Hooligan's Holiday for Serawade 3/3
Aug. 25th, 2012 12:00 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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11:00 p.m. Weapons. He needed weapons. Guns were out, even if he had 'em, which he didn't. Knives he had. Also, now, a couple packages of disposable scalpels. "For the home of every hunter!" he quipped in an imaginary TV ad. They were nice and sharp and with the packs pre-opened, they were easily accessible. And four to a pack, so, he had missiles. So: Weapons, check. Salt stolen from the cafeteria, four shakers, check. Holy water, check. (He'd found Chase again and asked him to do the honors. Chase obliged.) Dean would've preferred a gun or two, he liked blades fine, but you generally had to get in close. And he hadn't liked the look of those claws.
Good to go. He packed everything on his person, mentally double-checked where it all was, and headed out to the fourth-floor waiting room near Jenny D's station. She'd start there on her 11:30 rounds and Dean should be able to follow her. He'd wait for the right time and, he hoped, surprise her before she turned. Then, out to a stairwell, salt and burn. Probably set off a fire alarm. He didn't see how he could get her out of the building.
He picked a seat with a good view of the corridors and the nurses' station, took up a newspaper and pretended to read. And"¦.right on time, there she was. Chernoff's description fit her to a T: uncharacteristically tall for a Filipina; eyes far apart; exceptionally long, dry black hair worn loose, unusual for a nurse.
When she left, Dean followed her.
He skulked around each patient room on the fourth floor waiting for an opportunity that didn't manifest; when she went up to floor five on the elevator, he ran up the stairs fast enough to see her emerge.
Dean stayed back when she went into the first room on the corridor. It was dark and emptier up here than it had been on the floor below. Easier to stay hidden and follow close, he thought.
She sure was taking her time. He didn't like that and moved quietly to the door. Took a quick look in, just to make sure everything was okay in there.
Oh, holy shit. It sure as fuck wasn't okay in there.
Jenny D. wasn't a woman anymore. She was a monster. She was a freakin' humongous busaw, bigger than the other one he and Sam had taken out. And sure as shit, she was advancing on the bed. Another poor sonofabitch was gonna go down if Dean didn't stop things from going any farther.
He threw the door open, slamming it against the wall with a huge bang. The monster whipped 'round and now Dean could see the claws on it, growing as he watched, it was like fuckin' Wolverine or that Asian girl, what was her name? Lady Deathstrike, that was it, just this one was nowhere near as hot as that girl in the movie-
By this time, Dean had his shit together. He and the busaw circled around the patient room, each looking for an opening. The busaw feinted to the left, and Dean responded by throwing a scalpel at its head, missing by only about an inch.
He'd had a pack of four opened and ready and now the next one was in his hand, ready to go. He closed one eye for better aim and faked throwing it. The monster ducked so when Dean did let the scalpel go, it hit it, right in the neck. Dean whooped, "All right! Hole in one!" And let loose the third, missing completely.
Still, Dean was pleased to see he'd made the busaw pissed. Thin black ichor was streaming out of its neck and it kept clapping a paw on it and roaring in fury. The only way this could get better would be if the monster stuck a claw or two through its own face, Dean thought. This was a good time to get his bigger blade out, go in for the kill.
The patient was awake now. Out of the corner of his eye, Dean saw a girl, about 16, open her eyes wide and scramble as far away as she could from the two in the center of her room. Then he and the monster circled around another few degrees and he couldn't see her anymore. He hoped he could keep her from becoming busaw chow.
The thing took advantage of his distraction and slashed at him. Dean threw himself back, managing to stay clear of those claws. He rolled to his feet and stayed down low in a crouch, a knife in each hand.
The busaw snarled and moved a little closer. Dean hurled the smaller blade, burying it in the monster's abdomen. Its almost water-thin blood poured out and it roared. Not whooping this time, Dean circled some more. He had to be ready for the moment to strike deep with the bigger blade. It would have to be the killing blow - all he had left was a packet of scalpels, and though they were nice, they weren't gonna kill this bitch.
Suddenly the busaw lunged at him. With all that blood it had lost, Dean hadn't expected it. A full-bodied scream rent the air - the girl - and he hadn't expected that either, lost his rhythm and was hit full on.
He was on the floor on his back, an enraged busaw's full weight on top of him. The only saving grace was the monster was too close to him to use its claws. Its teeth were nasty, but no nastier than those of a human. It wouldn't bite him; that's not what busaws did.
Dean still grasped his knife. He tried to squirm into a position from which to slash at the thing's head. It moved on top of him and he swung from the elbow, hitting its shoulder with the flat of the blade. The blow drew no blood, but it got its attention, and it moved up off Dean slightly, letting him get his elbow free and giving him hope - and then it moved a leg, bringing what passed for its knee right under the center of Dean's sternum.
The breath was crushed out of him and his knife went flying out of his hand. He heard it clatter to the floor and despite the need to catch his breath he tried to buck the monster off him. He stopped still when the monster extended its clawed hand toward his face, the tip of one about a half-inch from his eye. Dean didn't move a muscle, just stared cross-eyed at the claw just millimeters away from his sclera.
In a motion so swift Dean didn't even see it, the monster's other paw came down and, with all five claws, ripped the ever-living shit out of Dean's upper chest. Everything was agonizing pain and blur and 16-year-old-girl screaming until it wasn't, and then it was dark.
9.
Dean woke up slowly, still groggy from something he'd been given, probably for pain, since he wasn't feeling any. He remembered very well the events that had led up to him losing consciousness; he wasn't going to be happy with his own condition. What he wanted to know was whether the kid was okay and whether the monster was dead. If he was out of commission, he needed the monster to be dead, there was nobody else left to take care of it and save Sam and the old guy.
He tried to move and found it was no-go. He tried to see, but it was pitch-dark in this room. He cleared his throat and called out, "Hey! Get a little light in here?"
"The curtains are open, Mr. Neil. That should be plenty of light to read by."
Who the hell was that, right next to his ear for God's sake? "Jesus, you nearly made me jump outa my skin. It must be night then, 'cause it's dark as sin in here. Can you turn on the lights? Please?" Dean asked.
