Fighting Back

Chapter 2

Dean hissed from the magnified sharpness of Sam calling out to Bobby. The room was blurring and spinning and he could barely hold himself up. Suddenly, he felt arms on one side of him. When he looked over, he saw Sam, his face creased with lines of worry.

Bobby came into the room and saw Sam lifting Dean up off his chair.

"Can you give me a hand? Dean is burning up. I think he has an infection."

Bobby nodded and helped Sam get Dean into one of his spare rooms. Dean was fading in and out of consciousness, but every jar to his shoulder kept him from falling completely into blissful unconsciousness. Bobby helped Sam get Dean's jacket off. Jo's painkillers spilled out and Bobby picked them up.

"What's that?" Sam asked.

"Pain killers. Strong ones."

Sam looked at Dean.

"How did he get a hold of those?"

"The name on the bottle is Jo Harvelle. Bill Harvelle's kid?"

"Yeh, she's hunting now. I'll explain later," Sam evaded, remembering what he had done to her and not wanting to relive it again, not when Dean needed him clear headed. "She must have given them to him. She probably found him after I – Meg shot him."

Sam tore open Dean's shirt. It was already soaked with his blood and ruined anyway. The wound was enflamed and still bleeding pretty heavily. Sam was amazed, but not surprised that Dean had lasted so long without passing out. Sam was convinced that Dean had reserves that no normal man possessed. Sheer will alone could keep him going for a long time.

Dean's breathing was quickening and when Sam checked his pulse, it felt fast and thready. Dean licked his lips.

"Thirsty," He rasped and grimaced.

Sam asked Bobby to bring a glass of water. In the meantime, Sam pulled two pain pills from the bottle. Dean would need them when he started working on the wound. Bobby brought over the water and Sam gently propped Dean up. Dean hissed and moaned with the jolt of pain the movement caused.

"Drink these. It'll help with the pain. I'm going to have to work on the wound and that's going to–"

"Hurt like a mother…" Dean finished with a weak smile.

"Yeh."

Dean took the pills and then the glass. He gulped them with one swallow and handed the glass back to Sam. He breathed in a deep sigh.

"Why didn't you tell me you were this bad?"

"It's not that bad, Sam. I've had worse. It doesn't hurt," Dean said, as he couldn't hide a grimace and a grunt, "much."

Sam smiled and shook his head in mock dismay.

"You're a freak, you know that?"

"Yeh, right back at ya," Dean smiled, but his eyelids were growing heavier and he knew Sam hadn't missed the sweat on his face. "Is it just me, or is it warm in here?"

"It's just you," Sam kidded, but then became serious. "You know you have an infection. I-Meg did a number on the wound."

"Sam, it wasn't your fault. None of it, are we clear on that now?"

"Yeh, we're good, Dean…" Sam trailed off.

"What?"

"I'm just worried about your fever. I don't know if Bobby has antibiotics."

"He's a hunter. He'll have them." Dean breathed heavily. "I'll be fine. You worry too much, you know that?"

"Someone has to. You're always getting yourself into trouble," Sam joked.

Sam smiled and watched as Dean's eyes drooped closed. Sam stayed silent to let him slip into unconsciousness. Dean had earned the rest. Sam let his mind wander. He wondered how Dean had kept on going for as long as he had. He had come so close to giving up because of the burden their father had lain upon him. The terrible knowledge that he might have to kill Sam and his innate need to protect him had almost pulled him asunder. Was it any wonder Dean had hit him that night? Sam had pushed him too far and had reminded him of what their Dad had asked him to do. Sam had never been so scared in his life. He never could have imagined that Dean could be so close to surrendering. It wasn't in him to give up, but once he had discovered what Dean had been carrying, Sam couldn't blame him for buckling under the pressure. It had been unfair of their father to put that kind of responsibility on Dean's shoulders, but a twinge of guilt nagged at him because he had done the very same thing. And he knew why. Both he and their father had counted on Dean coming through for them, as he always had, without fail, even if it meant dying on the inside to keep those promises.

The ease with which Meg had taken him over scared Sam. Dean had been right. No one can resist possession and being controlled by a demon, not even him, but still Sam worried. How would his transformation take place? Could he resist it? Would it happen without him knowing it? Would he kill Dean in a whisper of silence? Would Dean realize, while he was dying, that his brother had turned on him? Every scenario that involved killing Dean scared him. He knew he could depend on Dean being there to save him, but that certainty gave life to its own set of doubts. What if by trying to save him, Dean was sacrificed? Could he live through that? If he killed Dean with his own hands, he knew that he wouldn't. Dean thought that he was the only one who would rather die than kill his brother. Sam felt just as strongly that he, too, would rather perish than live without his brother, to live with the knowledge that he had killed him would be impossible. In a strange way, it was comforting to know that. He only hoped that no matter what happened to him, some part of him who was still Dean's brother would know what he had done and would do the right thing.

