Two Are Better Than One
K Hanna Korossy
"Two are better than one because they have a good return for their labor. For if either of them falls, the one will lift up his companion. But woe to the one who falls when there is not another to lift him up. Furthermore, if two lie down together they keep warm, but how can one be warm alone? And if one can overpower him who is alone, two can resist him. A cord of three strands is not quickly torn apart." - Ecclesiastes 4: 9-12
For if either of them falls, the one will lift up his companion.
The TV just wasn't cutting it.
Sam turned again, seeking a warm spot in the bed for his shivering body. He knew it was the fever that made the room seem like an igloo, but that wasn't helping him feel any warmer. Dean had left the television on for distraction, told him to focus on it instead of how lousy he felt, but that just wasn't the same. It was childish, but Sam wanted his brother there, fixing him hot soup and making lame jokes and somehow making him feel better even when he was miserable.
Great, he huffed, throw in a whine and some grape popsicles, and he could be five years old again.
"Tad, Lisa, we've got some breaking news in Tacoma. Shots have been fired at the county courthouse—"
The news had cut away to an outdoor reporter. It was the building behind her that caught Sam's attention, though. He scrambled up in the bed, not noticing the bite of air on his skin as the blankets Dean had collected for him pooled around his waist.
"—a possible hostage situation. Police have no comment yet, but it seems that someone tried to get a gun into the courthouse, was stopped at the entrance, and started shooting—"
"Crap," Sam muttered, then coughed. The courthouse. The same courthouse Dean had gone to that afternoon to do a little digging while Sam rested up. Not like there's anything dangerous there, he'd joked when Sam had been disgruntled about him going alone. Famous last words.
Sam pushed up out of bed, wobbled back down, then stood again, one hand propped behind him for support. Dean wouldn't have taken his gun with him, not somewhere they had metal detectors at the door, but shooting and hostages often meant injuries, and his brother was not the kind of person to hunker down in a corner until it was safe. No, Sam grimaced as he tried to pull his hoodie on over weak and clumsy arms, not Dean.
A drizzle had started up outside, feeling like ice needles on his overheated skin. Sam burrowed down into his hoodie and jacket and scanned the parking lot. Dean had taken the Impala, of course, and the courthouse was a few miles into town. Sam could call and wait for a taxi, or…
Ten minutes later, he pulled into a spot down the street from the courthouse in a borrowed Honda. He blew his nose, cinched his hood a little tighter, and climbed out of the car. He'd just pretend he wasn't weaving as he made his way closer to the cordoned-off building.
Okay, so, Dean couldn't afford to be caught or questioned by police. Milwaukee and Henriksen weren't that far behind them, and every single witness in the building was bound to be ID-ed and questioned. That meant that no matter what shape Dean was in, he would try to sneak out someplace. After he took down the bad guy, of course, and Sam would've rolled his eyes if he didn't think that would end up with him sprawled across the concrete. As it was, it took all his focus to walk and think at the same time.
Courthouse. Metal detectors and guards at all entrances. Including a basement or loading dock? Check, Sam noted, sitting down for a moment on a concrete barrier to collect his strength. Two days of fever and little food hadn't left him with much reserve. He shivered miserably in his three layers, shoulders and back almost locking up in fever pain. If he didn't figure something out soon, he wasn't going to be much help to Dean.
Okay, regular entrances were out. So what would Dean do? Sam scanned the building again, noting windows that were too high and probably sealed, the lack of fire escapes, and a decorative concrete lip around the roof that made it impossible to see up top.
There was a burst of sound to his left. Police were storming the building. Which meant the gunman was neutralized. Sam was running out of time, as was Dean.
That was when he saw the flicker of movement from the back edge of the roof, right when everyone's attention was drawn to the front of the courthouse. No one noticed the shape that threw itself off the three-story height, in a clumsy arc onto the top of the two-story a half-dozen feet away.
Sam started running.
More or less, anyway. The cold rain had finally soaked through his jacket and hood, and the chill had settled like blocks of cement in his bones. His fever-soaked muscles were completely cramped up, making every movement a study in pain, and his vision was starting to get as wobbly as his balance. But he hadn't seen any movement on top of the neighboring building since, and that was enough to spur him to move.
