Culpable 4/?
Summary: Dean was hurt because Sam had been careless, and now Sam had to get on with what needed to be done. Now was not the time to give in to his own aches and pains. Pre-season, hurt/ sick! Sam, minor hurt/ major angst! Dean, angst! John.
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Would I be writing fanfiction if SPN belonged to me?
Part 3
Gleaming auburn curls brushed his arm. She was beautiful, slender but with curves in all the right places, and Dean groaned in appreciation as a small pink tongue ran enticingly over a luscious lower lip. She leaned forward, let her hands rest against his chest, and murmured seductively in his ear.
“Masticated food is moved down the oesophagus by means of peristalsis, and then passes through the cardiac sphincter at the junction of the oesophagus and the stomach.”
Dean blinked. That was... unusual. He’d never had a girl take quite that approach. Her voice was deeper than he’d expected... older...
“Aaagh!” He leapt backwards, almost falling over, as the beautiful Candi morphed suddenly into Mrs. Hoskins, Dean’s sophomore biology teacher - complete with straggly grey hair, fallen arches and crowsfeet.
His eyes flew open and met the almost-darkness of the motel room.
It was just a dream. Just a bad dream. Calm down, Dean.
He lay without moving, staring blurrily at the darkened ceiling with eyes were already sliding shut again. Teetering on the brink of sleep, his arm shifted automatically, reaching out across the bed to check that Sam was okay. It was as natural to him as breathing to watch out for his brother, even when he was almost asleep and still traumatised from a hideous nightmare.
His hand met cool sheets, rumpled blankets, but no Sammy.
Dean’s head turned, followed by his whole body as he rolled onto his side to face Sam’s side of the bed. His hand hadn’t lied. Sam was not there.
He felt a swift panic which quietened when he saw the thin line glowing under the bathroom door.
“Chill out, dude,” he mumbled to himself. He didn’t roll back, but lay facing the bathroom, half-asleep but unconsciously waiting for Sam to emerge.
Even to himself he could not have said why he didn’t just curl back up under the blankets and go back to sleep. He liked to keep tabs on his younger brother, but that didn’t generally include hovering when Sam used the bathroom. That phase of their lives had passed when Sammy was a chubby toddler just coming out of diapers.
Perhaps it had something to do with Sam’s face after school that afternoon. Or his slumped posture when he returned from his evening run.
Sam had assured him that he was fine. That there was nothing wrong, he was okay.
That didn’t explain the sickly pallor of his face. Or the dark shadows like bruises under his eyes. It didn’t explain why Dean’s little-brother-radar was going off like an EMF meter in the Ridge Avenue Mansion.
Sam had looked worn out, unnaturally exhausted.
It was no doubt due in part to the rigorous training program their father had instigated. Dean had been startled at and not entirely happy with what he knew was a punishment for Sam’s inattentiveness on the hunt. Sure, Sam had screwed up. He should have been focused, especially after the argument he’d had with their father only that morning. He shouldn’t have been distracted. He should have been ready for the harpy, ready to shoot her so that Dean could stab her with the silver. Dean winced, his hand going up to finger the healing cut. The concussion had hurt, and he knew it was chiefly Sam’s fault.
But he had blurred, fuzzy memories of the time immediately after his collision with the tree. Memories of a panicked voice calling his name. Shaking hands touching his neck, feeling for his pulse. Sammy’s voice, hitching with suppressed tears. Sam had been terrified. Dean had himself experienced that frantic fear of searching for signs of life in a limp and unmoving sibling. Not knowing whether Dean was alive, knowing that his brother’s condition was his fault, would have been enough of a punishment in itself for the sensitive Sam. Sam’s behaviour in the days since the hunt, his hovering, his constant checking that Dean was alright, showed that.
And Sam had killed the harpy. Alone, while Dean was unconscious. He’d managed to wield both shotgun and knife and bring down a foe which even their father might have struggled to handle by himself. Had their father taken that into account when he’d formulated Sam’s punishment? Did he even know?
