Matching Weight 2/3
Title: Matching Weight 2/3
Authors: beckalooby & moviegeek03
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Hurt!Sam, slightly mean!Dean.
Characters: Sam and Dean. Gen.
Disclaimer: These characters are not ours, we’re just borrowing them to make this story.
Summary: Dean is hurt on a hunt, Sam can’t feel worse about it, except he can when he realizes he’s hurt too, he can’t do anything right these days it seems. Set in Season 2
“Mr. Bloom?” The irritating voice filters through the drug induced haze. “Mr. Bloom?” This time it is accompanied by a slim hand gently patting his shoulder.
“Mmmm,” Sam moans.
“You with me sweetie?” The nurse moves her hand from Sam’s shoulder to run it soothingly through his sweaty hair.
Sam groggily opens his eyes to take in the middle-aged woman leaning over him. He moans again as the bright light hits his sensitive pupils and squeezes his eyes shut against the intrusion.
“I know hun,” the nurse tries to sooth. Although the drugs dull his senses considerably, Sam still feels stiff and sore. The entire situation makes him realize how much he wishes Dean was standing beside the bed instead of this nurse. His cocky grin and his ‘About time you woke up princess, if it wasn’t for the hot nurses I’d be bored out of my skull by now.’
After a few moments of Sam feeling sorry for himself, he opens his eyes back up. “When can I go home?” he slurs.
“Not just yet, I’m afraid. The surgery was a little more complicated than expected. Once they got in with the camera through the small incision sight, they found that the tear in your liver had worsened. It took longer to stop the bleeding so that they could repair the organ, sweetie. Because of that, you had to be given a higher dose of anesthesia during the procedure. It should wear off in the next hour or so. Then we’ll see if you are up to walking around and everything. But right now, just lay back and get some more sleep.”
As much as Sam wants to just get up and sign himself out of the hospital, his body doesn’t comply. So for now, he leans back against the white pillows and gives into the pull of the drugs again.
The next time he comes to, there are more voices around his bed. Upon opening his eyes, he recognizes it to be his surgeon and the nurse.
“Hello Sam,” the surgeon says once he sees that Sam is now awake. “How do you feel?”
“Sore…”
“Any dizziness or nausea?” The doctor moves closer and begins taking Sam’s vitals.
Sam’s body screams ‘hell yes’ to the doctor’s question, but he refuses to stay any longer than necessary. He already is worried that he won’t be able to beat Dean home as it is. “No, not really. Just sore and tired.”
To his relief, the surgeon seems to believe his response. “Ok… that’s to be expected after this type of surgery. You’ll probably feel that way for a couple of days. I just want to go over a few more things then we can see about getting you out of here this evening.” He pulls a couple of pamphlets and papers out for Sam. “The main thing to look out for at this point is infection. Your incision might leak some fluid over the next couple of days, but if it looks more yellow or bloody you need to come straight back here. You might feel a little bloated; that’s also normal. Air sometimes gets trapped in your stomach and there is nothing we can do about that. It should go away on its own, and is nothing to really be concerned about. Now if you develop a high fever or start vomiting, you should also come in. The fever could indicate an infection. Vomiting may also be indicative of infection or just a reaction to the anesthesia. Either way it can put a strain on your abdomen and cause complications. These papers detail the other things to look out for, but those are the main concerns. These also have some instructions on foods and activities you should try over the next days and weeks. Just make sure you and your caregiver pays attention to them.”
Caregiver? Shit….
“Your medications are here in this bag and also have instructions. I’m going to go start your paperwork while Nurse Aims gets you up and moving.” With that, the doctor exits the room to allow the nurse to take care of Sam. She is gentle and kindly, but everything she does ends up causing Sam immense pain. But Sam’s fierce determination to get out of the hospital prevents him from letting it show. Instead he does his best to smile back at her and follow her every order.
By the time she walks him around the room and helps him back into a pair of sweatpants, t-shirt, and hoodie Sam is dripping with sweat, exhausted beyond belief, dizzy and sick to his stomach, and in pain… lots of pain.
“Ok, sweetheart. I’ll go check on your discharge papers and grab you a wheelchair. Is your caregiver meeting you outside?”
