The Chair

by sandymg

“ ‘M leg hurts, my butt hurts, my chest hurts, my face hurts, and like that ain't enough, I gotta pee all over myself.”

Fanfic: The Chair
Author: sandymg
Beta: borgmama1of5 – who poured herself into this. All mistakes are mine
Summary: " 'M leg hurts, my butt hurts, my chest hurts, my face hurts, and like that ain't enough, I gotta pee all over myself."
Spoilers: None. Set in Season 1
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Hurt!Dean
Characters: Dean, Sam
Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural or any of its characters. They belong to the CW and Eric Kripke – who'd best treat them well

The Chair

"What the hell is that doing here?"

"This?" Sam asked, stalling, because there couldn't be anything else Dean could possibly be asking about.

"Yes, Sam. That. Go play your Perry Mason fantasies with someone else."

Sam took a deep breath, this wouldn't be easy, but was necessary. For his brother's own good. "Dean …"

"Get that thing outta here, like, yesterday."

"It's just for a few days. The hospital loaned it to me …"

Juggling crutches badly, Dean half hopped, half staggered, pretty much did a running fall across the room toward the bed, catching himself halfway on the badly laminated dresser. Sweat dripped from his forehead to mate with the freckles standing starkly out against Dean's pale cheeks. Goddamn, his brother could be stubborn. "No way," he huffed, pain making him nearly gasp. "The only wheels I'm rolling with are baby's."

Sam sighed. He'd taken the wheelchair when offered because he could see how much pain Dean was in. As if the list of what was currently fractured and broken in his brother's body wasn't enough to make taking the damn thing seem like a really good idea. But he knew this would be a near-impossible sell. He wished Dean would just lie down, before he fell and made things worse.

Dean looked toward the washed-out yellow bedspread with undisguised longing – and with an expression that suggested he judged it to be about three football fields away. Leaving the wheelchair near the doorway Sam silently moved to Dean's side helping not exactly carrying him the distance.

Dean groaned as he lay down.

"Can I get more painkillers?" Dean begged.

"Can't yet. Too soon. Couple of hours. Sorry."

Dean looked at him. "How 'bout you? Know you got smacked up, too."

"I didn't go sky-diving without a chute though."

Dean made no reply. Sam sat on the edge of his own bed and watched his brother lie still with his eyes shut. Every few breaths Dean would let out a little hiss that made Sam ache at being helpless to do anything about Dean's distress. Sam ran his hand over his eyes and relived the sensation of his lungs stopping as he'd stared down at Dean's spread-eagled body, unmoving on the pitted wooden floor after plowing through the second story banister. If Dean hadn't twisted so quickly to deflect the force of the piano into a glancing blow, Sam would have been looking for Dean under the damn thing. Of course, if Dean hadn't shoved Sam out of the way in the first place, Sam would have been flattened by the piano himself. Only, unlike Wile E. Coyote, he doubted he would have bounced back from pancake shape.

The hunt had been a mother. A freakin' perfect storm of evil coming to bite them. What kind of crazy haunted house had both a vengeful spirit and a pair of pissed off poltergeists haunting together? Tag-team nasties. One minute they were trying not to get too close of a shave from the transparent bitch with the cleaver and suddenly Dean was shoving Sam out of the way as a freakin' piano was flying … Sam ducked the still-flying furniture and clutching only his shotgun raced down the stairs, desperate to feel the pulse of his preternaturally still brother. Dean's steady heartbeat restarted Sam's own. But a fall like that … he didn't dare move Dean until he knew the severity of his brother's back injury. If something was broken, moving Dean could end up permanently damaging his spine.

"Dean … Dean, can you hear me?" he touched his brother's face gently.

Out of the corner of his eye Sam saw something coming toward them and his reflexes kicked in to shield Dean. Sam grunted as the wooden desk chair bounced off his shoulder. OW! He needed to get Dean to a defensible spot or they'd be easy pickings. Paramedics would put a neck brace around a possible spinal cord injury before moving the patient. Praying that his actions wouldn't damage his brother irreparably, Sam stripped off his hoodie to place around Dean's neck, keeping his head as straight as possible.