Dean shifted uneasily. He was not naive enough to imagine that his father was infallible. He knew the oldest Winchester made mistakes, and never more than in his dealings with Sam. But he instinctively wanted to trust his father, to assume that he knew what he was doing, and it was oddly unsettling to face the idea that he was so out of touch with his younger son.
He pinched the bridge of his nose with thumb and index finger, and sighed softly into the darkness. He was too tired to want to think this through now. He just wanted to go back to sleep, to forget about the complications of his family for a while.
His eyes slid shut, and then opened again, reluctantly.
Sammy...
What the hell was taking the kid so long?
Dean frowned, suddenly wide awake again. Even if Sam had got up seconds before Dean had woken, he’d still been out of bed for an unnecessarily long time. There was only so much one could do in a bathroom at two in the morning.
He lay for a moment, staring alertly at the bathroom door. There were no strange noises from behind it.
There were no noises at all.
Dean ran a hand through his spiky hair, sighed, and then sat up.
I need to take a leak.
Well, I drank coffee before bed so I’m pretty sure I do.
He padded quietly across to the door, glanced once at his sleeping father, and tapped very lightly on the door.
“Sam? You done in there?”
Lights gleamed briefly through the thin motel curtains as some other resident returned. Across the room bedsprings creaked as his father stirred and settled again.
There was no sound from the bathroom. No answer from Sam.
Dean knocked again, a little harder this time.
“Sammy? Is everything okay?” His voice was still a whisper, still quiet, indicating nothing of the tendrils of worry that were beginning to coil inside him.
“Dean?” The sleepy voice from across the room didn’t sound very happy. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t know.” Dean put his ear against the door. “Sammy, answer me, man!”
He heard the bed creak again as his father raised himself on one elbow.
He almost didn’t hear the voice on the other side of the door.
“Dean...” It was nearly inaudible, and the faint tinkling of alarm bells in his head became a deafening clangor. His hand went to the handle.
“I’m coming in, Sam!” Without waiting for a response, he thrust the door open.
*************************************************
Fire and ice.
The pain burned in him, through him, his back, his shoulder. A tiny spark where his teeth dug into his lip. Freezing tiles against his bare arm and the narrow strip of naked skin where t-shirt pulled away from sweat pants.
Dean...
Help me...
Need you...
Soft knocking, nearby. A hundred million miles away. Whispering.
What... don’t...
Door. Someone at the door.
Help me...
Dean...
Dad...
Not Dad... Dad’ll be angry...
Dean’s mad too.
Please... can't...
Can’t do this...
Somebody help me.
Don’t be mad... can’t help it...
Tried...
Tried so hard...
Knocking again. Whispering. Louder now.
Angry.
‘m sorry... ‘m sorry...
“Sammy...”
Help me... help me, Dean...
“Dean...” His mouth fell open. To call for help. To scream out the agony, the horrible fear and helplessness and need. “Dean...”
It was a whimper, a breathless moan.
His hand crushed against his mouth and his teeth clenched as the door slammed open.
**********************************************
Consternation held Dean motionless for a brief moment, still clutching the door handle. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected, what he’d imagined he’d see. But this was worse. Sam looked... Sam was...
“Sammy!” Knees thudded painfully on unforgiving porcelain as he dropped down beside his brother. “What the hell...”
Sam was ghastly pale, the harsh fluorescent light casting a gloss over the sweat on his face. He was curled on his side, hunched around the arm which he’d wrapped around his middle. The other hand was pressed against his mouth. It was an oddly familiar gesture, something Dean had seen hundreds of times, but never in the last ten years at least. Sam was sucking his thumb?
“Sammy? What is it? What’s wrong?” His hand went to his brother’s shoulder, tentative, not sure whether the touch would hurt Sam more. The rigidity under his fingers ratcheted his fear up a notch.
A shiver went through the figure curled on the ground. Then Sam’s hand reached out blindly and gripped the fabric of Dean’s sweat pants.
