Are We the Waiting

He doesn't know how long he's been standing in front of the pop machine.

He doesn't even really know how or why he ended up here, in the little alcove off of the cafeteria where you can get a three-course sugary meal substitute with nothing more than the change in your pocket.

The pull and appeal of that little alcove is a wonder. You actually have to walk through the cafeteria – and therefore past real food – to get to it, but this kind of logic doesn't stop a body on a mission. It's seventy cents for a twelve-ounce can from a machine here, or a twenty-ounce bottle for a dollar in the cafeteria only thirty feet away. It certainly doesn't take a genius to do the math and figure out the better deal, but there's something about the snack machines that's more appealing than an actual hot meal. They're easy to operate, and they don't require any interaction whatsoever with other human beings. And that's important to a lot of people in Sam's situation.

He's standing and staring at a spot between the buttons for Dr. Pepper and Caffeine Free Diet Pepsi. He doesn't know how he got here, doesn't remember the elevator ride or walking through the halls, just remembers a sudden need to be out of Dean's room and a strong desire to be not in Dad's room. And there for about thirty seconds, something cold to drink had actually sounded good. Or least like something that should sound good.

And he didn't have anywhere else to go.

It doesn't sound good anymore. He's not thirsty; his mouth is like cotton but the thought of actually putting anything in it is beyond nauseating. And there's no way he'll be able to swallow anything anyway. Not voluntarily. His mouth keeps filling with saliva and he just lets it sit there and pool on his tongue until the last possible second, when it's swallow or gag and choke on your own spit; and then he'll swallow. Only then, because every swallow threatens to bring back up the ghosts of everything he's ever eaten.

He should be thirsty, but he's not. He should be hungry, but he's not. They've tried, Dad and the nurses. Treating him like he's a little kid who doesn't know his own body or how he's feeling or whether or not he's hungry. Dad gets his hospital-issue breakfast, wordlessly and without eye contact tries to force-feed Sam the watery scrambled eggs on his tray. The nurses in the ward have one at a time cocked their heads and given him that same Smile. Because he looks like someone just ran over his puppy and backed over him on the way out.

Can I get you something, hon?

You need anything, sweetie?

Yeah, he needs something, but it's nothing they can give him. Not unless they can make Dean not need all of those damn tubes anymore. And really, isn't that what their job is? Isn't that theoretically what they're getting paid to do?

No, I'm fine. Adds a thank you; because he's always on some kind of polite autopilot setting in this type of environment. That thing called manners that has always had Dean making gagging noises behind his back.

Despite his protests, they push everything on him. Those little two-swallow cans of lukewarm Pepsi and 7up they have for patients, Styrofoam cups of artificially flavored chocolate ice cream, five different kinds of Jello, anything from the cafeteria; really, hon, it's not like he's gonna be ordering dinner.

These aren't their exact words, but it's what Sam hears. And really, it's the truth. If Dean doesn't wake up soon there will be yet another tube running into his body, pumping some generic Ensure-esque crap into him. To keep him going, so to speak.

His eyes drop a little lower, stopping on the second 'g' in Mugg's Root Beer, and he feels like there is nothing inside of him. Like he's been hollowed out. He's seedless, and thinks that maybe if he's making fruit analogies he really is a little hungry. That maybe he'll take the night nurse's offer of Jello next time around. It should be more or less easy to get down – it's barely more than spit, anyway.

It feels wrong to worry about food. He knows he should just eat something and get over himself. His hand twitches in the direction of the coin slot.

He startles at the husky clearing of a throat behind him, and turns to see a gray-haired man in a wrinkled suit looking at him with wide and red-rimmed eyes. Sam feels sheepish; it seems he's been standing here for awhile. Taking in the man's appearance, he's suddenly very aware of just how rumpled and tired he must look, himself. His hand comes up almost reflexively to smooth his hair.

The man cocks his head empathetically, and he just has this look. Like, because they're both in a hospital and looking so pathetic and are so obviously in the same place emotionally, Sam's now expected to sit at a table in the cafeteria and pour his heart and his sad, sad story out to this man over a cold can of root beer. And no doubt hear his story, too.

He doesn't care about this man's story.

Sam's eyes dart to the ground and he steps away, mumbling a sorry under his breath.

"Listen, son…" But Sam is already halfway back to the elevators, all thoughts of a cold drink forgotten.

At some point he finds himself halfway through the parking lot, on the way to the car to grab the laptop. Remembers thinking, like a jackass, maybe they have a wireless signal I can pick up.

