SPN Fic: The Other Side of the Story 3/4
A/N: Continued thanks for reviews. Other notes in chapter one.
CHAPTER THREE
It seemed important, this whole waking up thing. Like he had a 7:30 class that he couldn't miss or he was taking a day trip with Jess to visit her family in Sacramento. The nagging feeling that, although he liked to sleep, it wasn't really what he was supposed to be doing at the moment.
But damn, he really liked sleep today.
Still, that feeling. There was something...something beyond this, something beyond classes and day trips and-
Pain radiated through Sam's awareness and he realized he wasn't in bed at all. Not unless his bed suddenly had the ability to move at an awkward and nauseating clip.
No, no bed. He was being carried.
He was--Dean--
It took another moment, and Sam figured he should probably be nervous. There was a ghost on the loose, or a werewolf, or something, and he'd been bleeding and Dean had been at risk, but Dean was there now, with him, and somehow that meant more than anything else.
So, he wasn't surprised at all to see Dean, grinning for all he was worth, hovering above him.
Sam tried to return the favor, but his efforts were thwarted by a cough. His vision went white and he squeezed his eyes shut again, trying to curl up, away from the pain. But the pain was there, too, it was everywhere, and Sam felt his breath catch in his burning lungs.
There were hands on him, supporting him, pushing him back, gentle but strong.
He let himself collapse, let Dean do the work. Sam didn't need to do it all on his own--that was a hard lesson to remember, one that he'd spent a lifetime solidifying--all the times his family hadn't understood his need for something more than hunting, all the times when he'd been so alone at Stanford, all the times he'd had to make something out of nothing, all the times he saw Jess burning on the ceiling and couldn't stop it. Those were burdens he had to carry, but this one, right now, he could give up and Dean would catch him. Now. Always.
"Sammy," Dean was saying. "Dude, you with me?"
Behind the conversational tone, Sam could hear the desperation. No matter what his father and brother believed, Sam wasn't contrary just to be a pain in the ass. He knew the world was built on lies and half-truths, and he couldn't take anything at face value--anything except honest pleas. He could balk at an order, question a directive, but he didn't know how to no to an plaintive request.
It took him a minute to open his eyes, and another moment after that to realize they were open. The world seemed hazy, a little off, streaks of moonlight making him feel a little nauseated.
"No hurling, okay?" Dean said. "You know that when you hurl, it makes me hurl, too."
That was actually true, Sam remembered. When he'd had the stomach flu, Dean had dutifully placed toast and water by his bed, but had refused to stay in the same room with Sam. And the time Sam had had a concussion, they'd both ended up yakking so hard in the back seat that even their dad had to pull over and retch a little.
"Look at me," Dean ordered now, but it was too much of a habit to disobey.
Sam blinked, letting his eyes follow his brother's voice, and found Dean over him, a smile plastered across his sweaty face. There was a trickle of blood down the side of his face, and Sam tried to remember how that had happened or at least how bad it was.
"Can you say something?" Dean said. "You're beginning to freak me out."
At that, Sam scowled, licking his lips and swallowing as best he could. "Too loud, too quiet," he finally managed to say, chest hitching with the effort. "Make up...your mind."
Dean's grin widened. "You really are a little bitch," he said.
Sam took another shuddering breath. "You...okay?"
Eyebrows raised, Dean leveled him with a slightly incredulous stare. "You do realize you're the one bleeding all over the place, right?"
Sam had been trying to forget that, actually. But Dean's reminder brought the pain back into focus, and his face twisted into a grimace.
"You think you can help me hightail it out of here?"
That was when Sam's memory put a few more pieces together. Eyes wide, he tried to sit up. Failing, he settled for speaking his gasping breaths instead. "The...wolf," he said. It had to be around. And they needed to kill it, to do something...
"You mean our ghost?"
Sam nodded.
"He's trapped, for now," Dean said. "But I don't think that means we should camp out here. You might start missing some of that blood sooner rather than later."
It was said in jest, but Sam could hear the worry laden beneath it. And it hurt--his body hurt so bad, but he couldn't focus on it. He couldn't focus on anything. He knew that his chest was shredded, that it felt like he was breathing through a plastic bag, that his head felt light enough to float away, but all he could think about was how the hell they'd missed the fact that thing was a ghost. "But--"
Dean shook his head. "No buts," Dean said. "The wannabe werewolf ghost will still be there when we get back. But we need to be prepared. We don't know who this ghost is or what it wants."