“D-dean...”
Dean’s other hand went automatically to the clutching fingers and his eyes followed the movement. For the second time he froze.
Blood was trickling down Sam’s hand.
It wasn’t streaming. There wasn’t even that much of it. It was the cause that was so alarming.
Sam hadn’t been sucking his thumb.
He’d bitten into it.
“Dad!” Dean heard the panic in his voice, and the thud from the next room as his father’s feet hit the ground. His hand hovered. Sam’s shoulder... arm... head... He wanted to comfort, was terrified he’d make things worse. “Sammy! What’s wrong? C’mon, dude, talk to me...”
Blue-green eyes shifted, glassy.
“H-hurts...” His voice broke down, became a wordless keening deep in his throat. Dean had never heard his little brother make a sound like that. It scared the hell out of him.
“Sam?! Dean, what’s going on?”
Dean hadn’t heard his father drop down beside him.
“I don’t know, Dad, I found him like this. Dad, his thumb...” The thought that anyone could be in that much pain was disturbing. That it was his little brother was horrifying. He shuffled a little closer and let his hand rest on Sam’s shoulder.
He heard the sharp intake of breath as his father saw the blood on Sam’s hand, and the teeth marks which told their own story. John reached out and felt his younger son’s face and forehead.
“He’s a little feverish. What hurts, Sam? Is it your stomach?”
“Mmm...” There was a brief flash of something other than pain in Sam’s eyes as they shifted to his father, but it was gone too quickly for either older Winchester to identify. His grip tightened convulsively on the fingers Dean had wrapped around his hand.
John and Dean exchanged glances.
“It’s probably stomach flu. Let’s get you back to bed, Sam.” John was frowning, but his hands were gentle as he manoeuvred his younger son into a sitting position. Sam hunched forward, moaning softly, and pulled his legs up, resting his head against his knees. “Come on, son...”
Together Dean and John managed to get him to his feet, still almost doubled over. Sam tilted sideways as he stood, and would have fallen if Dean hadn’t caught hold of him. Dean’s arms went round his brother as Sam slumped against him. He could feel the shivers that quaked through him.
“C’mon, Sammy... that’s it, bro...” Dean’s hand pressed against Sam’s back, as much for reassurance as support. “You’re gonna be fine...” He heard the rasping intake of breath as Sam seemed to gather what little strength he still had. Sam’s back straightened slightly. Then he pulled away, out of Dean’s hold.
“S-sorry... ‘m okay...” He staggered across to the bed and dropped onto it in what was close to a collapse.
No, bro... you’re not okay. And what’s with the ‘sorry’?
Dean followed his brother. Sam lay huddled on his side, legs dangling over the edge, and Dean lifted them onto the bed and pulled the blankets over the tight curl of sick boy. He gently pushed Sam across and sank down on the bed next to him as their father came across with a glass of water. He sat down on Sam’s other side.
“Sam? Here’s some Tylenol.”
A shaky hand accepted the tablets. Sam lifted his head and tried to take the glass from his father, but his grip was feeble and the water sloshed, almost spilling. His lip quivered.
“S-sorry... sorry, Dad...”
This time Dean saw his own frown mirrored on his father’s face.
“It’s okay, son. I’ll hold it for you.”
Sam gulped the water down, and then slumped back onto the pillow, pulling the blankets tighter around him. His eyes closed, but the tight lines bracketing his mouth showed that he wasn’t asleep. His breath came in short gasps.
“Sammy, why didn’t you tell us you were feeling sick?”
The dark lashes flickered and lifted.
“N-not sick... ‘m okay... D-deee....” His voice trailed off into a whimper, his mouth twisting as he swallowed convulsively. Dean, recognising the expression, pulled him up and over the edge of the bed just as he was violently sick again.
“Okay...okay, Sammy... you’ll feel better now... ” Dean gripped his shoulder, mumbling soothingly in his ear, and tugged him gently back down when he was done. Sam pulled his knees up against his chest and pressed his forehead against Dean’s leg.
