Dean is always so wrapped up in watching over Sammy that he sometimes forgets that Sam is watching over him, too. Dean knew this, of course, but whereas Dean is always all out there with it, a constant visible alertness, Sam's is more subtle, less obvious to the unfamiliar eye. Sometimes it takes Dean by surprise, the brazen protective ferocity in his little brother's eyes that so brightly mirror his own, and he feels proud and warm and even a little bit safe. And as soon as it crosses his mind he has to look away or call him a bitch because it's Sam's job to host the chick flick moments, not him.
The house that this particular spirit is haunting is in terrible shape. A real ramshackle craphole, to be honest, but they have to find the bones for a salt and burn. By the time the brothers climb the half-there rickety stairs with rotten holes punched through every other board, the ghost has had enough with them creeping around and shows itself. The EMF in Sam's pocket goes nuts, that annoying whine starting up, and with lightning reflexes the ghost is shot full of salt. It lets out a wail and dissipates, and the brothers carry on. The EMF dies down a bit, and Sam pulls it out of his coat, holding it up to the shabby wooden walls as he walks. It doesn't take them even five minutes to find the bones, literally showing through the gaps in the decaying walls, and they salt and burn it without a hitch. Dean dusts his hands, and Sam goes to say something but stops, cocking his head to one side. The skeleton at their feet gives a last little campfire pop, and then Dean hears it.
The EMF starts to squeal again, quietly, and then suddenly it shrieks even louder than before, and Sam turns around to look at Dean. His eyes go wide, and Sam shouts his name and levels his shotgun behind Dean. Dean whirls around and finds himself inches from a shuddering spirit with sloppy black smudges for eyes and a torn up and bloodied pair of overalls. Dean just has time to think about what an ugly bumpkin mother it is before the spirit drops straight through the floor. Everything goes quiet except for the EMF, which is still shrieking up a storm, and Sam groans. "Great. Another one."
The shafts of moonlight streaming through the gaps in the roof are suddenly cloudy with dust particles as the whole building shakes, and Sam and Dean curse under their breath and make for the stairs. At the top step the floor lurches tremendously, and both men go tumbling down the stairs.
Well, Sam tumbles down. Dean tumbles through.
Sam catches himself on the seventh step down and braces himself against the shuddering walls with his sturdy work boots and flat palms just as Dean crashes through a rotten board with all the grace of a riding lawnmower and hits the planks of the first floor below.
And keeps going, all the way to the basement, where- as his luck would have it- what was probably the only sturdy piece of material in the whole structure comes crashing down and pins him to the ground by his legs like a falling tree.
And to top it all off, the stair that he fell through merrily zips down and whacks him right in the solar plexus.
All the air in his lungs promptly skips town. Sam shouts his name from above, and through the wheezing and the black dancing spots in his vision, he sees his brother's silhouette through the holes in the structure. "Dean, hold on!" Sam yells above the rumbling, and Dean squeezes his eyes shut, trying to struggle out from under the weight of the column pinning him down. He has to bite his lip to keep from crying out at the pain. One, if not both of his legs are fractured, maybe even broken. The left one feels broken.
A cold puff of stale, rancid air brushes against Dean's ear, and he turns his head to the right to see the eyeless hillbilly yawning its too-wide mouth in his face. He curses and scrabbles for the shotgun just out of reach. He can hear it moaning in his ears and he reaches, twisting just a little farther-
Sam shouts at the ghost, and Dean looks up to see him standing there, just obscenely tall from this point of view. The ghost hisses and Sam pumps it full of rock salt, and with a sideways swoop of gray it's gone. Dean sighs and winces at the pain in his legs, and he tries to sit up using his elbows and then his palms to brace himself. Sam drops to his knees beside him and puts both palms on the ground, kneeling and looking for a way to get the column off of Dean.
The rumbling starts to fade as the house settles, the ghost no longer shaking it, and one of the doors on the big cabinet in the corner of the basement seems to just give up. It falls straight off its hinges and a dusty human skull bounces out and rolls over to stop right next to Dean's head. Sam doesn't seem to notice, his focus being on getting Dean out from under the column, and Dean has to say his name twice before he pulls splintered fingers out from under the column and sees the remains. Sam gets to his feet and starts the salt and burn, glancing back at Dean every time he gets the chance. He's rushing to finish when the ghost wails again from the other side of what's left of the house.
