Fic: Wiping the dirt from his hands as he walks from the grave
It feels like sacrilege to rewrite any part of 11.17, because it was so good. And yet there are things we didn't get to see, and Sam really needed to be hospitalized after all of that, and if I weren't okay with sacrilege, I wouldn't be watching this show anyway. So here's my 11.17 tag.
Also on AO3
The sound of the gunshot is still echoing off the walls as he watches Corbin fall off to the side, almost in slow motion, revealing Sam behind him, and as Dean gasps for breath, all he can think is thank god, thank god, and he's not being the least bit ironic, because something powerful has to be responsible for this, for the fact that he's there, he's alive. Sam's silently wobbling, completely spent, the mission that kept him going finally accomplished, and Dean cracks a joke, because that's how Sam will know he's okay, and he watches his little brother slump to the floor in a pile of loose bloodstained limbs, and then he thinks maybe now it's okay to pass out himself. So he does.
...
When he wakes up, someone's shining a light in his eyes again, and Christ, that never gets old. He briefly flashes back to earlier in the day, when he came around to the same bright light and then remembered that Sam was dead and wanted to crawl back into that darkness, and he's really, really afraid that maybe he dreamed Sam's return after all.
"My brother?" he rasps, and begins coughing. It feels like Corbin's fingers are still wrapped around his throat. The person with the light puts a hand behind his back, helping him sit up, and hands him a plastic cup of tepid water.
"He's going to be okay." (thank god, thank god.) "How are you feeling?"
Dean takes inventory. Head hurts. Ribs fucking hurt. Throat hurts. Everything hurts.
"I feel great. Can I see Sam now?"
"He's not here," Flashlight says, moving Dean's head so he can peer into his ears. "I stabilized him and then transferred him to the local hospital."
So, it's Dr. Flashlight. "But you said he was okay?"
"I said he was going to be okay. He's going to be hospitalized for at least a couple of days to make sure he doesn't go septic."
"Okay." Dean pivots his legs off side of the bed. "Where is this hospital?"
"Hold on, buddy," says Dr. Flashlight, moving his hand to Dean's chest and pushing him back down on the bed. "You've got a concussion, broken ribs, and two LOC incidents today. You're staying right here for now."
"You don't understand - "
"No, you don't understand. Your brother's going to be fine. He survived being shot and strangled and I don't think anyone in that hospital is capable of hurting him even if they wanted to. Which they don't. He's fine."
But Dean stopped listening a few words ago. "Strangled? No, I'm talking about my brother. The guy who shot the..." (not "the werewolf" don't say "the werewolf"...)
Dr. Flashlight interrupts him. "Yeah, him. Gunshot wound and attempted strangulation. Not that I'm supposed to tell you any of this without the right paperwork, blah blah blah, freaking HIPAA..." he mutters, as he taps one-handed on a small laptop. "He woke up long enough to one, ask me multiple times if you were okay, and two, tell me that your friend Mr. Chokey Guy out there strangled him unconscious. I don't know why you find that so hard to believe, considering what he just did to you. And your brother's got the bruises and petechiae to prove it, so I wasn't gonna argue with him. I suggest you don't either. Guy's like freaking Rambo."
But no, no, that can't be right, because if it is, it means Corbin strangled Sam when Dean left him alone with him... when he was trying to find wood to build a litter... it means that while he was right outside the door, Corbin wrapped his hands around his brother's neck and that can't be right, that cannot have happened while Dean was just right outside, while Sam was all alone and unprotected... He sits up again and grabs the hand that Dr. Flashlight tries to use to stop him. "I've got to see him."
"Listen," Dr. Flashlight sighs in frustration. "Here's what I've got going on today. I come back from lunch and I've got a colleague who's been brutally attacked, and she says the guy who did it had claws and fangs. I've got the guy's wife, who's pretty beat up herself, who says yes, he had claws and fangs because he was bitten by a werewolf. I've got a sheriff's deputy with his heart ripped out. I've got a hell of a mess in my storeroom, including a busted-up narcotics cabinet and most likely a bunch of missing meds. And then I've got this brother of yours, who according to you and the wife, was dead earlier, but I guess he's just a revenant because he's shooting Mr. Chokey Guy in my hallway. And I've got a dead Mr. Chokey Guy in my hallway, and he doesn't have fangs or claws, and that means I might need a couple of psych consults. So you'll understand that the last thing I need is you dying on me because you've got a bleed on the brain that I didn't notice. Now sit your ass back down."