"I'm your nurse. I was just changing the water in the jug. Mr. Neil, are you having difficulty seeing? You were severely injured. Perhaps I'd better call your doctor."
Dean lay there, listening to her footsteps, and tried to stay calm. Maybe his eyes were closed and he just couldn't tell - still too doped up or something. He tried to open them. One of his arms worked, and he raised it to his face. "Are my eyes open?" he asked. "Nurse? Hey, where are you?"
"I'm here, Mr. Neil. Dr. Chase will be here in a few minutes."
At least it was Chase and not that asshat House. He closed his eyes.
"Dean. Dean." The Aussie accent was useful.
"Yeah. Chase? What happened? Did I kill it? I know I got it. Is the girl all right? What's the deal with my eyes?"
"One thing at a time. The teenager wasn't hurt."
"Good."
"But I don't think you killed the monster."
"Shit. How sure are you?"
"Let me fill you in. You didn't show up in Sam's room at twelve, so I went looking for you. A whole crowd was in the patient's room, trying to calm her down, trying to figure out what had happened, and trying to stop you from bleeding to death. You and the girl were the only ones in the room: she was hysterical and you were lying unconscious in a large puddle of your own blood."
Dean turned his head away from Chase's voice. Tears of frustration, that's all they were. He still didn't want anyone to see.
When he could, he turned back. His voice was taut. "The thing was bleeding. I got it in the neck and in the gut. There shoulda been gallons of the thing's blood in there."
"No," said Chase. "The only blood in the room was yours. Though there very nearly was 'gallons of it.' The monster was gone and so was its blood. The hospital decided not to have you arrested for attacked a patient because you were nearly dead and it was obvious you didn't do it to yourself. Also, Taylor - the sick girl - kept insisting you had saved her life." Dean could hear him pour a cup of water. "No one's certain what did actually happen, but the hospital feels that since you aren't dangerous now, we're keeping you as a patient, despite the complete lack of insurance, and, for that matter, actual identity, unless we tell people who you really are. Some water?"
"No, I don't want any water. Ah, hell. What a mess. How's Sam doing?"
Chase said nothing until Dean struggled up on one elbow and angled his sightless eyes in the doctor's direction. "How's he doing, Chase?"
Chase hurriedly cleared his throat. "He's hanging in. The fever returned and he had another seizure, starting at around 11:30 p.m. It got worse this time. Much worse. We had to cool him again and we had to go very low before it worked at all. If it goes on like this, he'll have brain damage, even if he survives."
"It's alive then," said Dean. "I'll have to go after it again." He would, too, until he could relax about Sam. The thing was, the pain from the slashes on Dean's torso was beginning to leak through the painkiller, and he could tell that when he got the whole whammy it was gonna hurt like a sonofabitch. He didn't even know what the damage actually was.
"No, you're not," said Chase. "I don't think you'd survive another bout with it. We'll have to find another way to stop it."
"I have to-"
"Nurse McDonagh had me paged. She said you can't see. Blindness is one of the symptoms. You've been infected."
"I can't be blind. I mean, not permanently. I feel like hell, yeah, because I've just been ripped up, but my eyes don't even hurt."
"It doesn't matter for the moment. Look, Sam, and now you, have a lot more resistance to this thing because you started out healthy. But you're too injured to fight. And you're probably going to get a lot sicker before you get better. Isn't there some kind of I don't know magic way of killing it?"
Dean couldn't help it. He started to laugh. Here he was, blind and barely able to move, his brother out for the count, and a monster they had brought with them killing sick people, feeding off them, at its leisure, and it was like he was talking to Harry Effing Potter. It was just so goddamn freakin' funny.
He laughed until he started sounding a little hysterical even to himself. Coughing a little to cover the edge he'd heard, Dean said, "Yeah, you're right. And you're right about us needing to find another way, seeing as this way didn't do jack. Usually Sam is the research geek. You're gonna have to do it."
Chase was taken aback. "Me? But I don't know anything about this area. Isn't there someone you can call?"
"What, like Ghostbusters? Ha. The last time I saw the one guy we could've called who's still alive, He was pointin' at my dad's head with a shotgun. I don't think that's an option. You good with a computer?"
"Not bad," said Chase cautiously. "Why a computer?"
"Start googling 'busaw.'"
"Seriously?" asked Chase. His voice went up high.
"Seriously," said Dean. "And you better step on it."
***
Dean slept on and off over the next day. He woke when Dr. Chase came by to check on him and give him reports on his research. Chase was a good guy, and might have been as good a researcher as Sam if he'd been raised as a hunter. It was just too bad for everyone right now that he hadn't. He was having to learn it all from the ground up. And it was taking too damn long. And Dean wasn't getting better fast enough.
Chase explained to him that he was still bleeding, not clotting properly - like Sam. Dean's sight might be permanently gone and did he feel a little feverish, because his temp was actually up. Also, they were about at the upper levels for pain management. They couldn't give him any more than he was getting now.
"And House is suspicious. He might have seen something, I don't know what. I had to get Foreman to help me salt and burn the monster - it was too heavy and the there was too big a mess for one person. Foreman's all right - discreet anyway," Chase said. "But House loves information and he likes dirt on people. The man's a genius. He's a fantastic doctor, but it's mostly because he's completely neurotic - at best - about a challenge. It's not as though he cares so much about people. A little, maybe."
"Huh," said Dean. "Sounds a lot like a hunter."
"Well, then, he's hunting you," said Chase. "Nurse Dimagiba's disappeared. House knows she was assigned to Sam and to Mr. Konstantinou, as well as to the Chernoff's and he's putting things together. He's also appearing in your brother's room more and more frequently."
"Maybe that's not all bad." Dean lay back in the bed. "If he's so smart, maybe we should just give him the info and let 'im loose."
"Mmm. I don't think so," said Chase. "I can't imagine anything good coming out of that. He doesn't know you're a patient; I've had you registered as my patient."
"I'm just sayin': let's think about it."
"Yeh, okay. I'll think," said Chase.