They did know what it wanted. Them.
"So, come on," Dean said, using one hand to support Sam's back while pulling him to a sitting position with the other. "We need to get out of here."
Sam tried to protest, but found himself unable. He wanted to ask what had happened, how Dean had stopped it, if Dean had a head wound, if the car was really as far as he remembered, but it didn't work. Nothing worked, in fact, including his legs, which buckled as Dean got them on the ground.
Worse, Sam couldn't stop it. He was powerless, which was an all too common feeling. He'd always been powerless--powerless to know the truth, powerless to determine his own life, powerless to make the people in his life understand who he was. Powerless to save Jess. Powerless to find their father. Powerless, always, and it wasn't just emasculating and it wasn't just frustrating, it was depressing, and he felt tears of hot shame burn in his eyes as Dean caught him once again.
Dean was swearing, saying something else, and Sam wanted to help out, to at least catch his own fall, but it was a losing battle, slipping from him faster and faster. Then, something pressed hard on his chest and he sucked in a startled breath which didn't make it through his throat, but before he could cough, his vision blackened and he couldn't help but give up entirely.
-o-
Sam was falling faster than Dean could stop him, and they both ended up in a tangle on the ground, Sam's limbs splayed heavily on top of them both. Dean cursed, grunting as he tried to shimmy his way out from underneath while being as gentle as possible. Sam had always been a bit on the gangly side, and Dean could remember far too many nights cooped up in the same too-small motel bed with Sammy. Even when Sam had been a bit more average in height, those wiry limbs had flailed all over Dean. Made it hard to sleep comfortably through the night, but Dean had always found it vaguely reassuring that he wasn't alone--ever.
This was no such happy memory. Because Sam's body was too slack, weighed down with unconsciousness and mottled with blood.
Easing out, Dean positioned Sam on the ground again, moving until he was kneeling over his brother. "Sam," he called. "Dude, come on. I'll even let you hurl, no gagging in response."
But Sam didn't even flicker this time, his features still.
Sighing, Dean briefly considered his options. He could take some time to patch the wounds quickly, to try to stem the flow of blood, which was getting copious by this point. Blood loss was a real concern, so the need to fix that gnawed incessantly at Dean.
Still, they were in the middle of the freakin' woods. Spending time putting makeshift bandages on, added to the time it would take to get the hell out of there, might be more than Sam's damaged body could take. Fact was, time was of the essence, and Dean couldn't bank on the fact that what little effect bandaging the wounds might have would be enough to compensate for the added time.
So, getting out.
Dean looked around at the forest, which suddenly seemed a whole lot bleaker.
Getting out would be easier said than done. Dean had followed the EMF there, which had been a surprisingly effective way of tracking their freakish ghost, but would not be overly helpful getting back out. Worse, it had taken him off the beaten trails. Even with a strong sense of direction and knowing the car was due east, it would be a bit of a crap shoot, navigating the forest in the dark.
And to make it all the more exciting? He would be lugging a gigantic kid brother who outweighed him by at least fifteen pounds. While he was bleeding to death and unconscious.
Peachy.
Blowing out another measured breath, Dean knew it didn't matter. The only thing that mattered was getting Sam out, getting Sam safe, and he would do anything--traverse remote woods and haul limp little brothers--to do that.
There was only one way of carrying Sam that was even practical, but Dean knew it would be hard on both of them. A fireman's carry was the only way he could feasibly attempt to haul that kid's ass out of there, which meant extra pressure on Sam's damaged chest and a whole lot of blood when Dean finally got out of there.
It didn't matter. It couldn't. Dean wouldn't fail at this.
Resolved, he put a hand on Sam's chest, feeling the stuttered rise and fall. Grimly, he looked at his brother's face. "Sorry about this, dude," he said. "But you can bitch me out when we get to the car."
Taking one of Sam's arms, he levered Sam to a sitting position, maneuvering himself carefully next to his brother. It was awkward work, and Dean wobbled as he tried to stand with Sam draped across his shoulders, but when it was done, Dean felt steady enough on his feet.
He pulled Sam up higher on his shoulder, tightening his grip on the arm and leg that were draped across his front. He could feel the warmth of Sam's blood as it soaked through his coat, but there was no time to think about that now.
"Alright," Dean muttered. "You try not to hurl and I'll try not to fart in your face, okay?"
He took Sam's silence as acquiescence and started back.
