Chapter 13
Author's note: Okay. Let's try this again. The bit from the last author's note about the Phenobarbital? Yeah, clearly that should have been in this author's note. What can I say? I'm a moron.
Also, randomly, I think that there is something wrong with my 'H' key. It's sticky.
I am making up medical stuff again. Just thought I'd let people know. Mostly details like what Alec's IV meds would be. I mean, let's face it, he most likely need electrolytes and such, but what are you gonna do, you know? Though I know for a fact that you can get IV glucose and you can have seizures from low blood glucose/sugar. It's usually seen in Type 1 diabetics but it can happen to other people.
Other inaccuracies. Floor nurses hardly ever run errands like drawing blood or going to the hospital pharmacy. I'm not sure who does it, but not the nurses. They do often do IVs though. Having been to several ERs and many Peds wards as a kid, I gotta say Peds nurses have a magic touch. But it's not necessarily an inaccuracy here, because they're only using trusted staff. Just wanted to put it out there before someone mentioned it.
Alec and his pain meds. Most seizures that come with physical convulsions are painful. I mean, can you imagine the muscle strain that has to cause, and your joints trying to do things that they just aren't meant to do? Now imagine having that happen all day. His reaction to the morphine? It affects people in different ways. I got advice on Alec's reaction to it.
And finally, werewolves. So . . . Kouri and I once did this awesome little story with werewolves. I won't say that they were normal people, but they knew what they were, and who they were, and how to behave no matter what their form. That's the sort of 'wolf Suzie is. I know it's different from SPN canon, but . . . yeah. There it is.
Okay, hugely long author's note done now. Enjoy the chapter!
Dean wasn't listening anymore. He just pushed into the room and did a quick visual sweep until he saw Alec. Unsurprisingly, the kid was wedged into the corner, all balled up. Dean didn't look up as he heard Sam and his doctor friend follow him in, but he did continue to listen.
"There’s no way he can be thinking straight at this point, and nothing I've tried works. Not that it matters; he's yanked two IVs out." The doctor sounded damned worried. Dean didn't like that at all. "We can't get anywhere near him," the man continued, "let alone hold him to treat him." Dean's back was to the door, so he didn't see Suzie step into it and give Collin a questioning look. Or Sam's small but firm head shake no.
"Give me a few minutes." Dean spoke from were he was crouched down next to Alec. Sam noticed that the two nurses were looking grim, one showing definite bruises. Sam thought they were lucky that nothing was broken. Dean reached out to Alec. “I honestly don’t think you guys as a profession have ever been anything but bad news for him.” Sam looked down. He knew what Alec saw when a doctor approached. It wasn't someone who wanted to help. It was a nightmare at least as bad as anything they hunted. Maybe even worse, because people could make choices, which meant that the ones at the facility chose to hurt them.
They all watched as Dean reached out a hand to his convulsing younger twin, only to have it smacked away. “Come on, dude. It’s just me, your awesome big brother.” He reached out again, and this time calmly blocked Alec’s defensive move. Dean knew they were in real trouble if they couldn’t get close to him soon. There had been no real force in the blow he had deflected, and Dean guessed by the way the kid was gasping for air that it was partly because he didn’t have enough oxygen to get his body to obey anymore.
Alec’s lip curled up in a feral snarl, but the effect was completely ruined when he convulsed hard. They all winced at the sound of his head connecting with the wall. Dr. Collin Bishop watched a human-looking young man give in to a completely animalistic reaction to being cornered, and suddenly had an idea. “Get him calmed down. Let him stay in that corner if he wants, just get a pillow behind his head. Last thing we need is a concussion. Get some O2 on him. And for God’s sake get me a line. If we don’t get this stopped soon, I think this will look like a picnic compared to what’s coming. I’ll be back. I have an idea.” With that, he bolted from the room.
He used the phone in an unused patient room to call the only other doctor he could think of who might have some sort of useful advice on this rather unusual patient. He didn't want the nurses who weren't in on this mess overhearing. After a hurried conversation leaving a very confused man in his wake, he bolted down to the hospital pharmacy. Then he jogged back up to Alec’s room, juggling two vials of medication.
Dean seemed to have worked something of a minor miracle in the fifteen minutes he had been gone. The young man had Alec pulled up against him, which had to be leaving some nasty bruises. Alec seemed like he was nearly hysterical, but at least he wasn't trying to actively injure anyone anymore. When the seizing stopped for a moment, he lay back, limp against Dean's side, head tipped back as he gasped for air, a few tears sliding down from the corner of his eyes and into his short hair.
Alec twitched and whimpered. Again Collin was reminded more of an animal than a human. Kelsey, one of the nurses, leapt at the brief break in the seizures to try and start yet another IV line. Blood still slid sluggishly from the wound from one of the other sites. Alec tried to pull away as soon as the needle made skin contact, words spilling in a jumble out of his mouth. Things like 'sorry' and 'do better' and 'please no'. Collin watched as Dean's jaw tightened, and he held Alec as still as he could for Kelsey, all the while talking to the kid in a voice so low that he was sure it wasn't meant for anyone's ears but Alec's.