A high-pitched cackle warned him and he grabbed the shotgun and shot the cleaver-wielding widow as she was swinging at his head. Putting the weapon back on the floor, he carefully hooked his hands in Dean's armpits and dragged him as quickly and steadily as he could to the wall. There he made a quick barricade shifting the closest furniture, including the recently thrown desk chair, around Dean.

"Dean, Dean, you gotta wake up!" Be okay, he intoned silently as his throat tightened. Dean was breathing normally but didn't stir. The spirits were momentarily calm but they'd be back. He needed better protection around them until he could get help. His pack was upstairs. Leaving Dean alone was the last thing he wanted to do. But it was necessary. With a last look at his brother he ducked from their cover and raced back up the stairs.

Spotting Dean's duffel first he grabbed the handle and spun around to get back to Dean. Halfway down a hideous banshee cry announced the spirit bitch was back. The fact that she seemed incapable of sneaking up saved Sam's neck again and he used the duffel as a shield and dove down the remaining stairs but his foot hit a piece of the debris and he missed the last several steps, landing on his side hard enough to tear several choice curses from him. From the fierce stab up his leg he must have twisted his ankle. The unexpected pain distracted him just a moment, but that was long enough for the bitch to land the cleaver into the meat of his bicep. Sam thrust his hand blindly into the duffle, seized the iron rod and thrust madly into the crazy woman's ghost. She vanished in a screechy whoosh, couldn't even disappear quietly.

Arm throbbing, he worked his way back to Dean, praying that his brother had come to. The scene was unchanged. Dean lay where he'd left him, still unconscious, face the color of cigarette ashes. As he pulled his shirt off to use as a bandage for his arm, Sam's eyes turned back to the broken railing of the balcony. The piano had been a small, but massively heavy upright. Now it was a splintered carcass. Some of its ivory keys were embedded upright in the foyer floor, turning the entrance into the maw of a creature trying to gobble them up. It had sent Dean flying. Sam had cringed in horror during Dean's elongated, slow-motion whooaaaa until the thud of his body's impact reverberated even over the wild din of the dual tantrums of the poltergeists. Sam's breath caught again at the vision of what might have been if Dean had been a hair slower.

One-handed bandage tied as best he could -- lucky it was his left arm -- he pulled the rock salt from Dean's bag and made a wide protection line around them. Then he turned back to his brother and touched him gently, careful not to jar him. "Dean, it's me. I'm back. Dean, please …"

After an eternity Dean groaned loudly and started to open one eye. "Ss .."

"I'm here. Dude, hey, wake up … you okay? Can you move?"

Dean moved his head slightly. Sam looked down at his brother's body – his leg had been twisted badly, but that wasn't what he was worried about.

His brother's groggy eyes met his in confusion. "Wha h'pn?"

Sam looked up as a large lamp bounced off the coffee table he had upended as a shield. The salt would keep the ghosts out, but offered no protection against the incoming missiles. He felt like they were trapped in the center of Dorothy's tornado. They so needed to get out of here … "You fell from the landing, trying to avoid the piano."

Dean's eyes looked up with concern. "You okay, Sammy?"

Only Dean could hear that he fell fifteen feet and ask how Sam was. "I'm fine. But what about you? Can you move?"

Sam held his breath as Dean tried to move. He struggled, eyes growing wide. "Can't … Sammy … Can't feel 'm legs."

The unadulterated panic in Dean's eyes was something Sam had never seen before and it was all he could do to not break down like a child. "You're going to be okay. I called for an ambulance. Should be here any moment." He took his brother's hand because he didn't know what else to do. "We'll get through this. Keep still so you don't make it worse."

Dean's eyes were shuttered. Sam knew his brother had gone to a very dark place. "Can't get worse," Dean muttered.

No. Dean was breathing. His heart was beating. It definitely could have been worse.

Like naughty children who behave when the grownups come home, the ghosts stayed out of sight when the ambulance came. The paramedics quickly put a neck collar on Dean, put a board beneath him, and got him out. The ride was quick. He continued to hold his brother's hand. Just before they pulled into the ER Dean said, "Sam … if … what will I do?"

