ohsam | Fic: The Apotheosis of Wile E. Coyote, SPN S3, part 3/6

Title: The Apotheosis of Wile E. Coyote
Author: nwhepcat
Fandom: Supernatural, gen;
Rating R
Spoilers: Set shortly after S3 "Mystery Spot," but spoilery for S4 "Heaven and Hell"
Summary: Even with the clock ticking toward death and hell, Dean insists on taking on a routine job. It's anything but routine when he finds something he's not meant to discover, and things get a great deal more complicated, while Sam tries very hard not to break.
Disclaimer: So not mine, and it is a sadness.
Warnings: Language, h/c, psychosis, Mystery Spot!Sam

Previous parts are here.

Bobby's face darkens. "Stop talking like a damn nitwit. For one thing, Dean is not going to die."

"I wish I could believe that."

"You haven't slept in so long you're hanging by a thread. Of course you can't see anything but gloom. Just give me the quick and dirty on what the doctors say, then I'll get out of your hair so you can sleep."

"You can't have had much yourself. You've been on the road for --"

"I'm fine, Sam. You take care of yourself. Fill me in, then I'll go sit with Dean."

And Dean is the one argument that Sam can't refute. "All right," he says, and he passes on all the information he has. By the end, he's barely keeping the thread of his sentences from start to finish.

Bobby claps him on the shoulder. "Good job, Sam. Now you get to sleep, and I'll head back over to Dean."

Sam rubs his eyes. "I'll be there somewhere around six or seven."

"Like hell you will. Leave the fucking alarm alone. Just sleep till your body's had enough, then eat something, then you can show up"

"But if he wakes up --"

"For god's sake, boy, you think I wouldn't call you if he woke up?" He whips off his trucker's cap and thwacks Sam across the chest with it. "Idjit." He's gone before Sam can formulate a response.

Sam shakes his head and drops into bed, pausing just long enough to tug off his boots and throw his coat on a chair. Then he's out.

The room is bathed in light when Sam wakes up; he'd never thought to pull the curtains before he'd crashed. He brews some bad coffee and takes a shower, but he's still stuck with the same clothes he'd worn the day before. Grabbing a pastry and another coffee from the free breakfast setup in the lobby, he crams it into his mouth as he heads out the lobby and across to the hospital. It's gone by the time he reaches the hospital entrance, and the coffee's finished by the time he reaches Dean's floor.

As he looks around for a place to throw the coffee cup away, he spots a small, softly lit room he hasn't noticed before. A placard by the door says Meditation Room -- All Welcome. Nobody's there at the moment. There are only four chairs, a couple of photo landscapes on the wall that are meant to inspire everyone, offend no one.

On impulse, Sam steps inside, sits down. Lacing his fingers together with his palms turned up, he stares at them for a long moment. "What am I doing here?" he mutters. "I said -- I said I don't pray. I used to. I remember how shocked Dean was when I told him that."

He looks into his palms for a long time, as if they cradle a small book. One of those pocket Bibles the Gideons handed outside the schools. "I haven't asked or expected anything from you in a long time. But this -- Dean has never once in his life asked for anything for himself. If you let him be taken, you sonofabitch --" Suddenly he's aware of the presence of another person, his skin seeming to register the change in the molecules of the air. Biting back the ineffectual threat he'd been about to issue, he looks toward the doorway and finds himself in the openly curious gaze of the doctor who'd questioned him yesterday.

"Does it look like I'm talking to you?" Sam snaps.

The first glimmer of humanity surfaces in him at that. "I'm sorry," he says. "It wasn't my intention to intrude."

"You have news about my brother?"

"You misunderstand. I meant to spend a few moments in this room, that's all." He steps back. "I'll return later."

"That's okay," Sam says before he can leave. "I need to get to Dean." He rises and moves for the door.

"I'll pray for him," the doctor says as Sam slips past him. "And for you."

Sam can't say why, but he feels vaguely unsettled by this unexpected softening in his manner. "Thanks," he says reluctantly.

