I knew a guy, took it years ago," he continues, almost carefully. "Bad fuckin' medicine… He'd get up out of bed, make phone calls, get in his car to go for a drive, cook meals, all in this… this sleep-wake state. Never had a clue when he came round."
Sam can see there's more, something Bobby isn't saying, can see it in his eyes. He's dead calm when he asks the next question. "Was that my dad, Bobby? That man, was it my dad?"
Bobby makes this snorting, chuffing noise out through his nose, scratches his head. "No, kid," he says wearily. "It was me."
Sam doesn't know if he feels relief that it wasn't his dad or sadness that it was Bobby, jumps automatically ahead so he doesn't have to dwell on it. "Bobby, getting off this drug… What's that like?"
The old man gets up, walks a few paces away, doesn't look at Sam. "It's a fuckin' nightmare, boy." He turns then. "Did you see them give him these, give him anything?"
"Christ, Bobby, he was so high he was orbiting the moon," Sam says, feeling the tremors in his brother's hand grow fractionally worse. "Bender said he'd been chewing peyote, but they didn't give him anything else that I could see… if he took those, he did it while I was unconscious or asleep."
Bobby's shaking his head. "No wonder the kid was so out of it. Christ… bang on the head and this shit on top of it… they could have told him day was night and he'd have believed them."
Sam can see Bobby is doing mental calculations, and sure enough, "We should have been keeping better track of time," the old man mutters. "Stupid, stupid. It must be more than twenty-four hours since he's had any. That means the shit's gonna start hitting the fan any time now." He motions to the pile of bottles. "See if there's any more," he says. "He's gonna need 'em."
"More?" Sam says, perplexed. "Shouldn't we be weaning him off them?"
"This isn't something we can hurry, boy," Bobby says, his tone grim. "Has to be done gradual. Cold turkey is just not an option with him like this."
Sam sorts through the drugs, looks up, his voice hollow. "There's no more of them, Bobby."
Bobby is frantically searching through kitchen cabinets when Hudak gets back, and he doesn't look at her as she walks in.
"Everything okay?" she ventures, as he sweeps bottles and jars aside.
"No it is not," he barks, but he still doesn't turn around. "They've been giving the kid barbs, fuckin' red devils. This is…Jesus. We're at Def-Con One right now, Kathleen, so please tell me you have the meds we need or so help me I will start throwing punches."
He whirls around finally stops dead.
"I went one better," Hudak says. "Meet the famous Doc Swenson."
Bobby strides across the room, smiles, holds out his hand, feints and lets swing a right hook that sends Swenson careening back onto the floor.
"Well, I don't blame you," Hudak says, stepping quickly in front of the prone man before Bobby can recover enough to haul him up and sink another. "But he's here to help. And it sounds like we need it."
Bobby rubs his knuckles. "This is partly his fuckin' fault, Kathleen," he snaps. "Dean is strung out on drugs he supplied."
"Not barbiturates," the man bleats from the floor. "I didn't prescribe those. I've only ever prescribed lithium for Lee and Prozac for the old man's insomnia. I swear to God."
Hudak doesn't know why, but she believes him. "Bobby we need all the help we can get," she repeats. "He says he wants to help. He can check the wound, the leg… reset the arm. He's brought supplies, antibiotics, fluids. We can't be choosy, not now."
Swenson clambers to his feet, rubs his bloody nose. "I didn't want any of this," he says. "I tried to get them to leave your boy behind, but the girl wouldn't do it. She had a gun. So I did what I could for him, gave them some antibiotics."
Bobby stares him down and Hudak thinks that if she had a knife handy she could slice the tension in the air into chunks and serve it up for dinner.
Swenson tries again. "Look, for what it's worth, I'm so-"
"Save it," Bobby says curtly. "He's through here."
Hudak can hear the coughing as they leave the kitchen, deep, hacking, phlegm-rasping coughs that are painful to listen to. And she stops just inside the doorway to the bedroom, because the decline has been so rapid she's appalled.
Sam is sitting on the bed up close beside his brother, his knees bent. He's supporting Dean in a semi-upright position, his torso slumped forward and resting on Sam's thighs, his head limp on Sam's knees and his arms trailing down. Sam taps and rubs his brother's back between his shoulder blades as Dean chokes and splutters out red-tinged slime, and uses a towel to gently, patiently, wipe Dean's lips. In between coughs, Dean's breath is a dry, Vader wheeze. He's soaked with sweat, shivering, even looks smaller.
"What are you doing here?" Sam says when he sees who is standing beside Hudak, and his voice is tired, hopeless, not angry or even surprised.