Shit…hadn’t thought about that…
“Um, could you just call me a cab?” he completely forgot to get one from the hospital in his rush to get one to take him here. “My brother will be home in a little bit to help me. He just got stuck working late. He couldn’t change shifts. He tried…” Sam does his best to look convincing.
“I really shouldn’t let you go home alone.”
“I… please, he’ll be in to look after me in a little bit, an hour won’t make a difference.” The fatigued tone in his voice combined with the sad puppy dog eyes seem to be enough to convince the nurse, because roughly twenty minutes later Nurse Aims is walking back in with a wheelchair.
“Your cab is waiting right outside for you, hun. So let’s get you out of here and back home.” She smiles sweetly at him as she moves him through the corridors and elevators. She even helps to guide him into the cab and slips him her card. “Here,” she says, “take this in case you need anything. My cell phone is on there as well as my work extension. Take care Sam.”
As she shuts the car door, Sam says a quick thanks and waves at her. She really was helpful and nice, much nicer than he had given her credit for while in the hospital. But once in the car, he definitely realizes it. His cab driver is the complete opposite…the man doesn’t seem to give a crap that Sam just had surgery and feels awful. He ends up hitting most of the potholes and bumps along the road back to the motel. By the time he swerves into the parking lot near Sam’s room, Sam is dripping with sweat and feels like he is going to be sick. His nails have dug indentions into the vinyl of the backseat. His abdomen feels as if it is on fire and the drugs have definitely worn off during the trip.
Somehow he manages to hand over the correct amount of money to the guy and stumble into the room. Once inside, stumbling over Dean’s tossed jeans he’d probably worn on the hunt, cursing as he wraps a tighter hand around his stomach, he discards all the papers and bags onto the table. He then pads over to the bed farthest from the door. Each steps makes things worse, but he forces himself to keep going. It may take longer than normal, but Sam eventually has the bed covers pulled down and is slipping under them. His pain-addled mind forgets to take more meds beforehand and to drink fluids like the doctor had advised. All he wants at this point is to go to sleep and forget everything about the night.
So that is what he does…he easily slips back into sleep without much thought. However it isn’t long before he is rudely brought back into consciousness. The couple next door starts an all out screaming match, startling Sam awake. He jumps harshly in the bed, pulling on his abused abdomen and stitches.
“Gah!” Sam puts a hand around his waist, as if that will somehow alleviate the throbbing. However, it just gets worse. It all becomes too much for his overtaxed body to take. His stomach lurches. Sam tries to make it up out of the bed, but he has no such luck. He ends up empty the meager contents of his stomach over the side of the bed and onto the motel’s floor. “Mmm…” he groans miserably. He knows he needs to get up and clean everything before Dean comes home, but his body has other plans. Sam’s arms give out on him, and he flops back against the bed. He passes out almost instantly…
SPN
“Son of a bitch,” Dean mumbles. He is pissed…beyond pissed really. The hunt was not as easy as he had hoped and he was not able to even make it into the local bar like he wanted. He had left messages for Sam to come help him, but the little brat never answered. Now, fully intent on ripping his brother a new one, Dean fumbles with the motel’s key card and enters the room. The smell of sickness and sweat hits him instantly, taking away most of his anger. “Sammy?”
Sam doesn’t answer. Dean flicks the light on and frowns, holding an arm under his nose at the smell that only gets strong. Sam is sick? Why the hell hadn’t he picked up on that earlier? No wonder the kid was in bed at three in the afternoon, that was completely unnatural. Sam hated sleep at the best of times, so he especially didn’t take naps in the middle of the day…no matter how tired he was.
“Sam?” he calls again, crossing the distance from the door to the furthest bed in his most impressive time yet. Sam is face down in his pillow, his body curled and shaking slightly. Dean puts a palm to his brother’s shoulder and feels heat radiating from him. His hand comes away slick with Sam’s cold clammy sweat. Shit. “Sammy, come on man wake up.”
Still, there’s no response; Sam just sleeps and shivers on. Dean looks around to find clues as to what is up with his brother, apart from the puddle of puke by the bed that he was really not looking forward to cleaning up. Signs of aspirin if Sam had been compos mentis enough to take anything, or drink anything, or even do much besides sleep.
