Matching Weight 1/3
Title: Matching Weight 1/3
Authors: beckalooby &moviegeek03
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Hurt!Sam, slightly mean!Dean.
Characters: Sam and Dean. Gen.
Disclaimer: These characters are not ours, we’re just borrowing them to make this story.
Summary: Dean is hurt on a hunt, Sam can’t feel worse about it, except he can when he realizes he’s hurt too, he can’t do anything right these days it seems. Set in Season 2
Beckalooby A/N: For a long time I’ve wanted to do a ‘take it in turns to write’ type of fic and a couple of weeks back I had an idea but I thought it would fall flat if I wrote it by myself, so I asked my lovely friend moviegeek03 if she would be interested in joining forces with me and weh-hey she said yes! I’m honored! And so happy!!! Hope you guys liked what we cooked up for you!
moviegeek03 A/N: This is my first time every working with another writer, and I've had a blast doing this with beckalooby!
Sam moves to grab the bags, all of them. They’re heavy when they’re all on one shoulder, his laptop bag, his and Dean’s duffels filled with clothes and the usual on the road necessities. And being hurt but trying to hide it, makes them weigh even more.
“I got it,” Dean insisted, moving his good hand out to take it from his brother.
“No, I got ‘em,” Sam sort of snaps, closing the trunk lid and resisting the urge to support his side while he reaches up.
“What’s got your panties in a wad? I’m the one with the fucked arm remember?”
Dean is in a bitch of a mood, hurting and trying to stir up some frustrations in his brother, misery loves company and all that. The last hunt didn’t go so well, Dean ended up with a dislocated shoulder, again, thirty one stitches up the very same arm complete with an infection, and it was putting them out of commission for at least another day or two.
Sam doesn’t take the bait; he’s too sore to argue tonight. He just dumps the bags in the appropriate beds before taking off to the bathroom with his shower gel and toothpaste.
“Don’t use all the hot water again princess!”
Sam sighs closing the door behind him, deciding he’s not having a shower tonight…there is only ever enough water for one person in crappy motels like this one, if you were lucky. Sam can’t handle his brother whining for hours in the car tomorrow about how he was hurt and how if anyone deserved the warm water it was him. Yeah he did, with all he’d been through these last few months, almost dying, dad dying for him, dad dying period. Dean needed a break in life already, but fuck did he have to keep droning on about it to the one person that already knows all too well?!? Sam got it, he got it more than probably Dean himself did, he’d gone over it enough times inside his head, so he was sick to death of hearing it outside as well.
He takes out his tooth paste and squeezes some over his brush, holding his free hand around his middle as sweeps back and forth over all of his teeth, wincing when he bends down to spit out the foam and rinse his mouth out.
It had been three days since he was tossed into a grave head first. The gash along his hairline was closing up quickly, but his ribs, if anything, were getting worse. He thought it was a cracked rib or two, the bruises certainly pointed to that conclusion. But the black and blue was spreading, plus they felt deeper than just bone and the usual throb of cracked ribs was blooming into a fast burning sensation. Usually he’d tell Dean, in a manly way of course with a grunt and a shrug. Something like ‘dude my side feels like a bitch’ or ‘man that ghost must have hit me harder than I thought.’ Whatever it was he said, it would trigger a chain reaction of Dean’s over protective brotherly senses. He’d ask Sam countless questions, being thorough like any good doctor and with the information Sam would give him. He would then choose the best course of action, be that stronger pain killers or a trip to the local clinic.
This time though, Sam felt like he was on his own. Dean had too much on his shoulders weighing him down already, he didn’t need Sam’s complaining over something as miniscule as sore ribs added to his pile of steamy shit.
He’d give it a few more days and if by the next time they found a hunt it wasn’t better, he’d get checked out. He wasn’t any good to Dean slow and clumsy, one hand on his gun and the other clutched to his side. What hand would he hold the holy water or salt in that case?
SPN
It wasn’t any better…five days later…almost a week…and his ‘sore ribs’ were even putting pressure on his breathing now. He’d been lucky and kept it from Dean for all this time, a lifetime in overbearing brother terms. But last night he wasn’t so lucky. He’d dropped the ball with the latest spook of the month, leading Dean to ask ‘Dude what the fuck is wrong with you? Get your ass up and get moving!’ Which was the current version of Dean saying ‘Are you okay?’
