Losing and Leaving (2/2)
Title: Losing and Leaving
Rating: PG-13 (some harsh language)
Disclaimer: Nothing you recognize is mine. I gain nothing of materialistic value from this.
Pairings: Gen.
Summary: Dean thought a few times that he’d lose his brother because of a mistake. When it actually happened, it was Sam’s own choice. A sequence of pre-series firsts for the brothers.
Part 1
XXXXXXXXXXX
The first time Sam got hurt-actually hurt this time, not just conked lightly on the head-they were on foot in the woods, and Dean found out what medications not to use on his brother.
By then, Dean had graduated from high school and didn’t have to pretend to care about grades anymore. Sam, at sixteen, was sullen and disobedient and not yet comfortable in his freakishly still-growing body. Still, they’d been taking routine hunts together, just the two of them, for over a year by then, and if they weren’t as experienced as older hunters, they made up for it by the way each knew the other’s moves before they happened. Not that Dean would ever say it in front of their dad-who would think they were getting overconfident, and already did think that sometimes-but they were getting pretty damned good.
The wendigo, though, was better. They’d thought they could take it, but being out the woods, away from civilization, with the Impala at a motel miles and miles away with their dad...
“No, no, stay with me, Sam,” Dean ordered, his fingers skittering over his brother’s leg, almost giddily remembering the time when the blood welling between his fingers had been his own. This time, there was no question it was Sam’s, and god, there was so much of it...
“Where is it?” Sam gasped, falling back completely to lie flat. “Wendigo? Did you-ah...”
“It’s dead.” Dean ignored the panting breaths as he pressed hard on the torn flesh of Sam’s thigh, lifting the leg at the same time to leave it elevated on a nearby log and hoping he wasn’t doing more damage. “Don’t move around. It might’ve hit your artery, so I gotta get the bleeding stopped.”
Might have hit the artery, hell. The way the sonuvabitch’s claws had raked through, Sam was lucky he still had the leg at all.
Sam’s eyes were squeezed shut, but he peeled them open to fix on Dean. “S’it bad?” he whispered. “It looks...”
“It’s not that bad,” Dean lied, avoiding the searching gaze as he ripped a shirt off. “Just gonna tie it off until we can get to our packs.” A choking sound met his ears as he tightened the makeshift tourniquet.
“No, stop...”
“Sam, I have to get the bleeding-”
“No, not that.” Sam’s hand closed over his forearm. “You?”
Completely lost, Dean stopped and ran his eyes over his brother’s supine form. “I what?” He’d run a quick check for other injuries, but had he missed something?
Sam took a shallow breath. “It hit you. Into...the tree.”
“Jesus, Sammy.” He wiped a hand over his brow in exasperation. “I’m bruised, is all.”
“...hmm.”
Dean glanced up to see Sam’s closed eyelids again. “Hey, hey, don’t go sleeping on me!”
Sam moaned but mumbled, “We done yet?”
“Not ‘til I say we’re done,” he answered roughly. “Think you can stand? No, wait, never mind. I’m just gonna go get the kit, and I’ll be right back.”
“Don’t leave!” His eyes were wide open now, pained and scared.
Dammit. “I’m not leaving you, Sammy, but I need to get you patched up, and I’ll be faster if I don’t have to drag your gimpy ass around. Your pistol’s by your right hand, so if anything comes that’s not me...you know.”
“...Promise?”
“Promise,” he said without hesitation, then stood. “Give me, like, five minutes. And keep your damn eyes open!”
Before anyone could call him back, he was sprinting off toward the clearing where they’d camped the night before. There was a frantic moment when he thought his normally sharp sense of direction had failed him, and he’d never get there and get back before his brother bled out in the middle of the woods...
There! He grabbed Sam’s pack with the first aid kit, leaving his own-the wendigo had torn it up, and it was only by chance that they’d heard the material ripping before it had been on them. Both of them, caught sleeping on the job, literally.
When he found his way back, he called, “Sam!” and was relieved to see his brother shift a little in response, his breaths coming in gasps and his hands clenched into tight fists.
“Okay,” Dean said, willing his hands to stop shaking as he rifled through the bag with emergency first aid supplies. “You’re gonna want something for the pain first.” They were out of most of the usual, heavy-duty painkillers, and he was pretty sure Tylenol wasn’t going to cut it this time. He hesitated, then pulled out a smaller vial.
“Don’t want...” Sam said. Dean suspected it was just an automatic, mindless response, because his face was pale and tight, and he didn’t resist when Dean pulled his arm closer and pressed a syringe against it. “What is that?”