He stops in the middle of an empty handicapped spot and starts laughing, because there is no car and there is no laptop. He laughs to keep from crying. It's loud and barking and completely inappropriate. He's pretty sure he scares the living hell out of a woman walking towards the emergency room entrance, a small girl clinging to her hand. Wide-eyed, she hurries her pace and drags the girl when she moves past him. For a moment, he doesn't even care. He's suddenly long past caring about a lot of things.

And then it hits him: he's halfway through the parking lot, and it feels too far away from Dean, because…what if he woke up while you were wandering around outside and cracking up like you were losing your freakin' mind?

He almost sprints back inside then, can't wait for the elevator and takes the stairs two at a time. He slows his pace three doors down from Dean's room, just in case he is awake – Sam doesn't want to look like he ran all the way, and is almost scared to go in.

There's nothing to worry about, though, because everything in the room is exactly the same. Dean is still too still to really be Dean, with more tubes and lines than any person should ever need to keep their body running. Every vital stat that could possibly be watched has a color-coordinated line and a beep on a monitor, and it's overwhelming and scary to look at.

A nurse in light blue scrubs is hovering around the screens, jotting little notes and numbers on a clipboard. He stops in the doorway and stares, the hollow feeling expanding inside of him. It's all wrong; something must have changed by now.

Maybe reading his mind, or maybe just sensing his presence in the doorway, the nurse looks up and gives him The Smile. So practiced and fake the only part of her face that moves is her mouth. "He's doing better this afternoon."

"Uh huh." Or something like that. Without that clipboard, she wouldn't even able to tell him what Dean's name is, and for nothing more than this fact, Sam despises her.

On her way out of the room, her hand grazes his arm in that poor little guy way that further convinces him she only said it for his benefit. He wishes the light over the door will fall on her head. He opens his mouth, almost stops her and asks if his dad has been by in the seven minutes he's been out of the room.

He doesn't, because he knows the answer.

The hollow feeling doesn't go away. It expands, filling all of his insides, making him feel bloated and empty at the same time.

Breathing starts to feel a little funny, in a way that makes him aware he's breathing. It's strange; it's something so automatic and necessary you never really think about how it feels. The oxygen is coming thick and slow into his lungs. It doesn't feel right and doesn't feel like it's doing anything, just feels like the air is flowing in and out of his body because it has to.

But in a weird way, he feels like it's the only thing he has any control over, like it isn't quite so automatic anymore. Like if he doesn't consciously pull the air in and force it out, he might not keep breathing.

And then he feels like the worst and lowest life form, because who the hell is he to be so concerned with his breathing? He's not the one with a fucking machine doing it for him.

And that thought makes the hollow spread a little deeper.

But it's not just the breathing anymore; he can feel his heart thudding in his chest in a way he's never been able to before, can hear blood rushing in his ears. His skin is suddenly very sensitive, and the whisper of cool air from the air conditioning on his arms and neck is making him feel increasing more uncomfortable with every passing minute. His head feels light and his hands feel heavy. His body seems oddly detached somewhere around the waist, and when he's walking it's like his upper body is a few steps ahead of his legs.

So he stops walking and sits stiffly in a chair next to Dean's bed, scratching absently at his arms.

His legs are planted rather awkwardly and mechanically, perfect ninety degree angles with his feet flat on the ground. He leans forward, clasping his cold, heavy hands between his knees, and stares, watching the involuntary rise and fall of Dean's chest, not feeling anything like a whole person anymore.

He's gotten used to the smell. The smell that so clearly says you're in a hospital surrounded by people who are sick and dying and you shouldn't breathe too deeply or you might catch it.

It stings your nostrils the second you walk through the automatic doors, and you wrinkle your nose and walk around for the first hour or so consciously registering that the smell you're smelling isn't natural and isn't pleasant. But after that initial bit of time, you don't notice it so much anymore, and Sam doesn't notice it so much anymore, and that makes him feel sick. Only in the elevator, where the air is hot and stuffy, can he tell there's a difference. He steps out and that first inhale is always a little stuttered. His body doesn't want this air. It carries too much with it.

They kick him out of the room at six-ten. The ward closes to visitors for two hours every day between six and eight, both in the morning and evening. It's just this wing, though, where the most serious patients are. It's different from the wing his dad is in, where visiting hours are twenty-four/seven and the nurses only come by once an hour unless you hit the call button. Here, they're in and out and in and out, and it seems like there's always someone hovering around, poking or prodding or drawing blood or checking vitals and Sam really wants to tell them all to stop touching his brother, because Dean doesn't like people touching him.