Collin took a couple of syringes from the nurses’ kit of supplies and drew medication out of one of his vials after doing some mental math to determine dosage. He was about to draw up a second syringe to take into account the fact that Alec wasn't human, but then he noticed Sam staring at him, or more accurately at the syringe in his hand, with a sort of horrified, terrified anger. That wasn't his young friend he was looking at. This was someone who had had something very bad happen to him recently.
Mercifully, Dean seemed to notice too. Collin was suddenly glad he had been an only child. Not for his own sake, but for his parents’, and then later for his mother’s. Sam had, eventually, after one too many drinks, admitted that it was Dean who had been his primary caretaker. Dean had been the parent, and now Dean was caught between two acutely distressed children that needed him.
"Sam." Collin let his eyes shift to Dean, and he stilled his hands. He knew panic when he saw it, and he did not want Sam panicked. The young man could be very dangerous when motivated to be. Sam's attention didn't shift. "Sammy." Either the nickname or the sharper tone caught Sam's attention; Collin had no way of telling which.
"Dean." Sam's tone was nearly desperate.
"Yeah. Look at me." He pulled Alec closer, despite the damage that the kid could do to him. Sam didn't obey. "Look. At. Me." This time Sam did, slowly. "You told me you trusted this guy. You told me you trusted him with your family. Did you lie to me?"
"Dean?" A little sanity returned as Collin watched.
"Did you?"
"No. I . . ." Sam swallowed, rubbed at his temple with the heel of his hand, which was a gesture Collin had never seen him make before.
"No?" Dean asked. Alec had started to try to pry the newest IV out, and Dean calmly pulled his hands apart without looking.
"No." Sam's tone was decisive now.
"Then act like it. Okay?"
"Okay."
"Now, what I need you to do is go with one of these nice, under-appreciated nurses who are putting up with our crap, and find an ace bandage." He tilted his head towards Wendy, who was standing back because the corner didn't have room for her. Collin nodded, and she beckoned to Sam, who followed her out of the room.
"He's never acted like that before," Collin said, as he looked down at Dean. "What happened?" He had to admit that he was impressed. With just a few words, Dean had pulled Sam out of what easily could have been some sort of panicked fit and then redirected him so he had time to find his balance again.
"A lot. He has a right to be tweaked, just like Alec does. Let’s leave it at that for now, 'kay?" Sam and Wendy came back in then; Sam was holding an ace bandage as requested. He had to admit that he had no idea what the point was, other than to distract Sam, until Sam slipped around him and knelt in front of Dean and Alec, the latter of whom was starting to seize again. "Uh, Doc?" Collin had the sinking sensation that Dean would call him that forever. "You want to use whatever it is you got there?" Sam turned and gave him a tiny smile, to show that everything was good between them.
"Yeah." He moved closer, which Alec clearly didn't like, but he didn't have the luxury of waiting to gain his trust. He slid the needle of the syringe into the IV port that was about halfway up the line. He watched the three of them as he let the medication slowly join the saline that was already mixing with Alec's bloodstream. They would need blood work before he could do anything besides try to stop the seizure and combat the obvious dehydration. Sam was carefully and efficiently wrapping the ace bandage over Alec’s hand and the IV without being asked. Collin watched carefully, but Sam was wrapping it loosely enough that it wouldn't interfere with anything, and would effectively keep a disoriented Alec from yanking it out.
When Sam was done, he sat back on his heels and watched Alec anxiously. Once the syringe was empty, Collin pulled it out and dropped it into the sharps container that was mounted to the wall. He looked down at his watch. Five minutes. He was giving the medication five minutes. The first dose had been based purely on conventional dosing methods and weight. The second dose, if needed, would take into account that he was dealing with someone that might be burning it off faster than any human could. At four minutes, he started drawing up another syringe. At five minutes he used it.
The whole room breathed a sigh of relief as Alec slipped into unconsciousness and went limp. Collin, Kelsey, and Wendy lifted him to the bed. Dean tried to help, but Collin glared him down. Dean wasn't moving until he was sure that Alec hadn't hurt the man.
One of his under-appreciated staff went to check Dean out while Collin and the other settled Alec. Collin was relived to finally be able to get an oxygen canula under the young man's nose. A mask would have been preferable, but somehow he figured if he didn't make Alec uncomfortable, when he woke he would be less likely to fight them. Heart monitor was next set to beep silently, and an oximeter was clipped to his finger. None of the numbers looked great, but they sure looked a hell of a lot better than he had feared.
Dean and Sam were both standing by this time. He looked over at them. "Well?"
"I'm fine," Dean said, as if he had been insulted personally.
"He's got a few nasty bruises but other than that he'll live," Kelsey reported.