“A low dose of morphine,” Dean told him. “I don’t want to give you too much, but it should start to work pretty fast and take the edge off.” Sam laughed breathily, finishing in a groan.
“Where’d you...even get that?”
“Jefferson Cole. The man’s crazy-got every kind of drug you could want, dude, I swear. Dad traded him for some info.” He dragged up a brief smirk.
“You’ve never given me that before.”
“Yeah, well, first time for everything.”
Sam only shivered in answer, and Dean shrugged his thin jacket off to drape over him. Sam’s gaze wandered toward his leg. “Still bleeding,” he observed faintly.
“A little,” Dean replied noncommittally. It did look like it had slowed, but he couldn’t leave the tourniquet tied too long. Even as he pulled out a water bottle and clean gauze, he said, “Sam, give me your phone. Mine’s not getting reception out here.”
“Huh?”
Sam’s eyes were already going unfocused. Well, that was the last time Dean was going to dope his brother up before asking him anything serious. Not wanting to waste time trying again, he dug his fingers into Sam’s pocket to fish out the cell phone there, flinching when the movement elicited a hiss.
Damn. No reception, either. They were too deep into the woods, deeper than people were supposed to go. With no one to report them missing, no one would be looking for them here anytime soon. Sam’s leg was a mess-Dean couldn’t deal with it here, on his own, especially with infection a real possibility. And they couldn’t wait around here, anyway-how screwed up with it be to kill a wendigo, only to be eaten by a bear?
“I’m gonna wash this out, put in a couple of stitches, and bandage it up,” he said as he worked, just for something to say. Sam didn’t answer, which was probably a blessing. It didn’t stop Dean from keeping an eye on his brother’s chest to make sure it was moving, but eventually he gave that up, concentrating instead on keeping his own hands steady. It wasn’t the first time he’d patched his brother up, but it was the first time he wasn’t sure he could handle it. The bleeding had slowed, but the wound still oozed, and Dean found himself wondering distantly whether he was matching up the ragged edges properly. They were in some deep shit, and he knew it.
No. They’d be fine. Just had to get far enough out to use their phones or find a ranger. They’d make it.
“All right, that’s it,” he announced several minutes later, keeping his voice calm while his mind shrieked. “You still with me, Sam?” He glanced at Sam’s white face, then did a double-take. “Sam?”
A sheen of sweat covered Sam’s face-from pain, maybe-even as shudders racked his body. His pupils had shrunken to tiny points, the irises unnaturally bright. His eyes darted wildly, unfocused but moving as if searching for something. Dean brushed a hand to Sam’s forehead and felt clammy skin beneath his palm.
Sam whispered something, too soft for Dean to make out, and he leaned in closer until he could hear, “...no, no, don’t...stay away...”
“Sam!”
“Who’re you?” Sam said, looking at him now and speaking louder, his voice laced with terror a way Dean had never heard it before. “What did you...do to him?”
“Who...Sammy, hey, it’s me, it’s Dean.” Sam was struggling weakly to sit up more, and it was all Dean could do to keep him still. “Sam, calm down!”
“No...god, what is that?”
Whirling around to where Sam’s eyes had fixed, Dean saw nothing but trees and dirt. “What...?”
Sam was dragging himself away, whimpering in pain and something that sounded like fear. “All those shadows,” he breathed, the words starting to slur. “Crawling around...what’re they doing?”
“It’s the morphine talking,” Dean said, only realizing it now himself. He pitched his voice low, soothing, the way he did after one of Sam’s nightmares, reaching to Sam’s neck to feel the racing pulse beneath his fingers. “Sam, you’re seeing things, but there’s nothing there, okay, just me. It’s just me.” He circled a hand firmly around one of each of his brother’s wrists. Sam tugged against his grip with a low whine, but stopped soon, his strength going out.
“Dean?” Sam whispered, as if unsure, his eyes squinted.
“Yeah, it’s me. You’re hallucinating a little, but just...just listen to my voice, okay?”
“The shadows...?”
“Don’t look at them,” he ordered, then gave Sam a gentle shake until he obeyed. “Hey! Keep your eyes on me. Don’t look at the shadows.”
“Everything looks funny,” Sam murmured. “My leg feels weird...feel like something’s crawling all over me...”
“Yeah, I know, but...we can’t stick around here. Can you walk if I help you?”
“...Feel sick.” The words were punctuated with another violent shudder, and Dean pulled the jacket tighter around him.
He’d never had this problem with morphine, himself-it just made him a little lightheaded and feeling high, but nothing like this. Their dad took it fine, too. It figured that the one time he didn’t have anything else for Sam to take, he’d find out Sam reacted more strongly to it than they did.