Yeah, right. Well, maybe he'd think about it. He didn't like House, in fact he thought he was an arrogant prick, but if he was that smart he'd have to accept the evidence.
The pain was getting worse. He was getting chills and his head hurt. The chills were bad and he was starting to cramp. The first one, in his leg, seemed like a regular cramp, maybe from lying still so long. Then he got one in his good arm - then his bad arm. And, Jesus, that hurt bad. It was all he could do to just buzz the nurse and ask for more pain meds. Which they had decided to limit. Like he was going to become an addict? Who cared, if he was going to be dead in a few days?
His thoughts went around in circles, over and over. When someone told him that night had finally come, it made no difference. Between the pain and his worry about Sam and the hapless patients at Princeton-Plainsboro he just tossed and turned, mentally, anyway, and hurt and saw nothing but blackness. Images of the busaw, up close and personal, and Sam, back arched in agony, and the woman, Mrs. Chernoff, as she died, kept returning.
He must have finally fallen asleep, because a sound woke him up.
It was a small sound, but it didn't belong to Dean's collection of hospital sounds. It was a scraping sound, like something sharp or metal or like a dog's claws trying to slide quietly across a floor.
Dean came completely alert. It was okay after all that the pain meds were barely working; dopy would not have been good.
Scrape. And
Scrape again.
It was definitely the sound of claws on flooring. If he didn't know it from the busaw, he'd have known it from other creatures he'd fought.
And fuckin' ganked.
He reached slowly, moving just the good arm, under his pillow to find the last package of scalpels. He'd managed to keep them in his boot, and his boots were under the bed in this room. When they put him in the stupid hospital gown and gone through his clothes, they hadn't bothered to check his those. A blade had been the first thing he'd thought about after Chase left the first time.
One of the scalpels slid nicely out of the package. One-handed Dean peeled off its protective cover. He nicked himself on the cutting edge and ouch. Sharp.
Good. Very, very small, but very, very sharp.
Scrape. Much too close now for comfort.
Dean lay still, every muscle tensed and ready. He tried to look relaxed (like he ever looked relaxed), like he was sleeping; he wanted the fucking monster as close as he could get it before he tried to take it out with a disposable surgical scalpel size 10 with plastic handle. The image that conjured up was so ludicrous he almost snickered. He banished it.
Scrape. And Dean could feel the air move next to his face. The thing was leaning over him, examining him, inspecting him. Breathing its fetid breath onto him, breathing Dean into itself.
He couldn't stand it any more. With every ounce of strength left in his body, Dean slashed out fast, right where he knew the busaw's head to be, and jammed the tiny blade directly into an eye, deep, so deep his fingers felt the jelly around its cornea.
The thing reared back, roaring, the sheer volume of it causing everything in the room to shake. Broken as he was, Dean scrabbled back as far as he could get into the corner where wall and bed met. His weight made the bed scoot away from the wall and he fell half off it into the corner on the side away from the maddened busaw.
Dean forgot his own pain in the pleasure of hearing the monster's. He was smiling and he knew that was all fucked up. But he was glad it was going to die in agony. He didn't even care whether he could be cured or not, but maybe Sam could get better.
He, Dean Awesome Fucking Winchester, had killed this motherfucking sonofabitch bastard monster and it was never gonna feed off or kill any other human being ever again.
The roaring went on and on and on and Dean held his one good hand over one ear, pressing the other side of his hide into the bed, waiting and waiting and waiting for it to stop.
Finally, it did.
Dean lifted his head cautiously, listening for anything that might mean the busaw had survived.
Nothing but silence. He let go of the bed and slid to the floor, catching himself on the elbow of his bad arm. Sharp, piercing pain went through him like a spear and he grunted with it. When it subsided, he let go and lay down on the cool floor and just rested. He felt the adrenalin draining away.
"Dean? Dean? Oh, my God. This - it's horrible! Where are you? Dean!"
Chase.
"Yo!" Dean managed. "Down here. Fell down behind," Dean wheezed. He was having a little trouble breathing. Probably hadn't really been ready for a fight.
"Okay. It's okay, Dean." Dean heard Chase's voice come nearer and the bed creak as the doc pushed it out of the way. Hands moved Dean away from the wall and into a sitting position.
"Are you all right? I saw you with that that thing. I was watching from behind the door. It was horrible! How are you? Are you all right?"
"Not a drop of my blood spilled, man."
That was what Dean tried to say, but he couldn't get it out, couldn't breathe. Damn, the pain was incredible. he'd never felt anything like this. "Aahhhhhhh!" was all that came out of his mouth, and waves of heat began welling up from his chest where the thing had got him before. It was so so so bad
Dimly he heard Chase. "Shit," the Australian doctor was saying. "He's got it full force now. Help me get him up on the bed."
Hands - whose, he didn't know or care - were helping him, readjusting the stupidass hospital gown that was absolute crap for fighting monsters in, getting him tucked back in, wiping down his face and neck. He felt a slight prick in the back of his hand and understood it was intravenous something, but it sure as hell wasn't a painkiller because the pain was something ferOCIOUS ----
Thank God, he thought, as he felt his consciousness spiraling away into the darkness that was all he was ever going to see ever again if he ever woke up.
10.
He did wake up. In a room with Sam in it. That snore was one he'd have known anywhere and it was definitely his brother - still alive. Was it too much to hope that, now the thing was dead, Sam might live for sure?
Didn't care so much about himself. He felt like shit.
BANG
The door burst open and a lot of footsteps crowded into the room. Dean heard/felt Sam wake up, definitely heard him say weakly, "Eh? What's going on?"
A poke in the arm with a stick was what was going on and Dean knew it was that prick House, followed by all his minions, no doubt, probably Chase included, so at least there was one of 'em on the Winchester side.
"You. Mr. Dean Winchester. Link Wray. Vince Neil? All three of you have been rampaging all over my hospital, barging in on patients, giving nurses heart attacks, and poaching members of my team."
Chase was right. The guy was good.
Dean lay there, keeping his eyes closed. What the hell could House do to him? Blind him? Oh, too late. Make him sicker? Any sicker and he'd be dead. So go for it, Dr. House.
