For R
Stuck With Me
K Hanna Korossy
Brother and sister safely locked in the Impala, Sam pounded back into the house and down the stairs to help his own brother. He hadn't been happy to leave the monster to Dean, not with only one shot left, but the kids needed to be taken out of there and Dean could look after himself. And, indeed, as the monster came into sight, it was lying motionless on the basement floor.
So was Dean.
"Dean!" Sam crashed uncaringly past the body of the monster, going down on his knees beside Dean in the puddle he half-lay in. Sam hauled him up, relieved to see no blood or obvious injury. Maybe he'd just hit the wall and been dazed? "Hey. Hey," Sam coaxed desperately, one hand against Dean's cheek to lift his lolling head, fingers pressing against his carotid to find that reassuring pulse.
There wasn't one.
Sam's head jerked around, taking in the scene again. The body lying a few feet away, taser leads still in its chest. Its feet in the water Dean was in. The smell of high-voltage electricity in the air. No pulse. With dawning horror, Sam turned back and snatched Dean's hand up, the white burns on his fingertips and palm visible even in the dim light of their fallen flashlights.
No. No, no, no.
Sam lurched to his feet, grabbing his brother under the arms, and pulled him out of the water to lay him out on flat and dry flooring. He wasn't breathing either, of course, not even after Sam tilted his head back and made sure his airway was clear. Numb with fear, Sam bent over and sealed his lips around his brother's with an intimacy that would have had Dean sputtering if he'd been awake. Alive.
Sam breathed for him, once, twice.
He scrambled back to his knees, found the notch to place his interlaced hands, and started compressions. They hadn't had formal CPR training as kids, but Dad had made sure they'd known what to do. Sam had gotten and kept up his certification in college. Along with his training and fitness and arcane knowledge, as if he'd known Dean would show up one day and talk him back onto the road. As if he'd just been waiting for his brother.
Fifteen compressions done, Sam moved back to Dean's head and breathed again, watching his chest rise and fall in false sign of life.
High voltage electrocutions burned, and paralyzed the respiratory system, and damaged the heart. The rest of the body could be fine but the person might never breathe or circulate blood again, their body shorted out. Sam could do CPR until he passed out from lack of air and Dean would never wake up.
He sniffed once as he pressed and counted, then ruthlessly reined himself in. He couldn't afford the air.
Fifteen compressions, two breaths. Dean's mouth still smelled of the burgers they'd had for dinner.
"You are not dying on me." Sam was already short of breath, but he couldn't resist the gritted order. He kept pushing, counting in his mind. "You selfish bastard, you're all I've got left."
Two breaths, faint spots in his vision.
Sam put his hands back on his brother's chest, faltering for a moment. "Please, Dean, don't do this," he begged. The I need you he left unspoken. Dean had never liked emotional scenes.
Sam braced himself, and leaned his weight against Dean's stubborn heart again, willing it to pick up the rhythm. His own brain was shutting down, unable to believe or deal with what was happening. What was the difference between sorrow and fear, anyway?
One breath. The skin of Dean's neck felt warm under his shaking fingers. Two. If CPR didn't work in the first few minutes, chances were it wouldn't at all, and there was probably damage… But Dean's chest was rising and falling because Sam breathed for him, so how could he stop? His hand went to his brother's chest, bunched momentarily in the leather jacket.
"Don't give up." It was meant to be a command but it came out as a shaky plea. "Breathe for me, Dean." It was time to return the favor, right? Sam's jaw clenched against a rush of grief and he shook his brother by his jacket, hard. "Breathe, Dean!"
And Dean's chest rose and fell under his fist, exhaled air tickling Sam's thumb.
Sam stared in disbelief, gasping when he realized he himself wasn't breathing now. But—
Another inhalation, carrying a faint groan.
He smoothed out his hand over Dean's ribs, feeling for that missing heartbeat and finding it, uneven and weak but there.
Sam left his hand in place as he called for help, folded his jacket under his unconscious, not-dead brother's head, and bent dizzily over him, mind reeling. So much for his instincts; he'd refused to accept it, but down deep he'd thought…
Well, that didn't matter now, did it? Sam sat there, chewing on his knuckles and blinking back tears and watching Dean's chest rise and fall while he waited for the paramedics to arrive. Because under the relief and elation and gratitude, that deep part of him was still terrified.
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They let him ride in with Dean, which Sam wasn't sure later was such a mercy.
His brother's heart stopped again before the paramedics had gotten there, and Sam had raged and fought it back to life. He didn't know if it was fear or love that drove his determination, but whatever it was was powerful. And he had to watch helplessly as Dean crashed again in the ambulance, this time the paramedic taking over the battle.
But maybe it wasn't coincidence Dean started breathing again when Sam silently threaded his fingers through his brother's.
He'd taken Dean's jacket off so they wouldn't cut it—God forbid they wreck the leather trying to save his life—but he watched the rest of his brother's clothes sliced away, revealing burns dotting his legs and still-spasming muscles. How much could a body take and recover? The scars that were scattered over Dean's toned muscle said as much, but Sam didn't think that was why the paramedic was avoiding his eyes. Although he did drape a blanket around Sam's shoulders when he started shaking again.