“Oh you son of a bitch,” he curses when he sees the pile of pamphlets, the words ‘post surgery care’ screaming out at him like a damn fog horn. “Please tell me you don’t need surgery you dumb ass,” he whispers picking them up and taking a closer inspection. But everything, the words ‘post,’ the medication on the nightstand, the antibiotics and pain killers, all pointed to something else, Sam didn’t need surgery…he’d already had it. How the hell could his brother have fitted that into the day? Was it this morning? Last night when he was out with Stacy, no… Tracy, wait… Kimberly.
He reads the care giver's notes more thoroughly, seeing what he needed to do if Sam had just been for surgery…someone knocking him out, cutting him open, waking up alone. Fuck Sam shouldn’t have to go through that alone. No one should. Why did he go through that alone?
Back to the task at hand, he forces himself to take in the warning signs of Sam needing to go back to hospital. Vomiting, fever, dizziness, yellow puss from the surgical sight…God he hoped Sam didn’t have an infection and this was just the anesthesia wearing off. Badly.
“Okay, well you’re not gonna be much help are you?” he asks Sam, but not really expecting an answer. Like he just said, Sam wasn’t going to be any help at all in giving him more clues as to what the hell he needed to do at this moment in time to help. “Let’s gets these sheets off you for starters. You’re too hot.”
He can imagine Sam making some sarcastic jibe at that. God knows he learned from the best and Dean’s done it plenty of times when he’s had a fever and Sam said something that could totally be misread as being gay as hell.
After getting a cloth from the bathroom and wetting it with freezing cold water, he rolls it up and puts it over his brother’s forehead.
“I know, I know,” he says when Sam moans. “Heat packs are more your thing but just be thankful I’m not dumping your ass into a tub of ice right now…or dragging you straight back to the hospital. When you wake up we are going to have a seriously long conversation about little brother’s going for surgery without even telling their big brother’s they’re hurt. Then again that’s kind of my bad for not noticing…for being a complete jackass lately.”
He brushes the hair underneath the cloth and smoothes it back; he snorts to himself when Sam’s damp bangs just flop right back down. When he feels Sam wince, before he actually does, he thinks it’s about time to find out just where he’d been operated on.
He checks Sam’s limbs, examining his sweat clad legs with gentle pats all the way from his thighs to his ankles. No hisses there. He gets a look at Sam’s arms, what little he can, before it all comes clear with the way he’s curled around his middle, his back arched protectively. Sam had had abdominal surgery, possible the worst kind not counting the brain. Definitely not something to take lightly, and certainly not something that should be done in and out in the space of what…the five hours he’s been gone at the most?
He shifts to ease away Sam’s arms, but his efforts are quickly fought. “Sssh, it’s okay, I just need to look, Sammy,” he soothes when Sam fusses and pulls away. After a bit of struggling, Dean gets Sam still enough, managing to tuck Sam’s hands under the pillow under his head. He then lifts up his slightly damp t-shirt to see where the incision is. Dean hisses when he catches sight of the stark white gauze against bright red inflamed skin with the blue and yellow bruises above.
He ghosts a finger over the red blotted white strip and hates how tender it must be because Sam tries to curl himself into a tight ball again.
“Sorry, still raw?” Sam’s whimper is answer enough. “Well, looks okay, no puss so far. I’ll check the stitches later, see if those doctors can match my sewing skills.” Dean smirks. “We’ve probably had more practice than all of those quacks put together huh Sammy?”
He thinks Sam would say yes if he was awake, followed by something like ‘And that’s not a good thing Dean, you sick freak.’
He puts Sam’s t-shirt back down for him and watches his breathing as it evens out as much as it probably can in his restless state.
After a few moments of stillness, Dean cleans the mess Sam made on the floor and down the other side of the bed. He just takes relief in the fact that Sam didn’t puke in the middle of their two beds; otherwise Dean’s sheets might have gotten a mist too. It’s disgusting and he gags once or twice. He still manages to get a few smart ass hits in while he’s at it, telling Sam he so owed him for this and the next time he was sick, Sam wasn’t wimping out and getting another motel room without cleaning the mess his big brother had made.
When he’s done all he can, Dean dumps the soiled towels he’s used from the bathroom into the trashcan and leaves that outside. No one’s going to want to use those again. Though it doesn’t bare thinking about how many others have probably sprayed some bodily fluids on them in the past and not had the consideration to trash them like he did.
