TODAY'S SPECIAL

HEAVY METAL

By: Karen B.

Summary: Season one. Prompt story for Hotshow. Sam has an accident that has nothing to do with the supernatural. Hurt Sam. Caretaker Dean/Bobby.

Disclaimer: Not the owner.

AN: Medical terms and diagnosis and in general EMT's/ doctor/Nurse/ and other hospital-stuff are sketchy… at best.

For Hotshow:

Thank you ever so much for allowing me to build sandcastles in your backyard.

Her story prompt is posted at the end...as well as a prompt of my own.

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We'd been driving the long stretch of lonely highway all damn night. It was early morning now, sunny enough for sunglasses, but cool enough that we had the windows rolled up and the heater on low. Both Sam and I were dirty and itchy, bruised and scrapped, and basically beat to shit.

Even Baby was a muddy, caked on mess.

We needed hot pressurized showers, strong black coffee, homemade apple pie, a garden hose and bucket of soapy water for Baby, and whatever Bugs Bunny food Sam was eating these days…not necessarily in that order.

I glanced from one side of the road to the other in search of one of the above.

Nothing.

Not so much as a port-a- potty.

Corn to the left of us, corn to the right, and the Impala stuck in the middle.

I looked over at my grubby, wordlessly tired brother.

We both were, but Sam, he had gotten the worst of it. Having wrestled the Troll into a basin of mud. Wasn't like getting to see a couple of hot chicks grappling for a hold of one another, but it did the trick, and I not only cut off its head, I cut out its heart…just because.

With no motel in sight, we turned to our mobile closet – our duffle bags in Baby's ass end. We'd both wiped off as much mud as we could, using bottled water and hand towels, and then changed into jeans and tee shirts stuffing our wet muddy clothes into the laundry bag to be washed later. That was a little over eight hours ago and still we both looked like crap. Our clothes were wrinkled, and Sam's waterfall of hair was a sticky-coated mess. Not to mention both of us had mud crammed into places I didn't even know we had.

Sam had hardly spoken since the hunt.

Wasn't his fault he'd gotten the Intel wrong and we didn't get to the girl on time, or have the proper weapons to kill that bitch.

We can't save everyone. Sam knows that, and I'd told him a million times. What'd I have to do? Make him write it a million times too? Knowing Sam he'd do the writing in blood. His own. I knew his agenda. We had to find dad. Had to find Jessica's killer. I got it. I did. And we would. But in the mean time I had to keep him focused on something else. It was the only thing that helped keep his hurt away, and held him together. It was working to. Until this last hunt went sideways.

The silence in the car was deafening. I kept fussing with the radio for at least some sound, but all I kept getting for the last twenty miles was fuzz and static, and it was sad to say, but even I was sick of listening to my rock tapes.

The only other option was to get my baby brother out of his funk and talking again…anyway I had to.

"You haven't said two words in the last three and a half hours," I tested, peeling my eyes from the road and glancing over at Sam. "What're you thinking?"

"Not thinking anything, Dean," Sam uttered, shifting uncomfortably.

"You need to talk to me."

Sam let out a sigh, locking eyes with mine. "Nothing to talk about, Dean," he protested. "We can't save everybody, you said so yourself…that's all…the end." His temper flared.

"Uh-huh," I muttered, half-watching the road, half-watching Sam.

Sam bit into his lower lip and looked away from me, pressing his face to the passenger window to escape my scrutiny.

I'd let him fester long enough, so I kept at him. "You did the best you could back there, Sam. You know that."

Sam sat quiet and stiff as a board.

So I pushed him harder. "Come on, buddy." I nudged him caringly with my elbow. "You saved her sister and we killed the dirty, nasty troll."

"I just want to forget about it, Dean," Sam roared, shooting me a wild-eyed look.

"Dude! Don't yell at me," I barked, shooting him an equally – if not more awesome – wild-eyed look.

"Sorry." Sam cringed and squeezed his eyes shut. "I'm sorry, Dean."

"Okay, so talking about it is a bad idea," I softened.

"Very bad," he admitted, staring back out the passenger window and scratching at his itchy, muddy scalp.

Dried mud crumbled to his lap and he brushed the flakes off to the floorboards.

"Looks like somebody ran out of their Head and Shoulders."

"Yeah, and you ran out of your," Sam shrugged, "What ever B.O. crap you're using these days."

"Dude." I lifted my right shoulder and sniffed under my pit. "Smells one hundred percent awesome."

"Whatever." Sam shrugged and went back to shedding mud this time from his arms.

I sighed and reached up to wipe some gritty mud of my own from behind my ears, and went back to concentrating on the two-lane highway.

Finally the cornfield was behind us as we hit the city limits, but it was more like hitting a dot on the map. The road going from blacktop to dusty-red. I slowed from sixty to twenty-five taking in the sights. It looked to be a small, old town. The kind of old town that had a rocking chair out in front of every store. The one and only bar probably brewed its own beer, and the biggest event of the year was obviously the Tomato Festival that was going on this weekend if the large banner draped over the street was any indication. They even had an old-time barber shop with one of those red-and-blue twirling poles. Looked like a nice, safe, boring place to spend the night, if not a couple days. That was if they had a place to spend the night.

The bright sun bounced off the hood, and I adjusted my dark sunglasses, but that didn't help so I pulled the sun visor down.

Something fell out into my lap.

It was one of those musical birthday cards with balloons and confetti on the front of it. Sam had gotten it for me. Not because it was my birthday, but because the damn thing played the Happy Birthday Song to the tune of Deep Purple's Smoke on the Water.