Swenson lifts up his bag. "I'm here to help. If you'll let me."
Sam's lack of reaction seems like a good sign and Hudak ushers the man forward. He sets his bag down on the bed, starts rifling through it. "Have you checked his temperature?" he says, businesslike, as he tugs out a stethoscope.
Swenson picks up the thermometer from the nightstand, takes a reading, raises an eyebrow. "And the Deputy says he drowned and you brought him back?"
"Yeah," Bobby confirms. "Yeah… he drowned… took maybe three, four minutes of CPR to get him back."
"Did he vomit up water when he came round?"
"Yep."
Swenson sits on the bed next to Dean, sucks in a breath when he sees the size twelve bruise on his back, breathes on the stethoscope to warm it, slides it in above Sam's knees and under the gauze dressing, onto Dean's chest, scowls. "That's not good…"
He glances at Hudak, then to Sam, tentatively offers Sam the earpiece. After a moment's hesitation Sam takes it, listens.
"You hear that crackling noise?" Swenson says.
"Like interference on the radio," Sam murmurs.
"And there's a rumbling sound as he breathes out," Swenson picks up. "It's called rails, it indicates liquid in his lungs. I can't give you a definite diagnosis without a chest x-ray but since he's been in the river it's highly likely this is pneumonia." He looks around at Hudak again. "Deputy, this man should be in a hospital on oxygen." He lifts Dean's hand. "Look at his fingertips… blue. And his lips. Cyanosis. He doesn't have enough oxygen in his blood."
Hudak shrugs ruefully. "Don't look at me. If I had my way, he'd have been there yesterday."
Bobby, standing beside her, shifts from foot to foot. "That's not an option right now," he says uncomfortably, but he doesn't apportion blame.
Swenson considers them for a minute, nods. "Right. Well. I'll do what I can for him. But you need to understand it's my medical opinion that he needs hospital care."
Bobby nods. "I hear you loud and clear."
"Okay…" Swenson gets up, takes off his sweater, rolls up his sleeves. "I'll need to set up a drip for the antibiotics and fluids… he'll be dehydrated from the sweating."
"Do you need me to lay him down?" Sam says quietly, keeping up his rubbing and tapping as his brother wheezes.
"No, upright is good, help him bring up some of the mucus. Has he vomited?"
"No… I don't know when he last ate. But he's dropped at least twenty pounds."
"And the Deputy says Lee was giving him drugs?"
"Not Lee," Sam says. "The girl, I think. But Lee said he'd started taking them himself." He pauses for a minute. "The drugs he was taking… secobarbital, Prozac too, I think. Those are pretty addictive, right?"
Swenson is uncapping a bottle of antiseptic, pulling out cotton wool pads. "The barbiturate is, yes. Do you know when he last had any?"
"Not in the last twenty-four hours," Bobby chips in. "He's been twitchy, aggressive. We've got a couple of pills left, we were gonna give him a half-dose."
"Well, ordinarily I'd agree with you but it's not a good idea in his condition," Swenson says, producing a saline drip pack from his bag. "It could depress his respiratory system even more… in fact the barbs might be one of the reasons this is so bad."
"It's bad then…?" Sam asks softly.
"You can lay him down now, I need to get to his arm to set this up," Swenson says. "And yes, it is bad."
He blanches at the patchwork of cuts, bruises and scars, recovers himself and gently palpates Dean's torso. "Three cracked, one broken as far as I can tell. Christ. That's going to be a problem with the coughing… we can't strap him if his breathing's depressed." He breaks out a sterile needle, starts tapping for a vein, finds it with some difficulty, squinting at the bruise he can see in the crook of Dean's arm. "Is he a user?"
"No," Bobby snaps roughly. "Blood transfusion."
Swenson doesn't look up, concentrates on sliding in the needle, tapes it in place. "No offense meant. It could complicate matters even more if he is, that's all." He pegs the saline pack up on the same lampstand Bobby used. "Transfusing was a tad risky without using anticoagulants."
"There was warfarin mixed in with the meds," Hudak says. "He bled a lot after I winged him. We assumed he'd taken it."
Swenson smiles wryly. "Well he was lucky. The drugs probably met each other in the middle. If there was any residual warfarin it probably aided the transfusion. And barbiturates have a coagulant effect, so they probably balanced the effect of the warfarin enough to make a difference with the bleeding. Okay… anyone wearing a belt?"
They all stare at him, uncomprehending, the noise of Dean's teeth chattering a steady percussion in the sudden silence.