They moved on to first wipe the blood off Alec's arm and then tightly tape down gauze pads over the previous IV sites. Those could bleed like a bitch even when taken out properly. Then they carefully rolled Alec on to his side to get a look at his shoulder. "What's this?" Collin had seen the bandages earlier when they had first taken Alec's shirt off in an attempt to get the heart monitor hooked up.
Dean shot a quick look at Kelsey, who rolled her eyes at him. "If I had to make a guess," Dean looked at Collin, then made a face, "which apparently I do. I'd venture to guess a bullet wound."
"There's no exit wound."
"An unlucky bullet wound?"
Collin was imagining all sort of horrible things that could be hidden under the heavy gauze padding. Needless to say, he was nearly stymied for a moment when all he saw was neat stitching and clean healing. It didn't look pleasant by any means, but it did seem to be healing well. He looked up at Dean. "You do this?"
Dean shrugged. "I didn't have a lot of options and he said he didn't have time."
"Didn't have time?" The doc clearly was calling bullshit. He was looking at the wound and how far along the healing was. There had been plenty of time. Oodles of time.
"That's only three days old, dude."
". . . you're lying." Collin's eyes jumped from Alec's exposed shoulder up to Dean, who returned his look evenly.
"I shit you not. He said if we didn't get it out, he would just heal over it and then get sick. So I did what I had to."
Dean watched as the doctor put gloves on and carefully ran fingers over the wound, pressing on it a little. "If it's healing this quickly, I think you made the right call. You did a good job."
"Give the kid some credit; he held still through it and all I had for him was novocaine. The bullet was actually stuck in the bone. I had to yank it free."
Collin's fingers moved up and to the front, across the bone. “It's not shattered," he said. There was swelling, but not enough for the sort of catastrophic damage that should have come from a bullet hitting bone.
"Nope. They must be made of titanium."
"No shit." He put a clean bandage over the wound. "I’ll get him a sling and have it x-rayed. Because these seizures can't have helped." He settled Alec back down, then grabbed Alec's brand new chart and jotted a few things down. After that, he pulled a prescription pad out of his pocket, writing quickly first on one sheet that he handed to Kelsey, then something else on the next sheet, which went to Wendy. "I need that from the pharmacy and those labs drawn and run. Have Mike run them. He owes me a favor and I'm calling it in. Get a couple of techs from radiology up here."
"You got it." Kelsey said, as she snatched the slip from his fingers. Both nurses left, then one came back in and set about drawing several vials of blood. They all knew Alec was truly out for the count when he didn’t even twitch during the process. Sam did, though, and Collin liked that not at all.
Sam rubbed at his temple again, which caused Dean to give him a hooded look, but then he shook his head a little and looked up, all Sam concern and curiosity. “So what did you give him?” Dean shoved Sam into a chair and started peeling Alec out of his boots. They hadn’t had time to undress him, and had just settled for stripping off his shirt and putting a hospital johnny on him, which had given them a nice view of a well padded wound in the back of his shoulder.
Collin rubbed the back of his head and gave them a sheepish grin. “Phenobarbital. It’s for cats, or at least cats with epilepsy. First line treatment, I’m told.”
Dean turned to face the man, Alec’s combat boot in hand. “You don't sound so sure there, slick.”
“Well, I called my dog Charlie’s vet – ”
“You called a vet about my brother?” Dean pointed at him sharply with the boot.
Collin quickly plucked the footwear out of Dean’s hand before it could make contact with his chest. “Yes, I did.” He waved at Alec’s non-seizing form. “Worked like a charm.” He watched as Dean’s jaw clenched. “Look, fact of the matter was that I’d already tried what we would use on a normal human, and it wasn’t working.” If there was one thing he had learned after med school, it was how to halt a parent getting ready to go on the warpath. “I saw two choices in the immediate future.”
“Yeah? What were those.” Collin looked past Dean’s scowl to Sam, who just looked tired.
“Try something weird, like calling a vet for advice on someone who might be a hundred eighty pounds of seizing cat, or shove a breathing tube down his throat, because he was starting to actually turn blue.” Dean deflated. “I took a chance, hoping that I could stop things from getting worse without traumatizing him.” He watched as Dean sat down on the foot of Alec's bed, and then handed him back Alec’s boot.
Kelsey came in then and changed out the IV bag for a couple of new ones, after giving Sam and Dean a reassuring smile. She left another vial of medication and syringe with him before she left.
“What’s that?” Dean sounded almost nervous.
“A concoction of Phenobarbital, saline, and glucose,” Collin said, as he hooked a flimsy chair over from the other bed with his foot. He sat facing them, straddling the back of it. Dean had dropped Alec’s boot to the floor and was working on the second one.
“Why all of that?” he asked, without looking up.
