Title: All That's Ever Mattered
Fandom: Supernatural
Summary: Season 13. In the hospital, Sam worries at Dean's bedside.
(Since I did a Dean at Sam's bedside story recently, figured I'd reverse it this time around)
He sat. Disconnected. Oblivious to the chaos just outside the room. Nothing else mattered.
A nurse came and went. Words not said. He wouldn't have heard them anyway. His mind was focused only on his brother.
His brother. His big brother. The one who'd looked after him and taken care of him all his life. The one he couldn't and wouldn't live without.
He was here now. The hospital. Tubes running four different ways. Face bruised and swollen. Bandages covering wounds that were well beyond Sam's ability to stitch them. They'd patched each other up hundreds of times before, but not this time. Sam was at a loss to even remember what had happened. It was a whirlwind of claws and fangs and knives and blood. They'd escaped, but only barely. Dean had bled all over the car. Didn't matter. Only one thing thing mattered.
So he sat here. Waiting. His brother's wounds had been stitched and treated. His face cleaned. His hands, arms and nose tubed and taped. They'd run head scans and chest scans and lung scans and every scan Sam could think of, finding no internal swelling or long term damage. But Dean was unconscious and pale in the few places that weren't covered by a rainbow of bruising. The area around the right eye was so swollen, it was impossible to even identify an actual eye. Any damage there would be known only when the swelling was reduced. They'd said his right hand would be useless for a time. There were fractures and more swelling than Sam had ever seen before. Dean's hand was three times it regular size. Useless indeed.
They'd make it work though until things were normal again. They'd figure it out.
Hours passed. At least it seemed like hours. Sam didn't know. Didn't care. They hadn't kicked him out which surprised him, though he sat so quietly at Dean's bedside, maybe removing him never entered their minds.
He was there though. Dean would know it too.
This was just another in a long line of crap that had come their way. One more obstacle in a lifetime full of them. Sam was tired of it all. In recent weeks, he'd had so little fight left, then this happened and it brought things to focus again. What mattered. What didn't. Right now, only his brother mattered. Because without Dean, anything else that may have mattered...didn't. Not really.
Sam wrapped his fingers around the non swollen ones on Dean's good hand and squeezed gently. He'd hoped for a response, but wasn't disappointed when non happened. It was early into recovery. Hours. So much further to go.
Sitting back in the chair, Sam glanced up at the TV. The Winter Olympics showing. Skeleton. Dean's favorite. Athletes lying face down, head first on a small board-like sled, hitting speeds of 70 miles per hour as they flew down a roller coaster of ice. Sometimes they'd crash. Sometimes they'd make it to the end. Either way they crossed the finish line or worked their ass off to see that line. He'd always said that it kinda represented their lives. Every four years, they watched. Usually in some drab hotel, but with beer and popcorn in hand. Dean would be disappointed to miss it this time around, but Sam would tell him all about it. In fact, he could tell him about it now, as it happened. And in the process, bring them a touch of familiarity and comfort.
Soft voice, just above a whisper, as Sam gave his brother the highlights of the events on the screen. Outside of these hospital walls, things were happening around them, Sam knew. The alternate apocalyptic universe. Mom. Jack. Asmodeus. Michael. Lucifer. It was another race to save the world if the wrong combination of those came together. It all mattered. Every single bit of it mattered. But it didn't. Not right now. Not to Sam.
Only one thing mattered.
Sam felt fingers tighten every so slightly around his own; a feeling of relief. Intense. The pit in his stomach suddenly gone. The worried brow replaced with a knowing smile.
Things were good. Or they would be. That first squeeze was followed by another. Sam held tight. His easy voice still describing the Games. Focused on being there for the only thing that mattered at this moment.
His brother. Here. With him. Alive.
In their calamity-filled lives of blood and pain and death and heartbreak...it's all that's ever mattered.
The end