Culpable 7/?
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 6
It was raining. Heavy drops slid and blurred into a film on the window, obscuring the view. From where he sat Dean could only see an expanse of gray.
For the first time in hours the other chair in the room was empty. His father had told him where he was going, but Dean hadn’t really listened. To phone Pastor Jim, maybe, or get some coffee, or get rid of some coffee.
Dean didn’t care. Finally, at long last, his father had realised just how sick Sam was. Finally Dean wasn’t alone with his fear. He hadn’t been alone with his brother, either, since the doctor’s pronouncement. His father was a brooding presence in the other chair, watching his younger son with a face carefully wiped clear of emotion. Dean wasn’t sure what was going on behind that blank facade, whether his father felt guilt or self-reproach at his hand in this, whether he still blamed Sam to any degree. Sam was the one who talked about his emotions; the older Winchesters kept those things to themselves, and they sat in silence with their feelings, together but very alone.
Sam had talked. Sam had cried out, his words hoarse and broken and incoherent. He’d called for Dean, sobbed his brother’s name, occasionally seeming to calm a little when Dean spoke to him, but mostly just begging for forgiveness. Dean had tried to soothe him, tried to get through to him in the nightmares, to break through the delirious terror, but he was seldom successful.
It had not escaped Dean’s notice that his brother never called for their father.
Sam was quiet now, the only sound the hitched rasp of his breathing under the mask which had replaced the cannula. Angry colour flared in bright patches on his cheeks. His hand in Dean’s was unnaturally hot as the fever burned. It was hours since he’d talked. The day before Dean would have given anything not to have to listen to Sam’s distressed cries. But this semi-coma was even worse.
Sam was getting weaker.
The doctor’s face flashed through Dean’s mind again, along with the doctor’s words. Words that looped in his head, words he didn’t fully understand in all their technical glory. Sam had Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome. Sam was teetering on the edge of respiratory failure. His lungs were beginning to shut down. And once that happened, it was only a matter of time before his kidneys followed, and his liver. And then he would be facing multiple organ failure, and Dean didn’t need to see the gravity of the doctor’s expression to guess what followed that.
He had glanced at his father after Dr. Webber’s explanations. Despite his twenty years, despite the responsibility and the maturity that had been thrust on him at an early age, there was still that part of him that instinctively wanted his father’s reassurance. He wanted to see his father nod and half-smile. He wanted to hear him say that it would be okay, that Sam would be fine. But all he had seen was a brief flash of something that might have been fear, or guilt, or anger, or any one of a complex array of emotions, and then the mask had come down. Dean knew that his father was worried. He’d lived and worked with the man for twenty years and he knew when he was afraid. But now he just wanted some encouragement. Some comfort.
He’d had to be the adult for Sam since he was barely out of babyhood himself, having to grow up too quickly so that Sam could be a child for longer. Was it too much to ask that he not have to be the father in this situation?
“I have to be strong for you, Sammy... and I just don’t think I can. I want Dad to... I wish that Dad...” His whisper sounded unnaturally clear, words that he would never dream of saying aloud were anyone actually listening.
Sam’s limp hand stirred in his.
“D-dean...”
“Sammy?” Dean’s head jerked up, and he stared at the bed. “Hey bro! How’re you feeling?”
It was a superfluous question. Sam looked appalling, and even the sight of the open blue-green eyes was not particularly encouraging. Sam slid a dry tongue over fever-cracked lips.
“I... uh... n-not so... g-good...” The words were hoarse, hitching out between short gasps. Even from where he sat Dean could hear the crackles every time Sam breathed in. The blue tint around his mouth deepened as he tried to speak.
“Don’t talk, Sammy... you need to rest, okay?”
Sam’s gaze slid dully away, to the foot of the bed and then with an effort to the other side of the room, the empty side, where their father should have been but wasn’t. Dean saw the brief flicker of eyelashes.
“Dad went to get coffee.” For all he knew, it might be the truth. He just couldn’t let his little brother think that their father didn’t care.
Sam coughed, wincing feebly, and lay for a long moment staring at the ceiling.
“He’ll be back pretty soon, dude.” The words fell heavily into the silence between them.
“Dean...”
“Mmm?”
“I... uh... I think... ‘m not... gonna m-make it.”
Dean’s hand tightened involuntarily around his brother’s, as his lungs seemed to tighten and squeeze out his breath.
“Sam...” It didn’t sound like his voice.
“D-don’t feel... g-good at... all...” The glazed eyes were still fixed on the ceiling.
“Sam, no...”
“T-tried... but... so t-tired...”