"We need to immobilize this arm, strap it down," Swenson elaborates. "He's weak but he could get violent coming down from the drugs and rip out the drip, damage the shoulder further."
Hudak reaches behind her, retrieves her cuffs, glances over in silent apology at Sam as she tugs up the bedclothes and secures Dean's wrist to the bed-frame.
Dean stares up at her with open-grave eyes, pulls at the cuff. "Dn't do that… Lee… bitch. Sam? Sam?"
Sam leans over him, whispers soothing words in his ear as Swenson shoots a syringe of clear liquid into the IV. Bobby immerses a cloth in a bowl of water on the dresser, wrings it out, sits on the bed and gently wipes Dean's face and neck, as Dean tries to escape the cool sensation, twisting his head away.
"He needs oxygen," Swenson says. "I can get it at the hospital. I'll check the shoulder and the leg first - the antibiotics will help with those - and I'll have to re-break the arm and cast it. We need the other bag from the car, it has a mallet in it."
The cuffs clank against metal again as Dean heaves on them. "Lemme go… Sam… Dad? Don't do that, Lee… y' m' brother… no…"
Hudak sees Sam's shoulders go taut at the reminder of what might have happened. "Bender," he says, loud and clear, his voice thick with a menace Hudak hasn't heard since their last encounter with the doctor. Almost subconsciously, she moves in closer, ready to deflect if necessary. She can tell Swenson is aware of Sam's heightened tension, he licks his lips, swallows a couple of times.
"What about him?"
"Was he clean?"
Swenson seems genuinely puzzled. "Clean? I don't know what you mean…" And then he gets it, sits down heavily. "Jesus. Jesus, Lee." He holds his head in his hands. "Yes, he was clean."
Hudak interjects. "Could you tell by looking? If Lee… hurt him?"
Swenson pales, stares up at her. "Uh… well, yes, probably. But - there's no way… the circumstances, I just… no." He glances uneasily towards Sam. "No. It wouldn't be right for me to check. Christ, I don't even do prostate exams because of this. No. I can tell you what to look for, but I'm not doing it. It's not right."
Hudak curses inwardly, thinks how fucking ironic it is that Swenson has rediscovered his integrity when they least need it. She looks over to Sam and he nods, just barely.
"Okay, Doc," she says. "You can tell me what to look for while we get the other bag."
Swenson gets up, follows her, reaches out and stops her in the hallway. "Lee… look, he wasn't ever rough, but without the meds…"
She nods. "Aggressive. I remember you saying so the day you let the sonofabitch abduct that kid. Just like I remember you saying he didn't swing that way."
The man doesn't attempt to defend himself again. "This kind of thing… if it happens to men… there's a tendency for it to be more violent."
Hudak sighs. "Yes, I've heard that. But he hasn't been bleeding, not as far as I could see." And she suddenly thinks that they didn't really check, and Dean has been in the river so any signs would be gone. And that all she really wants to do is lean up against the wall and slide down it and never get up.
"Sammy…"
Dean's voice is husky in between coughing spasms, and Sam heaves him higher up onto the pillows sits back down in his chair, and wipes his brother's face with the washcloth. "We need to try to get some food into him, Bobby. Think there's some soup or something?"
Bobby gets up, stretches. "I'll check. Kathleen brought coffee, I'll get a brew going. Looks like we're in for a long night."
Dean is smiling drowsily, and Sam draws circles on the back of his brother's hand with his thumb. "Jesus, Dean. I don't know what I'd have done," he says, wipes his eyes on his sleeve. "I thought it was over. Thought you were gone… again."
"Baaaad habit," his brother drawls.
"You dying? It sure as hell is."
"Noooo… you leaving," Dean says. "Always leaving." And suddenly Dean isn't smiling any more, isn't docile. He's agitated, shifting about in the bed and tugging restlessly at the cuffs. "You left me there… left me. Bitch…"
"Jerk…" Sam says, because he's at a loss, can't think of anything else to say, hopes against hope his brother will give him that tired smile again, say bitch like he means it - not like he means it.
Dean pulls his hand away, clutches his chest, coughs, breathless, his face creasing in pain. "No. Fuck you… left me. Bastard. Left me with… fuckin' animal…"
Sam leans in, tries to reassure him. "Dean, calm down, please calm down… stop or you're gonna hurt yourself even more…" He grabs his brother's hand again, only for Dean to take a wild swing at him, his forearm crashing down on the nightstand with a sickening crack. He cries out in pain and his body goes rigid, arms and legs twitching, eyes wide but unseeing, jaw locking, froth bubbling at the corners of his mouth.
