All is Fine 4/6
Title: All is Fine 4/6
Rating/Warnings: PG-13; Minor Violence and Language
Word Count: ~2900
A/N: This was originally written for the ohsam Comment Fic Meme for cherry916 But it got such a lovely response that I decided to continue it on. Thank you beckalooby for helping me figure out how to do that!
Summary: Teen!Chesters. While Dean is away on a hunt with Caleb there is no buffer between Sam and John. To make it worse, Sam is having a hard time at school with bullies. It is getting harder and harder to hide from his dad and big brother, and Sam does not want to appear weak. But what will happen when his secret is found out? How does he cope with both his dad and his big brother finding out everything?
Gulping back his emotions, Dean ignored all the blood as best he could, remembering Sam needed him to be strong. He fell into line behind his dad, trying not to notice the red trail coating the forest’s ground as his dad carried Sam.
The silence that hung heavily in the Impala was only interrupted by the soft whimpers and moans from the backseat. John did his best to ignore them and keep his mind on the road in front of them, but it was becoming harder and harder with each mile. Dean was having trouble ignoring his baby’s brother’s pain as well. He gave up and began to whisper comforts to Sam, who remained curled up against him.
“Shhh…we’re almost there Sammy. You’re ok bud. Just hang on kiddo.” Sam’s pain filled groans quieted some, but his grip on Dean’s shirt never let up. Once Dean noticed Sam was calmer, he looked up towards his dad in the front seat. “You are going to a hospital…right Dad?”
“Of course I am Dean,” John said, a little hurt and angered at the implication that he wasn’t. “I know Sammy’s too bad off for us to take care of him. Why wouldn’t I?”
“It’s just…I know you hate trying to come up with a story, especially with injuries like this. I mean, he has bruises on his neck where he was strangled Dad. H-how do we…I don’t want…what if they…”
“Dean, son, don’t worry about that.”
“But…”
“Son, when I talked to the family who own the property, the wife mentioned that she worked at the local hospital. As soon as I get on the main road, I’m gonna call her from the cell phone and make sure she’s there to help Sammy.”
Dean nodded, relieved that he didn’t have to worry about doctors thinking him or his dad had caused the injuries. With that part of his mind at peace, he turned his attention back to his hurting brother. Sam was still loosing a lot of blood. His body was limp with pain and exhaustion, pale and shaking in Dean’s grasp.
Time passed, and while it felt like ages to the men in the car even though they had truly only been driving the twenty minutes it took to get back into town. John pulled out his phone and placed a call to the wife. Dr. Aldridge, as Dean learned was her name, was quickly filled in on the events that had occurred at her new home. She promised John that she would meet them at the ER and have her staff at ready for his son.
After the phone call ended, the rest of the drive to the hospital went off without a hitch. It wasn’t long before John was pulling as close to the door as possible, seeing nurses and orderlies shuffle towards the car. He threw the Impala into park and clambered out to help Dean with Sam. After a few seconds, the older Winchesters stood with bloody and dirty clothes as Sam was whisked through the corridors to an exam room by Dr. Aldridge.
Once John broke free of his shock, he guided Dean towards a chair before going out to park the Impala and grab a quick change of clothes. He hurried back, frowning when Dean hadn’t so much as moved a muscle since slouching forward and putting his head in his hands after John got him in the seat.
John sighed before plopping down in the seat next to Dean. “Son,” he said calmly, cupping the back of Dean’s neck, “let’s go change into clean clothes. They’ll be a bit with Sammy. Come on.” John gently patted the back of Dean’s neck and prodded him to move from the seat. But Dean didn’t budge. He remained sitting on the edge of the hard plastic with his head down in his hands. “Buddy, come on…”
Dean mumbled something into his hands, but John couldn’t make it out and had to ask for him to repeat himself. “I…I said I should’ve noticed sooner.”
“What are you talking about Dean? You couldn’t have known the ghost had gotten to him. Even if you thought it did, you got there as fast as you could.”
“Not that, Dad,” Dean answered somberly.
“I don’t understand…”
“His knee…it is infected and he didn’t tell us.”
“Dean…”
“I should’ve noticed. I thought…I thought he just needed some space after everything you know? I didn’t want him to think I was babying him or anything because of what those assholes did to him. But I should’ve…”
“Dean, you can’t do this to yourself. Things happen. Sam probably thought he could handle things on his own. Hell, he probably felt he needed to prove to us that he could-“
“That’s my point, Dad! I should’ve known something was wrong and that he didn’t want to bring it up!”
“That’s enough,” John firmly said. His voice had a hard edge to it, but it was nowhere near as loud as Dean’s. Nonetheless, it had Dean quieting down and staring desperately up at his father. John’s heart broke even more at the tears that shined in his eldest’s eyes. The sight had him pulling Dean towards him and whispering comforting words towards him. He could feel the fabric covering his shoulder dampen and his tightened his grasp around Dean.
After a few more minutes, Dean silently pushed himself away from his dad’s chest and tried to compose himself. “Sorry,” he muttered, barely above a whisper.