"Feel free, Mr. Winchester the elder, to go on pretending you're asleep. I'll just talk at you for a while. Eventually you'll realize you'd much rather answer me and let me help you and your brother and the barely animated Mr. Konstantinou survive this very nasty illness.
"You, Mr. Winchester the younger, yes, we know you're very, very ill. If there is any chance you would like to live, and, by the way, cure your brother, who is now also dying, you should take this opportunity to communicate whatever information you have. If you have no such information, you may keep your mouth shut. Feel free to continue dying.
"And you" - the squeak was House turning a semi-circle on his gym shoes - "Dr. Chase, you've been a vewy wascally widdle wabbit. You've gone and got yourself a completely private patient who also happens to be a criminal in several states. You see the position you are in. You can speak up now or get the hell out of my hospital because you will be fired and probably put away for years if you don't."
"House-" started Chase.
Dean groaned. If the pain hadn't flared up, he would've groaned anyway. "Tell him, Chase," he said. "Just tell him."
"Thank you, Mr. Winchester."
"Hey, I'm not telling him that because I like you. I just think you're a nosy bastard who's probably really good at his job."
Dean could almost hear House grinning. Dammit, the guy was such a smartass. He was actually beginning to like him.
"Now, speak up," House said. "All the other children want to hear the story."
Chase told them what he knew.
"So," said House. "Dr. Foreman, you were involved as well."
"Just a little, at the end-"
Hah! Dean liked hearing that guy squirm a little. He was almost as arrogant as House.
"Like 'a little bit pregnant,' Dr. Foreman?" House asked.
"Uh-"
"Never mind. You get points for successfully hiding it from me. I see, on the other hand, that Dr. Cameron is completely in the dark here. A sign of upright, upstanding character, perhaps, but not particularly useful in this branch of medicine. Where we get our information any way we can."
Tap__thunk, tap__ thunk, tap__thunk
House's footsteps, walking around the room. Lecturing like the pompous prat he was.
Suddenly, Dean felt House's cane poke him again. "Goddammit!" he bellowed. "Cut that shit out!" Ignoring the fire that went through his shoulder, Dean grabbed the damn cane and pulled hard. A loud thud and a yelp followed.
Dr. Cameron said, "Dr. House! Are you all right?"
"Yes, thank you, Dr. Cameron. Don't just stand there, help me up."
Dean let the cane drop. It clattered to the floor. Satisfyingly. He heard Sam, sick as he was, sniggering. And a couple of the minions were coughing suspiciously.
"I think I'll take a seat," House said.
"This is a lot of fun, and I apologize for butting in, but if somebody could order up some painkillers, I'd appreciate it," Dean said. He was beginning to burn.
"Very quickly, then. Dean. I think we'll stick with 'Dean' from now on. It's just so much easier to think of you as one person. Sam was injured by the first busaw, and you by the one that chased (heh, heh)" - that was actually kind of funny, Dean thought - "after you here to Princeton. And the fact of the venom was unknown, correct?"
"Yes," Dean said through clenched teeth. "Meds? Over here? Now?"
"Soon, Dean, as soon as I know everything I need to know to help you. Where was I? Oh, yes. Unknown, and Sam's symptoms didn't appear for a couple of days, while yours were almost immediate, as were Mrs. Chernoff's and Mr. Konstantinou's?"
"Yes!" Dean managed to get out. He would've said "yes" to anything now.
"All right, then. While you, Dean, and Dr. Chase have been running around playing 'Musical Patient Rooms' and 'Last One to the Fifth-Floor Storage Room is a Rotten Egg,' and 'Let's Go Kill the Monster,' I've been working on blood analysis and other miracles of modern science. I believe what we have here is a bacterial infection, not a terribly contagious one, thankfully, that is transferable from busaw to human. When the busaw fed on someone, the physical responses were somewhat different from when it attacked someone; the differences were in part the hormonal chemistry of the busaw's interacting with the venom in its claws, both receiving blood from the creature's digestive system."
"That's fantastic, House! I'm dyin' here!"
"I'm almost finished, Dean. I did, by the way, so enjoy your last little trick with my cane.
"The physical symptoms are those of a non-designated mitochondrial disease. An autoimmune thing. This sent me in the wrong direction at first. However, when I realized that a busaw was involved-"
Chace interrupted, Australian accent thick as marmite. "How didja know that? How couldja possibly have known that?"
"I was unable to figure it out until our new Filipino nurse disappeared, 'coincidentally' at the same time as the Winchesters arrived and the attacks began. That led me to research Filipino sources, especially those in Tagalog only; journals in English would be completely unlikely to discuss anything remotely 'supernatural,'" House said, his enjoyment audible.
"In Tagalog?" whispered Sam.
"Yeah," Dean croaked. "Guy's good, isn't he?"
"We might even get out of here alive," Sam murmured.
"That'd be fabulous, Sam, but RIGHT NOW I WANT SOME FUCKING PAIN MEDS!" Dean shouted.
"Certainly," House said. "In a moment. Where was I? Oh, yes. And my idea was confirmed when none of the patients recovered when the creature died, as they would have had the symptoms been solely what you call 'supernatural.' That is, of course, just what is natural but about which little is known."
"Sonofabitch," Dean breathed. "House! Finish up your damn "¦ disquisition "¦ willya?"
House continued as if he hadn't heard. "I have here, in my pocket, the antidote. Made from a distillation and treatment of the necessary elements in Sam's bloodstream."
Silence.
"Would one of you please call a nurse for Mr. Winchester?" House requested magnanimously.
11.
"Dr. Cuddy, why are you following me around?" asked House. "I've just cured three patients of an illness not previously known to exist. That should be enough for you for one week."
"House, I don't even know if any of these patients but Mr. Konstantinou actually existed. He's the only one whose chart I can even find," she said indignantly. "Can't you do anything like anyone else? It would make my job infinitely easier."
House stopped walking and turned to look at his boss. To her surprise, he was smiling - and it was a nice smile, like one might wear who was, at least for the moment, genuinely happy.
He said, "I'm sure it would, Dr. Cuddy, but where would be the fun in that?"