Bobby is already there. "Seizure," he cries, sits down, oh so gently restrains Dean while his limbs continue to spasm, until he slumps, limp, unconscious.
"He thinks I left him," Sam says, and he wrings his hands. "It's my fault, Bobby, it's-"
"No it isn't, Sam," Bobby snaps. "Listen and listen good, kid. The detox caused the seizure and I know that from experience." He gets up, stands in front of Sam, grips his face in his hands. "Nothing you did caused this, kid. It's the drugs. And you need to hold that thought, because this is is gonna get worse before it gets better."
Bobby looks over at Swenson as he comes back in carrying a small case, Hudak behind him. "He seized, more than one minute, less than two, eyes open and blank till he passed out. And you won't need to be re-breaking the arm."
Swenson is weary as he drives back towards Hibbing, wonders how and why he even let himself get sucked into this mess, remembers that little matter of responsibility and sighs.
The kid might be in with a chance - might. In truth, it's the psychological damage that's going to be the biggest problem, he thinks, and he shudders as he remembers what it was like for him in the marines, and how he knows from bitter experience how violent that often is, and what the long-term effects can be.
The figure is walking along by the side of the road and he knows who it is straightaway.
He honks, pulls up, leans over and opens the passenger door. "What the hell are you doing wandering around out here?" he snaps. "Get in."
Next
The clutch and brake should work in harmony my ass, Hudak thinks as she grinds towards Hibbing, almost mowing down a raccoon taking an early morning stroll in her determination not to stall the truck, no, tank, no strike that, fucking prototype horseless carriage from the year dot that Bobby set her up with. The old man explained the whole clutch-brake deal with as much patience as he could muster, desperate as he was to get back to Dean, and she thanks God he also spent five minutes giving her the Cliffs Notes version of hotwiring an automobile because she jounces to a halt several times on the way into town and spends long moments teasing the engine back to life, wondering how she could have reached thirty-cough without learning the finer things in a life of crime.
She stalls the beast for the last time on her driveway, makes a quick supply run for fresh clothes and, sweet Jesus, coffee, grabbing the machine and a vacuum pack of Colombian and dumping them on the back seat of the Jeep. She races back inside to take a leak and a thirty-second shower, phones to let Matty know she thinks she's found some Bender tracks and is heading back out to search some more, please hang onto the dog for a few more days, and grabs a pack of Oreos.
As far as breaking and entering Swenson's office is concerned, it's the old-fashioned way - through the yard and a sharp tap with the butt of her revolver to the glass in his back door, and she thinks there's no way in hell she's letting Bobby Singer and the Winchesters leave town without showing her how to pick a lock.
The office shows no signs of Sam's rampage all those weeks ago; it's in perfect shipshape order, books and papers packed away, a new chair. Hudak starts opening cabinets, pulling drawers, rifling through boxes, finds nothing but ibuprofen and a few bottles of antiseptic, curses and packs them anyway because fever meds and a river of antiseptic will be some use even if they aren't the antibiotics Bobby is hoping for.
She's absorbed in what she's doing but not so absorbed that she doesn't hear the creak behind her. She whirls around, dropping the pack and reaching to her holster for her gun, stops, gapes.
"What the hell are you doing here?"
Bobby can't sit still, paces up and down the kitchen, stands in the doorway, listens, paces up and down the hall, and finally can't stand the suspense.
He pushes the half-open door, peers around it into the bedroom, sees Sam's long legs and huge feet splayed out, his brother curled up between them in a fetal position, face buried in Sam's chest, Sam holding him upright. Asleep, he mouths at Bobby, and he nods over towards the bed.
Dean stirs as Bobby lifts him back off Sam, struggles feebly, offers a ghost of a smile when he sees who it is. His face is white, his cheeks two hectic splotches of pink, and his eyes are fever-bright.
"We got you, boy," Bobby breathes, and he holds Dean close for a minute, wiping sweat-spiked hair away from his forehead. He frowns at the heat emanating from Dean's skin as Sam groans, stretches cramped muscles and then moves in to lift his brother back up on the bed.
"C'n walk…" Dean mumbles, trying to shake off his brother's arm, but Sam ignores his efforts, swings him up as his brother bites back a cry, and lays him down.
"He's running a fever," Sam mutters.