The neighboring building, an accounting firm, had been evacuated but apparently wasn't strategic enough to guard. It didn't take much stealth for Sam to slip inside, despair at the broken elevator, and head for the stairs. His head was pounding with every beat of his heart by the time he reached the roof, and his legs threatened to dump him each step. He locked his knees and pushed the door open.
And almost smacked Dean, huddled on the tar paper a few feet away.
Sam sank to the rooftop beside him. "Where'd he get you?" It came out a mumble, jaw locked against the chattering of his teeth.
Dean dragged his head up. Hair plastered down and face gray, he looked almost as bad as Sam felt, which was saying something. Worse, his left hand was clamped over his right shoulder, red leaking out between his fingers like squished paint. But he didn't seem too surprised to see Sam. "Clipped the collarbone. What're you doing here?"
"Got bored," Sam answered just as tersely, pulling the tips of Dean's fingers away so he could see some of the injury. "Bleeding out?"
"Not yet. Passed out?" Dean volleyed back.
"Not yet." There was no way he was getting his jacket off and then back on, nor could he make a decent tourniquet out of his soaked outerwear. Sam wearily groped in his brother's jeans pocket instead, earning a raised eyebrow from Dean, before he found the ceramic blade he knew Dean carried when metal detectors were involved. Sam might not have had the strength to tear the material, but he could still manage to cut the front panels off his flannel shirt and tie them around Dean's shoulder. "Hospital?" he asked as he finished up and let his exhausted arms fall.
"For me or for you?" Dean asked, then more seriously. "Can you walk?"
"Maybe?" Sam tried to smile and coughed instead. The sound rattled around his lungs.
"Awesome. Between the two of us, we've got about one working body." Dean's good arm inched over Sam's shoulders, then dipped under to tug him upward. "Let's just go home."
Leaning against each other, they made it to their feet and down the stairs in a drunken stumble. The cops and gawkers were still occupied one building over—guy was a moron, I left him tied up with his belt, Dean grumbled—and no one noticed as they weeble-wobbled their way to the car. Sam drove, but Dean told him when to slow down, stop, turn. It was all Sam could do at that point to keep his eyes open, let alone see anything.
It took them hours, and several rest breaks, to clean up, sew up, and dose up each other. In the end, though, Dean lay tucked into the bed next to his, mouth already open in the congested breathing he usually developed when he was in pain.
Sam lay under double the weight in blankets—Dean had finally called the main office and offered them twenty bucks if they brought extra bedding—and felt his shivers taper off as he watched his brother sleep. The TV was silent, and Dean wouldn't be cooking or joking for a while. But Sam somehow felt better anyway.
Shakes finally calming, he drifted into sleep.
00000
If two lie down together they keep warm.
"Stupid giant two-faced son-of-a-bitch Indian—"
"Native American," Sam corrected absently from across the grotto.
"—which is stupid, too. I mean, I was born in America—doesn't that make me a Native American?"
"Sure, Dean." Sam gave up his fruitless examination of the walls of their cage and returned to the center where Dean lay. "How's the leg?"
"Still skewered, Sam—what does it look like?"
The answer was sheer Dean sarcasm, but Sam looked anyway. It was as bad as he remembered. Two Faces hunted the traditional way, and the arrow had gone through the meat of Dean's thigh, protruding ominously on either side. His jeans were soaked with blood from hip to knee despite the shirt Sam had wound around the leg both as bandage and stabilizer. Dean also had to lie awkwardly on his side to keep from jostling the arrow, and the pain and need to keep still were quickly wearing away at his patience.
"You find anything?"
The question was nevertheless oddly subdued, and Sam cast a sharp look back up at him. The naked fear was quickly masked as soon as their eyes met, but he'd seen it. The only thing Dean feared more than dying alone—or Sam dying at all—was going down helpless and trapped. Sam shook his head. "Solid rock. Think the only way out is up."
They both glanced upward automatically at the hole about fifteen feet above them. It was presumably the way they'd gotten in, at least if the deep bruise on Sam's hip and shoulder was anything to go by, not that he could remember. He'd been unconscious at the time, taken out by a blow to the head he'd received while distracted by Dean getting shot.
"Awesome." Dean sank back to the grotto floor, his face white in the pale light. Soon night would be falling, and in the morning…they knew Two Faces ate humans, and that it was diurnal. Wasn't hard to guess what breakfast would be.