He goes without a fight, walks slowly in that detached way to the family waiting room, bypassing the route to his father's room with a slight clench in his jaw.

The lounge is crowded. There aren't a lot of people at the moment, just someone curled under a jacket on a couch against the far wall, but the small room is just…full. Two TVs, a pair of small couches, three or four recliners, a handful of really uncomfortable looking straight-backed chairs; a perfect place to sit and wait for a really long time for some really bad news. There's a door in the corner leading to a small kitchenette, from which Sam smells coffee someone has recently made and it makes him want to vomit. But he has nowhere else to go that he actually wants to be, so he sits as far away from the coffee as he can, in one of the recliners across the room, and stares at the television.

Just like every hospital, there are TVs all over the place. In every room, here in the waiting room, in every corner of the cafeteria. Because that's all there is to do in a situation like this: sit and wait and watch Food Network.

He doesn't change the channel; there's no remote and something seems so incredibly insensitive about crouching in front of the television and punching buttons until he finds something he likes. So he just lets Rachael Ray do her thing and keeps one eye on the wall clock, waiting for it to hit eight.

About two-thirds of the meals he sees prepared would be appetizing to him on a good day. Sam chuckles, because after nearly two hours of various cooking shows they haven't made a single thing his father or brother would eat.

The coffee smell fades long before his two hours are up, but he can taste it on the back of his tongue the entire time.

He goes back to find the room surprising empty; one of the few times there hasn't been a nurse or technician hanging around. He's yet to see a doctor in the room, hasn't seen one since that initial conversation.

Because hospitals aren't really like they're portrayed on TV. It's tough as hell to actually catch a doctor in the room. They pop their heads in every now and then to make sure they haven't lost any patients and make their rounds around five in the morning, but they don't come around all happy and smiles with stories and life lessons at regular intervals like TV docs do.

They're dicks.

All of them. They look at Sam like this is his fault. It could very well be his own guilt reflecting in their condescending eyes, but it's almost as though they feel he could have done something to prevent this. And maybe he could have. He could have – should have – been paying more attention to the road. Could have not been so damned determined to be mad at Dad, to fight with Dad.

He sits back down in the bedside chair, and he stares at the monitors. He watches the lines as though he knows what they mean. He knows what they are: yellow is heart rate, white is blood pressure, and the bright blue is a blood/oxygen read. The numbers are in constant movement. The cuff around Dean's arm puffs up and slowly releases with a hiss, and the white numbers change. Up or down, but Sam doesn't really register what the numbers mean.

It can't be too hard to figure out, and he's pretty sure with a clear head he and his giant brain would be able to figure out whether 133/71 is good or bad. For now, he just assumes it's all bad.

The first time the blue 94 drops to a flashing red 88 and an alarm starts going off, Sam panics and trips in his haste to hit the 'call nurse' button.

"Can I help you?"

"Something's going off," he says, on his knees next to Dean's bed. "Something's wrong."

"Okay, dear, she's on her way."

He doesn't know which "she" is on her way. He's seen what seems to be at least a dozen different men and women in blue scrubs coming in and out of the room, has been told all of their names and has shaken all of their hands, but has no idea the name of the brunette who was in the room earlier, or whether she's Dean's nurse tonight.

The nurses in the CCU are used to alarms going off every few minutes, so Dean's night nurse isn't quite as quick in getting to the room as Sam would like her to be. He's shifting anxiously from foot to foot when she appears in the doorway, staring at the flashing screen. She recognizes the sound of the alarm almost immediately and looks somewhat annoyed. Doesn't even come over to the side of the bed with all of the monitors and tubing, where the insistent tone is coming from.

Before Sam's panic can reach a truly unhealthy level, the beeping stops, and his head whips to the right. The number is blue again, a more promising 91. He looks back to the nurse and she almost gives him a genuinely comforting smile, probably because he can feel how wide and imploring his eyes are.

"It's completely normal for the numbers to change like that. The alarm goes off if his blood/oxygen level dips below ninety, but it will usually fix itself and go right back up. Try not to worry about it."

Fat chance. Because she said "usually."

It's not long before the hollowness inside of him is starting to ache around the edges. Something in his middle starts to hurt with every breath he takes.

And when the machines in the room start shrieking, alarms that aren't normal and aren't going to fix themselves, Sam's pretty sure he stops breathing altogether.