Dean swallowed thickly. Then the blue-green gaze met his, those familiar eyes even bigger than usual against the hollow-cheeked pallor. They were wet and fearful.
“De... I’m scared...”
It was the voice of a five-year-old Sammy, the soft plea of a little brother craving comfort after a nightmare or safety in a thunderstorm. The tiny quivering voice and big terrified eyes had always reached that part of Dean that nothing else did. Sam had always come to Dean, and Dean had always comforted him. That wasn’t going to change, even if Sam was now sixteen and almost as tall as his big brother.
Even if Dean was even more afraid of this enemy than Sam was.
The bed grumbled creakily as it received the weight of another body. Somehow managing to avoid the multiplicity of tubes and lines and leads that were attached to Sam, Dean tugged his brother against him, one arm holding him firmly. Sam sighed, and his head turned naturally into the curve of Dean’s neck.
“It’s okay, bro... it’s okay... don’t talk about... about... don’t even think about that, you’re gonna be fine, Sammy, you hear me? I know you’re feeling gross right now, but in a few days you’ll be bustin’ out of this place...” He could feel the heat of fever where Sam’s forehead pressed against his chin.
“We could go to Pastor Jim’s... all those books you’ve been wanting to read... and Pastor Jim’s hot chocolate! I don’t even like hot chocolate but I’ll always drink his...”
“P-pancakes...” Sam’s voice was a thin whisper. Dean laughed on one soft breath.
“Every day. Choc chip, with syrup. And roast chicken for dinner, with potatoes, and stuffing... you’re gonna be sick of hospital food by then. Oh, and Sam, remember last time he was talking of getting a new dog? Pastor Jim might even let you help train it.”
Thick eyelashes tickled his neck.
“And maybe once you’re feeling better, we can do some driving. You need some more practice.”
“I-i’ th’ ‘mpala...?”
“Hell, yeah. But you better be careful with my baby, Sammy. No riding the clutch or I’ll kick your ass.”
“J-jerk...” Sam was nestled against him, his eyes shut. The monosyllable drifted faintly.
Dean’s free hand cupped his neck, fingers tangling in the damp strands of chestnut hair. His eyes blinked fiercely.
“Bitch.”
His arm tightened around the limp figure of his little brother. Sam didn’t react, and Dean knew he’d slipped away again, into sleep or unconsciousness.
“Sammy...” It came out choked, half-strangled between clenched teeth.
Pancakes.
Roast chicken.
Books and dogs and the Impala.
“Sam has Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome...”
“Respiratory failure...
“Could develop multiple organ failure.”
The doctor believed Sam was going to die.
Dean knew it, could see it in the gravity of his expression and the way his mouth tightened every time he examined his patient. He could tell from the way Dr. Webber’s attitude had softened slightly towards Sam’s family.
And Dean had nothing to fight that with.
He’d always had weapons. He’d looked after Sam, protected his baby brother, shot or stabbed or burned whatever was threatening him, even used his fists when there was nothing else. He was the shield that kept Sam safe. He knew what was out there, but somehow there’d been an unconscious and unshakeable determination that nothing would get Sam as long as Dean was around to stop it.
But this... how did he fight this? This was like nothing he’d ever faced before. It was almost ironic. They’d spent their lives battling things most people only met in their worst nightmares, and then Sam fell prey to something so non-supernatural. And there was nothing Dean could do to stop it, no bullets or silver or salt.
He tilted his head and leant his cheek against the softness of dark tangled hair. Sam had always had stubborn hair. It went its own way, defiantly rebelling against discipline. Like Sam himself.
I can’t stop this, Sammy. I can’t help you.
He’d known they’d have to go sometime. They danced with danger too much to be naive about that. But he’d always thought it would be later. When they were older, when Sam was grown up. And he’d always known he’d be the one to go first.
He’d known because he knew he couldn’t live without Sam.
And now all he could do was hold on to his brother with a desperate grip and feel him slipping away.
His fingers moved idly, palm stroking his little brother’s arm.
“I don’t know what to do, Sammy...”
He stared blankly at the opposite wall. It shimmered, blurred with the tears that he made no attempt to wipe away.
***********************************************************
It was monotonous, the regular dull tone in his ear. It seemed to mock him. He could imagine the phone ringing in the rectory, calling out with no-one there to respond. There was a brief pause, and the familiar voice came on the line, but it was only the answering machine.
“... please leave a message after the beep.”
He heard the beep, and the expectant silence that followed. He listened to the silence, and stood in equal silence, until the answering machine gave up on him and the dial tone hummed.