Okay maybe it wasn’t, but Sam was just keeping himself humored, deluding himself that Dean still cared a little. If you couldn’t give yourself a little happy lie when you hurt this bad, when could you?
Dean was currently interviewing new witnesses from a Poltergeist attack while Sam was at the library doing research on the history of deaths around the place, or so he said he was.
“Samuel Bloom?”
Sam stands and follows the doctor into a small room, a desk and chairs at one end, an examining table on the other. Sam always hated rooms like this; they still had the chill of hospitals but were never equipped enough to actually do much good besides prod and poke you. They would tell you what was wrong followed by ‘I’ll have to refer you to the local hospital.’ Sam had heard that too many times. He still wonders why Dean takes him to clinics when things were bad bad…might as well just skip and go to the ER straight away. Or maybe his big brother did it to comfort them both, thinking that if they just went to the clinic then it might not be as serious. It was almost never the case but again, delusion was a wonderful thing…it was nice and warm and safe.
“What seems to be the problem today?”
Sam clears his throat and his thoughts. “My sides been hurting for a while.”
The graying doctor eyes him, “What would you call a while?”
“A week, maybe two.”
“Have you been doing any exercises lately that might have resulted in an injury?”
Sam rolls his eyes. You have no idea. “Me and my brother got into a bar fight, been hurting ever since. I thought it was cracked ribs but now I’m not so sure.”
“What type of pain is it?”
“Um… started off as just an ache, but now it kind of burns and feels like someone’s sticking a knife in my side if I lift my arm too far.”
The man nods, and Sam knows already this is too much for the good doc to handle…why they even bother with medical school he doesn’t know. Waste of time spending all those years training to treat nothing but minor coughs and colds.
“Okay, if you’ll hop up here I can take a feel of your ribs.”
Sam moves from the chair, his arm still in its safe place around his middle and lays down on the table, pulling up his shirt and tee underneath. It was a nice time saver for them both, because the doc was just going to ask him to do it in about a second anyway.
The man tries not to look alarmed by the amount of swelling and marbled purple on Sam’s abdomen, but he’s good at reading people and this guy was bad at putting a mask on over his wide shocked eyes. On the bright side, it was only one side of his stomach that looked like road kill.
“You said you did this in a fight?”
Sam nods, even though he knows the doctor doesn’t believe him. It’s not like can say ‘Actually no, me and my brother were hunting down this ghost that got murdered by his wife in 1986 and when we were salting a burning his remains to stop anyone else from getting killed, he sort of didn’t like the plan and tossed me into the air straight for John Franks grave stone.’ Yeah, that would go down well. Forget referral to the hospital, he’d be heading right for the nutty farm and there wouldn’t be a choice in the matter.
“Well this looks like you’ve got some internal damage here, and there’s not much I can do for that so I’m going to-”
“Refer me to the hospital. Yeah, I get it.”
The doctor raises his eye brows.
“I get a lot of bar fights… my brother… he’s a little frustrated these days and biker crowds help release the tension I guess.”
“Well we can’t choose our families, but may I suggest spending a little less time with that brother of yours, at least until you’re fit to back him up in the bar again.”
Sam smirks…okay this guy wasn’t so bad. He takes the slip of paper once the doctor writes it up and tells him it should get him bumped into the front of the ER waiting queue and he’ll call ahead on his behalf so he can get seen to quicker.
Sam checks the time, he’s been in there half an hour, another hour or two in the hospital shouldn’t raise any alarms with Dean. Hell, maybe he got to the library and it was closed and he spent the rest of the afternoon looking for another one but found squat. Yeah, that would work.
SPN
“What?”
“Surgery, I’m sorry son but you’ve got a sizable tear in your liver and this isn’t one of those that’s going to magically close up on its own accord in a few weeks. If you’d have been on complete bed rest when you first got the injury then maybe but… now you’re going to have to go through with this operation or you’ll risk liver failure and your body going to go into shock. If, and when, that happens, you won’t make it back here in time for us to fix that tear, it will be too late.”
“But… I don’t have time for surgery, isn’t there any other way you can fix this? Pills? I can make sure I get bed rest until I feel better.” Sam’s not stupid, he’s a genius in fact, but when it came to his health, he’s always been seriously dense. He’s lucky he’s always had Dean to hold that fort for him as well, otherwise he wouldn’t have made it past his early teens with how much of a klutz he was.