“The Phenobarb is a sedative and an anticonvulsive." He held up the vial. "This is lorazepam. It's a safety net. It's another anticonvulsive, with the added bonus of being an anti-anxiety medication and a muscle relaxant. Dr. Lewis, the vet, said he'd use valium if the Phenobarbital didn't do the trick, but since you were trying that in the car and it wasn’t working that well, I'll give this a go if I have to. It’s similar, but not the same.” Dean wasn’t so bad if he wasn't trying to take your head off, but Collin could see why Sam was so laid back. Why drunken college idiots and frat boys with inflated egos didn't ruffle Sam in the least. Dean was an intense person. That was easy to see. After growing up with someone like that, it would take a lot to ruffle Sam's feathers. "Saline is to work on the dehydration."
Both Sam and Dean hit him with the exact same slightly wide-eyed look. "We didn't think . . ."
"About trying to give him anything while he was convulsing and you were trying to drive?" Collin assumed, and Sam nodded. "It was a good call. Dehydration I can fix, but what if he had vomited and then done something wonderful like aspirated? You did fine." Sam relaxed; Dean merely nodded and went back to what he was doing. "Glucose, because I'm willing to lay money he burns more energy just laying around than we do running a marathon, and the last thing we need is a seizure because he's got a low blood sugar. Wouldn't that just be a kick in the ass." Alec's second boot hit the tile floor like a ball of lead. He figured that most likely summed up Dean's feelings on the matter.
“So now what?” Sam asked, from where he had sagged down into the chair. It had not escaped Collin’s notice that Dean had plunked his brother in the only comfortable chair in the room.
“Now, I try to get some sort of medical history from you guys and wait for the blood work to come back to see what else we’re working with.”
“Shouldn’t we wait for him to wake up for that?” Dean asked, as he efficiently stripped Alec’s cargo pants off and tucked him under the blankets like he was used to it. Modesty seemed to have skipped the entire family. Collin had noticed on several occasions that it had surely skipped Sam. The kid just didn't know how to be body shy.
“He’s not going to wake up until tomorrow, if we’re lucky. And if he does, I might just knock him out again.”
“What?” Dean gave him a narrow eyed look.
“Why?” Sam, who trusted him, just looked worried.
“Seizures always come with – ” Collin paused to sort technical terms into plain language. “They wipe a person out. If they do manage to stay awake, they’re often disoriented, because all the signals in their brain have been tangled up. Personally, I’d prefer to give that a miss. Less traumatic for him to sleep past that, and less likely that one of us will get our face broken.”
Sam shifted a look between Collin and Dean. He knew that Collin had someone on the floor strong enough to handle Alec, but Dean didn’t. Dean caught the look, though. Collin noticed that. Dean tilted his head a little, and Sam’s chin came up in that stubborn way he had. Dean raised an eyebrow by a millimeter, causing Sam to look more obstinate for a second, then shift his gaze down. Dean nodded. They had just had an entire argument and Dean had won.
“He’ll get past it.” Collin looked Dean right in the eye as he said the words. Dean was the parent here, age aside. If Dean believed and understood, it would help both Alec and Sam. “He’ll be okay. I won’t lie and say it’ll be quick, but it will happen.”
Dean nodded again, and a lot of the tension seemed to drain away.
“Now while we wait for those lab results, I have some questions for you, and I’m sure you have some for me.” Both Sam and Dean nodded. Collin was honestly a little surprised that Sam didn’t have a list, but figured that he had a mental one. “Why don’t you start?” The crisis for the moment was over. He knew parents, and he knew hunters. Both Dean and Sam would want to be informed, but they would want it in their own way, so they could take it all in and get it right the first time.
“What – ” Dean rubbed a hand over his face. “What happened? ‘Cause I gotta say, I’ve never run up against something like this.”
“He was experiencing what’s called status epilepticus.”
“Constant seizure?” Sam knew Church Latin, and medical terminology wasn’t too far off.
“Basically. It’s not common, but it does happen. And he was experiencing a strange form of it. You guys want the quick, dirty, non-medical description of seizures?”
“Jesus Christ, yes.” Dean almost cracked a smile.
“The brain works on electrical signals. Seizures are when the signals short out in some places and overload in others, or just misfire altogether. I’ll give you the technical terms later so Sam can practice his Google-Fu.”
“You really do know him.”
“Oh yeah." Collin grinned, and Sam pouted. "There are a bunch of different kinds of seizures, but they can be broken into two really basic groups. Ones that cause movement and ones that don’t. Understand that I am making ridiculously wide generalization here. Like saying that if a gun is long, it’s a shotgun.” He got another nod out of Dean. "Most seizures are misfires in the brain, and they stay there. No movement. Sometimes they spread and you see what most people think of as a seizure. The convulsions. The jerking and all that.”
“So that’s what happened to Alec.”
“I . . . uh, honestly? I don’t think so.”
“But that’s what we saw.”
“Yes, it is. But you said he was rational, right?”