He let some of his urgency seep into his words when he said, “I’m sorry, Sammy, I am. But can you move?”
In answer, Sam turned his head to the side and retched. Dean started, then moved to turn him more fully, supporting him as his body convulsed again.
When the bout of nausea subsided, Dean eased him back down. “You okay?” he asked, though he knew the answer. Sam kept his eyes squeezed shut and breathed in quick pants through gritted teeth. Finally, he nodded.
“Ngh...My leg’s starting to hurt again.”
“The morphine’s wearing off some,” Dean told him, knowing it would be dangerous to try to give more-not particularly wanting to try giving any more. “Come on, Sasquatch. Let’s get you out of here. Try not to move your leg more than you have to.”
He pulled Sam’s arm over his shoulders, for once thankful that they were almost the same height now, and wrapped his own arm around Sam’s waist, gripping the belt. “On three,” he said. “One, two...”
He cringed at the bitten off cry as Sam let himself to dragged upright, then fought to keep from overbalancing and staggering under his brother’s weight.
“Jesus,” Sam hissed.
“Hold it there,” Dean coached, as if he weren’t screaming internally himself. “Lean on me until you catch your breath.”
“So weak,” Sam said, his free hand coming around to grasp the front of Dean’s shirt. “Still kinda dizzy. Everything’s spinning.”
“You lost a lot of blood, bro,” Dean said, thinking that usually Sam would be the one giving this explanation. He liked it a lot better when Sam was the one giving the explanation, not getting it.
“S’making me sick.”
“That’s partly from the happy drugs.”
Sam made a sound halfway between a snort and a groan. “Not that happy.”
I’m sorry, Sammy. “Yeah, bro, I know. Here, close your eyes. Just hang onto me. You trust me?”
The hand on his shirt tightened. “Yeah. I trust you.”
It was slow going. They made frequent stops, for Dean to rest as much as for Sam, and he’d had to change the dressing on Sam’s thigh once when the bandage soaked through. Sam had vomited a few times more, his gaze still unsettled and darting about as if partly dreaming.
“How far are we?” Sam groaned three hours later.
“Almost there,” Dean said breathlessly, as if he actually knew. He’d been checking his cell phone every few minutes, hoping for a signal.
It was almost dark when Dean suddenly brought them both to a halt. “Wait, I think...hold on,” he panted, easing Sam down to rest against a tree. Sam had stopped saying anything at all an hour ago and simply dropped his head back against the bark.
The reception sucked, but if they could get through...
“911, please state your emergency,” a woman’s crisp voice greeted him, and he almost cried in relief.
“It’s my brother,” he said, sinking down to the ground and still breathing hard. “We were hiking, and he’s hurt...”
It would take a little time for anyone to reach them, since they were still away from roads and Dean knew basically where they were, but not their exact position. Still...
“Sam, we’re getting out of here,” he said once he’d hung up. “Just a little longer.”
“’M tired, Dean,” Sam breathed. His hand inched forward, and Dean stretched his own out automatically to meet it. “God. Hurts.”
“I know, but you can rest after the paramedics get here, okay?” he promised. He had a vision of letting his brother fall into a coma or something, and he wasn’t going to lose him, not after all this. “Say something.”
Sam dragged his eyes open to stare at him.
“Anything,” Dean insisted, brushing his brother’s damp fringe out of his eyes and noticing a fever starting. “I’m serious. Recite the goddamn times table. Count to a hundred or whatever. Just don’t go to sleep yet, you hear me?”
For a minute Dean wasn’t sure Sam was actually listening to him or completely understanding, but then Sam’s lips quirked up ever so slightly into the start of a smile. “Unus,” he started, his voice weak and tight. “Duo. Tres. Quattuor...”
“What a geek,” Dean muttered, though he wanted to laugh out loud. After a while, he sat next to Sam and joined in with, “Novem. Decem...”
Sam drifted off around sixty, and when Dean shook him awake, he started again at thirty-three. Dean didn’t correct him.
With a few uncharacteristic stumbles through the Latin, restarting occasionally and stumbling backwards when they hit a hundred, Dean’s tongue was tripping over quinquaginta quinque when he heard the first shouts.
“Here!” he yelled back, only noticing now how hoarse he sounded. Sam jumped at the sound, and he put a hand on his brother’s shoulder, saying, “They’re here. We’re safe, now.”
They’ll take care of you, he thought, the way I didn’t.
XXXXXXXXXX
The first time Sam ran away, it was because of a fight with Dean at the end of Sam’s junior year of high school. It wasn’t even a particularly impressive one-something about a test, not a hunt or training or anything.