Sam chewed his lip a moment. There was no way he could get them out at the moment. He'd stretched an arm as high up as he could and tried to send a text, but he wasn't sure it had reached Bobby. Without the possibility of escape, hiding, or making weapons, the best he could do was get them through the night. And that meant keeping Dean as warm and comfortable as possible.
Dean shivered once, suppressing a groan, and that decided it. Sam duckwalked behind him, lay down on his side, and threaded his arms around Dean's chest, pulling him in close.
Dean stiffened automatically at the contact before relaxing into Sam's grip. "Feeling a little lonely there, Sparky?" But he wasn't fighting it. Their dad had drilled first aid into them, sharing body heat and doing what it took to survive. Didn't mean either of them liked it, and with Dean, that meant a loose tongue.
"It's gonna get cold down here tonight, and you've lost a lot of blood." Sam was careful with Dean's legs, leaving the injured one outstretched but pressing his own against the other.
"Doesn't explain why I'm the little spoon," Dean grumbled.
Sam chuckled. "Dude, you look in a mirror lately?"
"Shut up."
A blanket would've been awesome. Light shivers still rattled Dean's teeth, and his hand sometimes clenched around Sam's wrists.
Then he suddenly twisted, making a pained noise.
Sam lifted his head. "Dean?"
Dean's legs were pulled almost to his chest. "Cramp," he ground out.
Sam grimaced and sat up, reaching for the bad leg. It figured: muscles didn't like things shoved through them. They tended to spasm in complaint, trying to force the intruder out. Had to hurt like a mother. Sam quickly found the knot and dug his fingers in, massaging it away.
Dean's groans soon changed from hurt to relief. When his head finally dropped back to the floor, Sam lay down behind him again. He wished he could do more, but Dean was already wearing his extra layer and he wouldn't want any other kind of comfort Sam could offer. Had to let him keep what stupid pride he had left.
"I could pull the arrow," Sam offered softly instead.
Dean was quiet a moment. "Didn't hit the artery," he conceded. "And it's gonna get infected anyway."
"Gonna bleed more," Sam countered. "Not to mention it won't be much fun for you."
"Beats breaking the shaft off on both sides," Dean mused. That had been one of the first options they'd discussed.
Sam kinda hated how casually they were discussing an object impaling his brother's body. He pushed closer to Dean, willing him a little warmer, a little more relaxed. "I'd still have to break off one end." The tip was barbed, and on the longer end. "You want me to do it?"
Another pause. Then, "Yeah," Dean whispered. "Can't climb or do hand-to-hand with a toothpick sticking out of me."
Sam smiled soberly, then sat up once more. He noticed Dean kept his eyes steadfastly on the far wall as Sam examined the leg again, lifting to peer around it. "Yeah, okay. I'm gonna do it." He grasped the arrow tightly in both hands, feeling Dean clench up beneath him to stay as still as possible. "One, two—"
It was stronger than he expected, and pulled a high whine out of Dean's throat before the stem finally snapped below the feathered vane.
"Sorry," Sam said, hushed. He patted Dean's trembling leg. "Hey, Dean?"
Dean blinked, lifted his head unsteadily. "Yeah?"
Sam pulled the arrow out in one clean motion.
Dean yelled, fist pounding the dirt, leg shaking like it was seizing.
Sam didn't waste any time. Throwing the bloody shaft aside, he was already unwinding the makeshift bandage he'd put on before, adjusting it so it put direct pressure on the puncture sites instead. It was soon soaked with blood, but nothing dripped or pooled.
Dean's breath sawed in and out of him, his lips pressed tightly together and eyes screwed shut. Focusing on the pain, just what he wasn't supposed to do, but there wasn't a lot else to focus on there. Sam cursed under his breath as he propped Dean's leg up, knee bent, to slow the bleeding, then scuttled around behind him again. This time as soon as he had his arms around Dean, his brother was pressing back into him, looking for an anchor against the agony in his leg.
"It's done, it's out," Sam soothed. "It'll be better in a minute, just think about…think about how much crap Bobby's gonna give us for being taken down by a Two Faces. I mean, seriously, how long have we been at this? We should've seen Goliath coming a mile off."