Dean does sit but he doesn't back down. "Please, man. I've gotta... the last time I saw him, he was dead..."
Dr. Flashlight smiles at him. "But you understand he wasn't really dead, right?"
Dean sighs. Wasn't really dead is the best-case scenario, and he doesn't usually get the best-case scenario. "How? I checked for breathing. I tried to get a pulse." And then he has to stop talking because talking about it is a little too much like reliving it, and it makes something painful rise up in his throat.
"It happens," Dr. Flashlight shrugs. "I've seen it when I worked the ER. Someone can go into shock and have such a slow heartbeat that you can't detect it unless you hook 'em up to a vital signs monitor, or keep your finger on a pulse point for a minute or so. And I'm guessing you didn't do that. And, you know." He waves at Dean's head. "Concussion. You're a little messed up yourself." He stares at Dean for a second. Dean remains silent because he's still pretty sure he's going to burst into tears if he tries to speak. "Okay, here's what we're gonna do." Dr. Flashlight starts pecking at the keyboard of his laptop again. "I'm going to send you up to Memorial - that's where your brother is. It's just a mile up the road so I'm going to trust you to drive there. Mainly because I don't think I can stop you."
"Nope." Dean smiles like it's a joke. It's not.
"I'm ordering a CT scan. I want you to stick around here for thirty minutes and let me evaluate you one more time, and then head over there and go to Admissions. Just tell them who you are; you'll be in the system. And I know you're gonna go check on Rambo first, but you promise me you'll go to Admissions after that. You understand?"
Dean nods. Dr. Flashlight gives him a hand and he's not sure if she should be offended or grateful, because he is actually a little shaky. He wanders out into the waiting room and sees Michelle.
...
Forty minutes later, he's opening the door to the Impala, and his stomach lurches. The interior is smeared with Sam's blood - the seat, the steering wheel, the door handle. He goes back into the clinic and gets some hospital gowns to lay over the seat and wet paper towels to wipe down anything he has to touch, and as he scrubs at the bloodstains, he thinks about wrapping his hands around Corbin's throat.
It's not until he starts driving that he realizes he missed a bloody handprint on the side window. He tries driving with a hand over his eyes, as if he's trying to shield them from the sun, but it doesn't work - he can still see it, he can't take his eyes off it, he can't stop working out in his mind what position Sam would have been in when he made that handprint, how all that blood got on his hand in the first place, can't stop rewinding and replaying the entire scene in his mind's eye. Finally he rolls the window all the way down so it's out of sight.
...
By the time he catches up with him (and no, he's not going to Admissions and leaving Sam alone; Dr. Flashlight can pound sand), Sam is out of surgery and in a room. He appears to be asleep, but his eyes open when Dean sinks into the chair next to his bed. Maybe because Dean makes a painful little grunt. Probably. "Hey," he says, smiling weakly. "I'm not dead."
"Who ever said you were?"
"Michelle."
"Yeah, well, she married a psycho. What does she know."
Sam tries to sit up, winces in pain, and settles back. "She okay?"
(Not really. She watched someone she loved die, and she's left alive, and you know, that's a really bad position to be in.) "She's fine. She's strong. She'll be all right."
"Yeah." Sam obviously doesn't believe it either, but it's one of those lies you have to tell yourself if you're going to wake up the next day and keep doing what you do. You've got to believe you saved somebody. "You okay?"
(I am now.) "Peachy."
Sam smiles and tries to sit up again, but settles for turning his head, like it's really important to have eye contact right now. "Hey, Dean? What did you do? When you thought I was dead?"
Dean knows the real question. Did you do something stupid? Did you try to make a deal? Did you try to commit suicide-by-werewolf? Can you be trusted to let me go and carry on?