He should have left a message. But what would he say? “Hey there, just to let you know my boy is very ill and they think he’s going to die”?
He pressed the phone against his forehead and leant against the wall for a moment. He’d only left his sons to make the phone call. He should go back. He needed to go back. He’d seen the look in Dean’s eyes, the look that his son probably didn’t even realise he was wearing. Dean was strong, physically and emotionally. But this was breaking him. He needed his father to be there.
And Sam... John didn’t even know if Sam was aware of them anymore. He’d slipped from delirium into semi-coma, and didn’t respond to their voices or their hands on his. Dean sat with him and held his hand, and looked at his face with eyes that grew ever more haunted, and John sat and watched them both and felt the emotion build up inside until he thought he’d explode.
That was why he’d left. The phone call was just an excuse. He’d needed a moment to breathe. He’d needed to get away from the physical evidence of his failure.
John knew Dean was angry with him. He’d tried to explain his motives to his older son. Sam needed training. He needed to toughen up, to be more careful. He needed to be prepared for the horrors that were out there.
“Face it, Dad. This time? It was you he was up against.”
All his carefully stated explanations crumbled in the face of that.
Sam had been injured on that hunt. He’d fallen hard enough to cause internal bleeding. And he’d been so intimidated that he hadn’t dared to admit it. His own father had yelled at him, called him careless and irresponsible, when he should have been checking that he was okay. He’d looked Dean over and completely ignored the possibility that Sam might be hurt as well. Instead of the care he’d needed, Sam had received a stinging rebuke. Instead of being praised for his killing of the harpy, he’d been punished.
At what point had John ceased to be a father and become a drill sergeant?
“You’ve got his head so messed up that he thinks he deserves to be sick...”
“Sir?” An orderly paused in his rush from and to who knew where, and eyed him with cautious concern.
John blinked. He gave the man a meaningless smile, mumbled something and walked away, leaving the orderly in the corridor gazing after him.
***************************************************************
The room was quiet when he walked in. He’d expected to hear Dean talking, to hear the deep quiet tones of his older son as he rambled. John had listened to some interesting conversations over the last few days. He might even have been amused at the range of random topics that his son managed to discuss, had it not been for his horrible awareness of how one-sided those conversations were.
As had become his habit, his first glance was at the cardiac monitor. The little squiggles were still there. Too fast, but that was infinitely preferable to a straight line.
His gaze shifted, and he stood still for a moment. Dean was on the bed, next to Sam. Sam’s face was turned into Dean’s neck, his eyes closed, and the fingers of one hand twisted slackly in the fabric of Dean’s sweater. Dean’s arm curled firmly around his little brother.
Dean’s eyes were shut, and he breathed heavily. He didn’t stir as John came to the side of the bed and stood looking down at his sons. Sleep had smoothed out the lines of fear on his face.
It couldn’t hide the tear tracks. It couldn’t hide the wetly clumped eyelashes that drove a stake of agony through the oldest Winchester.
Sam cried. Sam shed tears when he was upset, when his fights with his father were particularly intense, on occasion when a brutal nightmare caught him off-guard. But Dean didn’t. Dean just became stony-faced.
Dean’s tears told his father that he’d given up hope.
John reached for the blanket which a nurse had brought in some days ago, unfolded it and spread it carefully over his sons. Then he sat heavily down in the chair beside the bed.
It was a familiar sight. He couldn’t remember how many times he’d seen his sons like this, a little chubby Sammy snuggled tightly against his big brother, Dean’s arm curved protectively around him. Sam had always had vicious nightmares, and more often than not had ended up in his brother’s bed.
Sam still had the nightmares, but the cuddling had dropped off. There wasn’t much bed-sharing now, unless the current motel room demanded it.
But the bond was still there. John didn’t have much experience with children other than his own, but he knew that his sons were unusually close. They had their arguments, of course. But either one would take a bullet for the other. Dean was still fiercely protective of his brother, and he was still the one to whom Sam went first when things went wrong. The hugging was kept to a minimum now. The love that had produced it was as strong as ever.
All those years ago Sam would have come to his father. He would have cried and complained of being hurt, and feeling sick. And John would have responded, looking after his little son, dealing with his problems. Sam had been easier then, before the teenage angst and hormones. He’d adored his father. He’d sought his approval. He’d come to him for comfort, and he’d received it.
John had lost touch with him since those days. He didn’t even know how to communicate with Sam without starting an argument. He loved both his sons, desperately, but he couldn’t show it anymore. The father that would have hugged and comforted his little boys had been buried deep under the Marine who disciplined and regimented his teenagers.
