Reading Between The Lines (Sabriel)

Chapter 16

"By the way," Dean says, "talking with monsters? Hell of a plan."

Sam ignores that. He knows the Trickster isn't a monster, even if he's acting like one now. Once they figure out this puzzle, he's sure the Trickster will listen to them. They just have to keep moving forward.

"Just... What do we do now?" Sam asks.

"You know what I'm doing?" Dean says. "Leaving."

Sam just rolls his eyes. If it were that simple, they wouldn't be in this predicament, now, would they?

Crazy doctor lady seemingly appears out of nowhere to try to karate-chop Sam to death. He barely misses her swipe at him, and immediately puts his hands between them to keep her back. "Lady, what the hell?"

She seems nearly in tears when she says, "You are a brilliant, brilliant --"

"Yeah, a coward," Sam interrupts. "You already said that. But I got news for you. I am not a doctor."

She gasps. "Don't say that!"

That's about where he gives up. She doesn't get it. Of course she doesn't get it. What kind of script writer would the Trickster be if he let the characters break the fourth wall?

"You are the finest cerebral-vascular neurosurgeon I have ever met," she tells him, "and I have met plenty. So that girl died on your table. It wasn't your fault. It wasn't anybody's fault! Sometimes people just die."

Sam just kind of looks at her for a moment. "I have no idea what you're saying to me."

"You're afraid," she says, like this is something super deep and meaningful. "You're afraid to operate again, and you're afraid to love."

And then she walks away, two seconds from crying, and that's all he can take.

"Yeah," he says. "We're getting out of here."

They barely make it five feet before a man calls over to them, and they're both forced to give him their attention, preferably without smacking him in the face. That might be the hardest part.

"My wife needs that face transplant," he says. Mr. Beale, probably.

Dean rolls his eyes. "Okay, you know what, pal? None of this is real, and your wife doesn't need jack squat. Okay?"

And then he walks away,

Maybe just smacking him in the face would have been better.

Sam follows his brother down the hall, neither of them even giving the guy a glance when he calls after them again. Dean clearly isn't going to deal with him, and Sam certainly isn't rushing to talk, either.

But then there's a loud bang, and Dean gets shot in the back.

Because this is a soap opera.

And nothing is too stupid or unrealistic for a soap opera.

Dean just stands there for a moment, looking back at the guy. Sam doesn't think much of it. It's a fucking TV show. Who gives a shit if Dean just got shot? It's not like the Trickster is going to kill him. They have a firm "No killing Dean again" clause in their relationship. Shouldn't they spend their energy going after the guy with the gun?

But then Dean starts slowly sinking to the floor. "Real -- it's real."

"No, no, no," Sam mutters, reaching for his brother immediately. "No, no, no, no, no." He looks around frantically. "Hey! We need a doctor!"

But, of course, Sam is a doctor. He's wearing the clothes, right? And he just happens to be the type of doctor that can remove bullets from gunshot wounds, because why wouldn't he just happen to be the type of doctor that can remove bullets from gunshot wounds? This whole thing really is written like a shitty soap opera.

He finds himself in the operating room not long after, gloved and all set for a surgery that he doesn't know how to give. He tries to stop the bleeding, but it just keeps soaking through the gauze. He and Dean have both been shot at before, but never somewhere so dangerous, and never have they been sent to a hospital with all this weird shit to use.

"BP is 80 over 50, and dropping," one of his assistants -- the Karen Smith chick -- tells him. She probably thinks she's being helpful. She's not.

Sam gives her an awkward nod. What does he do with that? What does that even mean? Why did he get stuck as a doctor? Lawyers are just as respected, and that's something he could have worked with. Doctors, though? He doesn't know a damn thing about medicine that didn't come from trial and error from years of hunting.

"Doctor," Dr. Wang says, trying to hand him something.

"What?" Sam asks.

She just thrusts it at him again.

Sam looks at it for a moment, confused. It's sharp and made of metal. It looks more like something he'd stab a monster with in a last-ditch effort to stay alive than something he'd find in an operating room. He's not sure he wants to use a knife with monster-hunting potential to help his brother, so he shakes his head.

"Sam!" Dean says, annoyed. "Do something! Come on!"

Sam leans down towards him, hoping none of the other doctors can hear him. "I don't know how to use any of this crap."

"Figure it out!" Dean hisses.

Sam straightens back up and flashes his concerned coworkers an awkward smile.

"Sam!" Dean says. "Come on! I'm waiting!"

"Okay, um..." Well, no one's gonna swoop in and save their asses. He might as well work with what he knows. "I need a penknife, some dental floss, a sewing needle, and a fifth of whiskey."

To say the real medical professionals look uncomfortable would be an understatement. No one moves, just looking between themselves uncertainly.

"Stat!" Sam yells.

That one gets them to move. He's a little surprised, but he sure as hell can't complain. It's not long before he's got everything he asked for and he can start working. He fixes it up fairly quickly -- it's not much more difficult than any other wound he's had to help his brother fix up. It's just a hell of a lot more stressful.

"We okay?" Dean asks. "How's it looking?"

"Yep," Sam says with a sigh. "You'll be fine." One crisis down; god only knows how many more left to go.

He looks up to see Dr. Piccolo in the window and watching him. He was vaguely aware that she had been there when he started, but he didn't expect her to stick around through the entire procedure. This must be about the whole "you're afraid to operate again" thing. If he gets slapped by that lady one more time --

But she seems to have changed her tune, because she mouths, "I love you!" through the window at him.

Sam just gives her a small, awkward nod and looks away before things can get any weirder. This whole thing is uncomfortable to begin with, but the fact that some random girl is telling him that she loves him -- especially in a world that his actual boyfriend made -- is by far the strangest part.

Sometimes he wishes he'd just let the Trickster kill Dean again. It would've saved him a lot of trouble.