“Nothing to be sorry about, Dean.” John gently rubbed his hand across Dean’s back. “Let’s just go get out of these clothes. You ok with that?”
Dean nodded and stood from the uncomfortable chairs. His knees and back popped from the movements, protesting the cramped position he had put himself in earlier. John followed suite and then guided Dean towards the nearest restroom. They both quickly slipped out of their soiled clothes and pulled on the cleaner ones.
“Dean, clean up your hands and face too son.”
Dean’s brow furrowed in confusion before he glanced in the mirror. His face fell at the sight of dirt and blood…Sam’s blood…
John’s hand on his shoulder kept him grounded though and allowed him to finish cleaning himself. His hands shook as he brought the paper towel to his face and cleared it all away, but he managed to do it nonetheless. Before long, they were walking out of the bathroom and back to the waiting room.
John scrounged up two cups of coffee before settling into the hard plastic of the chairs once again. He pushed a cup towards Dean, who reluctantly took it and began sipping absent-mindedly on the hot liquid.
Neither could tell how much time passed, but it felt like an eternity. The sounds of the hospital echoed around them as patients and their families shuffled past. Yet neither John nor Dean paid much attention to it. Both remained completely focused on the corridor Dr. Aldridge had taken Sam down earlier. Therefore, it was no surprise that they spotted the tired doctor as soon as she stepped out of the exam room area.
The Winchesters sat up straighter as she approached them. Both instantly felt panic well up when they saw tears shining in her eyes. John stood, but kept his hand on Dean’s shoulder, wanting him to remain seated in case the news was more than they could handle.
“Dr. Aldridge?”
“John…I…” The woman paused, only to compose herself back into a professional nature.
“Is…is Sammy ok?” Dean questioned, sounding more like a scared little boy than the nineteen year-old hunter he was.
She still had tears shining in her eyes, but she looked a little calmer than before. “Yeah sweetie,” she said, her voice taking on a motherly tone. “He’s going into surgery right now so they can clean out the infected tissue around his knee and get the branch out of his side. It doesn’t look like it punctured anything vital, but he’s bleeding heavily still. We didn’t want to cause more harm, so the surgical consultant thought it would be best to cut it away rather than just pull it out of him.” She stopped and took in the somber expression on the faces of the two men in front of her. The tears finally started to fall from her eyes. “John…I’m so sorry. This is…we shouldn’t have let you take on our house like that. W-we should’ve just…”
“I know ma’am,” John stated back, not truly able to say that it was ok when his baby was being wheeled to surgery. “It wasn’t your fault. We had no way of knowing things would become that bad…” He knew the words were fairly hollow, but it was the best he could offer under the circumstances.
Dr. Aldridge only nodded her head in acknowledgement, mainly because she still felt guilty about what had happened on her family’s property. She finally cleared her throat and got back to the task at hand. “Um…Sam did sustain some critical injuries, as I’m sure you could tell. But like I said, the surgery should help him with some of those. We cut away the cracked cast around his arm so we could take a new x-ray of the limb. It seems as if the bone wasn’t damaged any more, but we are putting a new cast on to replace it. His shoulder seems to have scraped against something rough…whatever it was tore off some skin. It isn’t too deep, but it will be quite painful until it heals.”
Both Dean and John listened intensely to her every word, but she could tell it was taking a toll on them.
“The worse of the injuries were his neck, knee, and abdomen. The bruises on his neck will go away on their own, but they will create discomfort. He neck swelled some, however we do not believe it to be restricting his airway. As I mentioned earlier, the surgery is mainly to deal with the knee and abdominal injuries. Now we are very concerned about infection, especially since he knee was already so infected. We started him on some antibiotics, and we can increase the dose if we need to.”
Someone yelled for the doctor from the desk.
“I’m sorry, but I will let you know once I hear more on him guys. For now, why don’t you both go to our family room down the hall? I had it set up for you.”
“Thank you,” John muttered still in shock. But before he took off towards the offered room, he remembered he had one more question. “Excuse me, but…how the hell did you explain his injuries without tipping CPS off?”
“Oh…um…well the staff knows that I was attacked a few weeks ago at our new house. I told them you are a private investigator we had hired to take a look around and that you couldn’t leave your sons alone for the night. So as far as they know, Sam got hurt by the same person who attacked me…which isn’t entirely a lie a least.”
“Thank you, again,” John smiled sadly. He then dragged Dean towards the private waiting room. Once inside, they settled down on the softer couch, neither saying anything while they waited on news on the youngest of their family.
SPN-SPN-SPN-SPN-SPN-SPN-SPN-SPN-SPN-SPN-SPN
“Let me have him, Dean!”
“No!” He gripped his brother tighter, trying to keep him away from the ghost.
“It would be better for you if you had just listened to me, but I’ll have to resort to other measures I guess…”
Before Dean could realize what was happening, the ghost charged at him, taking him by surprise. Sam fell from his grasp and landed in a curled lump on the ground. Dean stumbled to go towards him, but an invisible force pulled him back and stopped him.