He washes his hands and opens the windows to get rid of the last of the lingering smell.
Making his way back to his brother, he turns the cloth to the cool side for Sam then decides its time to take a quick shower. He doesn’t want to think about what he’s been kneeling down on. Even if his knees did miss the vomit puddle, he still feels gross. He leaves the door open the whole time and pokes his head out of the curtain every few minutes to make sure he Sam was still sleeping blissful, well… sleeping anyway. He doesn’t hear anything from his brother in the other room, which is good but not so good at the same time.
He pulls on a clean pair of sweats and a white bed shirt. Neither of them were going anywhere for a few more days at the very least, so he might as well be comfy as he lounged around and looked after his brother.
“Sam?” he calls when he hears a moan just as he exits the bathroom followed by a cloud of steam.
Sam twitches his head a little; his fists tighten in the sheets he’s managed to get tangled up in again. Dean unwraps his brother’s freakishly long legs from the material and tugs free the vice like grip he has with his fingers. He takes the sheets away for good and sets them in a pile on his own empty bed. Sam goes still again now that he is free. Dean takes away the lukewarm cloth, cools it again with fresh water, and places it back on Sam’s head. The young hurt hunter starts to turn again but Dean presses his palm to his chest, a comforting touch, and Sam relaxes fully for the first time since Dean walked in the room.
“Alright, just rest okay? I’ll be here.”
Dean sits on the edge of his bed and drapes his hands between his legs, sighing, watching, waiting. He switches on the TV and turns down the volume. He thinks even if it was blasting through to next door, Sam probably wouldn’t wake up, but it was common courtesy that counted. Half an hour into some Jerry Springer re-run Dean moves. Standing from his own mattress, carefully he eases himself down onto Sam’s, leaning against the headboard, one hand around the remote and his other around Sam’s closest wrist.
“Your bed has better view of the tube,” he says to Sam, who still isn’t awake to listen, but he feels like he has to defend himself anyway. This totally was not because he needed to be close to Sam at all, to touch him to make sure he was okay enough as he could be. Okay maybe it was.
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Authors: beckalooby & moviegeek03
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Hurt!Sam, slightly mean!Dean.
Characters: Sam and Dean. Gen.
Disclaimer: These characters are not ours, we’re just borrowing them to make this story.
Summary: Dean is hurt on a hunt, Sam can’t feel worse about it, except he can when he realizes he’s hurt too, he can’t do anything right these days it seems. Set in Season 2
“Mr. Bloom?” The irritating voice filters through the drug induced haze. “Mr. Bloom?” This time it is accompanied by a slim hand gently patting his shoulder.
“Mmmm,” Sam moans.
“You with me sweetie?” The nurse moves her hand from Sam’s shoulder to run it soothingly through his sweaty hair.
Sam groggily opens his eyes to take in the middle-aged woman leaning over him. He moans again as the bright light hits his sensitive pupils and squeezes his eyes shut against the intrusion.
“I know hun,” the nurse tries to sooth. Although the drugs dull his senses considerably, Sam still feels stiff and sore. The entire situation makes him realize how much he wishes Dean was standing beside the bed instead of this nurse. His cocky grin and his ‘About time you woke up princess, if it wasn’t for the hot nurses I’d be bored out of my skull by now.’
After a few moments of Sam feeling sorry for himself, he opens his eyes back up. “When can I go home?” he slurs.
“Not just yet, I’m afraid. The surgery was a little more complicated than expected. Once they got in with the camera through the small incision sight, they found that the tear in your liver had worsened. It took longer to stop the bleeding so that they could repair the organ, sweetie. Because of that, you had to be given a higher dose of anesthesia during the procedure. It should wear off in the next hour or so. Then we’ll see if you are up to walking around and everything. But right now, just lay back and get some more sleep.”
As much as Sam wants to just get up and sign himself out of the hospital, his body doesn’t comply. So for now, he leans back against the white pillows and gives into the pull of the drugs again.
The next time he comes to, there are more voices around his bed. Upon opening his eyes, he recognizes it to be his surgeon and the nurse.
“Hello Sam,” the surgeon says once he sees that Sam is now awake. “How do you feel?”