“Mostly. I mean, for a while. He knew what was going on and who we were and all that,” Dean offered. Collin wondered why he was doing all the talking. Fading to the background when questions were being asked wasn't Sam's style. Maybe it was because between the two of them, Dean was the authority figure. Maybe it was because Sam looked beyond tired. Hell, maybe it was both together.
“I think – ” Collin spread his hands in a sort of surrender – “that his seizures skipped the first step. Those kind of seizures usually mean the person is . . . off. They aren’t home at all. They’re hallucinating, being mindlessly aggressive, totally unresponsive, something. But Alec wasn’t like that.”
“Uh, you were there when he tried to dismantle your nurse, right?”
“It wasn’t the same. You said he has a phobia, and the muscle spasms were making it hard for him to breathe. He wasn’t getting enough oxygen, making his panic even worse. That part wasn’t a seizure. Everything he was reacting to was real, even if he was afraid of it.”
He watched Dean turn that over in his head. “Okay. I can see that.”
“Purely myoclonic seizures are pretty rare.”
“What? Dude, what happened to using English for those of use who aren’t Stanford brain trust.”
“He says that like he’s stupid.” Sam rolled his eyes.
“Pure movement seizures. They usually come from the motor cortex. Most people will have myoclonic spasms sometimes. That weird jerk some people have right when they fall asleep, or getting the hiccups. It’s the same thing. Just very harmless. People that have myoclonic epilepsy don’t have life-threatening seizures. It can make them miserable so it’s treated with medication, but it isn’t life threatening. So that isn’t what’s going on with Alec, either.”
“So you don’t know why he was having the seizures.”
“No. Not yet I don’t. I’m hoping the blood work can give me a clue. And Alec himself, when he’s with it again. And maybe you guys.”
“Hate to say it, but I’ve only known him a week.”
“I thought you said he was your brother?”
“He is.” Sam spoke up, which relieved the doctor. Collin was worried about the teen. He looked like shit, was hardly talking at all, and then there had been that disturbing moment of panic earlier. “Dean says he is, so he is. But . . . you know how normally we live in an obnoxious fantasy novel? Alec is from the science fiction version. He’s a government built weapon. Winchester DNA. But we didn’t know about him until recently.”
“Right. I’m not going to ask. I don’t want to know.”
“Smart man.” Dean's attitude was dry and prickly at best.
“I’m glad you think so, since you’re letting me medicate your brother.”
“You’re also an ass.”
“I try.” Collin grinned, which Sam at least made an attempt to return. It was a little shaky. “Did he do anything weird before this started? Or at least anything that struck you as being odd, even if you didn’t know him?”
“He wasn’t eating really the day before,” Sam volunteered. “Just drinking a lot of milk.”
“I saw his hands shake. I wrote it off because, you know, he’d had a rough week. And that’s without getting into the bullet I dug out of his shoulder.”
"Emotional stress can sometimes set off seizures in people with epilepsy." Collin started jotting down facts on the back of one of Alec's forms.
"He said it was because he ran out of meds, but when we went through his stuff, we couldn't even find a bottle," Sam offered.
"Which means he went without for, at this point, four days," Dean added.
Collin nodded. Clearly Alec's faster metabolism didn't give him much leeway.
XXXXX
It had been a long friggin’ night. Dean wandered down the hall to the holy coffee pot in the nurses’ little kitchen, doing an amazing impression of a zombie. He left Alec curled up into a tight ball under a mountain of blankets, monitors, and IVs, drugged out of his mind. He had started to surface a couple of times in the night, but it was only enough for some disoriented panic where he would apologize, say he was cold, and make those horribly sad kitten noises. Sam was sacked out across the other bed. The kid hadn’t meant to fall asleep, but he had less than no reserves. He had laid down for what was supposed to be to stretch out his ridiculously storkish frame. He had been asleep in moment. Dean simply took his shoes off of him and pulled a blanked up over him.
Alec had started seizing again about four hours after they had finally gotten him settled. He had barely woken up, asking for Biggs, whoever or whatever that was, but it hadn’t lasted long before Doc Collin had dumped something new and exciting into his bloodstream. It had hit the kid like a ton of bricks, and Dean was glad. Alec was coming seriously unglued, and Dean didn’t want to watch it, especially since he couldn’t do much to help.
He reminded Dean of an inconsolable five-year-old Sam. But Alec was too old, too damaged, and too feral to just be rocked to sleep. The kid barely let anyone touch him.
Dean took a long slow swallow of coffee while still standing in front of the pot. He leaned back against the opposite wall and let the heat from the drink and the mug melt a little of his tension away. He closed his eyes and wished that he didn't have to be the adult. That he could be a kid again, drinking coffee with his father like the mere act made him an adult. Not just any adult, but one like his father, the quiet hero that could save anyone.
But John wasn't there. Just Dean, which made him feel like he was a child again, holding down the fort, taking care of Sam until John came back.
Suzie came in then and poured a mug of coffee for herself, leaning against the counter. "How are you holding up?"