It's no surprise: it was inevitable really. Bobby is already rooting out a thermometer, inserting it briefly in Dean's ear until it beeps. He clicks his tongue. "So-so… 101.5 degreees." He glances up at Sam. "The only way is up," he says grimly. "Jeez, where is that pay-by-the hour motel with the ice machine when you most need it…"
He parks the thermometer on the nightstand. "Okey dokey. Time to see if that bag of Bender's has anything that might help instead of hinder," he says. "I'll be back." He pauses at the door, turns around to look back at them. "Sam… why don't you spend some time talking to your brother now he's awake," he says, and although the words are innocuous enough Sam knows they're loaded with things unsaid, a subtext that's quite clearly telling him to talk to his brother while he still has the chance.
Dean twitches nervously as Sam pulls up the sheet and blankets, tries to push them away. "S' hot…" he mumbles. "Too hot…"
"You're running a fever Dean. It'll be chills in a few minutes."
"Hrts…"
Sam pulls a chair up close to the bed, grasps Dean's hand, tries to calm the tremors. "Where does it hurt, Dean?" he asks and he knows what the answer will be.
"E'vrwhere…"
Bobby comes back in, carrying a bottle of pills and a glass of water. "Vicodin. Should help with the pain and the fever," he says, shaking out one of the pills onto Sam's palm.
Sam stares at it doubtfully. "Think it's okay for him to have this on top of everything else he might have been taking?"
"No," says Bobby, blunt as always. "But he's only flaked out like that because he's too worn down to cry out, kid. At this point if there's anything we can give him for some relief we should give it to him."
Sam gazes at the pill for a minute, thinks numbly that Bobby's words reek of palliative care for the terminally ill. Dean's eyes spin crazily in their sockets as Sam lifts up his head, and he half expects to see a couple of jackpot signs. "Dean… open up kiddo. This'll help with the pain." His brother accepts the pill, choking a little on the cool water before gulping it greedily.
"Not too much, Dean… you'll be sick," Sam cautions, and lowers him back down, smiling at the frown of irritation his brother's features form.
"Fucktard," Dean slurs. "Fuckin' fucktard, Lee… no. No." He hits out, almost knocks the glass from Sam's hand, opens his eyes wide and stares right into Sam's face. "Fucker," he mutters, a note of spite underlying the weakness. "S' red pills. Pink too. Missy… says so… now."
Bobby's eyes widen. "Well, that's something to go on." He leaves the room, returning a couple of minutes later with the black bag. He sits on the bed, empties the bottles out on the blanket and they rummage through whites, blues, yellows, two-color combos, until Sam pounces on one: a bottle containing two red pills, holds it up.
"Secobarbital… I don't know what that is. Bobby, do you know what that is?" He hands the bottle to the older man, pokes through the rest of the meds, looking for any that are pink, snatches them up. "Fluoxetine… that's familiar…" He thinks hard, wishes to fuck he had his laptop and a handy wireless connection to piggyback, plucks the answer from a dusty filing cabinet in an empty office somewhere in the basement of his brain. "Prozac. That's Prozac, Jess had some." He looks up at Bobby. "Any ideas on the red ones?"
Bobby is staring at the two remaining reddish pills, the kind of look that tells Sam that yes, he damn well does know what they are. "You know something," he prompts, glancing swiftly back at his dazed brother when he hears a faint moan. "What are they? Bobby?"
Bobby sighs. "Bad news, kid. Bad news is what they are." He rubs his chin hard. "Red devils. A real mean drug to get hooked on… barbiturate, real addictive." He eyes Sam for a minute. "I knew a guy, took it years ago," he continues, almost carefully. "Bad fuckin' medicine… He'd get up out of bed, make phone calls, get in his car to go for a drive, cook meals, all in this… this sleep-wake state. Never had a clue when he came round."
Sam can see there's more, something Bobby isn't saying, can see it in his eyes. He's dead calm when he asks the next question. "Was that my dad, Bobby? That man, was it my dad?"
Bobby makes this snorting, chuffing noise out through his nose, scratches his head. "No, kid," he says wearily. "It was me."
Sam doesn't know if he feels relief that it wasn't his dad or sadness that it was Bobby, jumps automatically ahead so he doesn't have to dwell on it. "Bobby, getting off this drug… What's that like?"
The old man gets up, walks a few paces away, doesn't look at Sam. "It's a fuckin' nightmare, boy." He turns then. "Did you see them give him these, give him anything?"
"Christ, Bobby, he was so high he was orbiting the moon," Sam says, feeling the tremors in his brother's hand grow fractionally worse. "Bender said he'd been chewing peyote, but they didn't give him anything else that I could see… if he took those, he did it while I was unconscious or asleep."
Bobby's shaking his head. "No wonder the kid was so out of it. Christ… bang on the head and this shit on top of it… they could have told him day was night and he'd have believed them."