And he wasn’t really running away so much as hiding in the library, which, you know, was so completely Sam that it only took a couple of hours for Dean to find him in the most isolated nook of the building. So there wasn’t really any danger of losing him, but the spark of fear whenever Sam wasn’t where he was supposed to be had never really left Dean.
“Nice hiding place,” he said, walking toward Sam’s table.
“I’m not hiding.”
“That’s not what it looks like from here,” he pointed out, although Sam did normally prefer to scrunch himself into chairs in the corner of a room, as if he could make his freakishly tall self more inconspicuous that way, so maybe he really wasn’t hiding.
“I have a test coming up.” The death grip Sam had on his pen, though, made Dean think that not a whole lot of studying was getting done. “Leave me alone, and let me study.”
“Nah,” he replied, making himself comfortable at the table. “I’m good here.”
Sam slammed his book shut then. “What is wrong with you?”
Dean raised his eyebrows. “What’s wrong with me?” Sam pressed his lips together and made to open the book again. Dean clapped a hand over the top of it first, irritation overtaking everything else. “No, Sam, let’s talk about this. What’s wrong with me? I’m not the one who stormed out the door like a little-”
“You were being a jackass,” Sam hissed at him.
Disbelievingly, he scoffed, “Yeah, and you were a model of restraint.” When Sam didn’t answer, he went on, “Dude, this is stupid. We’ve fought before, and you get all in a huff for something stupid like this?”
“That’s exactly it, Dean!” Sam leaned in toward him, his expression dark with anger. “ ‘Something stupid like this.’ This is important to me, and you and Dad are always talking about it like I’m stupid to even care!”
“What, a test? What are you even studying?” He lifted his hand off the book and turned it around. Sam made a movement as if to stop him, but when Dean raised his eyebrows, his brother leaned back and lifted his chin defiantly. It was still a surprise, though, when he looked down at the cover.
“The SATs? That’s what you’re studying for?”
“So what?” Sam asked, his tone rebellious. “Why not? You don’t think I can do it?”
Dean met the challenging stare. “It’s not a question of whether you can pass, Sam, it’s a question of what the hell you plan on doing with it.” Sometimes he thought he knew everything about his brother, and sometimes... Yeah, he knew how much Sam liked school and academics, but Dean never really got why.
“It’s not like I’m wasting research time,” Sam said, resentment clinging to his words. “I gave Dad the information he wanted, I quit soccer years ago, I’ll get the money for testing fees on my own time... Don’t worry, I’m not gonna mess up a hunt. Not for something as stupid as this,” he said, bitter mocking in his voice. “That’s all that matters to you and Dad, right?”
Guilt competed with annoyance. The latter won out. “Don’t turn this into one of your prissy fits,” he growled. “You want to do this? Fine. I’ll leave you to it.” He shoved his chair back from the table, making sure it squeaked loudly across the hardwood floor.
Sam’s head jerked up at the motion, and Dean caught something like guilt in there, too, before he bit out, “Good.”
Dean snorted and shook his head as he turned to leave, when Sam’s voice called hesitantly, “Wait. Don’t...don’t tell Dad. Please.” He paused at the desperation threading through those words. “Please. I need to do this, Dean.”
“Why?” he asked.
Sam looked down. “I need to know I can. He wouldn’t understand.”
Dean didn’t understand, either.
Two days later, he looked up the testing fee for the SATs, found some locals to hustle in a nearby bar, and left enough to cover the price in Sam’s notebook. Later, he wouldn’t be able to decide whether or not that was a mistake.
XXXXXXXXXX
The first time Dean really, truly lost Sam, it was Sam’s own choice.
“It’s not you,” Sam said, when Dean followed him out the door. Sam was panting a little, his breath hitching, and struggling with two duffle bags that contained everything he owned. “Dean, you have to believe me. It’s just...I can’t do this anymore.”
Dean leaned against the doorframe, letting his stance look casual, as if the wood behind him weren’t the only thing holding him upright. “You know, I’ve thought so many times I was gonna lose you.”
Sam met his eyes for a brief instant before he turned his face away. “You’re not losing me,” he said, his voice small.
“No. You’re leaving.”
It was dark, but Dean didn’t need to see the tears to hear them in his brother’s voice. “I never wanted to leave you.”
Dean’s jaw tightened. “But you are.”
“Dean...”
“You’ll miss your bus,” he interrupted, his traitorous fingers pulling a ticket from his pocket. “Here. You left this in the room.”
Sam’s fingers brushed once against his as he accepted the ticket, and then he was gone.