Sam still fidgeted in his seat, titling his head left, then right, and rubbing the back of his neck. Kid was wound up tight.

"You okay over there, Sammy?"

"Dean, I told you a million times…it's Sam." He scratched an obvious itch on his chest, and instantly his white tee shirt stained brown. "God, I need a shower," he complained, shifting with difficulty and going back to rubbing his neck.

I cleared my throat, and asked him again, "You okay over there, stick in the mud?"

Sam flicked me off, and leaned back in his seat.

Okay, so if my sappy 'care enough to send the very best' freak of a brother didn't want to talk to me to get his mind off what happened back there, maybe screwing with him would.

Driving one handed, I used the other to open the birthday card and it started playing. Good thing those card batteries lasted forever. I closed it, and then opened it. Closed it, and then opened it.

Closed.

Open.

Closed.

Open…closed. All the while humming along with the birthday tune.

"Dean," Sam said flatly. "Stop it."

I ignored him.

Open. Close. Open. Close. Open. Close.

"Dean, please stop it," Sam tried the polite approach, keeping that same flat, calm tone.

I hummed louder, opening and closing the singing card faster.

Sam flashed me his bitchface.

I nodded at him and gave a huge smile, continuing to purposely annoy and frustrate him.

"Real mature, Dean," Sam squawked, making a grab for the card.

I whipped the card away, being sure to keep it open and playing. "It's mine," I said, poking my tongue out at him.

Sam's brow crinkled and he sucked in his bottom lip the way he used to when he was two and I made him go sippy-cup-cold turkey.

I shut the card and laughed. "Now who's not being mature?" I shoved the card in my jacket's pocket that was sitting between us on the seat, and instead started lip-farting to the tune of happy birthday, pretending I didn't notice how Sam was gapping at me.

After another minute, or so, I turned to him feigning stupid. "What?" I frowned.

Sam spread both hands out wide. "You're kidding me, right?"

"About what?" I shook my head pretending not to understand what the hell my 'annoyed' baby brother was talking about.

"Dean, that's disgusting." He let his hands fall to his lap with a plop.

"What's so disgusting about it?" I laughed on the inside, knowing I had his gonads… but good.

"If I have to point it out to you."

"Hey." I pointed up ahead. "Driver's the only one who gets to do any pointing out around here, my dear brother, and that…" I slowed down as we approached a large sign and read it out loud, "Sonny's Motel and Barbeque Barn….clean rooms, good food, cheap rate." I turned to Sam. "Well, that's all I needed to see." I took a sharp left, piloting baby carefully down a bumpy road past a few more shabby storefronts until we reached our destination.

"If you say so," Sam muttered peering out the window at the motel. "Real modern, Dean," he said, nodding to the row of busted up payphones next to the restaurant.

"Never mind that…Sonny's Barbeque. Mmmmm." I licked my lips, reading the sign duct tapped to the window. "Good, cheap, and fast."

"I don't know," Sam groaned. "Place looks outdated, more like graveyard barbeque, Dean."

"Ha! Check that guy's ride out." I gestured toward a rail-thin old man peddling a red tricycle, a basket full of eggs fastened to the handle bars and a long-pole attached to the back fender with an orange and red safety flag flapping in the breeze. "Now that's an awesome ride," I chuckled, waving at the happy, old fellow who was happily waving at me. "Don't you think so, Sammy?"

"I don't know, Dean."

"Hey, I bet they serve all day breakfast. Even have the Cadbury-guy delivering fresh eggs. You like that don't you?"

"I don't know," Sam said dully.

"It's a restaurant, Sam."

"It's a barn, Dean."

"Fresh eggs, dude!" I huffed in exasperation. "Aren't you starving?"

"I don't know," Sam growled.

I sighed. Sam's 'I don't knows' always translated into 'leave me alone, Dean, I'm not in the mood to talk.

"Look, Sasquatch-Square-Pants," I growled back. "Restaurant's only a few steps away from the motel. We eat, and then get a room. I'll even let you shower first."

"Oh, goodie."

"Shut it, Sammy. Just go in and order us our usual grub and grab a newspaper on your way in." I took my sunglasses off and dipped my head. Catching Sam's eyes, I flashed him my I-am-so-not- kidding look. "Best thing for you right now is to get back in the saddle, find us another job."

Sam snorted, obviously not convinced. "What about you?" he asked.

I jerked a thumb over my shoulder. "Saw a do-it-yourself carwash back there. Baby needs a shower." I glanced out over the crusty, bug-smashed hood and winced. Normally I didn't let as much as a fingerprint get on her.

Sam nodded his understanding and reluctantly got out of the car.

"See you in fifteen, twenty, "I said just as he shut the door.

I waited; watching baby bro move slowly and miserable across the lot, a sudden mixture of worry and fear making my stomach flip and flop. What the hell? I guardedly looked around, preparing to ward-off anything that so much as broke wind Sam's way. But there was nothing more than a few parked cars, a coke machine, a mail box, the row of beat up pay phones that no one had probably used in years, and a mother in a blue-spotted dress struggling to get a screaming, chubby baby out of his car seat.

I smiled when an image of me coddling a chubby, red-cheeked, big-eyed baby-Sammy while he drool-soaked my shirt entered into my mind.

I kept watch a few more seconds while Sam stopped and dug into his pocket and dropped a few coins into the newspaper vending machine near the entrance. I continued to scan the area as he retrieved his paper, and then sluggishly went inside without a glance my way.

I slipped my glasses back on. "He'll feel better after he eats something," I lamely told Baby, giving her steering wheel a pat and pulling away, my stomach, for some friggin' reason still flip-flopping.

TBC…