He steps out into the bright glare of the hallway and heads for Dean's room.

***

Coming off ten hours of sleep, Sam can now see the signs of Bobby's bone weariness: the set of his shoulders, the pinched look around his eyes.

"Any change?" Sam asks.

"No. Physical therapist came in for while, is all. They want to keep his muscle tone up."

Sam pictures the therapist moving the dead weight of Dean's limbs, an obscene parody of exercise. He has to dig his nails into his palms to keep his voice even as he asks Bobby how he's holding up.

"I ain't exactly perky, but I'm holding up just fine. What about you?" There is nothing casual in the way Bobby asks this question.

"I'm good. Slept like a baby."

Unbidden, he remembers Dean's favorite rejoinder to this, so clear in his head as if Dean's just spoken. What, you woke up crying cause you crapped yourself?" This was always accompanied by a chuckle and a hard thump on the shoulder.

Bobby's eyes narrow. "Yeah, I can see you're good."

"Go on," Sam says. "Get out of here. Same deal, Bobby. Sleep as long as you need."

Once Bobby's gone, Sam settles in the chair he vacated and opens the paper that had been at his hotel room door. "I figured we could see if there are any jobs in the area," he says to Dean. "Once we finish with the wampus cat." He knows, if Dean were awake, Sam would be fighting this very plan, but it gives him something to say so Dean will have a familiar voice to cling to.

Sam's down to reading the advice columns by the time the door opens and the doctor from the meditation room enters. Though he'd been hoping for Dr. Moultrie, Sam nods a greeting and backs off to let him do his exam.

For a long moment, the doctor just stands at Dean's bedside, staring at him with a strange, unblinking intensity. Something about it makes the hairs bristle at the back of Sam's neck, and he takes a step toward the bed.

The man -- Sam realizes he still doesn't know his name -- extends two fingers, reaching out to touch them to Dean's forehead. The gesture's as far from violent as it's possible to get, but Dean's eyes fly open at the contact, a harsh gasp tearing through him.

"Dean!" But the relief that tears through Sam slams up against something hard, as Dean looks around wildly, no sign of recognition in his eyes, only panic.

His arms thrash outward, sending the IV stand crashing to the floor, striking the doctor.

"No!" Dean shouts. His voice is rusty after his silence, but there's something else about it -- Sam would never recognize it as Dean's voice, if he heard it coming from behind him. "No no no no no!"

"Cristo," Sam shouts, running for the doctor.

The man in the white coat doesn't even turn, flinging an arm back to send Sam crashing into the wall with such force his breath is driven from his body.

Sam sprawls gasping on the floor as Dean struggles to break free of the doctor's grasp.

"NO!" Dean screams, his voice breaking on the drawn-out syllable.

***

The muffled thunder of running feet in soft-soled shoes approaches in the hallway, accompanied by urgent voices. The door bursts open, and the room fills with white coats and colored scrubs, and in the midst of this, Sam loses sight of the white-coated man that started this.

Dean still shouts and thrashes, despite efforts to restrain him. "Get away from me, get away!"

"Dean, you're all right, you're safe," Dr. Moultrie says. "Try to relax."

"Kill me," Dean shouts. "Stop him."

"Nobody's going to kill you, Dean," the doctor says. "Relax for me, and we'll see what's going on."

Sam manages to get to his feet, still panting for breath. "Dean, it's all right now. I'm here." He makes his way to Dean's bedside, and the doctors and nurses move aside to let Dean see that he's there. The doctor who knocked Sam across the room is gone. "He's gone now, you're safe."

Dean gives no sign of recognition. "Our father sent him to kill me. I have to go, let me go!"

"Dean, it's Sam. Calm down." Sam gets a forearm to the face in response, and Dean lashes out at the nurses and orderlies who try to pin him down.

"Our father sent him."

"Nobody's going to hurt you," Dr. Moultrie says. "We just want to examine you."

"Dean, Dad's ... he's not going to hurt you."