FIN
Rating: PG-13 (some harsh language)
Disclaimer: Nothing you recognize is mine. I gain nothing of materialistic value from this.
Pairings: Gen.
Summary: Dean thought a few times that he’d lose his brother because of a mistake. When it actually happened, it was Sam’s own choice. A sequence of pre-series firsts for the brothers.
Part 1
XXXXXXXXXXX
The first time Sam got hurt-actually hurt this time, not just conked lightly on the head-they were on foot in the woods, and Dean found out what medications not to use on his brother.
By then, Dean had graduated from high school and didn’t have to pretend to care about grades anymore. Sam, at sixteen, was sullen and disobedient and not yet comfortable in his freakishly still-growing body. Still, they’d been taking routine hunts together, just the two of them, for over a year by then, and if they weren’t as experienced as older hunters, they made up for it by the way each knew the other’s moves before they happened. Not that Dean would ever say it in front of their dad-who would think they were getting overconfident, and already did think that sometimes-but they were getting pretty damned good.
The wendigo, though, was better. They’d thought they could take it, but being out the woods, away from civilization, with the Impala at a motel miles and miles away with their dad...
“No, no, stay with me, Sam,” Dean ordered, his fingers skittering over his brother’s leg, almost giddily remembering the time when the blood welling between his fingers had been his own. This time, there was no question it was Sam’s, and god, there was so much of it...
“Where is it?” Sam gasped, falling back completely to lie flat. “Wendigo? Did you-ah...”
“It’s dead.” Dean ignored the panting breaths as he pressed hard on the torn flesh of Sam’s thigh, lifting the leg at the same time to leave it elevated on a nearby log and hoping he wasn’t doing more damage. “Don’t move around. It might’ve hit your artery, so I gotta get the bleeding stopped.”
Might have hit the artery, hell. The way the sonuvabitch’s claws had raked through, Sam was lucky he still had the leg at all.
Sam’s eyes were squeezed shut, but he peeled them open to fix on Dean. “S’it bad?” he whispered. “It looks...”
“It’s not that bad,” Dean lied, avoiding the searching gaze as he ripped a shirt off. “Just gonna tie it off until we can get to our packs.” A choking sound met his ears as he tightened the makeshift tourniquet.
“No, stop...”
“Sam, I have to get the bleeding-”
“No, not that.” Sam’s hand closed over his forearm. “You?”
Completely lost, Dean stopped and ran his eyes over his brother’s supine form. “I what?” He’d run a quick check for other injuries, but had he missed something?
Sam took a shallow breath. “It hit you. Into...the tree.”
“Jesus, Sammy.” He wiped a hand over his brow in exasperation. “I’m bruised, is all.”
“...hmm.”
Dean glanced up to see Sam’s closed eyelids again. “Hey, hey, don’t go sleeping on me!”
Sam moaned but mumbled, “We done yet?”
“Not ‘til I say we’re done,” he answered roughly. “Think you can stand? No, wait, never mind. I’m just gonna go get the kit, and I’ll be right back.”
“Don’t leave!” His eyes were wide open now, pained and scared.
Dammit. “I’m not leaving you, Sammy, but I need to get you patched up, and I’ll be faster if I don’t have to drag your gimpy ass around. Your pistol’s by your right hand, so if anything comes that’s not me...you know.”
“...Promise?”
“Promise,” he said without hesitation, then stood. “Give me, like, five minutes. And keep your damn eyes open!”
Before anyone could call him back, he was sprinting off toward the clearing where they’d camped the night before. There was a frantic moment when he thought his normally sharp sense of direction had failed him, and he’d never get there and get back before his brother bled out in the middle of the woods...
There! He grabbed Sam’s pack with the first aid kit, leaving his own-the wendigo had torn it up, and it was only by chance that they’d heard the material ripping before it had been on them. Both of them, caught sleeping on the job, literally.
When he found his way back, he called, “Sam!” and was relieved to see his brother shift a little in response, his breaths coming in gasps and his hands clenched into tight fists.
“Okay,” Dean said, willing his hands to stop shaking as he rifled through the bag with emergency first aid supplies. “You’re gonna want something for the pain first.” They were out of most of the usual, heavy-duty painkillers, and he was pretty sure Tylenol wasn’t going to cut it this time. He hesitated, then pulled out a smaller vial.
“Don’t want...” Sam said. Dean suspected it was just an automatic, mindless response, because his face was pale and tight, and he didn’t resist when Dean pulled his arm closer and pressed a syringe against it. “What is that?”
