Thicker than Water
Rated: NC-17
Categories: Supernatural
Series: None
Chapters: 1 Completed: Yes
Word count: 3596.
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters created by Eric Kripke that appear on the show Supernatural.
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“I’ll be right back. Sit tight.”
Sam watched his brother disappear into the kitchen, hearing the cabinets being slammed shut as Dean went in search of…something. Sam wasn’t sure what he was looking for, but if his brother wanted him to move, he better come back and help him soon, because Sam didn’t know what was going to happen to him first - kiss the floor with his face, vomit all over the floor, or do a spectacular projectile vomiting across the floor and then kiss the carpet with his face.
“Sam? How you holding up?” Dean yelled from the other room, doors still slamming every few seconds.
Just fucking peachy, is what Sam wanted to say, but all that came out was a pathetic whine. He had to shut his eyes because the room was moving around like heat waves on the pavement and he had this almost unearthly ringing in his ears that was pretty much drowning out everything else.
He must have faded out for a moment because the next thing he was aware of he was sitting on the floor, Dean looming over him with what looked like panic in his eyes, but he kept the rest of his face neutral.
“Sam? You with me now?” Dean asked briskly, wrapping a tea towel around his left arm and squeezing tightly.
Sam groaned from the pressure, shutting his eyes and leaning his head back against the table.
“I told you to keep pressure on these.” Dean admonished quietly, wrapping another tea towel around Sam’s right arm, ignoring the pain filled moans from his sibling.
Sam peeled open his eyes, staring at his left hand, trying to move it. The fingers trembled minutely, and Sam hissed when he tried to move them. “Hurts to move my fingers.” He frowned at his slurred words, just as Dean looked back at him with furrowed brows.
Dean pulled Sam up gently, silently taking most of Sam’s weight when his knees buckled. “You’re going into shock, Sam. We need to leave. Now.”
Sam could feel what blood was left in his face drain away as they took a few stuttering steps towards the back door. Sam breathed heavily through his mouth, trying desperately to swallow the bile from the back of his throat to keep the bile from coming all the way up, all the while Dean mumbled reassurances beside him, even though Sam couldn’t hear them from the buzzing in his head.
Getting to the car was a trial, and Sam felt more of his consciousness desert him with each trickle of blood he could feel soaking through the makeshift bandages around his wrists. He was shaking hard now, his teeth chattering uncontrollably as he drunkenly walked through the backyard, Dean’s solid presence the only thing keeping him upright.
They were almost at the car when Sam’s knees buckled, bringing both boys to their knees on the wet grass, but not before Sam threw out an arm to stop his decent, forgetting the damage to his arms and he cried out from the fire that raced up his left arm from the impact. His vision grayed, and he tried to pant through the pain while blinking away black spots from his wonky vision.
“Shit, Sam.” Dean whispered apologetically, hating himself for every hiss and moan and hitched breath that came from his brother. Sam needed help now, or he would be burying two brothers tonight. He pulled Sam up with him and once again taking most of Sam’s weight as Sam was unable to stand up unaided.
They managed the next fifty feet to the car without incident, and he dumped his brother into the passenger seat and let him slump over, so he was lying across the bench seat as much as the car would allow. Dean raced to the other side and yanked the door open, slamming it shut as he slid him carefully, lifting Sam’s head up so he could slide his thigh under his head to act as a pillow. “Just hold on, Sammy.” He fired the engine up, while one hand reached into the back and found his jacket, draping it over his shivering brother. He grabbed Sam’s right arm and squeezed it tightly, finding his stomach churn when he felt and heard the damp towels make a sickening squishing noise from the added pressure, blood pooling where his fingertips pressed against the towel.
The headlights turned on, and the car lurched forward towards the center of town, Dean expertly weaving his way through narrowed streets and making his own shortcuts through parking lots to get to the hospital faster. “Sam, I need you to put pressure on your other arm, I can’t hold both of them while driving.” He glanced down at Sam, watching his brother blink at him, face bleached of color and his mouth sucking in air like he’d been trapped underwater.
He shook his brother’s arm lightly, getting the expected groan in response. “Sam, put pressure on that arm.” His eyes darted back and forth between the road and Sam, eyes finally resting on the road when he saw Sam shift his left arm and pressed it against his chest. “Good boy.” Dean added absently, ignoring the way Sam heaved in air, or how he could feel the blood sliding down his fingers as he increased the pressure again, leaving a bloody trail down his hand and onto his jacket from where it dripped off the tip of his knuckles.
