Where We Find God
By Ridley
Chapter 7
When the door to his brother’s room opened, Dean lifted his head from his hands, fully expecting to see either his father or maybe Marty, but it was one of Sam’s doctors, Daniels, the one who’d explained his brother’s condition to them.
“Don’t get up,” the dark-haired, lanky man motioned for Dean to remain sitting when the hunter had started to manuever himself from the chair by Sam’s bed. “You look like you might fall over, and I really am sick of patching up teenagers today.”
Dean merely nodded and watched as the doctor made his way to the other side of Sam’s bed and started checking his brother’s vitals, and the various equipment that the injured teen was hooked to.
“How is he?”
Daniels lifted his eyes from his inspection of the extremely bruised area of Sam’s temple. “He’s holding his own.” The doctor sighed, and after scribbling something inthe chart he was carrying, he made his way to where Dean was sitting. “How about you?”
Dean looked slightly taken aback. “I’m good,” he answered automatically, ignoring the doubtful expression on the physician’s face.
The doctor squatted next to him and removed a pen light from his pocket. “Any residual effects from the sedative that I gave you?”
Dean’s brow furrowed. “So you’re the one that drugged me- without my consent?”
Daniels lip twitched and Dean was pretty certain he was struggling not to smile, but he nodded thoughtfully and didn’t bother to ask Dean’s permission before shining the light in each of his eyes. “When you were charging around my ER like a mad bull, I didn’t think too much about the ethical considerations of my actions. I did however hope that you weren‘t allergic to anything.”
“Yeah, well, I appreciate the concern, I guess I’m lucky you didn’t try to dose me with penicillin. But I’m beginning to think this whole town has a problem with boundaries.”
The young doctor glanced at Sam, and put his torture device away. “You believe that the Wilkerson boy doctored your brother’s drink, don’t you?”
“Yes,” Dean barely controlled the rage that simmered up inside of him at the very mention of Jeff’s name. He instead focused on the renewed pain that Daniels was causing as he prodded at Dean’s swollen eye.
“Your dad has a hell of a swing.” The doctor shook his head at the damage done to the kid’s face. “You’re lucky he didn’t break something.”
“He was holding back,” Dean stated truthfully, knowing full well what his father was capable of.
Daniels raised an eyebrow. “Sounds like you’ve gone a few rounds with him before?”
Dean stared at the physician, instantly picking up on the veiled question. “My daddy doesn’t hit me-if that’s what you’re getting at, Dude.” The hunter’s eyes went to Sam. “And he’s never hurt my brother-so you can forget the call to DCS.”
“Your brother has a lot of interesting scars and old breaks.” Daniels had been witness to the atrocity of child abuse on more occasions that he would have liked in his ten years as a physician. Sam was a prime specimen. “I’m guessing if I X-rayed you, I’d find a lot similar injuries.
Dean pulled back from the man’s too-close inspection of the cut above his eye. “Back off, Quincy. Whatever you’re thinking is way out of line. Sammy and I are really into adrenaline packed sports-you know. Snow boarding, free-base jumping, motor cross-if it involves danger, we’ve been into it at one time or another. Nobody has abused us.”
Daniels sighed and stood up, realizing that he wasn’t going to get any more of an explanation out of the young man. He leaned up against Sam’s bed and crossed his arms over his chest. “So, your brother’s a risk taker, but you’re positive he didn’t take drugs on his own-maybe for a thrill.”
“Hell no!” Dean stood also. “My brother doesn’t mess with that shit.”
“I’m sorry, kid, but you’ve just painted a picture for me that leads me to believe that my patient has a taste for all things exciting and life-risking and now you want me to accept that he draws an impenetrable line at drugs and alcohol.” Daniels pinned the younger man with a hard stare. “If Sam uses other substances, I need to know. It could affect his recovery.”
Dean shook his head, not believing the fucking luck he was attracting. His eyes stung and he cursed the damn drugs still in his system and the wild rollercoaster ride his emotions were on. “Sammy doesn’t use anything harder than caffeine. He’s a coffee junkie, okay. That‘s it. And even then-he can‘t handle the hard stuff. Has to have cream, and sugar and syrupy flavors that in fact can be damn right embarrassing to order.”
