Mad World
Chapter Nine: Children waiting for the day they feel good
The nightmares were the worst.
For Dean, anyway. To not be able to offer any sort of solution or comfort - it was torture.
He was sure that for his baby brother, though, the headaches were probably the thing he could most do without.
"It's the tumor," Sam said weakly one night, about a week after the crossroads, a week after he'd finally confessed the truth. "They're symptoms of the tumor."
"You've got the flu or something," Dean had responded. "We should stay here for a while."
Here was a crappy motel about ten miles away from where he'd met the demon. About five miles away from where Sammy had supernaturally busted his window. The Impala sat in the parking lot, glass still shattered, much like the Winchester boys
---
"My funereal." Sam answered the question Dean wished he'd never asked.
"Oh," the elder man responded. He wanted to say something sarcastic about the dreams, something that would lighten the moment; but he just sat still and watched his little brother reach for his third aspirin of the morning.
He couldn't respond, and silence fell between them.
---
"I'm sorry," Sam whispered. "I didn't mean for this to happen. I didn't want it to."
"Nothing happened." Dean swallowed thickly and kept his eyes locked to the ceiling, glad for once that it was night. "Everything's gonna be fine."
---
"How?" The faint wisp of the plea reached Dean just before Sam fell into a deep sleep.
So when he answered, he was making a promise to no one. To himself.
"I'm gonna fix it."
---
Dean wasn't stupid, wasn't blind, and certainly wasn't naive.
He knew Sam had told him the truth.
When he got down to the core of it, he knew the hospital hadn't mucked up his tests, either.
He saw it in his brother's face every time the younger man cringed. Every unexplained headache. Every time he zoned out of a conversation for no reason.
---
He knew his brother was dying.
---
Nine days into their stay at that motel, Sam started to feel better, and Dean deduced that using his other, unexplained psychic ability might have sparked the onslaught of symptoms.
If he thought hard about it, he could even remember the same thing happening last year after the incident with Max Miller. He'd just brushed it off then, labeling it a supernatural hangover.
The truth pierced his heart, and he began to accept what he knew he had to do.
---
On the eleventh night after Dean learned the truth about Sam's brain tumor - that's when he finally did it.
---
He fixed it.
---
"I don't understand what going to the doctor again will do," Sam griped; back to his usual, annoying self.
Dean just smirked. "It'll prove, once and for all, little brother, that you don't have a brain tumor."
"What are you going to do when you find out I do?" There was pain in his voice, unmasked and heartbreaking, but Dean held his head high.
"Not gonna happen."
---
It had been cold that night, unseasonably cold, and Dean had refused to turn on the heat, knowing it would be pointless with the shattered window.
So he'd shivered the whole way there.
---
"Mr. Rowland," the nurse behind the desk took his name - well, fake insurance card name- looking from Sam to Dean and back again. "What is it you'd like done?"
"A head scan thing," Dean answered for him, smiling flirtingly at the pretty woman, who rolled her eyes in response to the eldest Winchester's childish words.
"An M.R.I." Sam used the correct terminology, shooting his brother an almost hurt look.
Dean knew what he was thinking, but he couldn't help his good mood.
He was walking on water.
Mostly.
---
It hadn't taken him long to get there. He'd memorized the way the first time - eleven days ago.
Dean could always do that - it was one of the perks of spending his entire life driving around the country - he could get anywhere he'd been once already.
---
"I'll call you when the doctor's ready for you." The woman told them once the paperwork was filled out.
Nothing about the tumor he believed he had was on the sheet. Dean had told him it would only fuel the conspiracy.
Which, when he thought about it, was probably true.
---
He'd waited out in the cold for longer than he had last time.
He had just begun to worry about Sam waking up and finding him gone when she appeared.
---
"Samuel Rowland." A young Asian man stood before him, apearing fresh-faced and not yet jaded.
Sam looked up and nodded at the man before looking back to Dean, who responded with a nod of his own.
"I'll be here."
---
Sam sat on the edge of the hospital table, staring at the hands he'd placed in his lap.
Dean realized that, had he not already known this time would be different, it would probably be considered cruel to make his little brother relive this.
---
"Well, it was clear," the young doctor brushed in and told him like it was nothing.
Sam's jaw dropped as his head snapped up.
Dean breathed a deep sigh of relief.
"Clear?" The younger man repeated. "Like…nothing was wrong? At all?"
"Were you expecting there to be?" The Asian man asked concernedly.
"'Course not, doc." Dean spoke up, turning to his brother. "Told ya."
---
She had stared at him with yellow eyes. The same yellow eyes that Dean had met so many times before.
"You would choose him? Over-" She had started, but the elder hunter simply hadn't been in the mood for Demon dramatics.
"Just do it."
---
"You're in perfect health.
---
"I don't get it, Dean."
Hours later, after numerous conversations and contemplations, Sam was still at a loss.
"I told you, dude," the elder man shook his head and ran a hand over the Impala's new window, assessing the job done by the men at the repair shop who had tinkered with his baby. "Some doctors are just quacks."
"But-"
"Just let it go, man." Dean interrupted, looking up, over the roof of the car. "It's a good thing."
For a few long seconds, Dean held his breath, thinking that his brother may know. Might call him on what he'd done.
Finally, though, Sam just looked down and half-smiled a sad smile. "Yeah," he agreed. "I guess it is."
---
Just over fifteen miles away, a seductively beautiful woman stood at the base of a water tower. Long blonde hair blowing about in the cold night air, looking so mystical and mesmerizing that it almost distracted from her eyes, flashing bright yellow though the dark.
She took a single step forward, placing a red-fingered hand in the structure, nails scratching at the wood. She darted out her tongue and licked her lips slowly, not wanting to forget.
The taste of the eldest Winchester was still there and potent.
Breathlessly, remembering what had been done, what he had accomplished, she whispered her triumph into the night, knowing it was monumental.
"Gotcha."
End.
A/N: This is the ending I've been envisioning pretty much since I started writing this, and I'm sorry if it's not exactly what you were expecting. But I have to say, quite a few of the reviews I got after the last chapter asked, 'Now, how's Dean gonna fix it?' And that was exactly the thought process I was following with this.
I'm not gonna defend it anymore than that, but I'd love to know what you thought.