And Dean doesn't have an answer for that.
"I knew you weren't dead. I knew."
...
(The title and cut text are from Eleanor Rigby by the Beatles. But I hope you already knew that.)
Also on AO3
The sound of the gunshot is still echoing off the walls as he watches Corbin fall off to the side, almost in slow motion, revealing Sam behind him, and as Dean gasps for breath, all he can think is thank god, thank god, and he's not being the least bit ironic, because something powerful has to be responsible for this, for the fact that he's there, he's alive. Sam's silently wobbling, completely spent, the mission that kept him going finally accomplished, and Dean cracks a joke, because that's how Sam will know he's okay, and he watches his little brother slump to the floor in a pile of loose bloodstained limbs, and then he thinks maybe now it's okay to pass out himself. So he does.
...
When he wakes up, someone's shining a light in his eyes again, and Christ, that never gets old. He briefly flashes back to earlier in the day, when he came around to the same bright light and then remembered that Sam was dead and wanted to crawl back into that darkness, and he's really, really afraid that maybe he dreamed Sam's return after all.
"My brother?" he rasps, and begins coughing. It feels like Corbin's fingers are still wrapped around his throat. The person with the light puts a hand behind his back, helping him sit up, and hands him a plastic cup of tepid water.
"He's going to be okay." (thank god, thank god.) "How are you feeling?"
Dean takes inventory. Head hurts. Ribs fucking hurt. Throat hurts. Everything hurts.
"I feel great. Can I see Sam now?"
"He's not here," Flashlight says, moving Dean's head so he can peer into his ears. "I stabilized him and then transferred him to the local hospital."
So, it's Dr. Flashlight. "But you said he was okay?"
"I said he was going to be okay. He's going to be hospitalized for at least a couple of days to make sure he doesn't go septic."
"Okay." Dean pivots his legs off side of the bed. "Where is this hospital?"
"Hold on, buddy," says Dr. Flashlight, moving his hand to Dean's chest and pushing him back down on the bed. "You've got a concussion, broken ribs, and two LOC incidents today. You're staying right here for now."
"You don't understand - "
"No, you don't understand. Your brother's going to be fine. He survived being shot and strangled and I don't think anyone in that hospital is capable of hurting him even if they wanted to. Which they don't. He's fine."
But Dean stopped listening a few words ago. "Strangled? No, I'm talking about my brother. The guy who shot the..." (not "the werewolf" don't say "the werewolf"...)
Dr. Flashlight interrupts him. "Yeah, him. Gunshot wound and attempted strangulation. Not that I'm supposed to tell you any of this without the right paperwork, blah blah blah, freaking HIPAA..." he mutters, as he taps one-handed on a small laptop. "He woke up long enough to one, ask me multiple times if you were okay, and two, tell me that your friend Mr. Chokey Guy out there strangled him unconscious. I don't know why you find that so hard to believe, considering what he just did to you. And your brother's got the bruises and petechiae to prove it, so I wasn't gonna argue with him. I suggest you don't either. Guy's like freaking Rambo."
But no, no, that can't be right, because if it is, it means Corbin strangled Sam when Dean left him alone with him... when he was trying to find wood to build a litter... it means that while he was right outside the door, Corbin wrapped his hands around his brother's neck and that can't be right, that cannot have happened while Dean was just right outside, while Sam was all alone and unprotected... He sits up again and grabs the hand that Dr. Flashlight tries to use to stop him. "I've got to see him."
"Listen," Dr. Flashlight sighs in frustration. "Here's what I've got going on today. I come back from lunch and I've got a colleague who's been brutally attacked, and she says the guy who did it had claws and fangs. I've got the guy's wife, who's pretty beat up herself, who says yes, he had claws and fangs because he was bitten by a werewolf. I've got a sheriff's deputy with his heart ripped out. I've got a hell of a mess in my storeroom, including a busted-up narcotics cabinet and most likely a bunch of missing meds. And then I've got this brother of yours, who according to you and the wife, was dead earlier, but I guess he's just a revenant because he's shooting Mr. Chokey Guy in my hallway. And I've got a dead Mr. Chokey Guy in my hallway, and he doesn't have fangs or claws, and that means I might need a couple of psych consults. So you'll understand that the last thing I need is you dying on me because you've got a bleed on the brain that I didn't notice. Now sit your ass back down."