Dean's wheezed rejoinder, while surprising, wasn't wholly unexpected. "Saw you first…Gigantor."
Sam snorted. "Right. Like this is my fault. Who's the one who got shot again?"
"Least I didn't…let it sneak up on…me." Was Dean's voice getting a little stronger?
"'Cause I was paying attention to you, jerk." He could feel Dean still shivering, probably borderline shocky by now, and Sam started rubbing up and down his arms, spooned up behind his legs. "When you got hit, you screamed like a girl."
He waited for an answer, but Dean was silent, heavy and exhausted against him. Sam almost panicked for a second, before the slow, even breathing registered. Passed out or sleeping, Dean was unconscious, and that was a good thing. It meant he wasn't hurting, and he needed the rest for the next day.
"Got no answer to that one, huh?" Sam said softly. "Yeah, thought so." He tossed a leg over Dean's and kept rubbing warmth into him.
Bobby, bless his trucker hat, didn't say a word when he found them there the next morning, shivering in each other's arms but still alive.
00000
And if one can overpower him who is alone, two can resist him.
It wasn't exactly one of the things he'd worried about in a hunt in the nation's capitol.
Sam prided himself on keeping up with current events, even when their relevance seemed miles away from the game of survival he and Dean were locked in. Not that he could vote, being legally dead and all, but still. There were a lot of ways to be a good citizen.
He had no idea what this protest was about, however. Something to do with banks—World Bank and the Monetary Fund? Or the recent bank bailouts? He wasn't clear despite the placards that were being shoved in his face.
Somehow, that wasn't keeping him from becoming part of the fray.
All he'd wanted to do was cross the street. He'd found what they needed at the Library of Congress, a reference to the horsemen Bobby wanted, and the copies were carefully folded and tucked into his back pocket. He only had to return to the house he and Dean were squatting in. One good thing about the current economic crisis was that they had a lot of foreclosed homes to hole up in. But it wasn't that far, just a couple of blocks, and with the protest filling the streets, Sam had elected to walk rather than try to navigate traffic.
Who knew being a pedestrian was a dangerous occupation in Washington, DC?
"Leeches!" some guy in a Che Guevara shirt hissed right beside Sam.
"Slacker!" another guy in chinos catcalled back from Sam's other side.
Then it was on.
He dodged the first blow, sloppy and not really meant for him. Shoved back a second attacker, and spun a third into the crowd. But once it was clear he was fighting, the crowd seemed to decide he was the enemy and turned on him as one.
Fists clipped his body, a foot found his shin, then his lower back. A knee to the mouth had him spitting out blood. And then the corner of a solid sign slammed into the back of his skull and he went down.
It was a hazy rollercoaster of noise and movement after that, threaded through with fresh agony however he turned. He didn't remember throwing up, but his mouth tasted of blood and bile and his shirt was wet.
Sirens and yelling. The crowd jostled, flowing around him. He let them carry him along a moment, then pushed out on hands and feet to the nearest refuge, a small statue. Huddled up on its far side, Sam finally breathed, choking a little on the blood trickling down his throat, and groped for his cell phone.
The screen was cracked. Took a minute before he was sure it wasn't his vision that was spiderwebbed. The phone made an dismayed sound when he tried to turn it on, then went still.
Awesome.
Sam lifted his head, trying to blink fog out of his eyes. The gathering dusk wasn't helping, nor the chaotic flood of lights from the other side of his statue refuge. Worse, he had no idea where he was, how far he'd gotten displaced from his route back, where the house was in reference. Where Dean was. Safety and refuge.
Sam pressed a hand against stabbing ribs, another against the cold stone of the statue, and began to push to his feet.
Then sank down again when his ankle felt like a raw bone shard stabbing into his foot.
Sam palpated around it with sobbing breaths. It was swollen, no obvious break, but didn't matter, he wasn't going anywhere, not without help. And with the mob swirling just feet away, help wouldn't be coming anytime soon.
There was Dean…or at least, there had been. Before Sam had made the biggest mistake of his life and hurt Dean deeply. Since then they'd separated, reunited, hunted together some. Tentatively started rebuilding a shattered friendship on the bedrock of love that still remained. Dean had forgiven him, but the hurt and mistrust would take far longer to fix, and Sam not coming home on time… Well, let's just say that had been the cause of more frustration than worry of late. Dean would have every reason to hang back and not come after him.