“A low dose of morphine,” Dean told him. “I don’t want to give you too much, but it should start to work pretty fast and take the edge off.” Sam laughed breathily, finishing in a groan.
“Where’d you...even get that?”
“Jefferson Cole. The man’s crazy-got every kind of drug you could want, dude, I swear. Dad traded him for some info.” He dragged up a brief smirk.
“You’ve never given me that before.”
“Yeah, well, first time for everything.”
Sam only shivered in answer, and Dean shrugged his thin jacket off to drape over him. Sam’s gaze wandered toward his leg. “Still bleeding,” he observed faintly.
“A little,” Dean replied noncommittally. It did look like it had slowed, but he couldn’t leave the tourniquet tied too long. Even as he pulled out a water bottle and clean gauze, he said, “Sam, give me your phone. Mine’s not getting reception out here.”
“Huh?”
Sam’s eyes were already going unfocused. Well, that was the last time Dean was going to dope his brother up before asking him anything serious. Not wanting to waste time trying again, he dug his fingers into Sam’s pocket to fish out the cell phone there, flinching when the movement elicited a hiss.
Damn. No reception, either. They were too deep into the woods, deeper than people were supposed to go. With no one to report them missing, no one would be looking for them here anytime soon. Sam’s leg was a mess-Dean couldn’t deal with it here, on his own, especially with infection a real possibility. And they couldn’t wait around here, anyway-how screwed up with it be to kill a wendigo, only to be eaten by a bear?
“I’m gonna wash this out, put in a couple of stitches, and bandage it up,” he said as he worked, just for something to say. Sam didn’t answer, which was probably a blessing. It didn’t stop Dean from keeping an eye on his brother’s chest to make sure it was moving, but eventually he gave that up, concentrating instead on keeping his own hands steady. It wasn’t the first time he’d patched his brother up, but it was the first time he wasn’t sure he could handle it. The bleeding had slowed, but the wound still oozed, and Dean found himself wondering distantly whether he was matching up the ragged edges properly. They were in some deep shit, and he knew it.
No. They’d be fine. Just had to get far enough out to use their phones or find a ranger. They’d make it.
“All right, that’s it,” he announced several minutes later, keeping his voice calm while his mind shrieked. “You still with me, Sam?” He glanced at Sam’s white face, then did a double-take. “Sam?”
A sheen of sweat covered Sam’s face-from pain, maybe-even as shudders racked his body. His pupils had shrunken to tiny points, the irises unnaturally bright. His eyes darted wildly, unfocused but moving as if searching for something. Dean brushed a hand to Sam’s forehead and felt clammy skin beneath his palm.
Sam whispered something, too soft for Dean to make out, and he leaned in closer until he could hear, “...no, no, don’t...stay away...”
“Sam!”
“Who’re you?” Sam said, looking at him now and speaking louder, his voice laced with terror a way Dean had never heard it before. “What did you...do to him?”
“Who...Sammy, hey, it’s me, it’s Dean.” Sam was struggling weakly to sit up more, and it was all Dean could do to keep him still. “Sam, calm down!”
“No...god, what is that?”
Whirling around to where Sam’s eyes had fixed, Dean saw nothing but trees and dirt. “What...?”
Sam was dragging himself away, whimpering in pain and something that sounded like fear. “All those shadows,” he breathed, the words starting to slur. “Crawling around...what’re they doing?”
“It’s the morphine talking,” Dean said, only realizing it now himself. He pitched his voice low, soothing, the way he did after one of Sam’s nightmares, reaching to Sam’s neck to feel the racing pulse beneath his fingers. “Sam, you’re seeing things, but there’s nothing there, okay, just me. It’s just me.” He circled a hand firmly around one of each of his brother’s wrists. Sam tugged against his grip with a low whine, but stopped soon, his strength going out.
“Dean?” Sam whispered, as if unsure, his eyes squinted.
“Yeah, it’s me. You’re hallucinating a little, but just...just listen to my voice, okay?”
“The shadows...?”
“Don’t look at them,” he ordered, then gave Sam a gentle shake until he obeyed. “Hey! Keep your eyes on me. Don’t look at the shadows.”
“Everything looks funny,” Sam murmured. “My leg feels weird...feel like something’s crawling all over me...”
“Yeah, I know, but...we can’t stick around here. Can you walk if I help you?”
“...Feel sick.” The words were punctuated with another violent shudder, and Dean pulled the jacket tighter around him.
He’d never had this problem with morphine, himself-it just made him a little lightheaded and feeling high, but nothing like this. Their dad took it fine, too. It figured that the one time he didn’t have anything else for Sam to take, he’d find out Sam reacted more strongly to it than they did.