When Daniels merely continued to look at him, Dean stepped closer to Sam’s bed, and held onto the rails, his knuckles whitening with his intense grip. “My brother’s not perfect, but he’s damn near.” Dean glanced at the physician. “Straight A student- scary smart-you know. And his heart’s just as about as big as they come. He does have this annoying fault though-he likes to believe that most people are decent-that they have an undeniable right to certain liberties-like breathing. It gets him in trouble.”
“I take it that you don’t buy into that same principle.”
Dean snorted. “I have my own belief system. It being that the innocent need to be protected. It gets him out of trouble.”
“So your brother’s completely innocent?”
Dean turned to face the doctor, his fierce stare daring him to say differently. “In my eyes.”
“Love is blind, son.” Daniels glanced to Sam. “And it’s obvious that you love your brother-a lot. But you wouldn’t believe the parents who have sworn to me that their child would never touch anything illegal, even after I’ve shown them needle marks and toxicology reports that would make a heroine junkie look somewhat inhibited.”
Dean’s frustration was swiftly rising to exasperation. “Look, I’ll be the first to admit that I have a bias when it comes to him,” Dean glanced at the still form of his little brother, and silently laughed at that huge understatement, “but I’m telling you the truth about this. Sam has never taken drugs. Never! And all that other risk-taking shit, well you can pin that on me. Because I’m to blame for most of those scars and old wounds.” Every single one of them.
Daniels finally nodded. “Let me get this straight-just so we’re clear. Your dad doesn’t abuse you or your brother, and Sam doesn’t do drugs, but is in fact, pretty much an all around super kid. But you-you’re a black and white, hit first-ask questions later, punk-ass, Evel Knievel, kind of guy?”
“Yep, that about sums it up.” Dean smirked. “But I have a really good sense of humor and a great face to even things out.”
Daniels shook his head. “Keep getting into fights with your old man and you might not have that last thing going for you.”
“Enough about me already.” Dean nodded to his brother. “Is he going to be okay?”
“Honestly, he’s doing better than I thought. The coma is lighter than I first believed, which leads me to think that it has more to do with the GHB than the blunt trauma.”
“And that’s a good thing?”
“Well, that’s why I wanted to know about the other drugs.”
“Other drugs? You found other drugs?”
Daniels nodded. “Oxycodone, better known as oxycontin. It’s an opiate, and…”
“I know what the hell it is,” Dean started putting two and two together, his desire to hurt Wilkerson notched up to blood lust. “How much was in his system?”
“Enough.”
“What are you saying here, Doc?”
“That I don’t think whoever gave your brother the GHB was kidding around.”
“Wilkerson planned on killing my brother?”
“I can’t say that for certain, kid. But if what you tell me about Sam being completely clean is true-then I can’t imagine him willingly eating that many pain pills. He’s damn lucky that the GHB or the concussion caused him to be so sick-seeing as how nature’s stomach pump saved his life.”
“Damn it,” Dean sighed. “I’m going to kill that bastard.”
“How about you let the courts handle it for a change.” Daniels jutted his chin to Dean’s cuffed wrists. “Seeing as how taking the law into your own hands has worked out so very well for you.”
“And you think the law is going to take care of someone like Wilkerson?” Dean snorted. “The wealthy slide right out of these things.” He jiggled the metal restraints. “ I think it’s all that grease, that we call money.”
Daniels fixed him with another hard stare. “Listen to me. I ran tests on Wilkerson and his pal. There blood levels were way over the legal limit. He’s not going to get away with murdering that other kid.”
“But what about Sam?”
“I can testify.”
“To what? That Sam had high levels of illegal drugs in his system, and that his big brother swore he didn’t take them on his own.” Dean shook his head. “You said it yourself people live in a little place called Denial. No one’s going to take my word over Jeff Wilkerson’s.”