Dean’s hand shifted so that it rested on Sam’s head. Sam blinked slowly.
“Okay, bro. It’s okay... why don’t you try and sleep?”
********************************************************
His head jerked up. Green eyes darted, confused. What... why... the light was on... why was he sitting up?
I must have fallen asleep.
Sam...
Sam had shifted closer. He was pressed hard against Dean’s thigh, and his fingers were twisted in the fabric of his brother’s night wear. As Dean looked down, a faint shudder seemed to ripple through him.
“Sammy?”
He could feel the heat radiating off the body leaning against him.
“Sam?”
Sam shivered again. His head turned.
“De...” His teeth were clenched so hard that his jaw quivered.
“You okay, bro?” Dean’s hand slid against Sam’s neck, clammy with sweat, and found the carotid pulse. It raced under his fingertips.
“H-hurts, De....” His breath hitched, soft, short gasps. He turned his head sharply on the pillow and his fingers dug painfully into Dean’s leg. “Dean... hurts...”
“Okay. Okay, Sammy. Dad!” Dean curled his hand around the fingers gripping his leg. On the other bed his father lifted his head, blinking. “Dad, Sam’s in a lot of pain here.”
The oldest Winchester rubbed his eyes with thumb and index finger, came off the bed and leant over his son. He rested the back of his hand against Sam’s forehead. Dean saw the frown that crossed his face.
“Sam? How bad is the pain? Scale of one to ten?”
For a moment it looked as if Sam wasn’t going to answer. His eyes were closed, and Dean wondered if he’d drifted off again. Then he saw the wetness trail from under the dark lashes.
“Eight.... n-nine...”
Dean’s eyes met his father’s and for the first time he saw alarm mirrored in them.
Sam had broken his leg once, being thrown by a possessed librarian. He’d shattered his femur. Dean could still remember the nauseating sight of white bone protruding through torn muscle, blood soaking into shredded once-blue jeans and pooling on dirty cement.
Sam had admitted to a seven on that occasion.
And he hadn’t cried.
Part 5
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Would I be writing fanfiction if SPN belonged to me?
Part 3
Gleaming auburn curls brushed his arm. She was beautiful, slender but with curves in all the right places, and Dean groaned in appreciation as a small pink tongue ran enticingly over a luscious lower lip. She leaned forward, let her hands rest against his chest, and murmured seductively in his ear.
“Masticated food is moved down the oesophagus by means of peristalsis, and then passes through the cardiac sphincter at the junction of the oesophagus and the stomach.”
Dean blinked. That was... unusual. He’d never had a girl take quite that approach. Her voice was deeper than he’d expected... older...
“Aaagh!” He leapt backwards, almost falling over, as the beautiful Candi morphed suddenly into Mrs. Hoskins, Dean’s sophomore biology teacher - complete with straggly grey hair, fallen arches and crowsfeet.
His eyes flew open and met the almost-darkness of the motel room.
It was just a dream. Just a bad dream. Calm down, Dean.
He lay without moving, staring blurrily at the darkened ceiling with eyes were already sliding shut again. Teetering on the brink of sleep, his arm shifted automatically, reaching out across the bed to check that Sam was okay. It was as natural to him as breathing to watch out for his brother, even when he was almost asleep and still traumatised from a hideous nightmare.
His hand met cool sheets, rumpled blankets, but no Sammy.
Dean’s head turned, followed by his whole body as he rolled onto his side to face Sam’s side of the bed. His hand hadn’t lied. Sam was not there.
He felt a swift panic which quietened when he saw the thin line glowing under the bathroom door.
“Chill out, dude,” he mumbled to himself. He didn’t roll back, but lay facing the bathroom, half-asleep but unconsciously waiting for Sam to emerge.
Even to himself he could not have said why he didn’t just curl back up under the blankets and go back to sleep. He liked to keep tabs on his younger brother, but that didn’t generally include hovering when Sam used the bathroom. That phase of their lives had passed when Sammy was a chubby toddler just coming out of diapers.