He let some of his urgency seep into his words when he said, “I’m sorry, Sammy, I am. But can you move?”
In answer, Sam turned his head to the side and retched. Dean started, then moved to turn him more fully, supporting him as his body convulsed again.
When the bout of nausea subsided, Dean eased him back down. “You okay?” he asked, though he knew the answer. Sam kept his eyes squeezed shut and breathed in quick pants through gritted teeth. Finally, he nodded.
“Ngh...My leg’s starting to hurt again.”
“The morphine’s wearing off some,” Dean told him, knowing it would be dangerous to try to give more-not particularly wanting to try giving any more. “Come on, Sasquatch. Let’s get you out of here. Try not to move your leg more than you have to.”
He pulled Sam’s arm over his shoulders, for once thankful that they were almost the same height now, and wrapped his own arm around Sam’s waist, gripping the belt. “On three,” he said. “One, two...”
He cringed at the bitten off cry as Sam let himself to dragged upright, then fought to keep from overbalancing and staggering under his brother’s weight.
“Jesus,” Sam hissed.
“Hold it there,” Dean coached, as if he weren’t screaming internally himself. “Lean on me until you catch your breath.”
“So weak,” Sam said, his free hand coming around to grasp the front of Dean’s shirt. “Still kinda dizzy. Everything’s spinning.”
“You lost a lot of blood, bro,” Dean said, thinking that usually Sam would be the one giving this explanation. He liked it a lot better when Sam was the one giving the explanation, not getting it.
“S’making me sick.”
“That’s partly from the happy drugs.”
Sam made a sound halfway between a snort and a groan. “Not that happy.”
I’m sorry, Sammy. “Yeah, bro, I know. Here, close your eyes. Just hang onto me. You trust me?”
The hand on his shirt tightened. “Yeah. I trust you.”
It was slow going. They made frequent stops, for Dean to rest as much as for Sam, and he’d had to change the dressing on Sam’s thigh once when the bandage soaked through. Sam had vomited a few times more, his gaze still unsettled and darting about as if partly dreaming.
“How far are we?” Sam groaned three hours later.
“Almost there,” Dean said breathlessly, as if he actually knew. He’d been checking his cell phone every few minutes, hoping for a signal.
It was almost dark when Dean suddenly brought them both to a halt. “Wait, I think...hold on,” he panted, easing Sam down to rest against a tree. Sam had stopped saying anything at all an hour ago and simply dropped his head back against the bark.
The reception sucked, but if they could get through...
“911, please state your emergency,” a woman’s crisp voice greeted him, and he almost cried in relief.
“It’s my brother,” he said, sinking down to the ground and still breathing hard. “We were hiking, and he’s hurt...”
It would take a little time for anyone to reach them, since they were still away from roads and Dean knew basically where they were, but not their exact position. Still...
“Sam, we’re getting out of here,” he said once he’d hung up. “Just a little longer.”
“’M tired, Dean,” Sam breathed. His hand inched forward, and Dean stretched his own out automatically to meet it. “God. Hurts.”
“I know, but you can rest after the paramedics get here, okay?” he promised. He had a vision of letting his brother fall into a coma or something, and he wasn’t going to lose him, not after all this. “Say something.”
Sam dragged his eyes open to stare at him.
“Anything,” Dean insisted, brushing his brother’s damp fringe out of his eyes and noticing a fever starting. “I’m serious. Recite the goddamn times table. Count to a hundred or whatever. Just don’t go to sleep yet, you hear me?”
For a minute Dean wasn’t sure Sam was actually listening to him or completely understanding, but then Sam’s lips quirked up ever so slightly into the start of a smile. “Unus,” he started, his voice weak and tight. “Duo. Tres. Quattuor...”
“What a geek,” Dean muttered, though he wanted to laugh out loud. After a while, he sat next to Sam and joined in with, “Novem. Decem...”
Sam drifted off around sixty, and when Dean shook him awake, he started again at thirty-three. Dean didn’t correct him.
With a few uncharacteristic stumbles through the Latin, restarting occasionally and stumbling backwards when they hit a hundred, Dean’s tongue was tripping over quinquaginta quinque when he heard the first shouts.
“Here!” he yelled back, only noticing now how hoarse he sounded. Sam jumped at the sound, and he put a hand on his brother’s shoulder, saying, “They’re here. We’re safe, now.”
They’ll take care of you, he thought, the way I didn’t.
XXXXXXXXXX
The first time Sam ran away, it was because of a fight with Dean at the end of Sam’s junior year of high school. It wasn’t even a particularly impressive one-something about a test, not a hunt or training or anything.