Sam had been too intimidated to tell him that he was hurt. Sam had struggled, alone, until he’d collapsed with injuries that should have been noticed by his father.
And now Sam was dying in a hospital bed. It was too late to take it back, too late to change things. Too late to show his son how much he was loved.
He shifted closer to the bed, reached for the hand that wasn’t gripping Dean’s sweater. Long, limp fingers were motionless, curling slightly in his grasp. His thumb stroked slowly against hot skin which stretched too tightly over fragile bones.
“Sammy...”
There was so much that needed to be said.
Sorry...
I was wrong...
You did good...
I love you.
There were a million words and none of them could get past the blockage that wasn’t just a choking lump of tears that he couldn’t shed. He hadn’t said these things for years, had somehow imagined that training and discipline would show his boys how he felt without the necessity of speech, and now that there was no time he couldn’t break the habit.
******************************************************************
Dr. Webber cupped the back of his neck with a sigh, fingers massaging tired muscles. On the table in front of him printouts reduced his patients to a series of numbers and statistics, figures that he didn’t really have the energy to scrutinise.
He’d always been fairly good at distancing himself from the emotional turmoil of his job. He was compassionate, but there were just too many tragic situations for him to allow himself to become attached. He’d learnt ways of breaking bad news, of gently informing family when there was no hope, and then of leaving it behind him when he went home.
He couldn’t explain to himself why it was so difficult this time.
Young Sam Winchester was gravely ill. He’d been brought in far later than he should have been, far beyond when his illness might have been easily dealt with. It seemed now that every time his results came back, some new complication had developed.
The Winchesters were an odd family. Aggressive. Secretive. Sam had been adamant, as far as he was able, that he wasn’t being abused; Dr. Webber’s first interaction with the older Winchesters hadn’t done much to convince him of the validity of Sam’s assertion. If he had to be honest, he still did not find much to approve of in Sam’s father.
But he’d watched the older brother. He’d seen the way he never left the room, the way he sat holding Sam’s hand and talking to him even when Sam was obviously unaware of his presence. He could see the increasing anguish as Sam’s condition deteriorated. He’d seldom seen such a strongly protective relationship between siblings. Whatever their father’s attitude, Dean Winchester would no more abuse his little brother than deliberately injure himself.
Dr. Webber pulled his spectacles from the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes, putting off briefly the moment when he’d have to go in there and tell them that Sam was just getting worse.
********************************************************************
Dean’s eyes were burned-out sockets.
The young man who shied away from demonstrations of affection, from showing his feelings, had always had expressive eyes. Anger, excitement, amusement... they betrayed him even when his face was impassive.
John had seen it all over the last week. Alarm, bordering on panic, when they first found Sam collapsed in the bathroom. Determination when he insisted they get the youngest Winchester to hospital. Anger, directed at John himself, and frustrated resignation at his father’s response to that anger. And love, fierce and tender, when he sat with his little brother, comforting, soothing. Holding on.
Now there was just... nothing. Anger and determination had given way over the days to fear. John had hated that, the weakness that he knew his son didn’t want to show. But now fear had faded to blankness.
Dean had given up.
He was beyond devastation, beyond anything more than sitting beside his deathly ill brother and holding his hand.
“Dean...”
Dean blinked slowly, as if surfacing from a deep sleep, and looked at him.
And John didn’t know what to say.
He wanted to comfort his son. He wanted to tell him that everything would be alright, that Sam would be fine. That this was all just a nightmare from which they would wake soon. But it wasn’t a dream. He was losing his baby, and Dean was losing his little brother, and nothing could be alright after that.
He swallowed and looked away, aware of Dean’s gaze but unable to meet it any longer.
He almost didn’t notice the movement at first.
Then the hot, limp hand in his stirred slightly, and his head swung round. Sam’s eyes were open.
“Sam!”
In his peripheral vision he saw Dean jerk upright.
The unfocused blue-green gaze slid away, shifted to look at the other occupant of the room. John heard Dean’s breath catch.
“Sammy -”
Something flickered across Sam’s face, an expression John couldn’t identify.
“No. Sammy... please...” Dean’s voice broke.
Sam’s eyes widened a little. His gaze drifted to his father for one brief moment, and John felt something inside him die at the desolation in his son’s eyes.
“Sam...” he choked. Tears were beginning to blur his vision.
Sam’s mouth moved, but whatever he tried to say was obscured by the oxygen mask, and his eyes slid slowly shut.
His breath faltered.
Then he was still.