"And the rock cried out, no hiding place," Dean says. "Father --"

Dr. Moultrie takes Sam by the arm and draws him back from the bed. He murmurs an order to one of the nurses and she hurries out of the room. "Anything you can tell me about this?" he asks Sam.

"Our dad's been dead for two years," Sam says. "And I've never heard Dean call him father. It's always been dad."

"Any reason he'd fixate on this?"

Sam shakes his head. "He's got dad issues, we both do. We had a pretty messed up childhood. But he did the best he could. He never hit us or hurt us."

"Any notion what set him off? Was he awake before he got like this?"

"No. There was a doctor in the room. I don't know his name, but I've seen him a couple of times. He seemed to be about to examine Dean, and when he touched him, Dean started screaming."

"I don't like this," Dr. Moultrie says. "There may be some delayed swelling in the brain, something else that wasn't apparent the first time around. I'd like to repeat some tests."

"Sure." Sam's not convinced that they'll find a non-demonic explanation for this, but he's taking no chances. "Whatever you need to do."

"I don't want to sedate him, considering he just came out of a coma. We'll have to put him in heavy restraints."

Sam doesn't trust himself to speak, so he just nods.

Dr. Moultrie squeezes his shoulder. "You might want to step out while we get him under control. It might be hard to watch."

"No. I need to be here."

"I can respect that. We're gonna do our best for him, Sam."

He joins the others at Dean's bedside, completely obscuring Sam's view of his brother, whose yowls are now a mixture of words and unintelligible sounds.

Dean's right here in the room, but Sam feels as lost and pulled apart as he had during those disappeared months when Dean was dead.

***

It's frightening how easily he drops back into the dark, solitary place he'd lived in for the months Dean was gone, like that time was never erased. Even with two orderlies bustling around him to set the room right, Sam sits alone with the image of Dean completely immobilized, terrified. Twenty minutes go by before it even occurs to him to call Bobby.

It takes a few rings to drag Bobby out of sleep. "Yeah."

"Bobby."

The fuzziness leaves his voice immediately. "What is it, Sam?"

"He's awake. But -- it's bad."

"I'll be there in three."

True to his word, Bobby strides in less than five minutes later. "Where's Dean?"

"They took him down to do more tests."

A relieved breath gusts out of Bobby.

"To repeat the same tests, actually," Sam adds. "They think he might have some swelling. But something -- I think something attacked him."

"Take a breath, son. Tell me what happened."

"A doctor came in. Except I'm not completely sure he's a doctor. Shit shit shit! I meant to ask you about him. Fuck! This is all --"

"Simmer down, Sam. Focus."

"I've seen this guy a couple of times. He asked me a bunch of questions about the tree, and what happened out there. Yesterday, I mean."

"Tell me about today, son. What happened?"

"This doctor came in. He just stared at Dean for a while, then he touched him on the forehead." Without conscious thought, Sam imitates the doctor's two-fingered gesture, so seemingly gentle. "Dean woke up and started fighting and yelling. Sent the IV stand flying."

"What was he saying?"

"At first it was just 'No no no.' Then he started saying our father wanted him killed. And something about no hiding place." He pushes his hands through his hair. "Jesus, Bobby. They had him all strapped up like Hannibal Lecter to take him down for the tests. He was terrified. He didn't even know me. Jesus."

"This doctor who started all this. Is he still with him?"

"No. I lost him when all the other doctors and nurses came running in. I went for him when Dean first started shouting. He slammed me across the room so hard I saw stars."

Bobby scowls. "Demon."

Sam shakes his head. "I said Cristo and it didn't have the slightest effect. Jesus, Bobby. If you'd seen him."

Bobby grabs him by the shirt. "Don't go comin' apart on me, Sam. Dean needs the both of us -- you hear me?"

But Bobby might as well be a mirage, a manifestation of the Trickster, for all the good his haranguing does.

Sam is in this alone.

***

"We've got work to do, boy," Bobby says gruffly.