“Sore…”
“Any dizziness or nausea?” The doctor moves closer and begins taking Sam’s vitals.
Sam’s body screams ‘hell yes’ to the doctor’s question, but he refuses to stay any longer than necessary. He already is worried that he won’t be able to beat Dean home as it is. “No, not really. Just sore and tired.”
To his relief, the surgeon seems to believe his response. “Ok… that’s to be expected after this type of surgery. You’ll probably feel that way for a couple of days. I just want to go over a few more things then we can see about getting you out of here this evening.” He pulls a couple of pamphlets and papers out for Sam. “The main thing to look out for at this point is infection. Your incision might leak some fluid over the next couple of days, but if it looks more yellow or bloody you need to come straight back here. You might feel a little bloated; that’s also normal. Air sometimes gets trapped in your stomach and there is nothing we can do about that. It should go away on its own, and is nothing to really be concerned about. Now if you develop a high fever or start vomiting, you should also come in. The fever could indicate an infection. Vomiting may also be indicative of infection or just a reaction to the anesthesia. Either way it can put a strain on your abdomen and cause complications. These papers detail the other things to look out for, but those are the main concerns. These also have some instructions on foods and activities you should try over the next days and weeks. Just make sure you and your caregiver pays attention to them.”
Caregiver? Shit….
“Your medications are here in this bag and also have instructions. I’m going to go start your paperwork while Nurse Aims gets you up and moving.” With that, the doctor exits the room to allow the nurse to take care of Sam. She is gentle and kindly, but everything she does ends up causing Sam immense pain. But Sam’s fierce determination to get out of the hospital prevents him from letting it show. Instead he does his best to smile back at her and follow her every order.
By the time she walks him around the room and helps him back into a pair of sweatpants, t-shirt, and hoodie Sam is dripping with sweat, exhausted beyond belief, dizzy and sick to his stomach, and in pain… lots of pain.
“Ok, sweetheart. I’ll go check on your discharge papers and grab you a wheelchair. Is your caregiver meeting you outside?”
Shit…hadn’t thought about that…
“Um, could you just call me a cab?” he completely forgot to get one from the hospital in his rush to get one to take him here. “My brother will be home in a little bit to help me. He just got stuck working late. He couldn’t change shifts. He tried…” Sam does his best to look convincing.
“I really shouldn’t let you go home alone.”
“I… please, he’ll be in to look after me in a little bit, an hour won’t make a difference.” The fatigued tone in his voice combined with the sad puppy dog eyes seem to be enough to convince the nurse, because roughly twenty minutes later Nurse Aims is walking back in with a wheelchair.
“Your cab is waiting right outside for you, hun. So let’s get you out of here and back home.” She smiles sweetly at him as she moves him through the corridors and elevators. She even helps to guide him into the cab and slips him her card. “Here,” she says, “take this in case you need anything. My cell phone is on there as well as my work extension. Take care Sam.”
As she shuts the car door, Sam says a quick thanks and waves at her. She really was helpful and nice, much nicer than he had given her credit for while in the hospital. But once in the car, he definitely realizes it. His cab driver is the complete opposite…the man doesn’t seem to give a crap that Sam just had surgery and feels awful. He ends up hitting most of the potholes and bumps along the road back to the motel. By the time he swerves into the parking lot near Sam’s room, Sam is dripping with sweat and feels like he is going to be sick. His nails have dug indentions into the vinyl of the backseat. His abdomen feels as if it is on fire and the drugs have definitely worn off during the trip.
Somehow he manages to hand over the correct amount of money to the guy and stumble into the room. Once inside, stumbling over Dean’s tossed jeans he’d probably worn on the hunt, cursing as he wraps a tighter hand around his stomach, he discards all the papers and bags onto the table. He then pads over to the bed farthest from the door. Each steps makes things worse, but he forces himself to keep going. It may take longer than normal, but Sam eventually has the bed covers pulled down and is slipping under them. His pain-addled mind forgets to take more meds beforehand and to drink fluids like the doctor had advised. All he wants at this point is to go to sleep and forget everything about the night.
So that is what he does…he easily slips back into sleep without much thought. However it isn’t long before he is rudely brought back into consciousness. The couple next door starts an all out screaming match, startling Sam awake. He jumps harshly in the bed, pulling on his abused abdomen and stitches.