Part 8
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Would I be writing fanfiction if SPN belonged to me?
Part 6
It was raining. Heavy drops slid and blurred into a film on the window, obscuring the view. From where he sat Dean could only see an expanse of gray.
For the first time in hours the other chair in the room was empty. His father had told him where he was going, but Dean hadn’t really listened. To phone Pastor Jim, maybe, or get some coffee, or get rid of some coffee.
Dean didn’t care. Finally, at long last, his father had realised just how sick Sam was. Finally Dean wasn’t alone with his fear. He hadn’t been alone with his brother, either, since the doctor’s pronouncement. His father was a brooding presence in the other chair, watching his younger son with a face carefully wiped clear of emotion. Dean wasn’t sure what was going on behind that blank facade, whether his father felt guilt or self-reproach at his hand in this, whether he still blamed Sam to any degree. Sam was the one who talked about his emotions; the older Winchesters kept those things to themselves, and they sat in silence with their feelings, together but very alone.
Sam had talked. Sam had cried out, his words hoarse and broken and incoherent. He’d called for Dean, sobbed his brother’s name, occasionally seeming to calm a little when Dean spoke to him, but mostly just begging for forgiveness. Dean had tried to soothe him, tried to get through to him in the nightmares, to break through the delirious terror, but he was seldom successful.
It had not escaped Dean’s notice that his brother never called for their father.
Sam was quiet now, the only sound the hitched rasp of his breathing under the mask which had replaced the cannula. Angry colour flared in bright patches on his cheeks. His hand in Dean’s was unnaturally hot as the fever burned. It was hours since he’d talked. The day before Dean would have given anything not to have to listen to Sam’s distressed cries. But this semi-coma was even worse.
Sam was getting weaker.
The doctor’s face flashed through Dean’s mind again, along with the doctor’s words. Words that looped in his head, words he didn’t fully understand in all their technical glory. Sam had Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome. Sam was teetering on the edge of respiratory failure. His lungs were beginning to shut down. And once that happened, it was only a matter of time before his kidneys followed, and his liver. And then he would be facing multiple organ failure, and Dean didn’t need to see the gravity of the doctor’s expression to guess what followed that.
He had glanced at his father after Dr. Webber’s explanations. Despite his twenty years, despite the responsibility and the maturity that had been thrust on him at an early age, there was still that part of him that instinctively wanted his father’s reassurance. He wanted to see his father nod and half-smile. He wanted to hear him say that it would be okay, that Sam would be fine. But all he had seen was a brief flash of something that might have been fear, or guilt, or anger, or any one of a complex array of emotions, and then the mask had come down. Dean knew that his father was worried. He’d lived and worked with the man for twenty years and he knew when he was afraid. But now he just wanted some encouragement. Some comfort.
He’d had to be the adult for Sam since he was barely out of babyhood himself, having to grow up too quickly so that Sam could be a child for longer. Was it too much to ask that he not have to be the father in this situation?
“I have to be strong for you, Sammy... and I just don’t think I can. I want Dad to... I wish that Dad...” His whisper sounded unnaturally clear, words that he would never dream of saying aloud were anyone actually listening.
Sam’s limp hand stirred in his.
“D-dean...”
“Sammy?” Dean’s head jerked up, and he stared at the bed. “Hey bro! How’re you feeling?”
It was a superfluous question. Sam looked appalling, and even the sight of the open blue-green eyes was not particularly encouraging. Sam slid a dry tongue over fever-cracked lips.
“I... uh... n-not so... g-good...” The words were hoarse, hitching out between short gasps. Even from where he sat Dean could hear the crackles every time Sam breathed in. The blue tint around his mouth deepened as he tried to speak.
“Don’t talk, Sammy... you need to rest, okay?”
Sam’s gaze slid dully away, to the foot of the bed and then with an effort to the other side of the room, the empty side, where their father should have been but wasn’t. Dean saw the brief flicker of eyelashes.
“Dad went to get coffee.” For all he knew, it might be the truth. He just couldn’t let his little brother think that their father didn’t care.
Sam coughed, wincing feebly, and lay for a long moment staring at the ceiling.
“He’ll be back pretty soon, dude.” The words fell heavily into the silence between them.
“Dean...”
“Mmm?”
“I... uh... I think... ‘m not... gonna m-make it.”
Dean’s hand tightened involuntarily around his brother’s, as his lungs seemed to tighten and squeeze out his breath.
“Sam...” It didn’t sound like his voice.
“D-don’t feel... g-good at... all...” The glazed eyes were still fixed on the ceiling.
“Sam, no...”