-o-
The world faded into an uneven cadence. A strong reverberation, thudding first into his unconsciousness, then pulling him slowly and harshly to some form of awareness.
It stayed hazy, though, and he was detached. Aware, but not. Pained, but lulled. Moving, but standing still.
Not standing. But moving.
His hands hit fabric, uneven thwaps, and his hair tickled his face as it brushed against his cheeks, one, two, three...
He felt heavy, weirdly so, and he tried to remember where he was, why he was, when he was.
Then, something jarred, and he was pitching forward, out of control. Worse, he couldn't move his hands, his feet, anything--no way to break the downward descent.
But he didn't have to; as quickly as it started, it came abruptly to a stop.
And that's when the pain began.
His chest was on fire, bleeding and in agony, and he didn't even have the strength to cry out, to shed a tear.
His body was hoisted up and something tightened around his leg, around his arm, and then the movement started again--unsteady, faltering, but always going forward.
Footfalls.
He was being carried.
But, he could smell Dean's clothes, he could feel the rough heavy breathing of his brother's laboring lungs even above the desperation of Sam's own--and there was hope. Hope and love and possibility that maybe, it wasn't too late.
Too late for some things, of course. Too late for Jessica. Too late for that law school interview.
But not too late to make it right. Not to late to find their father, to kill the thing that did this, to make amends with his family, to let his brother know that leaving had never been about him...
Not too late to fix most of it, to survive. Not just these injuries, not just the pain and the bleeding, but the sorry state of his messed-up life.
He just had to hold on.
He couldn't walk, he couldn't even open his eyes. It was Dean who was doing all the work, Dean who was playing the big damn hero, like he was born to be. Sam would never compare, never could, maybe he needed to stop trying. But he would hold on, now and always and forever. He would hold on to Jessica, to his dreams, to the need to prove himself to his family, the need to prove who he was and what he was worth. He would just hold on.
It wasn't much, but it took almost more than he had, because the pain was growing now, and it was harder to breathe, the pressure on his chest growing with every passing breath he forced in and out, to the rhythm of Dean's feet on the forest floor.
In and out, in and out, until that was all there was.
-o-
Dean didn't know how long it took, but it felt like hours. Dean didn't know how long he'd traveled, but it felt like miles. And Dean didn't know how much blood Sam had lost, but it looked like too much.
That was about the only thought that Dean's oxygen-starved brain could come up with. It had taken the last of his reserves to lower Sam to the back seat of the Impala with any care at all, because he was otherwise spent. His legs were numb and his shoulder ached and he was actually vaguely worried that he might end up being a hunchback after this entire ordeal, as if Sam needed a way to gain a few more inches on him.
He might have said that, were he not quite so winded and if Sam didn't look quite so dead. Because, really, Dean had seen less blood on victims who had died far more quickly. Sam's blood--it was everywhere. The sheer volume of it was more than a little overwhelming. It wasn't just on Sam, anymore, which was bad enough. But it had saturated through Dean's jacket, soaking through the layers of his clothes until it slicked his own skin with a macabre testament to the fact that Sam might be--
He wasn't. Dean hadn't just run all that way, he didn't just break his back and destroy his lungs to bring back a corpse. He hadn't.
It was hard to see, while he was panting, if Sam was breathing or not because his eyes couldn't focus well enough to figure anything out. The edges of his own vision were a little dark from sheer exhaustion and, if he could be honest with himself, that was the only reason he wasn't hysterical at the moment.
Because, after all these years, after all they'd been through together, after all their fights, after all their jokes, after all they had hurt each other and come back together despite it all--after all of that, Dean had never felt like this before. He'd never seen Sam like this before. He'd never seen that much of his brother's blood, he'd never been so weighed down by it--he'd never been so incredibly bowed by his brother's weight before.
The kid was six foot four at least, going on seven billion as far as Dean was concern, and no matter how wiry Sam might be at times, that kind of frame carried a massive weight.
But Dean wasn't even being literal, for once. Sam's weight--it wasn't in the muscle mass. It was the emotional burden. The secrets the kid hid. The guilt Dean knew he harbored. Sam was hiding so much from him, keeping it all inside, and Dean had tried to get him to talk about it, had even told him that it might get Sam killed, and now look at them.
Sam's blood, his issues, enough to destroy both of them with one fell blow, and that didn't even touch upon Dean's own baggage.
Dean thought he could handle it. Dean had thought he knew what to expect. He had thought he knew how to protect Sam. He'd thought he'd known what Sam needed.
