DISCLAIMER: Maybe while the writers are on strike, they won't notice if I take their characters . . . but until I find a good way to do it and a really solid alibi, they aren't mine.
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"Stupid poltergeist," Dean muttered under his breath as he searched the upper rooms of the haunted house. He and Sam had figured they could finish this hunt in less than a day. Now he wondered why they would ever assyme that. Nothing was as easy for them as it should have been. Nothing.
They had split up almost immediately to cover more ground, and immediately they both regretted it, as they were attacked by various objects in the room. Eventually, Sam had been tossed down the basement stairs and Dean was dragged painfully upward, head hitting each step on the way to the upper floor. By the time he'd gotten himself free, he had no idea where his brother was.
He had checked the basement, only to discover that while Sam had definitely been there, he was gone now. And that was why Dean was tediously going through every single room in the house. He'd gone back up to the second floor to search before going back down to the main floor.
The hunter was getting frustrated in his search and, had it been anyone besides Sam that was missing, he would have given up the search for the day. But then he heard a noise that made his blood run cold and his heart rate increase – he heard a very familiar whimper, coming from the room ahead of him.
Dean burst into the room and suddenly stopped in horror. Sam was against the wall, gruesomely stuck there by a thin metal rod shoved through each shoulder and each hand. Blood freely seeped from his wounds, and he apparently had lost the strength to hold his head up. But the worst was yet to come, as the poltergeist's ethereal fingers were carefully feeling Sam's torso. Once satisfied, it mercilessly impaled one of the hunter's ribs. Sam couldn't help the whimper that was ripped from this throat. This tiny sound spurred Dean into action.
He couldn't fire because it was too much risk to his brother. Normally, he would have done it anyway just to get the creature away, but with Sam's current physical state, he couldn't convince himself to. Instead, he lurched forward, covering the distance across the room in three large steps and throwing himself into the poltergeist, which he naturally passed through. But apparently the motion distracted the poltergeist long enough for Dean to shoot it. He probably would have shot it another eleven or twelve times if the thing hadn't vanished into a wisp of smoke at the first contact with the rock salt. He'd deal with that later. He had something more important on his mind right now.
The elder hunter was at his brother's side in less than a second, trying to decide the best way to get him off the wall. Clearly, pulling the rods out would not only be painful but also stupid, as Sam would probably bleed out in seconds. He'd have to pull Sam, together with the rods, off and try not to shake him too much. This idea also seemed fairly ludicrous, but it was better than the first, so he went for it. He was just reaching for the most recently placed rod, in Sam's rib, when said brother looked up.
"Dean," came the soft whisper.
"I'm here, Sammy," Dean replied, his hands holding up Sam's sinking head.
"Pull it out."
Dean almost snorted, looking back at the rod in question. "You don't know what you're asking, Sam. I can't do that. You could die."
"Please," the younger hunter said, and his pleading tone caused Dean's eyes to lock with his brother's. Sam was begging.
"I can't, Sam. I know it hurts, but it will hurt more if I pull it out."
"Please, Dean – trust me. You have to pull it out."
"Let's get you to a hospital, and the doctor will pull it out, okay, Sammy?"
Sam's eyes sank closed, but not before Dean witnessed the true helplessness in their depths. He shuddered involuntarily before reaching up to put one of his hands on Sam's left wrist and the other on the rod. "We'll start here," he announced. "This is going to hurt." Before waiting for a response, Dean jerked both of his hands back and Sam's had came loose with a sickening grinding noise. Sam almost bit his tongue off. The elder Winchester wiped his bloody hands off on his jeans and reached for the other hand. "One down, four to go," he muttered, trying to ignore the way his brother's chest hitched with every painful breath. Sam grunted during the removal his other hand, and yelled during the extraction of his shoulders. But he was nearly unconscious for the one in his rib cage and therefore made no noise at all, collapsing bonelessly into Dean's waiting arms. He was gently lowered to the floor, where his brother laid him on his side. There seemed to be no position that wouldn't cause an extreme amount of pain.
"See, that wasn't so bad, Sammy," Dean was whispering soothingly. "Now we'll get you to the car and then to the hospital."
That was the plan, at least, though Dean had no idea how to accomplish it. There was no way he could expect Sam to walk. And he couldn't sling his brother over his shoulder without jostling the rods and causing further damage. But he was saved from having to make that decision right then because the poltergeist chose that moment to reappear and knock Dean away, looking down at his prey once more.
Sam was still semi-conscious and was gripping the rod in his stomach. It was clutched agonisingly between two of his fingers, and he had no idea how he expected to pull it out. However, he refused to be this poltergeist's pincushion any more. He jerked it back, but all that happened was pain exploding in both his hand and his ribs. He groaned aloud when the poltergeist gripped the rod and ripped it upward to make the hole bigger. The young hunter couldn't prevent the scream that was torn from his throat as the rod was jerked back and forth through the hole in his body. Gunshots suddenly filled the room, and Sam managed to look over at the place where they originated from when the poltergeist disappeared, blurry eyes noting Dean's angry and concerned face as his eyes started to slip closed.
"Hang on, hang on," Dean said, dropping to his brother's side in panic. "You have to stay awake with me. Come on, Sammy."
"Pull – it – out," Sam ground out in a voice barely above a whisper.
"You could die."
"Please," Sam begged, eyes filling with tears of pain.
Unable to deny his brother anything when he had that expression on his face, Dean nodded, ripping a strip off the bottom of his t-shirt to be ready for a makeshift bandage. "This will hurt," he muttered for the second time that night, hands firmly on the rod as he pulled out in one straight motion. Other than a soft grunt, Sam made no noises. Dean soon realised that was because his brother was mercifully unconscious.