“T-tried... but... so t-tired...”
Dean swallowed thickly. Then the blue-green gaze met his, those familiar eyes even bigger than usual against the hollow-cheeked pallor. They were wet and fearful.
“De... I’m scared...”
It was the voice of a five-year-old Sammy, the soft plea of a little brother craving comfort after a nightmare or safety in a thunderstorm. The tiny quivering voice and big terrified eyes had always reached that part of Dean that nothing else did. Sam had always come to Dean, and Dean had always comforted him. That wasn’t going to change, even if Sam was now sixteen and almost as tall as his big brother.
Even if Dean was even more afraid of this enemy than Sam was.
The bed grumbled creakily as it received the weight of another body. Somehow managing to avoid the multiplicity of tubes and lines and leads that were attached to Sam, Dean tugged his brother against him, one arm holding him firmly. Sam sighed, and his head turned naturally into the curve of Dean’s neck.
“It’s okay, bro... it’s okay... don’t talk about... about... don’t even think about that, you’re gonna be fine, Sammy, you hear me? I know you’re feeling gross right now, but in a few days you’ll be bustin’ out of this place...” He could feel the heat of fever where Sam’s forehead pressed against his chin.
“We could go to Pastor Jim’s... all those books you’ve been wanting to read... and Pastor Jim’s hot chocolate! I don’t even like hot chocolate but I’ll always drink his...”
“P-pancakes...” Sam’s voice was a thin whisper. Dean laughed on one soft breath.
“Every day. Choc chip, with syrup. And roast chicken for dinner, with potatoes, and stuffing... you’re gonna be sick of hospital food by then. Oh, and Sam, remember last time he was talking of getting a new dog? Pastor Jim might even let you help train it.”
Thick eyelashes tickled his neck.
“And maybe once you’re feeling better, we can do some driving. You need some more practice.”
“I-i’ th’ ‘mpala...?”
“Hell, yeah. But you better be careful with my baby, Sammy. No riding the clutch or I’ll kick your ass.”
“J-jerk...” Sam was nestled against him, his eyes shut. The monosyllable drifted faintly.
Dean’s free hand cupped his neck, fingers tangling in the damp strands of chestnut hair. His eyes blinked fiercely.
“Bitch.”
His arm tightened around the limp figure of his little brother. Sam didn’t react, and Dean knew he’d slipped away again, into sleep or unconsciousness.
“Sammy...” It came out choked, half-strangled between clenched teeth.
Pancakes.
Roast chicken.
Books and dogs and the Impala.
“Sam has Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome...”
“Respiratory failure...
“Could develop multiple organ failure.”
The doctor believed Sam was going to die.
Dean knew it, could see it in the gravity of his expression and the way his mouth tightened every time he examined his patient. He could tell from the way Dr. Webber’s attitude had softened slightly towards Sam’s family.
And Dean had nothing to fight that with.
He’d always had weapons. He’d looked after Sam, protected his baby brother, shot or stabbed or burned whatever was threatening him, even used his fists when there was nothing else. He was the shield that kept Sam safe. He knew what was out there, but somehow there’d been an unconscious and unshakeable determination that nothing would get Sam as long as Dean was around to stop it.
But this... how did he fight this? This was like nothing he’d ever faced before. It was almost ironic. They’d spent their lives battling things most people only met in their worst nightmares, and then Sam fell prey to something so non-supernatural. And there was nothing Dean could do to stop it, no bullets or silver or salt.
He tilted his head and leant his cheek against the softness of dark tangled hair. Sam had always had stubborn hair. It went its own way, defiantly rebelling against discipline. Like Sam himself.
I can’t stop this, Sammy. I can’t help you.
He’d known they’d have to go sometime. They danced with danger too much to be naive about that. But he’d always thought it would be later. When they were older, when Sam was grown up. And he’d always known he’d be the one to go first.
He’d known because he knew he couldn’t live without Sam.
And now all he could do was hold on to his brother with a desperate grip and feel him slipping away.
His fingers moved idly, palm stroking his little brother’s arm.
“I don’t know what to do, Sammy...”
He stared blankly at the opposite wall. It shimmered, blurred with the tears that he made no attempt to wipe away.
***********************************************************
It was monotonous, the regular dull tone in his ear. It seemed to mock him. He could imagine the phone ringing in the rectory, calling out with no-one there to respond. There was a brief pause, and the familiar voice came on the line, but it was only the answering machine.
“... please leave a message after the beep.”
He heard the beep, and the expectant silence that followed. He listened to the silence, and stood in equal silence, until the answering machine gave up on him and the dial tone hummed.