This is more about keeping Sam from losing what control he has left than finding anything helpful, he suspects. Bobby's voice is a rope snaking down into the inky blackness of the deep well Sam's fallen into. But the rope does no good unless Sam can reach for it.

"Sam. Work with me here. Tell me everything you remember Dean saying."

"Just 'no,' over and over again, until that doctor was gone. Then he said our father had sent this guy to kill him. He said 'our father,' not 'dad.'" He feels himself begin to shiver apart, his throat clamping shut.

"Stay with me, Sam. Tell me the rest." Shaking the rope in front of his face, telling him to grab on and hold tight.

"'No hiding place.' Something about a rock."

"'And the rock cried out, No hiding place.'"

Sam's head jerks upward. "Yes."

"It's from the Book of Revelation. Well, I think we can safely say he's not possessed by a Bible-spoutin' demon."

"Some kind of haunting?"

"Could be, but it's too early to know anything for sure. Did he say anything else?"

"He did, but the rest was gibberish."

"Gibberish, or some language you don't know?" There's a faint tone of reproach in his voice, and Sam knows it's warranted.

Sam closes his eyes, trying to remember the sound. "Dr. Moultrie was talking to me, so I wasn't listening closely. I think maybe it could have been a language, but it sounded ... broken. Strained."

"Nothing seemed familiar about it?"

He shakes his head. "No. Nothing Latinate, or Celtic. But again, I wasn't completely focused on it. I could have missed something."

"You did good, kid." Bobby squeezes his shoulder. "I'm gonna grab a few books from the truck, see if there's anything that'll narrow this down. Anything else you want?"

"Coffee."

"You've got it."

Bobby hasn't been gone more than a few minutes when Dr. Moultrie returns. He settles into the chair Bobby has been using and looks at Sam with a direct, grave gaze. "We'll be bringing Dean up shortly, but I wanted to talk to you first."

"Not rushing him into surgery," Sam says. "So the tests--"

"They showed no bleeding or swelling. Physically, he's stable. So that's good news."

"But that's the last good news you have."

Dr. Moultrie nods. "I'm afraid it is."

***

Sam feels as though the breath has been squeezed right out of him. "What's happened?"

"He's had a complete break with reality, with any sense of his own body. He spoke of being blinded and deafened, made voiceless, but his responses to visual and aural cues were normal -- and you know as well as I do that he can talk. He doesn't know who he is."

"God." He rubs at his eyes, willing himself not to get teary.

"There's a chance this is just a response to the restraints. We had to make sure he was completely immobilized for the CT scan. Plenty of people find it upsetting to be in the scanner even under normal circumstances. Is your brother claustrophobic?"

"Dean has to get into some pretty tight spaces for his work. He doesn't like it, but it doesn't panic him."

"Tell me about his work," Dr. Moultrie says. "Does he handle toxic materials, or could he have been exposed?"

Exposed to toxic materials has been the story of Dean's life, but there's no way to describe the exact sorts of poisonous shit he deals with every day. "Duct work. Repair. Old houses, sometimes factories. There's no way to tell what's in those places." Sam has no idea whether his ready source of lies could be making matters worse for Dean, but what the hell is he going to say? Could be a wampus cat, doc.

Dr. Moultrie makes a few notes in Dean's chart. "All right. We'll do some extensive bloodwork, see if any answers turn up there."

Sam ghosts a humorless smile. "Paging Dr. House."

The doctor snorts. "Please. I love that show, but I wouldn't let that man near one of my patients. If it weren't television, he'd kill at least half the people he treats. I'm ten times the doctor he is, and I don't even have scriptwriters."

Sam manages a small laugh at this.

"We also need to know if there's any family history of mental illness. That might help us narrow things down."

"Actually, we don't know much family history at all," Sam admits. "We never knew our grandparents or any extended family, and our mom died when I was a baby. There's not much I can tell you."

Dr. Moultrie meets Sam's eyes, his gaze penetrating but compassionate. "I realize this could be sensitive territory. I only ask so that I can help Dean. You talked about having a messed-up childhood. Did your father suffer from any kind of mental illness?"