And he wasn’t really running away so much as hiding in the library, which, you know, was so completely Sam that it only took a couple of hours for Dean to find him in the most isolated nook of the building. So there wasn’t really any danger of losing him, but the spark of fear whenever Sam wasn’t where he was supposed to be had never really left Dean.
“Nice hiding place,” he said, walking toward Sam’s table.
“I’m not hiding.”
“That’s not what it looks like from here,” he pointed out, although Sam did normally prefer to scrunch himself into chairs in the corner of a room, as if he could make his freakishly tall self more inconspicuous that way, so maybe he really wasn’t hiding.
“I have a test coming up.” The death grip Sam had on his pen, though, made Dean think that not a whole lot of studying was getting done. “Leave me alone, and let me study.”
“Nah,” he replied, making himself comfortable at the table. “I’m good here.”
Sam slammed his book shut then. “What is wrong with you?”
Dean raised his eyebrows. “What’s wrong with me?” Sam pressed his lips together and made to open the book again. Dean clapped a hand over the top of it first, irritation overtaking everything else. “No, Sam, let’s talk about this. What’s wrong with me? I’m not the one who stormed out the door like a little-”
“You were being a jackass,” Sam hissed at him.
Disbelievingly, he scoffed, “Yeah, and you were a model of restraint.” When Sam didn’t answer, he went on, “Dude, this is stupid. We’ve fought before, and you get all in a huff for something stupid like this?”
“That’s exactly it, Dean!” Sam leaned in toward him, his expression dark with anger. “ ‘Something stupid like this.’ This is important to me, and you and Dad are always talking about it like I’m stupid to even care!”
“What, a test? What are you even studying?” He lifted his hand off the book and turned it around. Sam made a movement as if to stop him, but when Dean raised his eyebrows, his brother leaned back and lifted his chin defiantly. It was still a surprise, though, when he looked down at the cover.
“The SATs? That’s what you’re studying for?”
“So what?” Sam asked, his tone rebellious. “Why not? You don’t think I can do it?”
Dean met the challenging stare. “It’s not a question of whether you can pass, Sam, it’s a question of what the hell you plan on doing with it.” Sometimes he thought he knew everything about his brother, and sometimes... Yeah, he knew how much Sam liked school and academics, but Dean never really got why.
“It’s not like I’m wasting research time,” Sam said, resentment clinging to his words. “I gave Dad the information he wanted, I quit soccer years ago, I’ll get the money for testing fees on my own time... Don’t worry, I’m not gonna mess up a hunt. Not for something as stupid as this,” he said, bitter mocking in his voice. “That’s all that matters to you and Dad, right?”
Guilt competed with annoyance. The latter won out. “Don’t turn this into one of your prissy fits,” he growled. “You want to do this? Fine. I’ll leave you to it.” He shoved his chair back from the table, making sure it squeaked loudly across the hardwood floor.
Sam’s head jerked up at the motion, and Dean caught something like guilt in there, too, before he bit out, “Good.”
Dean snorted and shook his head as he turned to leave, when Sam’s voice called hesitantly, “Wait. Don’t...don’t tell Dad. Please.” He paused at the desperation threading through those words. “Please. I need to do this, Dean.”
“Why?” he asked.
Sam looked down. “I need to know I can. He wouldn’t understand.”
Dean didn’t understand, either.
Two days later, he looked up the testing fee for the SATs, found some locals to hustle in a nearby bar, and left enough to cover the price in Sam’s notebook. Later, he wouldn’t be able to decide whether or not that was a mistake.
XXXXXXXXXX
The first time Dean really, truly lost Sam, it was Sam’s own choice.
“It’s not you,” Sam said, when Dean followed him out the door. Sam was panting a little, his breath hitching, and struggling with two duffle bags that contained everything he owned. “Dean, you have to believe me. It’s just...I can’t do this anymore.”
Dean leaned against the doorframe, letting his stance look casual, as if the wood behind him weren’t the only thing holding him upright. “You know, I’ve thought so many times I was gonna lose you.”
Sam met his eyes for a brief instant before he turned his face away. “You’re not losing me,” he said, his voice small.
“No. You’re leaving.”
It was dark, but Dean didn’t need to see the tears to hear them in his brother’s voice. “I never wanted to leave you.”
Dean’s jaw tightened. “But you are.”
“Dean...”
“You’ll miss your bus,” he interrupted, his traitorous fingers pulling a ticket from his pocket. “Here. You left this in the room.”
Sam’s fingers brushed once against his as he accepted the ticket, and then he was gone.
FIN