He should have left a message. But what would he say? “Hey there, just to let you know my boy is very ill and they think he’s going to die”?
He pressed the phone against his forehead and leant against the wall for a moment. He’d only left his sons to make the phone call. He should go back. He needed to go back. He’d seen the look in Dean’s eyes, the look that his son probably didn’t even realise he was wearing. Dean was strong, physically and emotionally. But this was breaking him. He needed his father to be there.
And Sam... John didn’t even know if Sam was aware of them anymore. He’d slipped from delirium into semi-coma, and didn’t respond to their voices or their hands on his. Dean sat with him and held his hand, and looked at his face with eyes that grew ever more haunted, and John sat and watched them both and felt the emotion build up inside until he thought he’d explode.
That was why he’d left. The phone call was just an excuse. He’d needed a moment to breathe. He’d needed to get away from the physical evidence of his failure.
John knew Dean was angry with him. He’d tried to explain his motives to his older son. Sam needed training. He needed to toughen up, to be more careful. He needed to be prepared for the horrors that were out there.
“Face it, Dad. This time? It was you he was up against.”
All his carefully stated explanations crumbled in the face of that.
Sam had been injured on that hunt. He’d fallen hard enough to cause internal bleeding. And he’d been so intimidated that he hadn’t dared to admit it. His own father had yelled at him, called him careless and irresponsible, when he should have been checking that he was okay. He’d looked Dean over and completely ignored the possibility that Sam might be hurt as well. Instead of the care he’d needed, Sam had received a stinging rebuke. Instead of being praised for his killing of the harpy, he’d been punished.
At what point had John ceased to be a father and become a drill sergeant?
“You’ve got his head so messed up that he thinks he deserves to be sick...”
“Sir?” An orderly paused in his rush from and to who knew where, and eyed him with cautious concern.
John blinked. He gave the man a meaningless smile, mumbled something and walked away, leaving the orderly in the corridor gazing after him.
***************************************************************
The room was quiet when he walked in. He’d expected to hear Dean talking, to hear the deep quiet tones of his older son as he rambled. John had listened to some interesting conversations over the last few days. He might even have been amused at the range of random topics that his son managed to discuss, had it not been for his horrible awareness of how one-sided those conversations were.
As had become his habit, his first glance was at the cardiac monitor. The little squiggles were still there. Too fast, but that was infinitely preferable to a straight line.
His gaze shifted, and he stood still for a moment. Dean was on the bed, next to Sam. Sam’s face was turned into Dean’s neck, his eyes closed, and the fingers of one hand twisted slackly in the fabric of Dean’s sweater. Dean’s arm curled firmly around his little brother.
Dean’s eyes were shut, and he breathed heavily. He didn’t stir as John came to the side of the bed and stood looking down at his sons. Sleep had smoothed out the lines of fear on his face.
It couldn’t hide the tear tracks. It couldn’t hide the wetly clumped eyelashes that drove a stake of agony through the oldest Winchester.
Sam cried. Sam shed tears when he was upset, when his fights with his father were particularly intense, on occasion when a brutal nightmare caught him off-guard. But Dean didn’t. Dean just became stony-faced.
Dean’s tears told his father that he’d given up hope.
John reached for the blanket which a nurse had brought in some days ago, unfolded it and spread it carefully over his sons. Then he sat heavily down in the chair beside the bed.
It was a familiar sight. He couldn’t remember how many times he’d seen his sons like this, a little chubby Sammy snuggled tightly against his big brother, Dean’s arm curved protectively around him. Sam had always had vicious nightmares, and more often than not had ended up in his brother’s bed.
Sam still had the nightmares, but the cuddling had dropped off. There wasn’t much bed-sharing now, unless the current motel room demanded it.
But the bond was still there. John didn’t have much experience with children other than his own, but he knew that his sons were unusually close. They had their arguments, of course. But either one would take a bullet for the other. Dean was still fiercely protective of his brother, and he was still the one to whom Sam went first when things went wrong. The hugging was kept to a minimum now. The love that had produced it was as strong as ever.
All those years ago Sam would have come to his father. He would have cried and complained of being hurt, and feeling sick. And John would have responded, looking after his little son, dealing with his problems. Sam had been easier then, before the teenage angst and hormones. He’d adored his father. He’d sought his approval. He’d come to him for comfort, and he’d received it.
John had lost touch with him since those days. He didn’t even know how to communicate with Sam without starting an argument. He loved both his sons, desperately, but he couldn’t show it anymore. The father that would have hugged and comforted his little boys had been buried deep under the Marine who disciplined and regimented his teenagers.