“I’m guessing that there were other kids at the party. If you can get them to come forward…”
“Talking about denial…” Dean said loudly. “Have you met the kids that live in this area? They aren’t going to risk their necks for Sam. He’s nothing to them. Do you know how many punks I had to threaten just so my brother could safely walk in that place they call a high school?”
The naïve look on Daniels face told Dean that the man had more than likely had the same upbringing, and had no fucking clue as to what he was talking about. “Let me make it clear for you. We live on the beach, right outside of Barsfield-which is a fucking foreign country to these people. To paint you a picture, the minority level there shoots up to about 65 percent , instead of the highly diverse 1 percent that makes up the cultural Mecca here.”
“Our run down beach house, which was probably someone’s quaint little vacation cottage at one time, is just inside the Morgana city limits. My dad didn’t plan it that way-that’s just the only thing we could afford on his part-time mechanic’s salary, but it worked out well considering my genius little brother gets a decent chance at an ivy league school.”
“I bust my ass cleaning up fish guts at that old dock out in Smyrna so that we can eat and so that Sam doesn’t have to get his clothes from the Salvation Army. With what I make in the prosperous fishing industry I can buy him ones from Abberwhatzit and Fitch instead, that just look like they come from a donation center. You see, apparently, clothes and cars and name brand shoes are a big part of whether or not you get to be included in the it club these days, and although my brother really doesn’t give a shit about that stuff-I do because I don’t want him hurt.”
Dean shook his head and clenched his fist, wishing like hell he could hit something, pissed off that he was rambling to this complete fucking stranger. “But that worked our real well now didn’t it? I helped him fit into a crowd that apparently tried to kill him.”
Daniels watched the younger man struggling to contain everything that he was feeling, all those raw fears and hurts simmering just below the surface, and he knew without a doubt that Sam’s brother was telling him the truth-about everything.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Dean snarled. “My family doesn’t need your pity. We just need you to patch Sam up, and then I’ll deal with the rest, because if you think we‘re going to get a fair shake in this whole deal, you need to pull your head out of that Malibu sand.”
“I wasn’t pitying you,” Daniels denied. “But I will feel sorry for your brother if you go after Wilkerson.”
Dean’s brow wrinkled in confusion. “Why’s that?”
“It sounds like you take care of him. I’m guessing he depends on you-for a lot of things. What’s going to happen if you go to prison, or if Wilkerson Sr. goes for revenge. Trust me-the old man has contacts.”
Dean rolled his eyes. “I don’t scare easily. Trust me when I say that I’ve dealt with things much worse than an old man with his finger in the Al Capone pie.”
“So you’ve got it all figured out?” Daniels shook his head at the kid’s obstinacy. “I should expect more bleeding kids in my ER then?”
“That’s up to Wilkerson. If he turns himself in like a good little boy, then there should be minimal cleanup.”
“And if not?”
Dean shrugged. “You’ll get a hefty insurance payoff.”
Daniels started to say more when his pager went off. He grabbed it and read the number before glancing up at Dean. “I have to take this. You two going to be alright?”
Dean nodded. “Like I told you before, Dude, I’m good.”
The doctor started for the door but then stopped and faced the hunter once more. “I almost forgot,” he reached into his white coat pocket and pulled something from it. “One of the paramedics that brought Sam in gave this to me. Since he had to pry it from your brother’s fingers, he figured it was important.”
Dean clumsily reached out with his bound hands and took the offering, a lump springing to his throat, and his eyes betraying him once more. It was his protection charm. He cleared his throat. “Thanks.”
“You know, those kids-the ones like Wilkerson,” Daniels waited for Dean to look up at him, “they might have a lot of things, a blue blood pedigree and extensive genealogy, but I doubt if they know half of what you and Sam know about being a family. Don‘t let your thirst for revenge ruin what you have-which is something no amount of money can buy.”
Dean glanced back at the necklace in
his hand, clasping his fingers around the smooth, cool metal, and when
he lifted his eyes again the doctor was gone. With a tired sigh, the
hunter found himself staring at his comatose brother once more. “I just
hope Wilkerson hasn’t already ruined it for us, Sammy.” Dean tightened
his grip on the pendant. “For his sake, and yours.”