"You're a werewolf." It was said with quiet hostility. He and Sam had had a long talk about keeping secrets in the late hours of the night.
"I guess Sam told you."
"Yeah. He told me. Doc Collin knows, and you're in here working with kids."
"Yes." He watched her sip her coffee, utterly unperturbed by his glare. "I've been one since I was fifteen."
"So some monster got you, and you figured you would work with kids? And what, spread the love if your lunch was late someday?"
"You're a prejudiced ass. And my father is not a monster."
"Oh, no, it’s perfectly normal for a man to do this to his kid."
"I wanted him to turn me. It's a gift passed through our family. You should also think about the fact that your seizing little brother is no more human than I am, and that I'm no less human than him. If you can love him, you might want to think about having some tolerance for me. Dr. Bishop wants to talk to you in his office before Sam wakes up. Down the hall, through the double doors, to the left and first door on your right. Get a move on."
It wasn't the first time he had been read the riot act by a woman. But it was the first time he hadn't shot a werewolf on sight. She took her coffee and left. He didn't know what to think. Sam had smiled at a werewolf. His baby brother was friends with monsters. And what the hell had that crack about Alec meant, anyway? Damned women. Damned wolves, and damned monsters. And double damn them all when they were wrapped up in a package with nice breasts and a cute butt.
He pried himself away from the wall and headed off down the hall and through the double doors. After a moment, he zeroed in on Doc Collin's office and stuck his head in. Sam's friend looked up from his computer and gave Dean a wry grin. "Pissed Suzie off, didn't you."
Dean stepped the rest of the way in and closed the door. "Yeah. And I'm feeling kinda cranky with you, too." He looked around the office, which was cluttered. The wall to the right of the door was covered in children's drawings, haphazardly tacked up around a detailed lunar calendar. Following the wall around there was wide and heavy wooden bookshelf. The top two shelves were crammed with books, the middle shelf seemed to spend its time being an extension of the desk, and the bottom looked like a condensed motel room. There were two small piles of clothing and a pair of sneakers, a twelve pack of diet Coke, a box of cereal, and a bunch of other miscellaneous crap.
"What for? People get pissed at me all time. You have to be more specific."
"Letting a monster work with kids." Dean didn't bother focusing on the man yet. He was still surveying the office. The wall opposite the door was taken up by a large window and those fancy doctors certificates. The office wasn't big, and Doc Collin's desk and the two chairs in front of it took up most of the space. The man had a terrarium with what looked like funny-looking frogs bobbing around inside, on the end of his desk by the window. The rest of the desk was filled with a laptop, charts, papers, and an accumulation of paper coffee cups.
"To clue you in, I don't do the hiring or firing. So I don't let her do anything. Besides, she was there last night as a favor to me." He didn't look in the least bit intimidated as he looked up at Dean. "You want to have a seat?"
Dean sprawled into on of the chairs. "A favor? What the hell kind of favor?" His eyes finally took in Doc Collin. The man was dressed in what could be termed business casual, topped off by a white lab coat.
Collin took a long minute to really give Dean a thorough look. It was the first time he had really gotten a chance to since they had showed up the day before, Dean carrying what appeared to be his twin brother out of the elevator. As he looked at Dean sprawled across the chair, he suddenly realized how young in years Dean really was. Only four years older than Sam. Only twenty-three. Only twenty-three and manning up to take care of his battered family. Most people could barely take care of themselves properly at that age. Collin remembered sneaking into his mom's house late at night, knowing he could do his laundry for free, raid the fridge, and that his mom would help him with the dizzying financial aid papers in the morning.
He had been still crawling home to mommy, and Dean had already raised Sam. That was obvious. And he had done a commendable job. Sam was what most people would consider a credit to any parent, and they only saw half of what the young man was. Collin would be the first to admit that there were still a lot of blank spots in the Winchester history, but Alec obviously had some very serious issues. Issues that Dean was managing easily. None of it changed the fact that Dean was still young.
He was still young enough that he still had a few things to learn about life. Collin realized that there was no point in being angry over Dean's blatant prejudice. He'd had to work through Sam's. Dean's belligerence was most likely just his way of trying to maintain control over the situation. Collin sure as hell didn't blame him for that.
"A favor, mostly for Alec." That was the way to get Dean to listen. Make it about his brothers. "Seizures can fuck a person up. Twist them around and make them violent, or make them run. They can make a person do a lot of crazy shit, Dean."
"What the fuck does that have to do with you calling in a werewolf?"
"She's strong enough to handle Alec. At least, I think she is." Dean looked like he was about to say some thing really crude, so Collin started talking again. "I figured that tangling with her would be less frightening for him than, say, eight orderlies and a boat load of drugs." He watched as Dean's eyebrows came down in a scowl, and his lips went tight. "I'm right, aren't I."
"Yeah." A fact which clearly pissed Dean off.