The End
11:00 p.m. Weapons. He needed weapons. Guns were out, even if he had 'em, which he didn't. Knives he had. Also, now, a couple packages of disposable scalpels. "For the home of every hunter!" he quipped in an imaginary TV ad. They were nice and sharp and with the packs pre-opened, they were easily accessible. And four to a pack, so, he had missiles. So: Weapons, check. Salt stolen from the cafeteria, four shakers, check. Holy water, check. (He'd found Chase again and asked him to do the honors. Chase obliged.) Dean would've preferred a gun or two, he liked blades fine, but you generally had to get in close. And he hadn't liked the look of those claws.
Good to go. He packed everything on his person, mentally double-checked where it all was, and headed out to the fourth-floor waiting room near Jenny D's station. She'd start there on her 11:30 rounds and Dean should be able to follow her. He'd wait for the right time and, he hoped, surprise her before she turned. Then, out to a stairwell, salt and burn. Probably set off a fire alarm. He didn't see how he could get her out of the building.
He picked a seat with a good view of the corridors and the nurses' station, took up a newspaper and pretended to read. And"¦.right on time, there she was. Chernoff's description fit her to a T: uncharacteristically tall for a Filipina; eyes far apart; exceptionally long, dry black hair worn loose, unusual for a nurse.
When she left, Dean followed her.
He skulked around each patient room on the fourth floor waiting for an opportunity that didn't manifest; when she went up to floor five on the elevator, he ran up the stairs fast enough to see her emerge.
Dean stayed back when she went into the first room on the corridor. It was dark and emptier up here than it had been on the floor below. Easier to stay hidden and follow close, he thought.
She sure was taking her time. He didn't like that and moved quietly to the door. Took a quick look in, just to make sure everything was okay in there.
Oh, holy shit. It sure as fuck wasn't okay in there.
Jenny D. wasn't a woman anymore. She was a monster. She was a freakin' humongous busaw, bigger than the other one he and Sam had taken out. And sure as shit, she was advancing on the bed. Another poor sonofabitch was gonna go down if Dean didn't stop things from going any farther.
He threw the door open, slamming it against the wall with a huge bang. The monster whipped 'round and now Dean could see the claws on it, growing as he watched, it was like fuckin' Wolverine or that Asian girl, what was her name? Lady Deathstrike, that was it, just this one was nowhere near as hot as that girl in the movie-
By this time, Dean had his shit together. He and the busaw circled around the patient room, each looking for an opening. The busaw feinted to the left, and Dean responded by throwing a scalpel at its head, missing by only about an inch.
He'd had a pack of four opened and ready and now the next one was in his hand, ready to go. He closed one eye for better aim and faked throwing it. The monster ducked so when Dean did let the scalpel go, it hit it, right in the neck. Dean whooped, "All right! Hole in one!" And let loose the third, missing completely.
Still, Dean was pleased to see he'd made the busaw pissed. Thin black ichor was streaming out of its neck and it kept clapping a paw on it and roaring in fury. The only way this could get better would be if the monster stuck a claw or two through its own face, Dean thought. This was a good time to get his bigger blade out, go in for the kill.
The patient was awake now. Out of the corner of his eye, Dean saw a girl, about 16, open her eyes wide and scramble as far away as she could from the two in the center of her room. Then he and the monster circled around another few degrees and he couldn't see her anymore. He hoped he could keep her from becoming busaw chow.
The thing took advantage of his distraction and slashed at him. Dean threw himself back, managing to stay clear of those claws. He rolled to his feet and stayed down low in a crouch, a knife in each hand.
The busaw snarled and moved a little closer. Dean hurled the smaller blade, burying it in the monster's abdomen. Its almost water-thin blood poured out and it roared. Not whooping this time, Dean circled some more. He had to be ready for the moment to strike deep with the bigger blade. It would have to be the killing blow - all he had left was a packet of scalpels, and though they were nice, they weren't gonna kill this bitch.
Suddenly the busaw lunged at him. With all that blood it had lost, Dean hadn't expected it. A full-bodied scream rent the air - the girl - and he hadn't expected that either, lost his rhythm and was hit full on.
He was on the floor on his back, an enraged busaw's full weight on top of him. The only saving grace was the monster was too close to him to use its claws. Its teeth were nasty, but no nastier than those of a human. It wouldn't bite him; that's not what busaws did.
Dean still grasped his knife. He tried to squirm into a position from which to slash at the thing's head. It moved on top of him and he swung from the elbow, hitting its shoulder with the flat of the blade. The blow drew no blood, but it got its attention, and it moved up off Dean slightly, letting him get his elbow free and giving him hope - and then it moved a leg, bringing what passed for its knee right under the center of Dean's sternum.
The breath was crushed out of him and his knife went flying out of his hand. He heard it clatter to the floor and despite the need to catch his breath he tried to buck the monster off him. He stopped still when the monster extended its clawed hand toward his face, the tip of one about a half-inch from his eye. Dean didn't move a muscle, just stared cross-eyed at the claw just millimeters away from his sclera.
In a motion so swift Dean didn't even see it, the monster's other paw came down and, with all five claws, ripped the ever-living shit out of Dean's upper chest. Everything was agonizing pain and blur and 16-year-old-girl screaming until it wasn't, and then it was dark.
9.
Dean woke up slowly, still groggy from something he'd been given, probably for pain, since he wasn't feeling any. He remembered very well the events that had led up to him losing consciousness; he wasn't going to be happy with his own condition. What he wanted to know was whether the kid was okay and whether the monster was dead. If he was out of commission, he needed the monster to be dead, there was nobody else left to take care of it and save Sam and the old guy.
He tried to move and found it was no-go. He tried to see, but it was pitch-dark in this room. He cleared his throat and called out, "Hey! Get a little light in here?"
"The curtains are open, Mr. Neil. That should be plenty of light to read by."
Who the hell was that, right next to his ear for God's sake? "Jesus, you nearly made me jump outa my skin. It must be night then, 'cause it's dark as sin in here. Can you turn on the lights? Please?" Dean asked.