“Hold on, Sam.”
Awareness returned to Sam with a dry mouth and eyes that refused to open. He could just make out voices at a distance, but couldn’t tell what they were saying. One might even have been Dean, but he couldn’t be sure. They cut in and out like bad reception on a TV.
He drifted off again, dreams plagued with blood and regret, death and vengeance.
He returned to the waking world sometime later, a little more aware of his surroundings, even if he hadn’t actually seen them. Crisp sheets on sensitive skin, an antiseptic smell that prevailed among all others and a phone ringing in the distance further muffled by conversations blocked out by thick walls.
Hospital.
“You awake this time, or are you just stopping in for the halftime show?” Came Dean’s cheeky answer from somewhere to his right.
“Depends.” Sam licked dry lips as he rolled his head towards his brother’s voice, eyes still frustratingly shut. “Anything to drink?”
Dean paused. “Hold on.”
Sam could feel the bed dip a moment later, and felt something wet and cold pressed up against his lips.
“Open up.” Dean prodded gently, and Sam let the ice chip slip into his mouth, feeling the water sooth his sore throat as it melted.
He turned his head away when he’d had enough and he heard the cup of ice placed back on the night stand by his head.
“Are you going to open your eyes anytime soon?” Dean asked when the room had gotten too quiet for his liking.
Sam smiled thinly. “Too tired.”
Dean snorted beside him. “Go back to sleep then, Princess.” And Sam found himself drifting off into oblivion. But not before he thought he felt Dean’s hand resting against his forehead briefly, checking for fever. That couldn’t be right - Nowadays it seemed Dean was almost afraid to touch him.
Must be a wistful memory of childhood past.
When Sam finally did open his eyes, he was met with pale white walls, light blue curtains that blocked him off, giving him privacy. He glanced around, noticing his brother wasn’t there. He did however, notice the half empty IV bag full of blood that, as he followed the tubing, was attached to his neck.
Oh yeah, that was disturbing.
He still felt weak, like his limbs were all attached with weights, and he had a monster of a headache now that he thought about it, but overall, he didn’t feel too badly.
Until he tried to move his arms, and he realized two things. One, oh my God they hurt, the burning pain started from the tips of his fingers and traveled all the way to his elbows. And second, he couldn’t move them very far and he realized why a second later when he glanced down at himself.
He was in restraints.
Sam groaned out loud then, head rolling across his pillow in frustration. Slit wrists - the doctors would think he was an attempted suicide case. Just friggin great.
Sam didn’t bother giving the restraints a gentle tug, it would only cause him more pain than he was already in, and they more than likely weren’t going anywhere.
He needed Dean.
Footsteps outside the curtain drew his attention and he let out a breath when a petite nurse stuck her head in, smiling kindly at him. “I’m just here to check your vitals, Mr. Bates.” She grabbed a clipboard from the end of his bed and began scribbling notes down, checking the machines, gently prodding his wrists, and asking him a few questions about any nausea, pain or discomfort he was feeling. She did mention that he was in restraints because he'd been trying to pry the IV line out of his neck right after surgery and they wanted to make sure the line stayed untouched. Probably also in conjunction with the 'suicide attempt' and all.
Sam didn't remember any of that.
Just before she left, he asked her to try and find his brother and she promised she would find someone who would be able to contact Dean.
With his head clearer than it had been the previous two times, he could actually think over the past few days with a head that wasn’t full of cotton or one that didn’t have a fire bell ringing in it.
Going over everything in his head, from finding out about Adam, to Dean’s volatile reaction, and looking back on his own decisions, Sam feels the bitter tang of failure on the tip of his tongue once again. One brother he never got to know is dead, and the one still here is bitter about their own lives and situation. Sam realizes now just what this whole revelation for Dean must have been like, that last seed of hero worship for their dad blinked and burned out like the dying of the candlelight. Sam never had that mentality with his dad - that was Dean’s hero. Sam had come to accept that their dad was not perfect, a flawed man who, under the circumstances, really did do the best that he could. And with Sam’s own personal issues coming to light, especially when Jessica died, he understood what his father had gone through, and what had driven him to seek revenge on the bastard that had killed their mom.