Dean didn't know anything.
Because Sam was bleeding in the back seat of the Impala and Dean was hunched over, hands on his knees, panting and crying, covered in his brother's blood, and they might both be dead already if Dean couldn't get his crap together and see it for what it was.
He squeezed his eyes shut, coughing hard against his grating breaths.
The blood didn't matter. Hell, the burden didn't even matter. Sam's weight, Sam's baggage--Dean could carry it or he could drop it and what the hell difference did it make? Dean could fix that later, just like he could catch his breath and stand up straight, as long as they both lived long enough to get there.
So, what the hell was he doing sitting here crying and feeling sorry for himself? Mourning his brother who might not be dead? Who wasn't dead--not if Dean had anything to say about it.
Opening his eyes, Dean stumbled forward, scooping Sam's legs and turning them so they fit inside the car. Scooting Sam back, Dean perched on the edge of the seat with one knee, leaning forward as best he could. "Sam!" he called, mustering as much strength as he could. "You still with me, Sammy?"
There was no reply, which Dean supposed was to be expected, and Dean still couldn't see the rise and fall of Sam's chest. But that didn't mean it wasn't happening.
"You're too much of a damn disobedient ass to die this way," Dean spit out, pulling himself farther into the car. He pressed shaking fingers to Sam's neck, clenching his teeth as he waited.
He could hear his own heart thudding too loud and too fast in his own chest and the blood of exertion still rushing painfully through his ears. He could hear his father's voice, strong and reprimanding, telling him to get his act together and finish the job. He could hear Sam telling him that there were some secrets he had to keep and his own voice telling Sam that it could get Sam killed someday.
Not today. Not today. Not some stupid ghost in some stupid woods with some stupid werewolf complex that Dean had been too stupid to prepare for. Not after running through the woods, not even after losing all that blood. Not today, not today, not today.
And there it was.
Fast, uneven, shallow.
The most beautiful thing Dean had felt in a long time. Better than a hot girl on a cold night, better than a cool beer on a warm night. Better than cruising down an empty highway with the windows down and AC/DC raging through the speakers. Better than getting a clap on the shoulder and being told good job. Better than a freakin' werewolf hunt.
Not just his brother's heart, but the beat of another chance.
And Dean was not going to screw this up. Because, yeah, he was about saving people, hunting things and the family business. But, that was just secondary. It all just paled in comparison to the one thing that mattered most: Sam.
He might be wrong about the werewolf. He could screw up a ghost hunt. But he would never, ever screw up this. Because the moment he did, the moment he really lost Sam--then he lost everything.
"You're okay," he said, grinning stupidly. He patted Sam's cheek, trying not to let his own exhaustion take hold. "You're going to be okay. Just a little longer, okay, Sammy?"
Sam didn't reply, but he didn't have to, and Dean extracted himself from the back seat, walking on rubbery legs to the driver's side.
Opening the door, he slid into the seat, taking a moment to breathe and clear his vision at least before he started the car. With one last breath, he looked in the mirror, adjusting it so he could see Sam, sprawled and still, on the seat behind him.
If that higher power was around, now was the time he really needed to get his listening ears on. Because a werewolf hunt would have been nice and all, but his little brother was a must, and if God wasn't going to help him out on that one, Dean would just have to do it himself.
Blowing out a hard breath, Dean put the car in car and tore out from the parking lot.
-o-
When Sam was twelve, he slouched in the back seat of the Impala, doors all locked and windows steamed and he held the flashlight over his book. It wasn't the first time he'd been here, and he knew it wouldn't be the last, but it never got easier, no matter how many times he did it.
His dad said the car was one of the safest places he could be, all that thick metal and steal, and Sam had chalked the protection sigils on it under his dad's watchful eye. There was a sawed-off shot gun on the seat next to him, a bag of rock salt on the floor, and a knife positioned carefully on the ground by his feet. Every measure had been taken, and Sam had followed each one carefully to be sure, reciting a Latin banishing ritual under his breath just to reassure himself a little more.
It was Dean's first hunt. Dean had been excited all week. Glowing and raving about werewolves, all about their habits and how to kill them and how awesome they were. Sometimes, Sam liked to help with the research, and, normally, he might like exchanging facts with his older brother, but this time, it was different.