Perhaps it had something to do with Sam’s face after school that afternoon. Or his slumped posture when he returned from his evening run.
Sam had assured him that he was fine. That there was nothing wrong, he was okay.
That didn’t explain the sickly pallor of his face. Or the dark shadows like bruises under his eyes. It didn’t explain why Dean’s little-brother-radar was going off like an EMF meter in the Ridge Avenue Mansion.
Sam had looked worn out, unnaturally exhausted.
It was no doubt due in part to the rigorous training program their father had instigated. Dean had been startled at and not entirely happy with what he knew was a punishment for Sam’s inattentiveness on the hunt. Sure, Sam had screwed up. He should have been focused, especially after the argument he’d had with their father only that morning. He shouldn’t have been distracted. He should have been ready for the harpy, ready to shoot her so that Dean could stab her with the silver. Dean winced, his hand going up to finger the healing cut. The concussion had hurt, and he knew it was chiefly Sam’s fault.
But he had blurred, fuzzy memories of the time immediately after his collision with the tree. Memories of a panicked voice calling his name. Shaking hands touching his neck, feeling for his pulse. Sammy’s voice, hitching with suppressed tears. Sam had been terrified. Dean had himself experienced that frantic fear of searching for signs of life in a limp and unmoving sibling. Not knowing whether Dean was alive, knowing that his brother’s condition was his fault, would have been enough of a punishment in itself for the sensitive Sam. Sam’s behaviour in the days since the hunt, his hovering, his constant checking that Dean was alright, showed that.
And Sam had killed the harpy. Alone, while Dean was unconscious. He’d managed to wield both shotgun and knife and bring down a foe which even their father might have struggled to handle by himself. Had their father taken that into account when he’d formulated Sam’s punishment? Did he even know?
Dean shifted uneasily. He was not naive enough to imagine that his father was infallible. He knew the oldest Winchester made mistakes, and never more than in his dealings with Sam. But he instinctively wanted to trust his father, to assume that he knew what he was doing, and it was oddly unsettling to face the idea that he was so out of touch with his younger son.
He pinched the bridge of his nose with thumb and index finger, and sighed softly into the darkness. He was too tired to want to think this through now. He just wanted to go back to sleep, to forget about the complications of his family for a while.
His eyes slid shut, and then opened again, reluctantly.
Sammy...
What the hell was taking the kid so long?
Dean frowned, suddenly wide awake again. Even if Sam had got up seconds before Dean had woken, he’d still been out of bed for an unnecessarily long time. There was only so much one could do in a bathroom at two in the morning.
He lay for a moment, staring alertly at the bathroom door. There were no strange noises from behind it.
There were no noises at all.
Dean ran a hand through his spiky hair, sighed, and then sat up.
I need to take a leak.
Well, I drank coffee before bed so I’m pretty sure I do.
He padded quietly across to the door, glanced once at his sleeping father, and tapped very lightly on the door.
“Sam? You done in there?”
Lights gleamed briefly through the thin motel curtains as some other resident returned. Across the room bedsprings creaked as his father stirred and settled again.
There was no sound from the bathroom. No answer from Sam.
Dean knocked again, a little harder this time.
“Sammy? Is everything okay?” His voice was still a whisper, still quiet, indicating nothing of the tendrils of worry that were beginning to coil inside him.
“Dean?” The sleepy voice from across the room didn’t sound very happy. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t know.” Dean put his ear against the door. “Sammy, answer me, man!”
He heard the bed creak again as his father raised himself on one elbow.
He almost didn’t hear the voice on the other side of the door.
“Dean...” It was nearly inaudible, and the faint tinkling of alarm bells in his head became a deafening clangor. His hand went to the handle.
“I’m coming in, Sam!” Without waiting for a response, he thrust the door open.
*************************************************
Fire and ice.