And that’s where Sam and Dean differed - Sam had Jessica ripped from him, burned and butchered in front of his eyes, and Dean was there to watch the aftermath of his family fall apart. Dean didn’t understand revenge, not like John and Sam did. Dean was the one that picked up the shattered pieces of his family, but he wasn’t touched by the darker road of vengeance. Sam was thankful that Dean seemed to be spared that. He knew the path he was on could potentially destroy him - Dean didn’t think he got that, didn’t understand it because he thought Sam was being so blinded by revenge he couldn’t see it.
Dean was wrong.
Sam knew exactly what his choices could do to them both, and Sam needed to make the hard decisions because Dean could not. Their differences in choices were made painfully obvious by Dad’s choice not to bring Adam into the family business.
Sam curled his hand into a fist, swallowing the hiss of pain it caused. It left Adam defenseless, and it left him dead.
Sam refused to let Dean be defenseless - he refused to let Dean die for him again.
“Sam?”
Sam’s eyes look up sharply towards the curtain, Dean’s face poking out between the dusty blue sheets. “Hey.”
Dean slipped in quietly, plunking himself down in the chair next to Sam’s bed with a sigh. “Finally decided to get your lazy ass up, huh?” He jested, to which Sam rolled his eyes.
“I’m tied down, so it’s not like I’m going anywhere.” Sam said, his voice husky from disuse.
The skin around Dean’s eyes ever so slightly crinkled at the corners. “Oh come on, Sam, I always knew you were a kinky bastard. The nurses will be all over you and you’ll enjoy it, don’t lie.”
Sam shook his head, not taking the bait. “They think I tried to kill myself, Dean. They’ll have me under psychiatric evaluation, you know that.” He tossed back, feeling fatigue and frustration roll over him in waves.
Dean rested a hand on his arm. “Look, I already talked to your doctor - said we got jumped just outside of town and the guy had a knife. I said you didn’t try and kill yourself, but yeah, they’ll want to talk to you whenever the tight wad doctor gets his ass in here to make sure the story checks out.”
Sam sighed. “What about the house, Dean? My blood is all over the place, and so are our fingerprints and any weapons we left in there.” Sam could feel the familiar feeling of fight or flight kicking in, and the increased stress was making him dizzy and making his headache worse.
“I called Bobby and he helped me out, okay? Don’t worry about it Sam, we’re not going to get busted for being dead fugitives, alright? Keep your panties on.”
Sam felt something ease in his chest, and he could feel himself deflate a bit, sinking into the mattress when he’d been holding himself stiff from tension just seconds earlier. “Dean?” He waited until Dean looked at him. “We have to do something with Adam. The real one.” He watched Dean’s face darken, and he opened his mouth to say something, but Dean cut him off.
“Yeah, I know we do.” He leaned back in his chair, arms crossed and continued. “But not till you’re out of the hospital, Sam.”
Sam nodded hesitantly, feeling too tired to prod Dean’s erratic behavior. “He was our brother, Dean.” Sam couldn’t help but add, feeling a new pang of grief and wary resignation.
Dean briefly closed his eyes, letting out a long sigh. “I know, Sam. We’ll give him a proper burial, okay?”
Sensing a topic change, Sam asked warily, “What was the damage?”
Dean scratched the back of his head absently, face still tightly controlled. “Well the bastards did a number on your wrists - you lost damn near 30% of your blood. You were in shock, and if I remember correctly the doctor tried to discretely say your arms were a ‘freaking mess’. Luckily they didn’t cut through the tendons, or you wouldn’t be getting much if any real use of your hands again. But it’s going to take weeks before you’re going to be able to use them properly without pain, and it’s going to leave scars.” Dean both looked and sounded apologetic. “At least the wound on your abdomen is doing alright. It didn’t go past the muscle, so the bastard wasn’t playing around with your intestines.”
They both looked vaguely green by that thought.
“Great. Guess I’ll have to wear long sleeve t-shirts for a while until they start to heal, or else people are all going to be staring at me like -” a freak. Sam didn’t finish the sentence.
Dean tried to salvage the situation, seemingly knowing where Sam’s train of thought was going. “Na, they’d just be looking past you to see me, cause really, how often are they going to see such perfection?”
Sam tried to play along with it, even if his heart wasn’t in it. “Don’t pat yourself too hard on the back, Dean, wouldn’t want to break something.”