“You’ll thank me later…”
“NO!!”
The ghost tore into Sam, ripping at his flesh, snapping his bones…
“STOP! Please! Stop!” Tears cascaded down Dean’s face as his eyes locked on his brother’s panicked and pained gaze.
“Dean!” Sam’s voice was strained and scared. “Help! Why…please!”
“Sam!”
“Sshhh…” The ghost smirked towards him. “Let me handle everything…”
“Dean!”
“Dean...son…wake up.”
“NO!” Dean snapped awake and began thrashing at the arms around him.
“Woah, Dean! It’s just me…it’s just Dad. Calm down kiddo.”
“Dad?” Dean calmed his breathing and glanced at his surroundings. After a few minutes, he realized that he was in the waiting room and not in the cemetery. “Sorry,” he gulped.
“It’s ok son; nothing to be sorry about.” John gave Dean’s shoulder a gentle squeeze. “Dr. Aldridge is here to talk to us though.”
“Oh…how’s Sam?” Dean asked, much more awake than he had been moments before.
“He’s holding his own sweetie. He made it through surgery, but we did have to go ahead and give him a blood transfusion. He was just loosing more than his body could handle.”
“But, he’s ok?” Dean’s eyes were wide and seemed to have tears starting to build up in them again.
“I’m not going to lie or sugarcoat it. He’s not out of the woods by a long shot and the surgery was more complicated than we had expected. But with some medicines and lots of rest he should be fine.”
“More complicated?” John asked, starting to feel the panic build as well.
“The branch in his side penetrated into him at an angle. We couldn’t tell until we got him on the table. The sharper edge of the branch nicked his spleen.”
“That’s bad isn’t it? I mean…that’s an important organ right?” Dean was starting to become more and more afraid with each new development.
“Yes and no…the organ is not vital or even necessary. It does help the immune system, but we can live without the organ. However, as of right now, we are hoping that Sam’s body will heal itself so that we don’t have to remove it. The branch didn’t cause much damage to it, so we are hoping that with a lot of rest that Sam will be fine with that.”
“Can we see him?” Dean asked shakily, prompting John to put his arm around his son’s shoulders again.
“I’ll take you guys up to his room. He should be out of recovery soon. I had them set up a private room in the pediatrics unit for him. All the nurses and staff on that floor now to let you both stay as long as you would like.”
“Thank you,” John said with the first real smile of the night gracing his tired face.
“Least I can do…now just follow me up and we’ll get you boys settled in before Sam is brought upstairs.”
With that, they both followed the doctor to Sam’s room. They were surprised to find that it was quite pleasant, obviously meant for children but did not have the babyish feel that most pediatric ward’s decorations took on. They each snagged a chair and settled in for the night, hoping to see Sam soon.
SPN-SPN-SPN-SPN-SPN-SPN-SPN-SPN-SPN-SPN-SPN
The hand Dean’s was firmly wrapped around twitched ever so slightly, bringing Dean’s attention to the head of the bed. His dad lay asleep in the chair on the other side of the bed. He had finally crashed after watching Sam sleep for quite awhile. The youngest of the family had been brought in hours earlier, but had remained asleep since then. Now it seemed as if he was finally coming to.
“Sammy,” Dean practically cooed at his little brother. “Ya wakin’ up kiddo?”
Sam’s hand twitched once again, this time gripping Dean’s instead of just moving. Dean gripped back harder to show support. After a few seconds of waiting and holding his breath, Dean saw Sam’s eyes flutter open.
“Hey, Sammy…’bout time you woke up.”
At first, Dean thought Sam was still too out of it from the drugs and exhaustion to understand him, but he was finally rewarded with a tired smile. Sam shuffled a little on the bed, his head turning more towards Dean. Dean returned the smile and carefully reached up to run his hand through Sam’s hair. His younger brother leaned into the touch before sagging back down against the pillows, clearly worn out.
“Go back to sleep. I’ll be here when you wake up.”
Sam sighed and closed his eyes. His hand remained in Dean’s as he gave in to the pull of sleep. Dean laid his head next to Sam, making sure not to accidentally jar any of his injuries. Relieved that his brother had finally woken up, even if it was for just a few minutes, Dean felt relaxed enough to close his own eyes as well.
From the other side of the bed, John looked on smiling at his boys. He had feigned sleep to allow them the moment they both seemed to need. He got up from the chair and crept over to the cabinet in the corner of the room. He grabbed a few blankets before walking back towards the bed. He placed an extra one over Sam, noting the small shivers going through his frame. He then slipped the other around Dean’s shoulder. He ran his hand over both boys’ hair before heading back to his own chair.
They all had a long way to go, but things were looking to be on the mend for now at least.
Next Chapter ---->
Masterpost
A/N: Hey guys! I just have a quick question for you all...I'm curious if anyone would read a J2 story if I wrote it? I have an idea bouncing around in my head, but wasn't sure how people would respond to me writing one.