Dean does sit but he doesn't back down. "Please, man. I've gotta... the last time I saw him, he was dead..."
Dr. Flashlight smiles at him. "But you understand he wasn't really dead, right?"
Dean sighs. Wasn't really dead is the best-case scenario, and he doesn't usually get the best-case scenario. "How? I checked for breathing. I tried to get a pulse." And then he has to stop talking because talking about it is a little too much like reliving it, and it makes something painful rise up in his throat.
"It happens," Dr. Flashlight shrugs. "I've seen it when I worked the ER. Someone can go into shock and have such a slow heartbeat that you can't detect it unless you hook 'em up to a vital signs monitor, or keep your finger on a pulse point for a minute or so. And I'm guessing you didn't do that. And, you know." He waves at Dean's head. "Concussion. You're a little messed up yourself." He stares at Dean for a second. Dean remains silent because he's still pretty sure he's going to burst into tears if he tries to speak. "Okay, here's what we're gonna do." Dr. Flashlight starts pecking at the keyboard of his laptop again. "I'm going to send you up to Memorial - that's where your brother is. It's just a mile up the road so I'm going to trust you to drive there. Mainly because I don't think I can stop you."
"Nope." Dean smiles like it's a joke. It's not.
"I'm ordering a CT scan. I want you to stick around here for thirty minutes and let me evaluate you one more time, and then head over there and go to Admissions. Just tell them who you are; you'll be in the system. And I know you're gonna go check on Rambo first, but you promise me you'll go to Admissions after that. You understand?"
Dean nods. Dr. Flashlight gives him a hand and he's not sure if she should be offended or grateful, because he is actually a little shaky. He wanders out into the waiting room and sees Michelle.
...
Forty minutes later, he's opening the door to the Impala, and his stomach lurches. The interior is smeared with Sam's blood - the seat, the steering wheel, the door handle. He goes back into the clinic and gets some hospital gowns to lay over the seat and wet paper towels to wipe down anything he has to touch, and as he scrubs at the bloodstains, he thinks about wrapping his hands around Corbin's throat.
It's not until he starts driving that he realizes he missed a bloody handprint on the side window. He tries driving with a hand over his eyes, as if he's trying to shield them from the sun, but it doesn't work - he can still see it, he can't take his eyes off it, he can't stop working out in his mind what position Sam would have been in when he made that handprint, how all that blood got on his hand in the first place, can't stop rewinding and replaying the entire scene in his mind's eye. Finally he rolls the window all the way down so it's out of sight.
...
By the time he catches up with him (and no, he's not going to Admissions and leaving Sam alone; Dr. Flashlight can pound sand), Sam is out of surgery and in a room. He appears to be asleep, but his eyes open when Dean sinks into the chair next to his bed. Maybe because Dean makes a painful little grunt. Probably. "Hey," he says, smiling weakly. "I'm not dead."
"Who ever said you were?"
"Michelle."
"Yeah, well, she married a psycho. What does she know."
Sam tries to sit up, winces in pain, and settles back. "She okay?"
(Not really. She watched someone she loved die, and she's left alive, and you know, that's a really bad position to be in.) "She's fine. She's strong. She'll be all right."
"Yeah." Sam obviously doesn't believe it either, but it's one of those lies you have to tell yourself if you're going to wake up the next day and keep doing what you do. You've got to believe you saved somebody. "You okay?"
(I am now.) "Peachy."
Sam smiles and tries to sit up again, but settles for turning his head, like it's really important to have eye contact right now. "Hey, Dean? What did you do? When you thought I was dead?"
Dean knows the real question. Did you do something stupid? Did you try to make a deal? Did you try to commit suicide-by-werewolf? Can you be trusted to let me go and carry on?
And Dean doesn't have an answer for that.
"I knew you weren't dead. I knew."
...
(The title and cut text are from Eleanor Rigby by the Beatles. But I hope you already knew that.)