“Gah!” Sam puts a hand around his waist, as if that will somehow alleviate the throbbing. However, it just gets worse. It all becomes too much for his overtaxed body to take. His stomach lurches. Sam tries to make it up out of the bed, but he has no such luck. He ends up empty the meager contents of his stomach over the side of the bed and onto the motel’s floor. “Mmm…” he groans miserably. He knows he needs to get up and clean everything before Dean comes home, but his body has other plans. Sam’s arms give out on him, and he flops back against the bed. He passes out almost instantly…
SPN
“Son of a bitch,” Dean mumbles. He is pissed…beyond pissed really. The hunt was not as easy as he had hoped and he was not able to even make it into the local bar like he wanted. He had left messages for Sam to come help him, but the little brat never answered. Now, fully intent on ripping his brother a new one, Dean fumbles with the motel’s key card and enters the room. The smell of sickness and sweat hits him instantly, taking away most of his anger. “Sammy?”
Sam doesn’t answer. Dean flicks the light on and frowns, holding an arm under his nose at the smell that only gets strong. Sam is sick? Why the hell hadn’t he picked up on that earlier? No wonder the kid was in bed at three in the afternoon, that was completely unnatural. Sam hated sleep at the best of times, so he especially didn’t take naps in the middle of the day…no matter how tired he was.
“Sam?” he calls again, crossing the distance from the door to the furthest bed in his most impressive time yet. Sam is face down in his pillow, his body curled and shaking slightly. Dean puts a palm to his brother’s shoulder and feels heat radiating from him. His hand comes away slick with Sam’s cold clammy sweat. Shit. “Sammy, come on man wake up.”
Still, there’s no response; Sam just sleeps and shivers on. Dean looks around to find clues as to what is up with his brother, apart from the puddle of puke by the bed that he was really not looking forward to cleaning up. Signs of aspirin if Sam had been compos mentis enough to take anything, or drink anything, or even do much besides sleep.
“Oh you son of a bitch,” he curses when he sees the pile of pamphlets, the words ‘post surgery care’ screaming out at him like a damn fog horn. “Please tell me you don’t need surgery you dumb ass,” he whispers picking them up and taking a closer inspection. But everything, the words ‘post,’ the medication on the nightstand, the antibiotics and pain killers, all pointed to something else, Sam didn’t need surgery…he’d already had it. How the hell could his brother have fitted that into the day? Was it this morning? Last night when he was out with Stacy, no… Tracy, wait… Kimberly.
He reads the care giver's notes more thoroughly, seeing what he needed to do if Sam had just been for surgery…someone knocking him out, cutting him open, waking up alone. Fuck Sam shouldn’t have to go through that alone. No one should. Why did he go through that alone?
Back to the task at hand, he forces himself to take in the warning signs of Sam needing to go back to hospital. Vomiting, fever, dizziness, yellow puss from the surgical sight…God he hoped Sam didn’t have an infection and this was just the anesthesia wearing off. Badly.
“Okay, well you’re not gonna be much help are you?” he asks Sam, but not really expecting an answer. Like he just said, Sam wasn’t going to be any help at all in giving him more clues as to what the hell he needed to do at this moment in time to help. “Let’s gets these sheets off you for starters. You’re too hot.”
He can imagine Sam making some sarcastic jibe at that. God knows he learned from the best and Dean’s done it plenty of times when he’s had a fever and Sam said something that could totally be misread as being gay as hell.
After getting a cloth from the bathroom and wetting it with freezing cold water, he rolls it up and puts it over his brother’s forehead.
“I know, I know,” he says when Sam moans. “Heat packs are more your thing but just be thankful I’m not dumping your ass into a tub of ice right now…or dragging you straight back to the hospital. When you wake up we are going to have a seriously long conversation about little brother’s going for surgery without even telling their big brother’s they’re hurt. Then again that’s kind of my bad for not noticing…for being a complete jackass lately.”
He brushes the hair underneath the cloth and smoothes it back; he snorts to himself when Sam’s damp bangs just flop right back down. When he feels Sam wince, before he actually does, he thinks it’s about time to find out just where he’d been operated on.