Sam can see Bobby is doing mental calculations, and sure enough, "We should have been keeping better track of time," the old man mutters. "Stupid, stupid. It must be more than twenty-four hours since he's had any. That means the shit's gonna start hitting the fan any time now." He motions to the pile of bottles. "See if there's any more," he says. "He's gonna need 'em."
"More?" Sam says, perplexed. "Shouldn't we be weaning him off them?"
"This isn't something we can hurry, boy," Bobby says, his tone grim. "Has to be done gradual. Cold turkey is just not an option with him like this."
Sam sorts through the drugs, looks up, his voice hollow. "There's no more of them, Bobby."
Bobby is frantically searching through kitchen cabinets when Hudak gets back, and he doesn't look at her as she walks in.
"Everything okay?" she ventures, as he sweeps bottles and jars aside.
"No it is not," he barks, but he still doesn't turn around. "They've been giving the kid barbs, fuckin' red devils. This is…Jesus. We're at Def-Con One right now, Kathleen, so please tell me you have the meds we need or so help me I will start throwing punches."
He whirls around finally stops dead.
"I went one better," Hudak says. "Meet the famous Doc Swenson."
Bobby strides across the room, smiles, holds out his hand, feints and lets swing a right hook that sends Swenson careening back onto the floor.
"Well, I don't blame you," Hudak says, stepping quickly in front of the prone man before Bobby can recover enough to haul him up and sink another. "But he's here to help. And it sounds like we need it."
Bobby rubs his knuckles. "This is partly his fuckin' fault, Kathleen," he snaps. "Dean is strung out on drugs he supplied."
"Not barbiturates," the man bleats from the floor. "I didn't prescribe those. I've only ever prescribed lithium for Lee and Prozac for the old man's insomnia. I swear to God."
Hudak doesn't know why, but she believes him. "Bobby we need all the help we can get," she repeats. "He says he wants to help. He can check the wound, the leg… reset the arm. He's brought supplies, antibiotics, fluids. We can't be choosy, not now."
Swenson clambers to his feet, rubs his bloody nose. "I didn't want any of this," he says. "I tried to get them to leave your boy behind, but the girl wouldn't do it. She had a gun. So I did what I could for him, gave them some antibiotics."
Bobby stares him down and Hudak thinks that if she had a knife handy she could slice the tension in the air into chunks and serve it up for dinner.
Swenson tries again. "Look, for what it's worth, I'm so-"
"Save it," Bobby says curtly. "He's through here."
Hudak can hear the coughing as they leave the kitchen, deep, hacking, phlegm-rasping coughs that are painful to listen to. And she stops just inside the doorway to the bedroom, because the decline has been so rapid she's appalled.
Sam is sitting on the bed up close beside his brother, his knees bent. He's supporting Dean in a semi-upright position, his torso slumped forward and resting on Sam's thighs, his head limp on Sam's knees and his arms trailing down. Sam taps and rubs his brother's back between his shoulder blades as Dean chokes and splutters out red-tinged slime, and uses a towel to gently, patiently, wipe Dean's lips. In between coughs, Dean's breath is a dry, Vader wheeze. He's soaked with sweat, shivering, even looks smaller.
"What are you doing here?" Sam says when he sees who is standing beside Hudak, and his voice is tired, hopeless, not angry or even surprised.
Swenson lifts up his bag. "I'm here to help. If you'll let me."
Sam's lack of reaction seems like a good sign and Hudak ushers the man forward. He sets his bag down on the bed, starts rifling through it. "Have you checked his temperature?" he says, businesslike, as he tugs out a stethoscope.
Swenson picks up the thermometer from the nightstand, takes a reading, raises an eyebrow. "And the Deputy says he drowned and you brought him back?"
"Yeah," Bobby confirms. "Yeah… he drowned… took maybe three, four minutes of CPR to get him back."
"Did he vomit up water when he came round?"
"Yep."
Swenson sits on the bed next to Dean, sucks in a breath when he sees the size twelve bruise on his back, breathes on the stethoscope to warm it, slides it in above Sam's knees and under the gauze dressing, onto Dean's chest, scowls. "That's not good…"
He glances at Hudak, then to Sam, tentatively offers Sam the earpiece. After a moment's hesitation Sam takes it, listens.
"You hear that crackling noise?" Swenson says.
"Like interference on the radio," Sam murmurs.
"And there's a rumbling sound as he breathes out," Swenson picks up. "It's called rails, it indicates liquid in his lungs. I can't give you a definite diagnosis without a chest x-ray but since he's been in the river it's highly likely this is pneumonia." He looks around at Hudak again. "Deputy, this man should be in a hospital on oxygen." He lifts Dean's hand. "Look at his fingertips… blue. And his lips. Cyanosis. He doesn't have enough oxygen in his blood."