Sam breathed wetly, knuckling his swelling eyes and trying not to feel as alone and miserable as he really was.
He dozed a little at some point. Might have hit his head, come to think of it, because even when he would blink awake, the world seemed dreamy and unreal. At one point he almost thought he heard Dean's voice, and then the careful, gentle hands he had long ago relinquished all right to. But then a hand skimmed down his back, igniting the damage there, and Sam was suddenly wide awake.
And Dean was still crouched in front of him, freckles bright in the glow of flickering police lights and eyes wide and worried.
"Sam? You hear me?"
He nodded dumbly, closed his eyes in relief until he felt Dean jog his head a little.
"Hey, hey, no going back to sleep. Stay with me, Sammy."
"With you," he promised. "I'm with you."
"Okay. Okay, that's good. Where're you hurt?"
That almost made him laugh. Where wasn't he? Arms, legs, back, ribs, head. Heart. He blinked at Dean, willing him to understand, to not lose patience and leave again.
Dean's brow was furrowing, but Sam didn't think it was with impatience. Not with him, anyway, because his brother's hands were still as cautious as if Sam were fragile, valuable. Dean sounded gruff when he said, "You think you can walk for me? Not far, just…let's do it together, okay?" He always sounded like that, though. You had to look at what he did, what his eyes said, not his mouth.
"You were worried about me," Sam realized, then realized further that he'd said it out loud.
Dean's frown deepened. "No kidding, Einstein. My kid brother doesn't come back when the whole city's going nuts, I get a little concerned." He looped his arm low around Sam's waist, then tugged him upward. "You ready to go someplace a little quieter?"
"S'not my fault." It hurt to walk, he felt really tired, and the lights and yelling were confusing, almost frightening. Sam closed his eyes and dropped his head against Dean's.
"I know it's not. We shoulda steered clear while the mob did their Jimmy Hoffa thing."
"Not unions," Sam muttered, feeling Dean steer him around…something. "Banks."
"Yeah, whatever." Dean turned up Sam's collar against his cheek, probably to better hide his battered face. Then his hand flattened against Sam's chest, warm and steady. "Still nuts. World's ending, and they're still fighting their little turf wars."
"Democracy." It hurt to breathe, but that didn't seem to be getting worse so it probably wasn't a punctured lung. Sam didn't bother to mention it, just leaned forward a little so Dean's hand pressed harder. That seemed to help.
"Yeah, the right to beat up anyone who looks at them the wrong way." Dean made a disgusted noise but patted Sam's breastbone. Then pulled up short. "Wait here a second, Sam."
Before he could question why, he was sitting on something. A low wall, maybe? Squinting revealed Dean looming in front of him, and beyond him, two guys with placards who were doing their best to be intimidating back.
Bad timing, and bad choice of victim. Sam only heard a few low, hard words before the shadows danced and twitched and Dean was standing over two groaning bodies.
Then he was hooked on Dean's arm again, stumbling along. Sam didn't ask, but when Dean muttered "wrong political party," he snorted in amusement.
He grayed out for a while again. Drifted in and out while Dean laid him flat somewhere and cleaned up the blood and nestled some ice packs against him. He woke once to Dean tinkering with his busted phone in the light of their camping lantern, then again to Dean coaxing him to eat some hot soup he'd gotten from God knew where.
Sam didn't know which dawn it was he awoke to some time later. He still ached all over, but nothing stabbed or made him want to be sick, and his head was clear. Clear enough to see the fire that was still smoldering in the fireplace nearby, and the sleeping bag on his other side where Dean was sacked out, days of stubble on his face. Sam's phone, looking shiny and fixed, lay on the floor within arm's reach beside a bottle of water and the Advil.
And he was an idiot. Dean might've needed some space, split for a while, mistrusted and watched him since. But no matter how mad or hurt he got, he always came after Sam. That had never changed, and with all they'd weathered at this point, didn't seem ever likely to.
Thank God.
"Go back t'sleep," Dean slurred from the depths of the sleeping bag. "'S early."
Sam winced a grin and shut his eyes. "Yeah, 'kay."
The world looked a lot better when you weren't facing it alone, anyway.
The End