"I'm your nurse. I was just changing the water in the jug. Mr. Neil, are you having difficulty seeing? You were severely injured. Perhaps I'd better call your doctor."
Dean lay there, listening to her footsteps, and tried to stay calm. Maybe his eyes were closed and he just couldn't tell - still too doped up or something. He tried to open them. One of his arms worked, and he raised it to his face. "Are my eyes open?" he asked. "Nurse? Hey, where are you?"
"I'm here, Mr. Neil. Dr. Chase will be here in a few minutes."
At least it was Chase and not that asshat House. He closed his eyes.
"Dean. Dean." The Aussie accent was useful.
"Yeah. Chase? What happened? Did I kill it? I know I got it. Is the girl all right? What's the deal with my eyes?"
"One thing at a time. The teenager wasn't hurt."
"Good."
"But I don't think you killed the monster."
"Shit. How sure are you?"
"Let me fill you in. You didn't show up in Sam's room at twelve, so I went looking for you. A whole crowd was in the patient's room, trying to calm her down, trying to figure out what had happened, and trying to stop you from bleeding to death. You and the girl were the only ones in the room: she was hysterical and you were lying unconscious in a large puddle of your own blood."
Dean turned his head away from Chase's voice. Tears of frustration, that's all they were. He still didn't want anyone to see.
When he could, he turned back. His voice was taut. "The thing was bleeding. I got it in the neck and in the gut. There shoulda been gallons of the thing's blood in there."
"No," said Chase. "The only blood in the room was yours. Though there very nearly was 'gallons of it.' The monster was gone and so was its blood. The hospital decided not to have you arrested for attacked a patient because you were nearly dead and it was obvious you didn't do it to yourself. Also, Taylor - the sick girl - kept insisting you had saved her life." Dean could hear him pour a cup of water. "No one's certain what did actually happen, but the hospital feels that since you aren't dangerous now, we're keeping you as a patient, despite the complete lack of insurance, and, for that matter, actual identity, unless we tell people who you really are. Some water?"
"No, I don't want any water. Ah, hell. What a mess. How's Sam doing?"
Chase said nothing until Dean struggled up on one elbow and angled his sightless eyes in the doctor's direction. "How's he doing, Chase?"
Chase hurriedly cleared his throat. "He's hanging in. The fever returned and he had another seizure, starting at around 11:30 p.m. It got worse this time. Much worse. We had to cool him again and we had to go very low before it worked at all. If it goes on like this, he'll have brain damage, even if he survives."
"It's alive then," said Dean. "I'll have to go after it again." He would, too, until he could relax about Sam. The thing was, the pain from the slashes on Dean's torso was beginning to leak through the painkiller, and he could tell that when he got the whole whammy it was gonna hurt like a sonofabitch. He didn't even know what the damage actually was.
"No, you're not," said Chase. "I don't think you'd survive another bout with it. We'll have to find another way to stop it."
"I have to-"
"Nurse McDonagh had me paged. She said you can't see. Blindness is one of the symptoms. You've been infected."
"I can't be blind. I mean, not permanently. I feel like hell, yeah, because I've just been ripped up, but my eyes don't even hurt."
"It doesn't matter for the moment. Look, Sam, and now you, have a lot more resistance to this thing because you started out healthy. But you're too injured to fight. And you're probably going to get a lot sicker before you get better. Isn't there some kind of I don't know magic way of killing it?"
Dean couldn't help it. He started to laugh. Here he was, blind and barely able to move, his brother out for the count, and a monster they had brought with them killing sick people, feeding off them, at its leisure, and it was like he was talking to Harry Effing Potter. It was just so goddamn freakin' funny.
He laughed until he started sounding a little hysterical even to himself. Coughing a little to cover the edge he'd heard, Dean said, "Yeah, you're right. And you're right about us needing to find another way, seeing as this way didn't do jack. Usually Sam is the research geek. You're gonna have to do it."
Chase was taken aback. "Me? But I don't know anything about this area. Isn't there someone you can call?"
"What, like Ghostbusters? Ha. The last time I saw the one guy we could've called who's still alive, He was pointin' at my dad's head with a shotgun. I don't think that's an option. You good with a computer?"
"Not bad," said Chase cautiously. "Why a computer?"
"Start googling 'busaw.'"
"Seriously?" asked Chase. His voice went up high.
"Seriously," said Dean. "And you better step on it."
***
Dean slept on and off over the next day. He woke when Dr. Chase came by to check on him and give him reports on his research. Chase was a good guy, and might have been as good a researcher as Sam if he'd been raised as a hunter. It was just too bad for everyone right now that he hadn't. He was having to learn it all from the ground up. And it was taking too damn long. And Dean wasn't getting better fast enough.
Chase explained to him that he was still bleeding, not clotting properly - like Sam. Dean's sight might be permanently gone and did he feel a little feverish, because his temp was actually up. Also, they were about at the upper levels for pain management. They couldn't give him any more than he was getting now.
"And House is suspicious. He might have seen something, I don't know what. I had to get Foreman to help me salt and burn the monster - it was too heavy and the there was too big a mess for one person. Foreman's all right - discreet anyway," Chase said. "But House loves information and he likes dirt on people. The man's a genius. He's a fantastic doctor, but it's mostly because he's completely neurotic - at best - about a challenge. It's not as though he cares so much about people. A little, maybe."
"Huh," said Dean. "Sounds a lot like a hunter."
"Well, then, he's hunting you," said Chase. "Nurse Dimagiba's disappeared. House knows she was assigned to Sam and to Mr. Konstantinou, as well as to the Chernoff's and he's putting things together. He's also appearing in your brother's room more and more frequently."
"Maybe that's not all bad." Dean lay back in the bed. "If he's so smart, maybe we should just give him the info and let 'im loose."
"Mmm. I don't think so," said Chase. "I can't imagine anything good coming out of that. He doesn't know you're a patient; I've had you registered as my patient."
"I'm just sayin': let's think about it."
"Yeh, okay. I'll think," said Chase.
Yeah, right. Well, maybe he'd think about it. He didn't like House, in fact he thought he was an arrogant prick, but if he was that smart he'd have to accept the evidence.