Sam met those fear-filled green eyes and said with all the belief he had, "You're gonna be fine."

Dean's eyes were emptier than Sam had ever seen them. "Be better off … "

Sam couldn't hear this, couldn't think this. Ever. He ignored the tears tracking his face and held on even tighter to Dean's hand.

His brother didn't say anything else but the squeeze he gave back traveled straight to Sam's heart.

The emergency room was a whirlwind. Sam had forgotten the gash on his arm until a nurse ushered him into his own cubicle to clean and stitch the slice. He tried to keep still long enough for her to finish but all he wanted was to get back to Dean.

Finally she let him go but Dean was no longer in the ER. They'd taken him for an MRI and maybe a CT. As Sam waited in Dean's curtained treatment area he was terrified that his brother had broken his back. Sam knew people recovered from spinal cord injuries. And that paraplegics could lead full lives. He shuddered. As the thousands of horrible possibilities flew through his thoughts, Sam kept coming back to the question of would Dean want to live under certain circumstances. A knot formed in his stomach and he couldn't shake it.

It felt like three years passed before Dean was wheeled back in on a gurney. The doctor spoke to them and said that Dean's spine suffered a concussion but that there was no permanent damage and no internal bleeding, and then joked about not falling off any more second floor landings. For the second time that day Sam stopped breathing, but this time in relief. Dean was gonna be okay. They weren't going to have to face that devastating what if … Thank you, God.

Of course, just because Dean's back was fine didn't mean other things weren't a mess. He'd fractured his pelvis, three of his ribs were broken, and his leg was pretty messed up, too. Frankly, the doctor said, Dean was the luckiest S.O.B. he'd seen in the emergency room in a long time. And moving was going to "hurt like hell" for a while.

Dean was out of it enough to consent to stay in the hospital overnight. Sam spent the night next to Dean's bed, oblivious to his own body's distress after having been pummeled and sliced and then constricted for hours in a chair meant for a much smaller person.

As soon as Dean's eyes opened Sam asked, "How're you feeling?"

"My leg hurts, Sam," Dean said simply.

* * *

"Gotta go back," Dean said now, breaking Sam's chilling reverie.

"What?" Sam had to blink to bring himself back to the present, the motel room.

"To the house. Didn't finish the job."

Sam sat wearily on his bed and stared at his brother. Go back?! "Right. Because we're in such great shape to go hunting now."

Dean groused, "Not now, like right now, but can't leave it, dude."

Sam sighed. No, they couldn't, he supposed. But it was hard to think about going back when that place would be the center of his nightmares for some time.

His arm stung and his ankle ached. Compared to what Dean was feeling, though, it wasn't even worth registering. His brother looked … well, he looked like he'd fallen off a second story onto a hard wood floor. And it hurt.

"Sam?"

"Yeah?"

"Starving."

Huh. Well, not much diminished Dean's appetite. Come to think of it, when had they last eaten? He looked around the dingy room, identical to all the other dumps they flopped in. What had happened to his life? For a little magical window, it had contained huge lecture rooms and magnificent lawns and sunshine and … Jess. And now there was a narrow bed in a room that smelled of old cigarette smoke and alcohol and other things he'd rather not even try to identify, and his big brother looked more broken than he ever wanted to see again.

"If you wanna eat you gotta make it to the car. Nothing's gonna deliver to this dive." Shoulda known that a case in Burnt House, West Virginia – known for exactly nothing – would lead to nothing good.

Dean stirred. "No problem," he grimaced as he tried to shift upright.

"Dean, this is ridiculous. Your ribs are smashed to hell. Your pelvis is fractured. Your damn leg's twisted nine kinds of Sunday and your back … Enough. You can't walk. Not for a while at least. Get in the damn chair and I'll wheel you to the car and we'll get food."

"Not a … cripple … I can do it. Bring me the crutches."

Sam couldn't watch. "Stop. I'll run out and get something. Bring it back."

Dean settled back into the bed, trying but failing to hide the torment that every movement caused him. "Never mind. Not hungry anymore."

"C'mon Dean. Don't be a child."

" 'M not. Just don't wanna eat."

