Chapter 14
“Dad? Dad!”
Blinking sluggishly, his mind slowly came online.
Above him was Harry. Oh, God Harry. Another kid. And- and Sam and Dean loved him. Loved him so fucking much. Would they like Adam that much? No- no he couldn’t. Adam would grow up normal. He hadn’t even seen the kid in more then a year. He’s what- fourteen? Fifteen? Just a year older then Harr-
“Dad!”
Oh. He was trying to get his attention. Why- the car crash! The memories came rushing back into his head. Harry looked- half his head was covered in blood, shaggy hair obscuring where exactly the wound was, but failing to hide the fact that it wasn’t a cat scratch.
“Sam?” He groaned out, disappointed that it was all he could get out.
“Sam’s fine- he’s calling for an ambulance. Dean- he-”
Worry shot through him, “spit it out!”
“Sam said it would be better if we left him in the car. Less risk of damaging his spine that way. He- he’s breathing but- its faint.”
He pushed himself to his feet, and didn’t have the energy to protest when Harry rushed to help him. While he technically could walk on his leg, it probably wasn’t very good.
His attempt at getting a look at Dean was blocked before it could have even started, red flashing lights shining like a beacon in the distance.
-----
Sam gripped his brother’s hand like a lifeline. The rhythmic beeping of the heart monitor doing little to help fill the pit in his stomach.
A coma.
Dean was in a coma that he would never wake up from. The doctor had said something about a brain injury. Sam couldn’t care less what exactly would take Dean from him.
A car accident.
A fucking car accident.
A demon in a fucking semi-truck killed his brother.
When he realized his grip was close to breaking Deans hand, he let go. Though it wouldn’t really matter, would it? What’s one broken hand? He’d be dead anyway.
He knew John was right next door, a concussion and that bullet in his shin the only injuries to speak of. God, he wished it was John instead. Did that make him a horrible son? Probably. But John wasn’t the best father anyway. Dean had filled that role.
Harry had refused to get examined more then getting a patch to his ear. His shredded ear. God, would he ever be able to look at him without remembering Dean?
He had left some time ago, Sam didn’t care to check the ticking clock, to go see John.
-----
“Hello?”
The pristine, empty white hall, predictably, didn’t respond.
He recognized it as a hospital, though he had no idea how he had gotten there. Last he knew, he was in the car, feeling great that, finally, his family was together. He could ignore the various injuries they all sported, could ignore the sitting tension between Sam and dad, could ignore the thoughts that were pulling at him, the ones that said Yellow-Eyes read him like a book, he needed them so much more then they him.
Then he was here.
Lacking much else to do, he began walking.
He quickly found that this place was a maze of look-alike corridors and signs that spoke gibberish. Though the fact that he only really been in hospitals to pose as the CDC for hunts might’ve been a factor.
A door opened directly in front of him, making him almost walk into it.
“I’m going to check on dad. I- I love you, Sam.”
That was Harry, looking rough for wear, looking back into the room he was leaving.
He seemed to be waiting for a response, seconds passed in silence before he closed the door completely, having given up.
“Har-”
He walked right into him, Dean braced for the weight he knew would be slamming into him, only for nothing.
He walked through him.
Whipping his head around, he saw Harry slowly making his way down the hall.
“Oh, fuck.” He whispered to himself.
He looked back to the door that, supposedly held Sam.
He would know what to do, right? Probably downloaded enough ghost knowledge to quote the exact word for what was happening to him.
He paused at the door, then braced himself for the half-expected pain of walking into a closed door.
It never came.
A small hospital room came into view, he only saw half of Sam’s face as he was looking intently down at- him. Of course- if he was a ghost his body would still be here, right? Though- the heart monitor said he wasn’t dead yet. So, almost dead? Sudo-dead? Half-in-half?
He looked like shit, his whole head above his eyebrows covered in a layer of bandages, lower head having its fair share of patches, then what he could see of his upper body that wasn’t covered in the blanket had it own collection. That combined with the bruises forming on much of the uncovered skin, Dean didn’t even want to try to see what the rest of him looked like-
Wait.
Did Harry say he was checking up on Dad?
He threw himself back out the door, still half expecting that this would be the time he would find it solid, and sprinted down the hall the direction Harry had gone down. He caught a glance of his jacket- no, Harry’s jacket as he turned the next corner. Thanking whatever had to have been looking down on him, he rushed to catch up. Once he did, he was unsettled to realize that he hadn’t been the least bit out of breath.
Looking at him, he realized that due to only catching his left side before, he had completely missed the bandage that was enveloping the kid’s right ear, along with the accompanying smaller scratches and bruises. Doing his analysis of the rest of the body for injuries, as he had mastered the skill after too many times Sam had tried to hide one, he noticed a slight limp in his pace.
Harry unexpectedly turned, heading right for the stairs leading downwards. That was weird right? They wouldn’t have kept Dad too far from him, right?
It wasn’t like he could ask Harry.
So, he was left to follow him blindly, mindlessly memorizing the way back in case Harry stayed with their dad, and he wanted to visit Sam. Was this what every person in a coma felt? Or at least a coma where they were unresponsive and seemingly unaware.
More importantly, when would this end.
Most comas, he remembered, only lasted a few days, and chances were he wouldn’t remember any of this, or else there would be a lot more evidence of ghosts in the world. He wondered what Sam’s reaction would be. He looked pretty devastated looking down at him, must’ve really scared- well, that’s weird.
Harry walked right out the front doors.
After a moment of surprise, Dean followed.
“Now what exactly are you doing?” He asked, knowing he would get no reply.
Wait, why was he even being allowed to leave his room? They had to have noticed the bullet wound.
Glancing back, nope, no beefed-up doctor ready to jump Harry and drag him back to a hospital bed.
The kid looked like a man on a mission. Determined eyes pointed forward and steps as confident as he could make them with a slight limp.
A sinking feeling began to develop in his gut.
When he stopped at a crossroads, it solidified.
-----
What even was a name?
Harry had only learned his when he five, when his relatives had been forced to put him in school. He thought his was Freak. Though, it was, wasn’t it? It was what he was called, it was what he wrote when he was able to grab a pencil from Dudley and piece of paper, to try to write his own name (Dudley had done the same and gotten applause, he was beaten for taking what wasn’t his), fuck, it was what he thought of himself in his own god dammed head.
If his name had been Freak, what was a name anyway? Just something someone was called. A descriptor.
“Yellow-Eyed Demon! I want to make a deal!”
_____
Harry’s head broke the surface of the water.