Hudak shrugs ruefully. "Don't look at me. If I had my way, he'd have been there yesterday."
Bobby, standing beside her, shifts from foot to foot. "That's not an option right now," he says uncomfortably, but he doesn't apportion blame.
Swenson considers them for a minute, nods. "Right. Well. I'll do what I can for him. But you need to understand it's my medical opinion that he needs hospital care."
Bobby nods. "I hear you loud and clear."
"Okay…" Swenson gets up, takes off his sweater, rolls up his sleeves. "I'll need to set up a drip for the antibiotics and fluids… he'll be dehydrated from the sweating."
"Do you need me to lay him down?" Sam says quietly, keeping up his rubbing and tapping as his brother wheezes.
"No, upright is good, help him bring up some of the mucus. Has he vomited?"
"No… I don't know when he last ate. But he's dropped at least twenty pounds."
"And the Deputy says Lee was giving him drugs?"
"Not Lee," Sam says. "The girl, I think. But Lee said he'd started taking them himself." He pauses for a minute. "The drugs he was taking… secobarbital, Prozac too, I think. Those are pretty addictive, right?"
Swenson is uncapping a bottle of antiseptic, pulling out cotton wool pads. "The barbiturate is, yes. Do you know when he last had any?"
"Not in the last twenty-four hours," Bobby chips in. "He's been twitchy, aggressive. We've got a couple of pills left, we were gonna give him a half-dose."
"Well, ordinarily I'd agree with you but it's not a good idea in his condition," Swenson says, producing a saline drip pack from his bag. "It could depress his respiratory system even more… in fact the barbs might be one of the reasons this is so bad."
"It's bad then…?" Sam asks softly.
"You can lay him down now, I need to get to his arm to set this up," Swenson says. "And yes, it is bad."
He blanches at the patchwork of cuts, bruises and scars, recovers himself and gently palpates Dean's torso. "Three cracked, one broken as far as I can tell. Christ. That's going to be a problem with the coughing… we can't strap him if his breathing's depressed." He breaks out a sterile needle, starts tapping for a vein, finds it with some difficulty, squinting at the bruise he can see in the crook of Dean's arm. "Is he a user?"
"No," Bobby snaps roughly. "Blood transfusion."
Swenson doesn't look up, concentrates on sliding in the needle, tapes it in place. "No offense meant. It could complicate matters even more if he is, that's all." He pegs the saline pack up on the same lampstand Bobby used. "Transfusing was a tad risky without using anticoagulants."
"There was warfarin mixed in with the meds," Hudak says. "He bled a lot after I winged him. We assumed he'd taken it."
Swenson smiles wryly. "Well he was lucky. The drugs probably met each other in the middle. If there was any residual warfarin it probably aided the transfusion. And barbiturates have a coagulant effect, so they probably balanced the effect of the warfarin enough to make a difference with the bleeding. Okay… anyone wearing a belt?"
They all stare at him, uncomprehending, the noise of Dean's teeth chattering a steady percussion in the sudden silence.
"We need to immobilize this arm, strap it down," Swenson elaborates. "He's weak but he could get violent coming down from the drugs and rip out the drip, damage the shoulder further."
Hudak reaches behind her, retrieves her cuffs, glances over in silent apology at Sam as she tugs up the bedclothes and secures Dean's wrist to the bed-frame.
Dean stares up at her with open-grave eyes, pulls at the cuff. "Dn't do that… Lee… bitch. Sam? Sam?"
Sam leans over him, whispers soothing words in his ear as Swenson shoots a syringe of clear liquid into the IV. Bobby immerses a cloth in a bowl of water on the dresser, wrings it out, sits on the bed and gently wipes Dean's face and neck, as Dean tries to escape the cool sensation, twisting his head away.
"He needs oxygen," Swenson says. "I can get it at the hospital. I'll check the shoulder and the leg first - the antibiotics will help with those - and I'll have to re-break the arm and cast it. We need the other bag from the car, it has a mallet in it."
The cuffs clank against metal again as Dean heaves on them. "Lemme go… Sam… Dad? Don't do that, Lee… y' m' brother… no…"
Hudak sees Sam's shoulders go taut at the reminder of what might have happened. "Bender," he says, loud and clear, his voice thick with a menace Hudak hasn't heard since their last encounter with the doctor. Almost subconsciously, she moves in closer, ready to deflect if necessary. She can tell Swenson is aware of Sam's heightened tension, he licks his lips, swallows a couple of times.