Sam bit back his annoyance. Dean was always an impossible patient. He was a phenomenal hunter and hardly ever really got badly hurt. Not like this at any rate. So when he did … Truth be told, Sam was the one who'd gotten banged up in the past. And Dean'd always taken care of him. But Dean had no idea how to let someone watch out for him. Sam rolled his eyes.

He rose and grabbed his coat. "I'll get us some food. Saw some fast food up the road some miles. Just be gone a little while."

"No, Sam …"

Sam turned back to Dean. Was strange -- no make that impossible -- that his brother was turning down a cheeseburger. Dean's eyes were closed, his face gray. "Hurts," he muttered. "Can't I get another …"

Sam sat carefully on the edge of his brother's bed. The slight disturbance of the mattress made Dean recoil and Sam flinched. "Sorry. Not for another couple of hours. The pills are strong. Too many and—aren't they helping at all?"

Dean shook his head no and bit down on his lower lip. " 'M leg hurts, my butt hurts, my chest hurts, my face hurts, and like that ain't enough, I gotta pee all over myself."

Sam stared blankly.

"Ratso Rizzo … don't you know anything?" Dean whined. The exertion of speaking must have strained his rib case because his face whitened. "Dammit," he breathed again.

His brother didn't complain. Well, yeah, he complained about everything. But never about anything real. Suddenly the "I'm not hungry" was taking on new meaning. Dean didn't want him to leave.

"You know, I'm not all that hungry, either. Maybe later, I'll get us something."

"Sorry," Dean said softly.

"For what?"

But Dean never replied.

"Maybe you can get some sleep," Sam offered.

Dean just moaned. Then Sam heard Dean's stomach rumble.

"Dean, why are you being so stubborn about the wheelchair? Crutches aren't going to work for more than two minutes. We both know this."

Sam didn't expect Dean to reply. He already knew the answer. Was pride. And more. Something that ate at Sam's insides when he let himself think about it.

"Hurts a little less. Maybe the drugs are kickin' in."

Sam touched his brother's shoulder gently. "Good."

Their eyes met. Sam saw something flickering, turning, in his brother's mind.

"Okay," Dean said finally.

"Okay what?" Sam asked.

"I'll try it."

Sam's eyes widened. He rose and moved the wheelchair over to the bed. Dean started pushing himself up. His face got even more ashen, which Sam wouldn't have thought possible, as Sam helped him up and hoisted him over to the chair. Eyes dark in the yellow motel light, Dean touched the wheels with his fingertips as if they were coated with acid. The thing that settled in Sam's gut rooted deeper at Dean's empty stare. It hurt and it was wrong and Sam couldn't let it go.

"Dean," he started, unsure of what to say, how to say it. "It wouldn't be the end of the — I mean, thank god, it's only temporary but …"

"Don't worry, Sammy, I won't be in this thing long. Gotta finish the job."

It was hard, there were so many things they never said to each other. "Yes. We'll finish it. But, it's not just about the job."

Dean looked at him questioningly and Sam knew the painkillers were slowing his brother down. Not just his body.

"You're more than the job, Dean."

"Well, yeah. We still have to find Dad."

Sam met his brother's eyes. "More than that, too."

Dean looked away because the painkillers hadn't slowed him down that much. But Sam didn't want to let his brother hide. "Dean, what you'd do … you'd be my brother. You'd be … you. That's what you'd do."

His brother looked back up and didn't speak but their eyes met and Sam's stomach started to unclench. It was enough.

Sam rose to push the chair.

"I can do it," Dean griped, wheeling himself backward between the beds.

Sam cringed at the obvious strain but didn't offer to help.

Dean managed to make it to the door and then stopped. Sam didn't wait to be asked. Silently he opened the door and wheeled his brother outside. Painstakingly, he helped Dean into the Impala's passenger seat, then walked around and got behind the wheel.

"Sam?"

"Yeah?" he asked turning the ignition. The familiar rumble soothed.

When Dean didn't answer Sam turned to him, met his brother's eyes.

"Thanks," Dean said.

Words tumbled on Sam's tongue all wanting to be spoken. But he settled on a nod and turned onto the highway to get them food.

fin