"You'll also notice that Suzie wasn't one of his nurses. That was her idea, because she doesn't want to stress him out and she isn't sure how well he'll take to mixing with her, given that she's a wolf and he's a cat." Collin was pleased to see that this shut Dean up for a second. But not much longer.
"Her idea, huh?"
"Yeah. About all I know about the mixing of cats and dogs is that they get separate waiting rooms at the vet’s office."
"Alec isn't that much of a cat," Dean said, but he didn't sound so sure.
"Suzie says she can smell it and she hasn't even been in his room." What she had actually said was that he smelled like a sick, frightened cat, but Collin figured that Dean didn’t need to hear those qualifiers.
Dean seemed to consider this for a long minute. "You going to be able to help him anyway?" Collin was impressed by how smoothly Dean moved away from the disagreement. This way he didn't have to give in or risk losing. Sam must have hated that behavior.
"I'm sure as hell going to try. Care to tell me they full story?" Currently there were so many damned blanks that there was more hole than story. Not that he expected Dean to just 'fess up to everything. He was a hunter and had most likely been hiding and lying since he was six.
"You're got all you need. Alec is having seizures. Fix 'em."
"Have you ever watched House?"
"What?"
"The TV show."
"Yeah, I know. Just trying to figure out what the hell it has to do with anything. You gonna tell me that my brother has Lupus?"
Collin couldn't help but laugh. "No. I'm going to tell you that every detail helps." He took a gulp of his coffee. "I'm also going to say that Sam is my friend, and that he disappeared for a month and came back looking like he's practicing for the anorexia Olympics. Not even to mention his sparkling new fear of doctors." He finished his coffee. "I don't think I need to even ask about Alec, do I?"
"You know everything about Alec that we do." Dean ran a tired hand over his hair. "Started out as my twin and then they tinkered with him. But when he says tinker, I think he means with a hacksaw. Before you ask, I'm basically healthy. Hay fever in the wrong part of the country at the wrong time, and that’s all. No epilepsy, that's for damned sure."
Collin nodded. "We'll have to wait and get a medical history from him, then." He felt his shoulders slump a little when Dean snorted derisively.
"Yeah, dunno how much luck you’ll have. He's real close-mouthed. He's got someone to protect. Just don't know who."
"What happened?"
"I don't know!" Dean clenched his hands around the arms of the chair. "That's the problem. I don't know. Sam's never blocked me out like this before." The fact the Sam was blocking him out now clearly hurt. Collin watched as Dean seemed to be caught somewhere between pain and anger. "We have to get Alec squared away before I . . . just . . . what a fucking mess." Collin kept his mouth shut while Dean got a hold of himself, because he was pretty damned sure that Dean would rather punch him in the face than hear any words of consolation. "You wanna know what I know about the last month or so? Here it is. In bullet point,” he said, and began to sum up the story as quickly and efficiently as he could.
There was a long pause after he finished, as Collin started to suspect that he was trapped in his office with a crazy person. Not that he blamed the kid. Most people, he reflected, would be trying to call the psych ward after that story. But it wasn't the far-fetched story that made Collin think Dean was nuts. It was simply that no one under that much stress could be sane. "I'll see if Sam will let me check him over. Maybe run some lab work."
"Thanks." Dean's relief was obvious.
"I think the first thing that you all need is rest. Lots of it."
"Sam's sleeping like a log. And you have Alec so drugged he can't see straight, so I'd say the rest is uh, you know, implemented."
"All of you."
"I'm fine."
"You're stuck here for a while. Might as well take advantage of it."
"Sure, Doc. Whatever you say." Dean stood. "This heart-to-heart's been great. Tell anyone and I'll punch you. Also, you might want to lose the lab coat. Last two dudes the kid saw in lab coats, he killed."
". . . right." Collin was still trying to turn that over in his head when Dean tossed a smirk and a wave over his shoulder and disappeared out the door and into the hall.
XXXXX
His sense of smell came back first. Chemical clean. His body tried to tense up, but all that happened was a muscle in his cheek ticked, and he felt heavier. Skipping right past heavy into heavier. He sniffed a little, quietly. It was animal instinct. Oxygen. Direct right into his nose. Medical rubber, laundry soap, cotton, adhesive, and that funny smell that only ace bandages have. Medical. Med Lab.
The small frightened mewl was involuntary. Fortunately, nothing was working but his little kitty nose yet, so the actual noise never made it out of his mouth. Kept him from embarrassing himself. He sniffed again, hoping to identify which tech or doctor had been left supervising him. He needed to decide if he should try to will himself to death or just into a coma. The scent wasn't right, though. It was Ordinary, yes, but that was gunpowder. And salt and leather. He saw his own face in his mind behind his eyes.