“It’s only a small procedure son, and it might not even require an overnight stay. I do always recommend it to be safe but if you’re so adamant on getting in and out quickly then I’m sure we can organize something.”
Sam takes a few seconds to decide. He may only have one option with the surgery but the aftercare was a different matter to consider.
“How long would it take, from when I walk into the building to when I can walk back out again? How long would I be here?”
“Well… half an hour pre op to get you prepared for surgery. The operation itself takes about an hour and half, and then another hour for recovery and getting you to your feet without seeing double from the anesthesia. I’d say three hours minimum.”
Three hours, three hours for Dean to go out, have a few beers, hook up with a busty blonde, or brunet, or red head…Dean liked them all…and Sam could be back at the motel before he even realized he’d been missing.
“Okay, what’s the latest tomorrow you can do it?”
The young doctor this time, holds up a finger telling Sam to wait a second before he checks the records on the computer. “Five in the afternoon is the latest slot.”
Sam chews his lip, nodding eventually, he’d just have to push Dean out of the door and to the nearest bar a little earlier than usual, not that his brother would have a problem with that, it was ten at night somewhere as he’d say.
The doctor runs over all the risks, how the keyhole thing works, how he won’t be able to eat all day tomorrow, all the usual surgery crap.
“If you’re going to go home then you need someone to pick you up, hospital regulations, is there anyone that can watch you overnight and take you home?”
“Yeah, yeah that’s no problem.” Calling for cab to meet him outside the hospital at eight PM was no problem, sure the driver wouldn’t be willing to stay overnight in the motel room watching Sam for signs of internal bleeding, but the doctor didn’t have to know that.
“Okay, that’s everything, bed rest for the rest of the evening and tomorrow and I’ll see you in the evening.”
“Thanks.”
Sam leaves looking and feeling pastier than he started the day, but his plan was going to work tomorrow night. The only hard part would be hiding it from Dean all day.
SPN
“Hey, where were you?”
Sam freezes in the doorway of the motel as Dean’s annoyed voice floats through the small space. He had so hoped to avoid this argument. His side is killing him, sending pain searing through his whole body with each step. All he wants is to climb under the crappy motel covers and not move ‘til it is time to go back to the hospital. But it looks like that is not what Dean is going to allow him to do…
“I told you Dean, I was going out to do some research at the library.”
“It takes this damn long to look through some old files?”
Shit….
“No…the library was closed. So I had to try to find another one in the next town over. With the bus ride and the time it took to get there and back, I didn’t get much chance to find anything for us.”
Dean looks less than convinced, but doesn’t keep at it, much to Sam’s relief. “Whatever…look I’m heading out for the night. Don’t wait up…”
“Never do,” Sam mumbles too low for Dean to notice. He understands that his brother needs the time to heal, but this is becoming too much. Sam misses being able to just crash at the motel and watch crappy movies on TV. But lately Dean hasn’t been able sit still long enough for anything of the sort. Any time he would allow himself to relax, the memories of his dad’s death and the aftermath would soon invade his peace. Because of that, Sam never bothers to push the issue, instead opting to allow Dean whatever it is he needs.
Without another word, Dean leaves the motel room and heads out for the nearest dive filled with lots of booze and women. Sighing, Sam moves towards the bathroom to take a quick shower. While the water feels amazing on his sore body, the motions of actually bathing sends searing pain down his side. He decides to make the shower as quick as possible and head to bed early.
Sleep does not come easy for the hurting hunter. The pain from the tear in his liver simply does not allow for a comfortable position to sleep in. Finally, after over an hour of trying, exhaustion overtakes Sam and sends him into blissful oblivion…
“Rise and shine, Sammy!”
The loud voice echoes through Sam’s aching head. The lack of sleep combined with the soreness of his body leaves Sam feeling like death. Sam would like nothing more than to stay curled under the covers and ignore the world.
Dean has other plans…
A pillow from the unoccupied bed goes flying through the air with a decent amount of force behind it before landing directly on Sam’s injured side. The throbbing ratchets up a couple of notches, something Sam didn’t believe was possible. He wakes with a gasp falling from his lips. Before he is able to recover, Dean flops down on to the bed, jostling Sam’s pain riddled body.