Dean was becoming a hunter tonight. He had been working at it for months, Sam knew. Years. Longing for it for as long as Sam had known the truth. Dean idolized the life, talked about monsters and the heroes that killed them, and, for a while, that had sounded kind of cool, but it also sounded kind of scary.
Because, no matter how many guns and knives, no matter what rituals Sam memorized or what protective measures he took, it was always going to be him against the monster, human against supernatural, and there was never any guarantees. Never.
Sometimes, his dad came home days late, bloody and weary. Sometimes, Dean came back with a bruise or a fresh cut. Once, on one of the few hunts Sam had been on, Sam even got slashed when he'd been in charge laying salt lines around an open grave.
And there was that time when he was six months old when his mother died.
The light from the flashlight was dim, casting a hazy glow over the page of his book. It was something he'd read before, but he wasn't really reading it now. Because the car was too quiet, and the shadows danced across the leather seats while the leaves rustled in the night outside the window.
Innocent sounds. Irrelevant flashes of light.
Or not.
Sam would never know.
His father said he was safe. His brother said he had nothing to worry about.
They'd also told Sam that Dad was a traveling salesman and that his mother had died in a car accident.
His father had gone over the timeline of the hunt. His brother had detailed how to kill the wolf in case it got too close. It seemed like they'd told him everything he needed to know.
But they hadn't even told him about monsters for eight years.
Alone in the car, Sam clenched his teeth, blinking rapidly as he fingered the gun again. He knew how to shoot it, and he was getting better. Soon, his father said. Soon he'd be hunting, too. Just like the rest of them. Getting started on the family business, Dean liked to tell him with a playful nudge.
The doubt gnawed at him, twisting into fear in the pit of his stomach. There was no one here to impress. No one here to be brave for. There was no one here at all.
He had no way of knowing if the hunt was going okay. He had no way of knowing if his family was safe, if he was safe. He had no way of knowing what was true and what wasn't. He was powerless, because a shot gun couldn't destroy his fear or his doubt or how alone he was.
Dean would never understand what this felt like.
Sam just knew, for himself, that he would give anything and everything to never feel this way again.
-o-
It was a long night.
To be fair, it had been long before he'd even gotten Sam to the hospital, what with traipsing through the woods and hauling his hemorrhaging little brother all over the freakin' woods. Hell, it had been long before all that, with the prep work and the plotting and all that for the werewolf that wasn't.
But, hours later, alone in a quiet ER waiting room, it seemed so much longer. There was nothing to do there, no one to talk to. The nurses brushed him off and the doctors didn't even look at him and the receptionist was sleepy and nonchalant as she smiled and told Dean that the doctor would be out to talk to him in a minute.
A minute, which was two hours ago. That was all he could do. Watch the seconds tick by into minutes and watch the minutes extend into hours. Hours.
And to think that he thought a werewolf would be friggin' worth it.
He had thought almost all of it was worth it. He had thought his dad missing, seeing Jessica die--it might all be worth it, which was screwed up and more than a little wrong, and he knew that, he did--but it might be worth it if it meant Sam was back in his life, back at his side, hunting with him again.
He'd been an ass in more ways than he knew. Not just for being able to let go of his father or for being able to overlook the death of an innocent girl, but because bringing Sam back into this life, bringing Sam back into what he hated, came with a pretty damn big price tag. Not just his little brother's happiness, not just his emotional well-being or that curious spark of desire that so defined Sam, but maybe even his brother's life.
Dean had known that, on some level. It was a code he thought he was okay with. Hunting was a dangerous gig, and sometimes, someone had to draw the short straw. It had been true when it happened to him. True, but craptastic.
But now? When it happened to Sam?
That wasn't okay. At all. Ever.
And it wasn't worth it. It wasn't worth having Sam by his side just to have Sam lose himself to this hunt, just to have Sam self-destruct right before him eyes. It wasn't worth having Sam die.
Because Sam could be dying. There had been blood all over the seats by the time Dean had gotten them there, and he had barely made it through the doors of the ER before every nurse and doctor in the place seemed to be falling all over themselves to whisk Sam away.
Which, at first, Dean had been grateful for. But as he'd watched them wheel Sam away, his little brother limp and lifeless on the gurney, it really occurred to him why. Not because they were damn good professionals. But because Sam was dying. He'd made it all the way to the exam room before a nurse had blocked his path, gentle and insistent with a hint of panic in her voice, no, sir, please let the doctors...
But Dean hadn't been listening to her. He'd been listening to them talk about blood loss and cyanotic and about how this kid's crashing on us and demands to move it, people, now.