The pain burned in him, through him, his back, his shoulder. A tiny spark where his teeth dug into his lip. Freezing tiles against his bare arm and the narrow strip of naked skin where t-shirt pulled away from sweat pants.
Dean...
Help me...
Need you...
Soft knocking, nearby. A hundred million miles away. Whispering.
What... don’t...
Door. Someone at the door.
Help me...
Dean...
Dad...
Not Dad... Dad’ll be angry...
Dean’s mad too.
Please... can't...
Can’t do this...
Somebody help me.
Don’t be mad... can’t help it...
Tried...
Tried so hard...
Knocking again. Whispering. Louder now.
Angry.
‘m sorry... ‘m sorry...
“Sammy...”
Help me... help me, Dean...
“Dean...” His mouth fell open. To call for help. To scream out the agony, the horrible fear and helplessness and need. “Dean...”
It was a whimper, a breathless moan.
His hand crushed against his mouth and his teeth clenched as the door slammed open.
**********************************************
Consternation held Dean motionless for a brief moment, still clutching the door handle. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected, what he’d imagined he’d see. But this was worse. Sam looked... Sam was...
“Sammy!” Knees thudded painfully on unforgiving porcelain as he dropped down beside his brother. “What the hell...”
Sam was ghastly pale, the harsh fluorescent light casting a gloss over the sweat on his face. He was curled on his side, hunched around the arm which he’d wrapped around his middle. The other hand was pressed against his mouth. It was an oddly familiar gesture, something Dean had seen hundreds of times, but never in the last ten years at least. Sam was sucking his thumb?
“Sammy? What is it? What’s wrong?” His hand went to his brother’s shoulder, tentative, not sure whether the touch would hurt Sam more. The rigidity under his fingers ratcheted his fear up a notch.
A shiver went through the figure curled on the ground. Then Sam’s hand reached out blindly and gripped the fabric of Dean’s sweat pants.
“D-dean...”
Dean’s other hand went automatically to the clutching fingers and his eyes followed the movement. For the second time he froze.
Blood was trickling down Sam’s hand.
It wasn’t streaming. There wasn’t even that much of it. It was the cause that was so alarming.
Sam hadn’t been sucking his thumb.
He’d bitten into it.
“Dad!” Dean heard the panic in his voice, and the thud from the next room as his father’s feet hit the ground. His hand hovered. Sam’s shoulder... arm... head... He wanted to comfort, was terrified he’d make things worse. “Sammy! What’s wrong? C’mon, dude, talk to me...”
Blue-green eyes shifted, glassy.
“H-hurts...” His voice broke down, became a wordless keening deep in his throat. Dean had never heard his little brother make a sound like that. It scared the hell out of him.
“Sam?! Dean, what’s going on?”
Dean hadn’t heard his father drop down beside him.
“I don’t know, Dad, I found him like this. Dad, his thumb...” The thought that anyone could be in that much pain was disturbing. That it was his little brother was horrifying. He shuffled a little closer and let his hand rest on Sam’s shoulder.
He heard the sharp intake of breath as his father saw the blood on Sam’s hand, and the teeth marks which told their own story. John reached out and felt his younger son’s face and forehead.
“He’s a little feverish. What hurts, Sam? Is it your stomach?”
“Mmm...” There was a brief flash of something other than pain in Sam’s eyes as they shifted to his father, but it was gone too quickly for either older Winchester to identify. His grip tightened convulsively on the fingers Dean had wrapped around his hand.
John and Dean exchanged glances.
“It’s probably stomach flu. Let’s get you back to bed, Sam.” John was frowning, but his hands were gentle as he manoeuvred his younger son into a sitting position. Sam hunched forward, moaning softly, and pulled his legs up, resting his head against his knees. “Come on, son...”
Together Dean and John managed to get him to his feet, still almost doubled over. Sam tilted sideways as he stood, and would have fallen if Dean hadn’t caught hold of him. Dean’s arms went round his brother as Sam slumped against him. He could feel the shivers that quaked through him.