The pain was getting worse. He was getting chills and his head hurt. The chills were bad and he was starting to cramp. The first one, in his leg, seemed like a regular cramp, maybe from lying still so long. Then he got one in his good arm - then his bad arm. And, Jesus, that hurt bad. It was all he could do to just buzz the nurse and ask for more pain meds. Which they had decided to limit. Like he was going to become an addict? Who cared, if he was going to be dead in a few days?
His thoughts went around in circles, over and over. When someone told him that night had finally come, it made no difference. Between the pain and his worry about Sam and the hapless patients at Princeton-Plainsboro he just tossed and turned, mentally, anyway, and hurt and saw nothing but blackness. Images of the busaw, up close and personal, and Sam, back arched in agony, and the woman, Mrs. Chernoff, as she died, kept returning.
He must have finally fallen asleep, because a sound woke him up.
It was a small sound, but it didn't belong to Dean's collection of hospital sounds. It was a scraping sound, like something sharp or metal or like a dog's claws trying to slide quietly across a floor.
Dean came completely alert. It was okay after all that the pain meds were barely working; dopy would not have been good.
Scrape. And
Scrape again.
It was definitely the sound of claws on flooring. If he didn't know it from the busaw, he'd have known it from other creatures he'd fought.
And fuckin' ganked.
He reached slowly, moving just the good arm, under his pillow to find the last package of scalpels. He'd managed to keep them in his boot, and his boots were under the bed in this room. When they put him in the stupid hospital gown and gone through his clothes, they hadn't bothered to check his those. A blade had been the first thing he'd thought about after Chase left the first time.
One of the scalpels slid nicely out of the package. One-handed Dean peeled off its protective cover. He nicked himself on the cutting edge and ouch. Sharp.
Good. Very, very small, but very, very sharp.
Scrape. Much too close now for comfort.
Dean lay still, every muscle tensed and ready. He tried to look relaxed (like he ever looked relaxed), like he was sleeping; he wanted the fucking monster as close as he could get it before he tried to take it out with a disposable surgical scalpel size 10 with plastic handle. The image that conjured up was so ludicrous he almost snickered. He banished it.
Scrape. And Dean could feel the air move next to his face. The thing was leaning over him, examining him, inspecting him. Breathing its fetid breath onto him, breathing Dean into itself.
He couldn't stand it any more. With every ounce of strength left in his body, Dean slashed out fast, right where he knew the busaw's head to be, and jammed the tiny blade directly into an eye, deep, so deep his fingers felt the jelly around its cornea.
The thing reared back, roaring, the sheer volume of it causing everything in the room to shake. Broken as he was, Dean scrabbled back as far as he could get into the corner where wall and bed met. His weight made the bed scoot away from the wall and he fell half off it into the corner on the side away from the maddened busaw.
Dean forgot his own pain in the pleasure of hearing the monster's. He was smiling and he knew that was all fucked up. But he was glad it was going to die in agony. He didn't even care whether he could be cured or not, but maybe Sam could get better.
He, Dean Awesome Fucking Winchester, had killed this motherfucking sonofabitch bastard monster and it was never gonna feed off or kill any other human being ever again.
The roaring went on and on and on and Dean held his one good hand over one ear, pressing the other side of his hide into the bed, waiting and waiting and waiting for it to stop.
Finally, it did.
Dean lifted his head cautiously, listening for anything that might mean the busaw had survived.
Nothing but silence. He let go of the bed and slid to the floor, catching himself on the elbow of his bad arm. Sharp, piercing pain went through him like a spear and he grunted with it. When it subsided, he let go and lay down on the cool floor and just rested. He felt the adrenalin draining away.
"Dean? Dean? Oh, my God. This - it's horrible! Where are you? Dean!"
Chase.
"Yo!" Dean managed. "Down here. Fell down behind," Dean wheezed. He was having a little trouble breathing. Probably hadn't really been ready for a fight.
"Okay. It's okay, Dean." Dean heard Chase's voice come nearer and the bed creak as the doc pushed it out of the way. Hands moved Dean away from the wall and into a sitting position.
"Are you all right? I saw you with that that thing. I was watching from behind the door. It was horrible! How are you? Are you all right?"
"Not a drop of my blood spilled, man."
That was what Dean tried to say, but he couldn't get it out, couldn't breathe. Damn, the pain was incredible. he'd never felt anything like this. "Aahhhhhhh!" was all that came out of his mouth, and waves of heat began welling up from his chest where the thing had got him before. It was so so so bad
Dimly he heard Chase. "Shit," the Australian doctor was saying. "He's got it full force now. Help me get him up on the bed."
Hands - whose, he didn't know or care - were helping him, readjusting the stupidass hospital gown that was absolute crap for fighting monsters in, getting him tucked back in, wiping down his face and neck. He felt a slight prick in the back of his hand and understood it was intravenous something, but it sure as hell wasn't a painkiller because the pain was something ferOCIOUS ----
Thank God, he thought, as he felt his consciousness spiraling away into the darkness that was all he was ever going to see ever again if he ever woke up.
10.
He did wake up. In a room with Sam in it. That snore was one he'd have known anywhere and it was definitely his brother - still alive. Was it too much to hope that, now the thing was dead, Sam might live for sure?
Didn't care so much about himself. He felt like shit.
BANG
The door burst open and a lot of footsteps crowded into the room. Dean heard/felt Sam wake up, definitely heard him say weakly, "Eh? What's going on?"
A poke in the arm with a stick was what was going on and Dean knew it was that prick House, followed by all his minions, no doubt, probably Chase included, so at least there was one of 'em on the Winchester side.
"You. Mr. Dean Winchester. Link Wray. Vince Neil? All three of you have been rampaging all over my hospital, barging in on patients, giving nurses heart attacks, and poaching members of my team."
Chase was right. The guy was good.
Dean lay there, keeping his eyes closed. What the hell could House do to him? Blind him? Oh, too late. Make him sicker? Any sicker and he'd be dead. So go for it, Dr. House.