He checks Sam’s limbs, examining his sweat clad legs with gentle pats all the way from his thighs to his ankles. No hisses there. He gets a look at Sam’s arms, what little he can, before it all comes clear with the way he’s curled around his middle, his back arched protectively. Sam had had abdominal surgery, possible the worst kind not counting the brain. Definitely not something to take lightly, and certainly not something that should be done in and out in the space of what…the five hours he’s been gone at the most?
He shifts to ease away Sam’s arms, but his efforts are quickly fought. “Sssh, it’s okay, I just need to look, Sammy,” he soothes when Sam fusses and pulls away. After a bit of struggling, Dean gets Sam still enough, managing to tuck Sam’s hands under the pillow under his head. He then lifts up his slightly damp t-shirt to see where the incision is. Dean hisses when he catches sight of the stark white gauze against bright red inflamed skin with the blue and yellow bruises above.
He ghosts a finger over the red blotted white strip and hates how tender it must be because Sam tries to curl himself into a tight ball again.
“Sorry, still raw?” Sam’s whimper is answer enough. “Well, looks okay, no puss so far. I’ll check the stitches later, see if those doctors can match my sewing skills.” Dean smirks. “We’ve probably had more practice than all of those quacks put together huh Sammy?”
He thinks Sam would say yes if he was awake, followed by something like ‘And that’s not a good thing Dean, you sick freak.’
He puts Sam’s t-shirt back down for him and watches his breathing as it evens out as much as it probably can in his restless state.
After a few moments of stillness, Dean cleans the mess Sam made on the floor and down the other side of the bed. He just takes relief in the fact that Sam didn’t puke in the middle of their two beds; otherwise Dean’s sheets might have gotten a mist too. It’s disgusting and he gags once or twice. He still manages to get a few smart ass hits in while he’s at it, telling Sam he so owed him for this and the next time he was sick, Sam wasn’t wimping out and getting another motel room without cleaning the mess his big brother had made.
When he’s done all he can, Dean dumps the soiled towels he’s used from the bathroom into the trashcan and leaves that outside. No one’s going to want to use those again. Though it doesn’t bare thinking about how many others have probably sprayed some bodily fluids on them in the past and not had the consideration to trash them like he did.
He washes his hands and opens the windows to get rid of the last of the lingering smell.
Making his way back to his brother, he turns the cloth to the cool side for Sam then decides its time to take a quick shower. He doesn’t want to think about what he’s been kneeling down on. Even if his knees did miss the vomit puddle, he still feels gross. He leaves the door open the whole time and pokes his head out of the curtain every few minutes to make sure he Sam was still sleeping blissful, well… sleeping anyway. He doesn’t hear anything from his brother in the other room, which is good but not so good at the same time.
He pulls on a clean pair of sweats and a white bed shirt. Neither of them were going anywhere for a few more days at the very least, so he might as well be comfy as he lounged around and looked after his brother.
“Sam?” he calls when he hears a moan just as he exits the bathroom followed by a cloud of steam.
Sam twitches his head a little; his fists tighten in the sheets he’s managed to get tangled up in again. Dean unwraps his brother’s freakishly long legs from the material and tugs free the vice like grip he has with his fingers. He takes the sheets away for good and sets them in a pile on his own empty bed. Sam goes still again now that he is free. Dean takes away the lukewarm cloth, cools it again with fresh water, and places it back on Sam’s head. The young hurt hunter starts to turn again but Dean presses his palm to his chest, a comforting touch, and Sam relaxes fully for the first time since Dean walked in the room.
“Alright, just rest okay? I’ll be here.”
Dean sits on the edge of his bed and drapes his hands between his legs, sighing, watching, waiting. He switches on the TV and turns down the volume. He thinks even if it was blasting through to next door, Sam probably wouldn’t wake up, but it was common courtesy that counted. Half an hour into some Jerry Springer re-run Dean moves. Standing from his own mattress, carefully he eases himself down onto Sam’s, leaning against the headboard, one hand around the remote and his other around Sam’s closest wrist.
“Your bed has better view of the tube,” he says to Sam, who still isn’t awake to listen, but he feels like he has to defend himself anyway. This totally was not because he needed to be close to Sam at all, to touch him to make sure he was okay enough as he could be. Okay maybe it was.
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