“Stop,” he manages to slur out through his clenched teeth.
Dean huffs instantly. “Stop being such a princess, bitch. I was just waking you up so you could eat. I grabbed some donuts and coffee on my way back home this morning. Excuse me…”
The smell from the paper box hits Sam and floats through the pained haze. He starts to get up to grab one when a twinge in his side brings him back to reality. He can’t eat…not before surgery…
“Um, no thanks Dean. I appreciate it, but I’m not all that hungry.”
“Ok…Just figured you didn’t eat much yesterday. But, whatever, man,” Dean says around a mouth full of crumbly pastry.
“How’s the arm?” Sam asks when he notes Dean isn’t wincing once while he lifts it to and from his mouth, shoveling food in.
“I’ll live.”
“Yeah… sorry,” Sam says, because he knows that was a hit at his impressive backing up skills lately.
“Whatever princess. Just get up and dressed. I want you to do some research on a new hunt while I take care of the poltergeist problem.”
“You doin’ it alone?” Sam tries hard not to allow the hurt to escape into his voice.
“Yeah… it is an easy hunt Sam. I can take care of it myself. I want you to start searching for the next one. I want to be able to leave in the next day or two.”
With another sigh, Sam throws the covers off his body and slowly makes his way out of the bed to the bathroom. His movements are stiff, and he silently prays Dean won’t notice.
“What’s wrong with you? I didn’t hit you that hard. Don’t be a dick and act like I did.”
“I’m not!” Sam snaps and for a moment real concern flashes in Dean’s eyes. Sam desperately longs for his brother’s concern and help, but knows he can’t allow that right now. “It’s the damn bus from yesterday. The seats are too close together and small. I was really cramped up the whole time. Guess my muscles are just sore.”
Dean easily accepts the explanation, and Sam breathes a sigh of relief as he goes to hide out in the bathroom. He is breathing heavily by the time he shuts himself in the smaller room. ‘Today is going to be a long day,’ Sam thinks.
SPN
Sam’s earlier thoughts come back to haunt him throughout the day. It is long and filled with pain every step of the way. Part of him is really glad he’s going in for surgery that evening… he’s not sure how much more of this he could take.
During his time at the library he nearly passes out on the computer and books spread out in front of him. The glares the snooty librarian sends his way manage to keep him fairly alert. But he doesn’t get much work accomplished. Around one in the afternoon, Sam gives in and slowly treks back to the motel. Once there, he throws himself on the bed, not even bothering to undress…
And that is how Dean finds him a couple of hours later. He shakes his head and lets out a frustrated sigh at the sight. “Guess it’s a good thing I planned on doing this hunt alone,” he mutters to himself. He grabs a notepad from the table and jots a quick note to Sam, just to let him know he is going to go through with the hunt and will then hit the local bar again, before grabbing his gear and heading out for the night. He shuts the door to the motel behind him hard, startling Sam awake in the process. Dean hears Sam’s gargled awakening, but doesn’t bother to go back in. He instead walks to the Impala and drives off to the hunt.
“Wh…” Sam half sits up in bed and looks around the motel room. His eyes first settle on the alarm clock, which reads 3:30 PM. He then notices the note sitting a few inches from the clock. He struggles to free himself from the bed; although it is painful, he manages to crawl out and grab the note. He shoulders slump with each word, but he knows there isn’t much he can do about it at this point. So, instead of crawling back into bed and wallowing like he would love to do, Sam shuffles over to his duffle bag to get everything he needs for his trip to the hospital. Each step ratchets the pain up to another notch, making Sam feel ten times worse than we he started. Knowing there is no way he would survive a walk to the hospital like he planned, he places a quick call into the local cab company and anxiously waits for it to arrive.
The time passes in a blur, and before he knows it he is laid out in pre-op as a nurse moves around his bed. The exhaustion and soreness are making it hard for him to concentrate on whatever she’s saying… something about needles, drugs, and anesthesia…it isn’t like Sam has never heard any of it before. His anesthesiologist and surgeon file in not long after the nurse hooks up his IV; they quickly go over the procedure. He nods in understanding and soon feels the pull of the drugs flooding his bloodstream. After that everything become lost to the sweet, pain free oblivion.
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