“C’mon, Sammy... that’s it, bro...” Dean’s hand pressed against Sam’s back, as much for reassurance as support. “You’re gonna be fine...” He heard the rasping intake of breath as Sam seemed to gather what little strength he still had. Sam’s back straightened slightly. Then he pulled away, out of Dean’s hold.
“S-sorry... ‘m okay...” He staggered across to the bed and dropped onto it in what was close to a collapse.
No, bro... you’re not okay. And what’s with the ‘sorry’?
Dean followed his brother. Sam lay huddled on his side, legs dangling over the edge, and Dean lifted them onto the bed and pulled the blankets over the tight curl of sick boy. He gently pushed Sam across and sank down on the bed next to him as their father came across with a glass of water. He sat down on Sam’s other side.
“Sam? Here’s some Tylenol.”
A shaky hand accepted the tablets. Sam lifted his head and tried to take the glass from his father, but his grip was feeble and the water sloshed, almost spilling. His lip quivered.
“S-sorry... sorry, Dad...”
This time Dean saw his own frown mirrored on his father’s face.
“It’s okay, son. I’ll hold it for you.”
Sam gulped the water down, and then slumped back onto the pillow, pulling the blankets tighter around him. His eyes closed, but the tight lines bracketing his mouth showed that he wasn’t asleep. His breath came in short gasps.
“Sammy, why didn’t you tell us you were feeling sick?”
The dark lashes flickered and lifted.
“N-not sick... ‘m okay... D-deee....” His voice trailed off into a whimper, his mouth twisting as he swallowed convulsively. Dean, recognising the expression, pulled him up and over the edge of the bed just as he was violently sick again.
“Okay...okay, Sammy... you’ll feel better now... ” Dean gripped his shoulder, mumbling soothingly in his ear, and tugged him gently back down when he was done. Sam pulled his knees up against his chest and pressed his forehead against Dean’s leg.
Dean’s hand shifted so that it rested on Sam’s head. Sam blinked slowly.
“Okay, bro. It’s okay... why don’t you try and sleep?”
********************************************************
His head jerked up. Green eyes darted, confused. What... why... the light was on... why was he sitting up?
I must have fallen asleep.
Sam...
Sam had shifted closer. He was pressed hard against Dean’s thigh, and his fingers were twisted in the fabric of his brother’s night wear. As Dean looked down, a faint shudder seemed to ripple through him.
“Sammy?”
He could feel the heat radiating off the body leaning against him.
“Sam?”
Sam shivered again. His head turned.
“De...” His teeth were clenched so hard that his jaw quivered.
“You okay, bro?” Dean’s hand slid against Sam’s neck, clammy with sweat, and found the carotid pulse. It raced under his fingertips.
“H-hurts, De....” His breath hitched, soft, short gasps. He turned his head sharply on the pillow and his fingers dug painfully into Dean’s leg. “Dean... hurts...”
“Okay. Okay, Sammy. Dad!” Dean curled his hand around the fingers gripping his leg. On the other bed his father lifted his head, blinking. “Dad, Sam’s in a lot of pain here.”
The oldest Winchester rubbed his eyes with thumb and index finger, came off the bed and leant over his son. He rested the back of his hand against Sam’s forehead. Dean saw the frown that crossed his face.
“Sam? How bad is the pain? Scale of one to ten?”
For a moment it looked as if Sam wasn’t going to answer. His eyes were closed, and Dean wondered if he’d drifted off again. Then he saw the wetness trail from under the dark lashes.
“Eight.... n-nine...”
Dean’s eyes met his father’s and for the first time he saw alarm mirrored in them.
Sam had broken his leg once, being thrown by a possessed librarian. He’d shattered his femur. Dean could still remember the nauseating sight of white bone protruding through torn muscle, blood soaking into shredded once-blue jeans and pooling on dirty cement.
Sam had admitted to a seven on that occasion.
And he hadn’t cried.
Part 5