"What about him?"
"Was he clean?"
Swenson seems genuinely puzzled. "Clean? I don't know what you mean…" And then he gets it, sits down heavily. "Jesus. Jesus, Lee." He holds his head in his hands. "Yes, he was clean."
Hudak interjects. "Could you tell by looking? If Lee… hurt him?"
Swenson pales, stares up at her. "Uh… well, yes, probably. But - there's no way… the circumstances, I just… no." He glances uneasily towards Sam. "No. It wouldn't be right for me to check. Christ, I don't even do prostate exams because of this. No. I can tell you what to look for, but I'm not doing it. It's not right."
Hudak curses inwardly, thinks how fucking ironic it is that Swenson has rediscovered his integrity when they least need it. She looks over to Sam and he nods, just barely.
"Okay, Doc," she says. "You can tell me what to look for while we get the other bag."
Swenson gets up, follows her, reaches out and stops her in the hallway. "Lee… look, he wasn't ever rough, but without the meds…"
She nods. "Aggressive. I remember you saying so the day you let the sonofabitch abduct that kid. Just like I remember you saying he didn't swing that way."
The man doesn't attempt to defend himself again. "This kind of thing… if it happens to men… there's a tendency for it to be more violent."
Hudak sighs. "Yes, I've heard that. But he hasn't been bleeding, not as far as I could see." And she suddenly thinks that they didn't really check, and Dean has been in the river so any signs would be gone. And that all she really wants to do is lean up against the wall and slide down it and never get up.
"Sammy…"
Dean's voice is husky in between coughing spasms, and Sam heaves him higher up onto the pillows sits back down in his chair, and wipes his brother's face with the washcloth. "We need to try to get some food into him, Bobby. Think there's some soup or something?"
Bobby gets up, stretches. "I'll check. Kathleen brought coffee, I'll get a brew going. Looks like we're in for a long night."
Dean is smiling drowsily, and Sam draws circles on the back of his brother's hand with his thumb. "Jesus, Dean. I don't know what I'd have done," he says, wipes his eyes on his sleeve. "I thought it was over. Thought you were gone… again."
"Baaaad habit," his brother drawls.
"You dying? It sure as hell is."
"Noooo… you leaving," Dean says. "Always leaving." And suddenly Dean isn't smiling any more, isn't docile. He's agitated, shifting about in the bed and tugging restlessly at the cuffs. "You left me there… left me. Bitch…"
"Jerk…" Sam says, because he's at a loss, can't think of anything else to say, hopes against hope his brother will give him that tired smile again, say bitch like he means it - not like he means it.
Dean pulls his hand away, clutches his chest, coughs, breathless, his face creasing in pain. "No. Fuck you… left me. Bastard. Left me with… fuckin' animal…"
Sam leans in, tries to reassure him. "Dean, calm down, please calm down… stop or you're gonna hurt yourself even more…" He grabs his brother's hand again, only for Dean to take a wild swing at him, his forearm crashing down on the nightstand with a sickening crack. He cries out in pain and his body goes rigid, arms and legs twitching, eyes wide but unseeing, jaw locking, froth bubbling at the corners of his mouth.
Bobby is already there. "Seizure," he cries, sits down, oh so gently restrains Dean while his limbs continue to spasm, until he slumps, limp, unconscious.
"He thinks I left him," Sam says, and he wrings his hands. "It's my fault, Bobby, it's-"
"No it isn't, Sam," Bobby snaps. "Listen and listen good, kid. The detox caused the seizure and I know that from experience." He gets up, stands in front of Sam, grips his face in his hands. "Nothing you did caused this, kid. It's the drugs. And you need to hold that thought, because this is is gonna get worse before it gets better."
Bobby looks over at Swenson as he comes back in carrying a small case, Hudak behind him. "He seized, more than one minute, less than two, eyes open and blank till he passed out. And you won't need to be re-breaking the arm."
Swenson is weary as he drives back towards Hibbing, wonders how and why he even let himself get sucked into this mess, remembers that little matter of responsibility and sighs.
The kid might be in with a chance - might. In truth, it's the psychological damage that's going to be the biggest problem, he thinks, and he shudders as he remembers what it was like for him in the marines, and how he knows from bitter experience how violent that often is, and what the long-term effects can be.
The figure is walking along by the side of the road and he knows who it is straightaway.
He honks, pulls up, leans over and opens the passenger door. "What the hell are you doing wandering around out here?" he snaps. "Get in."
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