Sensation came next. He was curled up. Hands by his face. There was a pillow and a mattress. Both soft enough to be pleasurable to lay on. He was warm, the blankets heavy like everything else. Why was he warm? Manticore policy was cold. Cold cats were easier to keep strapped down. Couldn't heal if the monsters couldn't get to the wounds. He was confused. His fingers twitched. How 'huh?' translated through his foggy brain to 'move fingers', he wouldn't ever really figure out.
Because that little twitch was all it took. The pain rolled out from his fingers and had no mercy. Everything hurt. If it was contained by the borders of his skin, it screamed. Sharp and grinding between his bones, dull and crushing around his muscles. This time the noise made it out of his mind and out of his mouth. Fine time for his vocal cords to come back online.
He had lost time. He was sure of that. Unnerving to say the least. Everything was confused. Holy fuck, did he hurt. Maybe he had gone ten rounds with one of those souped-up, terminal head case Russians?
"Hey, looks like Sleeping Beauty decided to grace us with his presence."
Now he knew his head was scrambled. He was talking to himself. "Fucking hate Russians." It sounded a little off to his ears, but it worked well enough.
"What?" The voice moved closer, which was odd, since he was talking to himself.
"Dean, I, uh, don't think that was English." This voice was coming from behind him. Hey, his ears were working. He supposed maybe they had been for a while. Not English? He repeated himself. In English.
"They make good vodka. Think you can get your eyes to open there, kiddo?"
Kiddo? What the hell was that about? There was a Marine who called him that once. Ollie Durand. Real first name of Oliver. He hated it. Called him kiddo and gave him . . . "Scotch. Like scotch. Is better." He definitely used English this time.
He pried his eyes open. And there he was. Looking at himself. He blinked a couple of times slowly. His memories were just jumbled, not gone. It took a couple of minutes for them to settle. "Dean."
"The one and only, Little Toaster." Dean was sitting, so they were at eye level.
"Funny." His fingers twitched again, and then he shivered. It made his bones rattle in an unpleasant fashion.
"You with us this time, or are you just going to say you're cold?" Dean's look suggested that he expected Alec to start not making any sense.
"Not cold."
"Good to hear, because you feel like a furnace."
"S'nice." He blinked slowly. It was about the only movement that didn't hurt like a bitch. "Sam?" His brain was starting to rev into gear, even if it felt like he had lead in his veins.
"Behind you." He heard the slight squeak of Sam's sneakers.
He tried to roll onto his back so he could see them both, but it was one of the stupider ideas he had had lately. He knew for a fact that the pathetic little noise he heard had come out of his mouth. He chose not to acknowledge the few tears that escaped his eyes. He swore. Creatively. In several languages. He ended with, "Shit, okay, so moving is out." He watched his fingers twitch a little.
Dean used a careful thumb to wipe the tears off his face, but other than that, pretended that they hadn't happened. "Doc Collin said you'd most likely need something."
"Need something?" Alec was clearly confused.
Sam stood and circled around then. "For the pain." Sam looked at him for a long moment. Dean expected a smart ass comment from Alec about Sam taking a picture, but Alec just watched Sam right back. "They never gave any of you anything, did they?"
"How'd you guess." His tone was dry, but that may have been because he hadn't drunk a damned thing in just about forty-eight hours.
"Just a hunch." Sam left to get a nurse. It only took a few minutes for one of his nurses to come in, show him what she was giving him, and load it into his IV. He wondered why he got the courtesy of being informed.
"Oh. That's kinda nice." He rolled onto his back and just laid there, loose-limbed, for a few minutes with his eyes closed. He wanted to, well, not kiss the doctor, but at least say something nice to him, which was a miracle in and of itself. The man had skipped right to the heavy-hitters of the pain medication world and left orders for morphine. The sudden shut off of pain was friggin’ euphoric. "Not hurting? Better than sex." He felt the need to inform everyone of this.
They let him loll there for a few more minutes. Most people would look utterly graceless lying in a hospital bed doped up on enough medication that Dean was sure would have put most people into a coma. Alec didn't look graceless; he looked comfortably sprawled. Like a cat that somehow just took up the whole sofa. Alec, he realized, was not a human with some cat in the mix. The kid was as much cat as he was human. He sniffed at his food, sprawled like a feline, and flexed his fingers like he had retractable claws. Suzie was right.
Sam was still standing, stretching his legs, and watched Dean watch Alec and finally took the time to catalog the physical differences. Alec looked softer, at least while his mouth wasn't going off and ruining the illusion. The freckles that he and Dean shared stood out against Alec's currently pale skin, and his hair was a little longer. Alec's body looked almost unlived in. There were no visible scars either from hard living or just normal living, no calluses on his hands from long years of holding a gun.
"Take a picture. It'll last longer." Alec cracked an eye open to peer at them.
"Hey, dude, I can just look in the mirror."
"Not as pretty."
"What does it say about my life that I actually miss spending most of my time with maladjusted jerks." Sam finally settled into another chair. He thought if he plunked himself back down in the easy chair he would fall asleep again.
"That you're a Winchester," Dean said.
XXXXX