Dean was alive, breathing, heart beating…mostly. So why couldn't Sam shake the panic that swelled through him in regular waves?
"He's stable," the paramedic finally announced, and his partner in front cut off the siren that had been wailing in the background, although red and blue lights still danced over the interior of the ambulance. Sam slid up closer to Dean's head, wishing he'd wake up, open his eyes, even squeeze Sam's fingers, but apparently it was taking all he had just to keep his heart and lungs going. Sam conceded the priority. He hung on with both hands now to his brother, though, just in case his determination was enough to keep Dean alive and with him. Dean had banished nightmares for him when they were kids through his sheer presence, and while Sam had never had that power, he'd longed to return the favor.
He hung on until they had to rush Dean out of the ER for tests, leaving Sam standing forlornly in the hall, hoping he hadn't just let his brother go.
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Dean had drifted off soon after Sam's declaration he would find a way to stop him from dying, as if determined to show Sam how pointless that was. Without the teasing half-grin and weak spark in the eyes, he just looked pale and unwell. Dying.
Sam swallowed hard, blinking, and took in all the machinery around him. Their dad had always scorned institutional medicine, choosing to treat all but their most serious injuries himself. Dean had carried on the tradition, and Sam wanted to avoid trouble enough not to argue. But Dad had been right, it was all useless. No virus raged through Dean's body, there were no gaping wounds or torn tissue, and still he was fading.
I'm gonna die. And you can't stop it.
Watch me, he'd said, and meant it, but had no idea how.
Sam turned away blindly, hands clenched inside his jacket pockets and lip worried near to bleeding. The doctor had said Dean would need a lot of sleep, and Sam had a new hunt to go on.
There were people he could call, right? Dad's friends, Dean's contacts—if anyone would know of something that might help his brother, they would. And the doctors could always be wrong. They hadn't even discussed the possibility of a transplant, and Sam would have to look into that, too. They'd saved a lot of people over the years. If he couldn't save his own brother, what was the point?
His jaw clenched, Sam strode out of the hospital.
And realized he hadn't driven there, about two seconds before he caught sight of the Impala parked nearby. Apparently, the cops for once were as grateful as they'd seemed.
Dean's keys were in his pocket along with his brother's other personal effects, except for his amulet, which hung around Sam's neck. Under his shirt and against his skin, it felt both reassuring and wrong, but he'd give it back when Dean got out of the hospital. Until then, one of them should be wearing it, and driving the car.
Sam unlocked the door and slid in, and was instantly battered by a rush of memories. Dean driving down long roads, eyes alight with humor and mischief, his brainless music blaring in the background. Teasing Sam, or keeping him sane: sometimes it had been hard to tell the difference.
Alive. His brother was usually so alive, not like that shadow Sam had just left in the hospital. No teasing could hide that he was losing Dean, and it was so stupidly unfair. Sam snatched the tape from the tape deck and threw it against the dash hard enough to crack it.
He closed his eyes for a moment, just imagining Dean's response, and contritely slipped the broken tape into his pocket. He'd replace it before Dean got out. Sam had to go to the store, anyway, to find some inane get-well gift to keep up pretenses they weren't talking about forever here. Maybe a bear like the fabric-softener teddy, if he could find one.
Sam turned the key in the ignition, ignoring the fact it took three tries for him to get it in the slot, and realized he had no idea where the motel was from the hospital.
The town wasn't that big, and for all his intentions, he wasn't in that much of a hurry. Sam drove up and down the streets until one looked familiar, and turned into the parking lot in front of their room. They'd had Chinese there the night before, a Lon Chaney movie playing in the background as they figured out how to track the monster they were hunting. Dean had made a crack about Sam playing psychic monster-detector, Sam had thrown a pillow at him, and there was probably still a layer of polyester pillow stuffing on the floor if the cleaning lady hadn't been by yet. It hadn't taken Sam long to redefine "normal" since leaving Stanford, but almost losing Dean in Burkittsville had crystallized that this was where he belonged right now, at his brother's side.
So where did that leave him if Dean went where he couldn't follow?
"God…" Sam muttered brokenly to the windshield, and didn't know if he was pleading or raging or just despairing.
His hands had been clamped around the steering wheel to still the intermittent shaking still wracking him, but it tore through his body now with enough violence to crack bone. He let go of the wheel, burying his fists in his lap. But Sam's throat was tightening in anguish he couldn't swallow anymore, and he finally crossed his arms over the wheel of Dean's car and buried his face in them, sobbing like he never had for anything else he'd loved.
A lot later, he emerged from the window-fogged car in Dean's sunglasses and went inside the building with an expressionless face and resolute gait. He'd had his indulgence; now it was time to get to work.
The enemy was trickier this time. But Sam had saved his brother before, and, he swore silently to himself, he would do it again.
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"He told me about a guy in Nebraska. A specialist."
Dean shifted painfully in the chair across from him, looking awful but alive. And while he was, and even beyond, Sam wouldn't be giving up. "You're not gonna let me die in peace, are you?" he complained half-heartedly.
And Sam smiled at him, hope fixed solidly in place because he couldn't bear the alternative. "I'm not going to let you die, period. We're going."
The End