"He suffered from grief," Sam says. It astonishes him how liberally he laces the truth in with his lies, something he rarely does. Moultrie's manner, he suspects, has everything to do with it. "We moved around a lot from the time my mom died. He was kind of a Marine dad at times. But no, nothing like you're talking about."

The doctor gives his shoulder a gentle squeeze and rises. "Thanks for your honesty. I know this is tough. Dean should be back any minute now. He's sedated now -- once we saw we weren't dealing with brain injury, we thought we'd better alleviate the panic. The restraints are off, but we might need to use them again if he's agitated when he wakes up."

"Thanks, Doctor." Sam leans back in his chair, numb, trying to gather his strength for whatever comes next.

***

Before Dr. Moultrie can take his leave, a couple of orderlies wheel Dean back into the room and get him settled back in. The doctor stays to run a quick exam, Sam standing by the other side of the bed, unable to stay across the room.

Dean's as still as he was before, but Sam can smell the sour fear-sweat stink still clinging to him. His hair is spiky with it, and Sam reaches out to smooth it back down. "He practically raised me," he finds himself saying. He can feel Dr. Moultrie's attention on him, but he keeps his gaze on Dean. "When our dad was at work, or just too caught up in his own grief. He fed me and made me do my homework even though he didn't give a damn about his own. He nursed me through colds and chicken pox and scraped knees. Now here we are, and I can't do a goddamn thing for him. He's never asked for anything for himself."

"You can be here," Dr. Moultrie says. "And you can keep taking care of yourself. Because that's what he'd want."

"I had a few hours of sleep, across the street."

"And I went and drained them right back out of you, didn't I?"

Sam doesn't deny it. "You were honest with me. I'd rather be prepared, when he wakes up again."

Dr. Moultrie nods. "It's what I'd hope for." He finishes his notation in Dean's chart and tucks it back under his arm. "And the fact that you don't have any extended family is something that'll stay between you, me and your 'uncle.'"

Shit. His worry has made him careless. He lets out a breath. "Thanks, doc."

"Sure thing." Dr. Moultrie nods toward Dean. "I'll be checking on him again." He extends his hand over the bed and Sam shakes it, then he heads out into the hall.

***

As the door drifts shut behind Dr. Moultrie, Sam gathers Dean's hand in his. It feels different this time. Not responsive, but there's more weight to it than it seemed to have when he was in the coma.

"Hang on, Dean," he says. "I know you're in there. Whatever this is, you've got to fight it. Kick its ass. We have work to do, and we can't get to it until you're back with me."

I know you're in there. He remembers another time Dean was locked inside his own body, dying.

Shouldering open the door, Bobby arrives with an armload of books and Sam's coffee just as Sam blurts, "Ouija board."

"Take this," Bobby orders, extending the coffee as far as he can without the books sliding free and tumbling to the floor. "He's slipped back into the coma?"

"No. They had to sedate him." Sam relays the information Dr. Moultrie gave him. He goes on: "I was just thinking about the wreck last year. When Dean was in the coma, I managed to reach him using a Ouija board. Maybe I should try it again; maybe I can figure out what's got him, help him find his way back."

"Guess it's worth a try," Bobby says. "Why don't you go lay your hands on one, and I'll sit here with Dean while I get some research done."

"Keep an eye on him, Bobby." He describes the doctor who woke Dean and sent Sam flying across the room. "If he comes near Dean again, stop him. I don't care if you have to shoot him."

"Sam--"

Sam ignores him, taking Dean's hand again. "Dean, I'll be gone for a little while. I thought of something that might help. Bobby's right here, and I'll be back as soon as I can. Just hang on."

Finding his coat where he'd wadded it and set it aside, he's aware of Bobby's sharp gaze.

"The books, Bobby." He sounds more like Dean than himself. "Get to the fucking books."

"Now look, you snotnose pup --"

But Sam is out the door and striding down the hallway.