Sam shook away his thoughts when Bobby entered the room. He asked him if he had antibiotics and as usual, Dean had been right. Bobby went to retrieve them as well as his first aid supplies to help Sam in dealing with the wound. They had to cauterize a bleeder. There was nothing they could give Dean to knock him out enough to keep him from feeling the pain. Getting him drunk just wasn't an option, though Sam knew it would be the anesthesia of choice for Dean. Dean clenched with the pain and couldn't hold back the occasional cry as they worked to prepare the wound, but Dean had told them to keep going. Sam had to hold Dean down while Bobby sealed the artery. Dean screamed in agony then finally lost unconsciousness. Sam sighed with relief. It killed Sam inside to cause him more pain after all he had already done to him, even if it was necessary. All Sam could think to himself was "Haven't I put him through enough?"

After a few minutes of cleaning the wound, hearing Dean moan and stir occasionally, Sam patched it with a fresh dressing.

He hated waking Dean, but the sooner he got the antibiotics into his system, the better his chances were for fighting the infection.

"Dean?" Sam said softly and shook his brother gently, careful not to disrupt the wound. "Dean, I need you to wake up. Just for a second."

Dean turned his head and opened his eyes. Though everything looked milky through them, he could recognize Sam.

"Sam?" Dean said, his voice gravelly.

"Yeh, can you sit up for a second to take some pills? They're antibiotics."

Dean nodded.

"Told you he'd have them," he joked. "Then will you let me get some sleep?"

Sam smiled, "Yeh, yeh."

Sam helped Dean up and gave him the pills and the glass of water again. Once swallowed, Sam took back the glass and laid Dean back down. He was still too hot for Sam's liking.

"You're becoming quite the Florence Nightingale there," Dean teased tiredly.

"Yeh, lucky for you, jerk. Better behave yourself or I might just give you a sponge bath," Sam teased back, comforted by the banter.

"Bitch…" Dean said as he drifted back asleep.

Sam found himself smiling. It was the little gestures that comforted him the most. Dean's cockiness, his humor, his steadfastness, they were all reassurances that he was okay, that he was still with him and as long as he was with him, Sam could face just about anything. He covered Dean with a blanket and sat in a chair next to the bed to watch him. He hadn't realized how tired he was and soon found himself asleep.

He groggily awoke to moaning. At first, Sam wasn't sure where it was coming from. He then bolted up from his chair when realization hit. Dean was moaning. Sam looked over and to his shock, he found his brother drenched in sweat and breathing shallowly.

"Dean? Can you hear me? Dean? What is it?"

Dean couldn't hear him. He was lost to the ravages of the fever and the hallucinations that were invading his mind.

"Mommy!" Dean whimpered in his delirium, sounding like a small child calling out to his mother.

Sam's eyes widened when he heard him.

"Daddy! Daddy!" Dean's little boy voice cried, "Something's happening to Mommy!"

Sam froze. Dean was reliving that horrible night they had lost their mother. When their world had tipped impossibly askew, changing everything forever. The fever had broken all of Dean's defenses and the memories were flowing, unhindered, revealing things that he had kept to himself.

"Okay, Daddy. I promise to get Sammy out!" Dean declared.

Sam found tears rushing into his eyes. He didn't remember that night, of course, but it pained him to hear Dean relating the moments as if he were going through them right now as a scared four-year old boy. He was being given an unfettered glimpse into a past he had always wondered about, but had never been given the details to. Now it was being unwillingly revealed by a feverish brother who had lived through it all, remembered it vividly, and who had protected him from the horror of those memories all their lives.

"Sammy, don't worry. I'll protect you. I won't leave you. It's okay. I'll make it okay."

Sam bit his bottom lip, fighting the emotions. Dean had promised to protect him when he was just four-years old. He had been comforting him. It made him understand Dean's dogged determination to make sure that no harm came to him. It had begun that night. Sam snapped out of his daze and called out to Bobby. They needed to reduce the fever.

"Bobby! Dean's fever has spiked. He's hallucinating. Can you fill a tub full of cold water and ice, if you have it, for me?"

"You bet," Bobby said as he rushed out to get it ready.

Sam began to undress Dean in preparation to place him into the tub. Dean struggled with the memories that were flooding his mind and was impeding Sam's attempts.

"Please stop fighting with him, Dad. He's not betraying you. He wants more, he deserves more. He's earned it. He's not like you and me. He doesn't have to be…"

Sam realized that Dean was now reliving the time when he had left for Stanford. He hadn't known that Dean had defended him and his choice to go to college to their father.

"If you keep this up, you'll lose him for good. You know you don't want that."

Sam had remembered what Dean had said when he had come to Stanford to get him after their dad had disappeared.

"I can't do this alone."

"Yes, you can."

"Yeh, well, I don't want to."

Then,

"You know, in almost two years, I've never bothered you, never asked you for a thing."

The memory stung now. In the painful light of hindsight, he understood now how Dean must have felt then. Their father was gone and Sam had been off at college pursuing his dream, ignoring him for almost two years. Dean had been left alone in the most awful way possible. Yet in his delirium, Dean had revealed that he had defended Sam's decision to go to college to their father. He had supported him, once again, at the expense of his own needs, wants, and desires. And the most painful realization was that Dean's needs were simple, almost meager in comparison. He had even expressed them to Sam the night they faced Meg.

"You, and me, and Dad…I want us to be together again…I want us to be a family again…"

TO BE CONTINUED…

Thanks to Tiffany for being my beta for this story.