"Feel free, Mr. Winchester the elder, to go on pretending you're asleep. I'll just talk at you for a while. Eventually you'll realize you'd much rather answer me and let me help you and your brother and the barely animated Mr. Konstantinou survive this very nasty illness.
"You, Mr. Winchester the younger, yes, we know you're very, very ill. If there is any chance you would like to live, and, by the way, cure your brother, who is now also dying, you should take this opportunity to communicate whatever information you have. If you have no such information, you may keep your mouth shut. Feel free to continue dying.
"And you" - the squeak was House turning a semi-circle on his gym shoes - "Dr. Chase, you've been a vewy wascally widdle wabbit. You've gone and got yourself a completely private patient who also happens to be a criminal in several states. You see the position you are in. You can speak up now or get the hell out of my hospital because you will be fired and probably put away for years if you don't."
"House-" started Chase.
Dean groaned. If the pain hadn't flared up, he would've groaned anyway. "Tell him, Chase," he said. "Just tell him."
"Thank you, Mr. Winchester."
"Hey, I'm not telling him that because I like you. I just think you're a nosy bastard who's probably really good at his job."
Dean could almost hear House grinning. Dammit, the guy was such a smartass. He was actually beginning to like him.
"Now, speak up," House said. "All the other children want to hear the story."
Chase told them what he knew.
"So," said House. "Dr. Foreman, you were involved as well."
"Just a little, at the end-"
Hah! Dean liked hearing that guy squirm a little. He was almost as arrogant as House.
"Like 'a little bit pregnant,' Dr. Foreman?" House asked.
"Uh-"
"Never mind. You get points for successfully hiding it from me. I see, on the other hand, that Dr. Cameron is completely in the dark here. A sign of upright, upstanding character, perhaps, but not particularly useful in this branch of medicine. Where we get our information any way we can."
Tap__thunk, tap__ thunk, tap__thunk
House's footsteps, walking around the room. Lecturing like the pompous prat he was.
Suddenly, Dean felt House's cane poke him again. "Goddammit!" he bellowed. "Cut that shit out!" Ignoring the fire that went through his shoulder, Dean grabbed the damn cane and pulled hard. A loud thud and a yelp followed.
Dr. Cameron said, "Dr. House! Are you all right?"
"Yes, thank you, Dr. Cameron. Don't just stand there, help me up."
Dean let the cane drop. It clattered to the floor. Satisfyingly. He heard Sam, sick as he was, sniggering. And a couple of the minions were coughing suspiciously.
"I think I'll take a seat," House said.
"This is a lot of fun, and I apologize for butting in, but if somebody could order up some painkillers, I'd appreciate it," Dean said. He was beginning to burn.
"Very quickly, then. Dean. I think we'll stick with 'Dean' from now on. It's just so much easier to think of you as one person. Sam was injured by the first busaw, and you by the one that chased (heh, heh)" - that was actually kind of funny, Dean thought - "after you here to Princeton. And the fact of the venom was unknown, correct?"
"Yes," Dean said through clenched teeth. "Meds? Over here? Now?"
"Soon, Dean, as soon as I know everything I need to know to help you. Where was I? Oh, yes. Unknown, and Sam's symptoms didn't appear for a couple of days, while yours were almost immediate, as were Mrs. Chernoff's and Mr. Konstantinou's?"
"Yes!" Dean managed to get out. He would've said "yes" to anything now.
"All right, then. While you, Dean, and Dr. Chase have been running around playing 'Musical Patient Rooms' and 'Last One to the Fifth-Floor Storage Room is a Rotten Egg,' and 'Let's Go Kill the Monster,' I've been working on blood analysis and other miracles of modern science. I believe what we have here is a bacterial infection, not a terribly contagious one, thankfully, that is transferable from busaw to human. When the busaw fed on someone, the physical responses were somewhat different from when it attacked someone; the differences were in part the hormonal chemistry of the busaw's interacting with the venom in its claws, both receiving blood from the creature's digestive system."
"That's fantastic, House! I'm dyin' here!"
"I'm almost finished, Dean. I did, by the way, so enjoy your last little trick with my cane.
"The physical symptoms are those of a non-designated mitochondrial disease. An autoimmune thing. This sent me in the wrong direction at first. However, when I realized that a busaw was involved-"
Chace interrupted, Australian accent thick as marmite. "How didja know that? How couldja possibly have known that?"
"I was unable to figure it out until our new Filipino nurse disappeared, 'coincidentally' at the same time as the Winchesters arrived and the attacks began. That led me to research Filipino sources, especially those in Tagalog only; journals in English would be completely unlikely to discuss anything remotely 'supernatural,'" House said, his enjoyment audible.
"In Tagalog?" whispered Sam.
"Yeah," Dean croaked. "Guy's good, isn't he?"
"We might even get out of here alive," Sam murmured.
"That'd be fabulous, Sam, but RIGHT NOW I WANT SOME FUCKING PAIN MEDS!" Dean shouted.
"Certainly," House said. "In a moment. Where was I? Oh, yes. And my idea was confirmed when none of the patients recovered when the creature died, as they would have had the symptoms been solely what you call 'supernatural.' That is, of course, just what is natural but about which little is known."
"Sonofabitch," Dean breathed. "House! Finish up your damn "¦ disquisition "¦ willya?"
House continued as if he hadn't heard. "I have here, in my pocket, the antidote. Made from a distillation and treatment of the necessary elements in Sam's bloodstream."
Silence.
"Would one of you please call a nurse for Mr. Winchester?" House requested magnanimously.
11.
"Dr. Cuddy, why are you following me around?" asked House. "I've just cured three patients of an illness not previously known to exist. That should be enough for you for one week."
"House, I don't even know if any of these patients but Mr. Konstantinou actually existed. He's the only one whose chart I can even find," she said indignantly. "Can't you do anything like anyone else? It would make my job infinitely easier."
House stopped walking and turned to look at his boss. To her surprise, he was smiling - and it was a nice smile, like one might wear who was, at least for the moment, genuinely happy.
He said, "I'm sure it would, Dr. Cuddy, but where would be the fun in that?"
The End
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