It got quiet between them, and Sam could feel the tension renew itself between them. One small step forward for them, and a dozen or so steps backwards.
Dean cleared his throat. “Look, I’m going to go see if I can get your doctor in here to get those,” he gestured to the restraints, “off of you. It’s not like you’re going to kill yourself now without the use of your hands.” He patted Sam’s blanket covered knee as he walked past, disappearing behind the blue curtain.
Sam tried to hide his shame, knowing full well he didn’t need his hands to harm himself. And Dean was totally oblivious to that fact, one that Sam hoped like hell Dean would never find out about.
“Ow!” Sam complained, when Dean manipulated one arm through his shirt while they both sat down on the hospital bed.
“Well quit friggin moving and it won’t hurt so much!” Dean fired back, easing the bandaged arm through the sleeve as gently as he could, knowing Sam’s arms were very sensitive to touch.
Sam was finally getting discharged nearly five days after he’d been admitted. Sam didn’t want to know what Bobby and Dean had done to clean up the mess left back at Adam’s house and he’d rather remain ignorant of that fact.
“Just hurry up, will you?” Sam sucked in a pained breath as the other arm was lifted up and slipped through the other arm of his t-shirt.
“Yeah yeah.” Dean replied sarcastically, leaning over to the other side of the bed while Sam took a breather and pulled up Sam’s jacket, shaking it teasingly in front of his brother.
“I can just wear my t-shirt, thanks.” Sam replied, already making a move to get off the bed.
Dean put his hand on his shoulder and forced him to sit back down. “How about it’s cold outside and you need a jacket? Quit being such a baby.” He teased, already lifting up Sam’s arm to slip the jacket sleeve over his arm.
Sam grumbled something nasty under his breath, but Dean ignored him, focusing on causing the least amount of pain for his brother as he could. The last couple of days had been strenuous for both of them, both trying to deal with the aftermath of the ghouls, and finding out they had a half brother, of which their dad had kept from them until now.
And then it was a ghoul and not their brother who greeted them at the door.
Dean wasn’t sure who his anger was directed at this time - dad for lying, the kid for having the normal life that he and Sam had never had, or at Sam for practically praising Dad’s efforts which Dean was coming to realize wasn’t enough nor perfect.
Dean tugged on Sam’s sleeve. “Come on, Sam. Let’s get out of here. We have a stop to make before we leave town.” He tried to keep the frustration and anger out of his voice, but by the look on Sam’s face, he didn’t quite succeed.
He helped his brother adjust to standing when Sam swayed on his feet, and kept a hand just above Sam’s elbow to guide his brother and to help him if he lost his balance.
“Did you grab the meds?” Sam asked suddenly, watching the desk clerk wave at them as they made their way out of the emergency doors.
“Yeah. Antibiotics for the wound on your side, and pain pills for your wrists. I grabbed them this morning while you were busy with your snooze-a-thon.”
“Ha ha, funny.” Sam quipped, but allowed Dean to steer him to the Impala, where Dean opened the door for him so he wouldn’t have to use his hands. He slid in and the door slammed shut behind him. He noticed that the car smelled of cleaner and realized Dean must have cleaned the seats earlier this morning, what with Sam’s blood all over the seats and on the floorboards.
Dean climbed in on the other side and they sat there for a few seconds, neither one saying a word.
Sam finally broke the silence. “You ready to go?”
Dean swallowed, sniffing before putting the keys in the ignition and the car coming to life. “No.” He said quietly, and glanced at Sam’s thoughtful look, before looking behind him and pulling out, shifting gears and making his way out of the hospital parking.
Sam looked out of the passenger window, noticing his pale reflection staring back at him. He looked ill, and if he was honest, he was still feeling off and in pain, but they both needed to leave here.
They still had a brother to bury.
Sam glanced down at his bandaged arms, which were covered up by his jacket sleeves. More scars on top of more failures. Except this failure was marked on his skin for all to see, and one he wouldn’t soon forget.
Looking at Dean’s blank face, and lips drawn up in a tight line, Sam knew it would be a long time before either one of them could talk about this incident. Too many emotions and too many unknowns with this case, and with dad being front and center of it all, he’d have to tread carefully if he were to ever bring up the subject anytime soon.
“We’re almost there.” Dean murmured beside him, hands clenched stiffly around the wheel.
No, Sam thought sadly. We’re a long ways away.