He could still hear them, even now, hours later. He could hear them dismantling the facts of his brother's life, breaking Sam down into numbers and statistics, looking carefully at the parts of his body and trying to fix all the wounds without even knowing remotely where to begin.
Dean felt like that, sometimes. His family was a mess. Between his absent father and his rebellious little brother and Dean's desire to just be together, it was constant triage, trying to figure out what angle to play out, who to placate next, how to keep them all together, all happy, all sane and alive for just one more day.
He could still fail today.
In that way, he didn't want to know. Maybe if they never come for him, maybe if he just waited here forever, he could pretend like it was going to be okay. Like Sam wasn't hurt, like his dad wasn't gone, like they could all just be together.
"Uh, Mr. Arnez?"
Dean jerked, coming to attention with a gulp and a held breath. On his feet, he leaned toward the doctor, jittering, his nerves keeping him on edge. "Yeah," he said, a little breathless.
The doctor raised his eyebrows and pursed his lips, moving forward as he extended his hand. "I'm Dr. Martenson," he said. "I've been in charge of your brother's case."
Dean took the hand, shaking it quickly and without thought. "How is he?"
The doctor gave a weary sigh and a feigned smile. "We've moved him out of surgery and into recovery," he said. "The good news is that he actually suffered few internal injuries. He did nick on artery that required some stitching, and there was a small tear on his spleen, but we were ultimately able to save it."
Dean just stared. There'd been so much blood, Sam had been so slack. And this guy was telling him that it wasn't that bad? "So, he's going to be okay?"
The doctor put his clipboard by his side. "While the individual wounds themselves were overall manageable, it was the sheer quantity of them that was hard. You said he was attacked by a mountain lion?"
Dean nodded numbly. "Came out of nowhere."
The doctor nodded, thoughtfully. "We stitched and cleaned the remaining gashes, some of which had bled quite heavily. We had to give him five units of blood on the table, which is a real cause for concern. I'm afraid your brother lost over half of his supply, making him more than a little hypovolemic."
Dean didn't care about the fact. He just wanted the bottom line. "So, how is he?"
Mouth flattening, the doctor's face turned a bit grim. "He's doing as well as can be expected. The blood and fluids have helped, but we're reaching a critical juncture where pumping too much in could saturate his system. The entire ordeal has taken quite a strain on him, and we're going to leave the intubation tube in place until his body has a chance to rebound a bit more."
Maybe it was the lingering shock of everything that had happened, maybe it was the numbness of spending too many hours alone in a waiting room. Maybe it was just Dean's own stupid inability to think clearly when it came to his family, but he needed it simplified. He just needed to know he had another chance. "Is he okay?"
"Son, your brother is critical," the doctor said frankly. "That much blood loss, even when we get more units in, messes with the body. We've got to give his body time to bounce back, but his vitals are shaky. It won't be until we see his organ function even out that we'll know if we're looking at any kind of permanent damage, and that all assumes we can hold off any kind of infection."
"Permanent damage?"
"It's really too early--"
"What kind of permanent damage?"
The doctor sighed. "We could still see signs of organ damage," he explained. "With the low level of blood in Sam's system for a prolonged period of time, it's possible that certain organs could have been overly deprived of oxygen. So far, most of his functions are holding their own, but it's even possible to see some kind of brain damage in cases where the brain has been deprived of the oxygen blood brings it. And that, of course, assumes that the vulnerability of Sam's body isn't compromised even further, bringing about some kind of secondary condition, such as pneumonia."
Dean had wanted to know. His jaw clenched, and he swallowed hard. "So he could still die?"
"When he's transferred out of recovery, we'll be putting him in the ICU to closely monitor him," the doctor said, with gentle reassurance. "Your brother is strong, young. He pulled through as well as anyone I've seen who has suffered that amount of blood loss. He's got a long haul ahead of him, but we're doing everything we can."
Dean wanted that to be enough, wanted to believe in the doctor's cautious optimism, but Dean had been doing everything he could, and that was how they'd ended up here in the first place.
"Someone will let you know when we've moved him," the doctor concluded, and Dean wanted to say something more, to make him stay, to ask some kind of question, to demand to see his brother, but it was something Dean couldn't do. Just like he couldn't save his brother's life. Just like he couldn't make it all better.
Useless and failure and Dean felt himself trembling. His legs gave way and he let himself sink back to the chair, resigned to waiting once again.