Sam had been too intimidated to tell him that he was hurt. Sam had struggled, alone, until he’d collapsed with injuries that should have been noticed by his father.
And now Sam was dying in a hospital bed. It was too late to take it back, too late to change things. Too late to show his son how much he was loved.
He shifted closer to the bed, reached for the hand that wasn’t gripping Dean’s sweater. Long, limp fingers were motionless, curling slightly in his grasp. His thumb stroked slowly against hot skin which stretched too tightly over fragile bones.
“Sammy...”
There was so much that needed to be said.
Sorry...
I was wrong...
You did good...
I love you.
There were a million words and none of them could get past the blockage that wasn’t just a choking lump of tears that he couldn’t shed. He hadn’t said these things for years, had somehow imagined that training and discipline would show his boys how he felt without the necessity of speech, and now that there was no time he couldn’t break the habit.
******************************************************************
Dr. Webber cupped the back of his neck with a sigh, fingers massaging tired muscles. On the table in front of him printouts reduced his patients to a series of numbers and statistics, figures that he didn’t really have the energy to scrutinise.
He’d always been fairly good at distancing himself from the emotional turmoil of his job. He was compassionate, but there were just too many tragic situations for him to allow himself to become attached. He’d learnt ways of breaking bad news, of gently informing family when there was no hope, and then of leaving it behind him when he went home.
He couldn’t explain to himself why it was so difficult this time.
Young Sam Winchester was gravely ill. He’d been brought in far later than he should have been, far beyond when his illness might have been easily dealt with. It seemed now that every time his results came back, some new complication had developed.
The Winchesters were an odd family. Aggressive. Secretive. Sam had been adamant, as far as he was able, that he wasn’t being abused; Dr. Webber’s first interaction with the older Winchesters hadn’t done much to convince him of the validity of Sam’s assertion. If he had to be honest, he still did not find much to approve of in Sam’s father.
But he’d watched the older brother. He’d seen the way he never left the room, the way he sat holding Sam’s hand and talking to him even when Sam was obviously unaware of his presence. He could see the increasing anguish as Sam’s condition deteriorated. He’d seldom seen such a strongly protective relationship between siblings. Whatever their father’s attitude, Dean Winchester would no more abuse his little brother than deliberately injure himself.
Dr. Webber pulled his spectacles from the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes, putting off briefly the moment when he’d have to go in there and tell them that Sam was just getting worse.
********************************************************************
Dean’s eyes were burned-out sockets.
The young man who shied away from demonstrations of affection, from showing his feelings, had always had expressive eyes. Anger, excitement, amusement... they betrayed him even when his face was impassive.
John had seen it all over the last week. Alarm, bordering on panic, when they first found Sam collapsed in the bathroom. Determination when he insisted they get the youngest Winchester to hospital. Anger, directed at John himself, and frustrated resignation at his father’s response to that anger. And love, fierce and tender, when he sat with his little brother, comforting, soothing. Holding on.
Now there was just... nothing. Anger and determination had given way over the days to fear. John had hated that, the weakness that he knew his son didn’t want to show. But now fear had faded to blankness.
Dean had given up.
He was beyond devastation, beyond anything more than sitting beside his deathly ill brother and holding his hand.
“Dean...”
Dean blinked slowly, as if surfacing from a deep sleep, and looked at him.
And John didn’t know what to say.
He wanted to comfort his son. He wanted to tell him that everything would be alright, that Sam would be fine. That this was all just a nightmare from which they would wake soon. But it wasn’t a dream. He was losing his baby, and Dean was losing his little brother, and nothing could be alright after that.
He swallowed and looked away, aware of Dean’s gaze but unable to meet it any longer.
He almost didn’t notice the movement at first.
Then the hot, limp hand in his stirred slightly, and his head swung round. Sam’s eyes were open.
“Sam!”
In his peripheral vision he saw Dean jerk upright.
The unfocused blue-green gaze slid away, shifted to look at the other occupant of the room. John heard Dean’s breath catch.
“Sammy -”
Something flickered across Sam’s face, an expression John couldn’t identify.
“No. Sammy... please...” Dean’s voice broke.
Sam’s eyes widened a little. His gaze drifted to his father for one brief moment, and John felt something inside him die at the desolation in his son’s eyes.
“Sam...” he choked. Tears were beginning to blur his vision.
Sam’s mouth moved, but whatever he tried to say was obscured by the oxygen mask, and his eyes slid slowly shut.
His breath faltered.
Then he was still.
Part 8