"Jesus, this guy can't take a freaking hint," Dean growls, and without looking away from what he's doing Sam kicks the shotgun towards Dean, who snatches it up gratefully and does his best to prepare for when the ghost inevitably shows up to stop the destruction of its remains.
Sam lights the match and holds it up. From above comes a sound like a cracking whip, and both brothers look up.
There's a giant piece of roof hurtling downwards, on a route straight to Dean's face, and he struggles fruitlessly.
Out of the corner of his eye he sees the match drop straight onto the pile of bones kicked into the corner, and then something soft and warm is flung on top of him and he realizes that it's Sam just as the roof makes impact.
The bones are burning and Sam screams, his whole body jerking like he's been whipped, and there's a horribly familiar crunching noise like breaking bone. Dean is frozen, terrified, and for a moment he thinks that Sam is dead, but then he feels his brother shaking and the hot, dense panting breaths on his neck.
The fire is still crackling in the corner and there's an ominous splintering noise, and Dean thinks if he never hears another wooden noise again it'll be too soon. Even though he can't see it, he guesses that it's another piece of roof, and Dean starts to scrabble at the floor like a thing possessed, trying to get himself- and Sammy, by extension- out of the way.
The impact goes through Sam and hits Dean in the chest, knocking the wind out of him like some seriously screwed up Newton's cradle. Sam doesn't even scream this time, he just makes this aborted choking noise as he curls around Dean tighter, and Dean wants to shove him off and take his place because damn it, Sammy, you idiot.
The ghostly wails stop and so do the flames in the corner, and the house stops moving.
Dean wastes no time in trying to get out from under the column again, and he finds that it's significantly lighter now. From under Sam's arm he can see that that second chunk of roof had crashed into the column and snapped it clean in half.
Sammy is shaking and his messy bangs are brushing against the back of Dean's neck, and something keeps dripping onto his cheek that's too dark to be tears. Sam's fingers are curled into claws that are then hooked in the wrinkled leather of his jacket and clutching at his chest and shoulders, and every breath that comes out comes out staggered and hot.
Dean ignores the bone-deep pain in his legs and tears himself free of the column, spinning around but keeping his back flat on the floor, then shuffles out from underneath Sam as gently as he can. He tries to keep his hands from shaking, and he leaves Sam flat on the floor because he's heard that's what you do with people who have spinal injuries.
Dean kneels down by his brother's head and gingerly brushes back the dark brown hair from Sam's face. Sam's eyes are glassy and vague.
"Sam?" He says, and there's no answer. "Sam?!"
Sam takes in a deep shuddering breath and his whole body jumps, his eyes snapping onto Dean. "Dean-" He croaks, and then stops and squeezes his eyes shut.
Dean frantically digs for his cell phone and finds it pretty much destroyed, and growls, dropping what's left of it in the rubble and instead stepping over to the overturned duffel bag, snatching up the rope. Dean takes off his jacket and balls it up as flat as he can, and using that and some debris and the rope, he makes Sam a crude back brace.
Once it's done and on, Sam's awake and at least partially aware, and Dean drops down to his level again.
"Sam, you hear me?"
Sam nods almost imperceptibly, and Dean nods too, maybe faster and harder than he should have because he's damn straight scared out of his mind.
I could've died.
Over the course of the next twenty-five minutes, Dean clears a path through the debris and helps Sam stand up and get to the Impala. Sam falls six times and doesn't make a sound. When they finally get to the car Dean flings open the passenger door and reclines the seat way past its limit. The cracking noise it makes tells him that it'll need to be fixed, but Sammy- his Sammy, his stupid, brave little brother- is more important than this car will ever be.
Once he's in the car Dean finds one of the spare cell phones and calls up 911 as Sam shakes, supine in the passenger's seat, bound up with wood and rope and cloth.
As they drive, Sam tries to curl into a ball, and when the brace stops him he lets out a keening noise like betrayal. Dean puts his hand on his brother's until Sam relaxes.
They stay in the hospital for two and a half weeks, and twice Dean has to go stand in the bathroom- the first time when they tell him Sammy might never walk again-
And the second time when they tell him that he'd be okay after all.
Because even though he isn't even conscious there's no way that Dean is going to cry in front of Sammy.
A/N: To clear things up because a reviewer brought this to my attention: Dean's legs aren't broken, but probably fractured. And yes, you can walk on fractured and broken bones, it just hurts. Really bad. He's probably in the hospital room, worriedly pacing on crutches. ;w;