"At least it won't hurt you to be moved," he grumbled, still trying to figure out how to extract Sam from the situation without causing more damage. He didn't want to take an of the other rods out for fear of causing more and perhaps permanent damage to fragile hands and shoulders. He held the wadded up piece of shirt against the stomach wound for a few minutes, watching blood ooze around his fingers before deciding that time was of the essence.
"Sorry, little brother," he hissed as he dumped Sam's gangly form over his shoulder and stood. This could rip open the wound more, but if Sam didn't get help soon, he would bleed out, anyway. Dean figured it was the lesser of two evils and headed out as quickly as he could with the added weight, trying to ignore the mental images his brain was providing him with of the rods in his brother's body being pushed in and out of raw holes as they bounced with the motion of Dean's steps.
When he got to the car, the elder hunter realised he had no idea how to put his brother on a seat without jarring some of the rods. Before he could figure out what to do, though, he heard a moan, and pulled Sam from his shoulder. He cradled his little brother across his lap, Sam's head lolling near his right elbow. The sound was repeated, and he put his other hand on his brother's cheek.
"Sammy?" he coaxed gently. "Come on, bro – work with me, here."
The younger Winchester's eyes fluttered, slid open, and fell shut again almost immediately, as though holding them open was too much of a burden. "You can't get away that easy," Dean continued. "Look at me."
Sam finally managed to get his eyes open, and blinked at the fuzzy image of his brother above him. "Dean?" he asked, needing confirmation of who was holding him.
"Yeah, Sammy. It's me. You have to stay with me now. We're going to the hospital."
In response, Sam's eyes drooped again, and only a gentle tap on the cheek from Dean kept him from slipping back into unconsciousness. He didn't have the strength or energy to carry on a conversation or even make eye contact with his brother, but he was conscious. In retrospect, Dean wasn't sure why he didn't just let Sam pass out again to save him from the pain of the trip to a hospital. Then he decided it was probably because he'd already had his brother die in his arms once. The mere possibility of it happening again was too much.
Ultimately, Dean had decided to scoop his Sam up (as much as that was possible with his gargantuan kid brother) and lay him on his side in a ball across the front seat. Sam's head rested on Dean's leg so Dean could hold onto him and try to prevent any of the rods from moving while he drove like a maniac to a hospital. Sam didn't seem to care; he'd been told to focus on staying awake and that was taking all he had left.
By the time they reached the hospital, Sam was pretty well unconscious, Dean was a wreck, and the emergency people that happened to be on duty that night got the brunt of all of it. One blood-covered man stumbled in carrying another blood-covered man who was far too big to be hauled around like that and then they had collapsed in a heap on the ground. Everyone jumped into action, figuring out who was injured and taking him away, trying to get the other man to wash up or at least get checked out. Eventually they gave up their efforts on Dean, focusing instead on the man he'd been carrying.
The waiting room left a lot of time for Dean to fret, worry, beat himself up, fret, worry, and pace. He couldn't sit still while he had his brother's blood all over himself. It wasn't physically or emotionally possible for him to do it. And yet he couldn't go wash it off until he knew for sure how Sam was doing. It was a vicious cycle.
Dean couldn't leave Sam alone after his year was up. He couldn't. He loved his brother more than anything else in the world, but Sam didn't deserve to be all alone in the world. Their dad's biggest fear had been being alone; that was why he'd been so angry when Sam went off to college. Dean hadn't wanted to be alone, and that was why he went to fish Sam out of Stanford in the first place, why he'd traded in his soul. But it was obvious that Sam didn't want to be alone, either. He had been desperate when Jess died, when Dean's heart had malfunctioned from the electricity, when he'd watched his father die on the hospital floor, and when Bobby was in a dream coma.
No, neither of them deserved it.
That being said, Dean knew he would still try to stop Sam from welching out of the deal if it meant he would die again. And Sam would do whatever it was he wanted to do, anyway. It was ironic, how the one thing they could depend on was trying to sacrifice to save the other.
And how screwed up was it that Sam thought he had to turn into his pathetic older brother in order to survive when Dean left? Dean had always had a great amount of respect for the kid, in spite of all the ribbing and teasing he'd outwardly shown. Sam had been doing just fine on his own, both at Stanford and in hunts. He was quick, in shape, smart . . . he didn't need to be ruthless to hunt. That had been Gordon's problem.
Dean's soul-searching was interrupted when the doctor came out and called his latest alias. Standing quickly, he let his worried, bloodshot eyes do the talking for him, knowing the doctor would understand.
And he did. He refrained from cataloging Sam's numerous injuries clinically. He also didn't bother with the details of how many stitches it had taken or how many units of blood they'd used. Instead, he sensed the family connection his patient shared with this man standing before him and simply said, "He'll be okay."
Dean let out a breath in a whoosh of relief, letting those three words sink in around him. He cleaned himself up, washed the blood and dirt away, and soon found himself sitting by Sam's bed. The kid was still unconscious from the anaesthetic they had used on him, but Dean didn't care. He looked at the innocent expression on his brother's face and whispered, "You'll be okay."
And just then, Dean knew Sam wouldn't let him down. He'd promised to get his brother out of the deal and Dean knew he would. Somehow.
He tentatively placed a hand on Sam's arm, smiled, and corrected, "No, we'll be okay. Together."
He had never before realised how much those three little words meant to him, so he said them again, out loud.
"We'll be okay."