A/N: The prompt was: Dean hurts his shoulder. This is absolutely plotless whump, guys. Just so you know.
:::
John hears the beam start to fall before he ever sees it, a groaning creak of breaking wood that has him turning his head, almost slow-motion, just in time to watch one of the rafters in the old barn separate from the ceiling and come plunging down on top of his eldest son.
"Dean," John hears Sam shout, a flurry of skinny thirteen year-old limbs and shaggy hair darting past him as John takes a deep breath, gives himself that fraction of a second to quell the overwhelming beat of panic *Dean Dean Dean* before he moves.
Dean is conscious, barely, his eyelids fluttering like it's a struggle to keep them open, his mouth hanging slack in a dazed picture of astonishment.
"Wha—" he asks, then lets out a hoarse almost-yell as Sam hauls the beam off of where it's fallen across his upper body. John tightens his lips and reaches out to hold his son's head and neck still as he tries to buck up off the ground. Dean's shoulder is clearly, horribly dislocated, practically separated from the rest of his torso, and John's betting there's at least one broken rib in this deal, too. Concussion. Bruising.
"Steady," John says sharply. "What hurts, Dean?"
Sam drops to the dusty ground next to them, huge puppy hands reaching out gingerly towards his brother and then recoiling.
"My fuckin' shoulder," Dean groans. "Jesus motherfucking tapdancing Christ, owwww."
"Okay," John says. "What else? Can you feel your toes and everything?"
"Yes, I can feel my goddamn toes," Dean snaps, and John knows the pain must be bad.
"Your shoulder's fucked," Sam comments, clearly trying to make a contribution any way he can.
"Y'know who's fucked?" Dean mutters, and John puts a pre-emptive palm on his chest, carefully.
"All right," John says. "Your shoulder's dislocated, Dean. I'm gonna have to—"
"Do it," Dean says, jaw already clenching eyes, lips flattening in a thin line.
John does it. He's done this a million times before, sadly, but it never gets any better, feeling that crunch of bone as his son's joint grinds back into place, hearing Dean's bitten-off yell of pain panted in his ear. It's moments like this where things are blurred, where John feels at once the most connected to his child's body, and the most separated from it – he has to tamp down the corners of his fear, ignore the fact that this is Dean, his son, and focus instead on the abstraction of Dean's body. This is just a shoulder, this is just an elbow, connected to just a random chest. Could belong to anyone.
Only after the joint is back in place and Dean is uttering a loose string of curses does John look up at his face, sweat-damp and white.
"Can you stand?"
"Told you my toes're fine," Dean says, but it still takes a solid five minutes to ease him into a sitting position and pull him to his feet. He's concussed, that much is clear, probably from where his head smacked into the ground when he fell.
"Taken out by a log," he mumbles as John eases him into the back seat of the Impala, parked on the edge of the field. "We kill the fuckin' Chupacabra, no fuckin' problems, and I'm taken out by wood."
Sam snorts, sliding in beside his brother. "Dad always told you not to think with your—"
"Do not make me laugh, you asshole," Dean groans, palming his ribs with his good hand as John puts the car into gear, starts off down the road, dawn just breaking over the damp, black pavement and shining golden fields.
:::
The worst part of it is the fact that he can't drive, Dean reflects, glancing down at his arm, bound tightly to his wrapped chest. The second-worst part is that he had to let Sam help him put his freakin' t-shirt on. The third-worst part is it's his right shoulder, and he's right-handed, and he's having a hell of a lot of fucking trouble taking this stupid goddamn math test right now, scrawling illegible numbers with his left hand. He's more or less ambidextrous when it comes to fighting, but writing? It's like pure torture.
He still finishes before the bell rings, eases himself out from behind his desk and moves slowly to drop it off by Mrs. Keeling's elbow. She glances up, gives him a smile and a worried up-and-down. He does his best to grin, edging out into the hallway as quickly as his aching body will take him.
They've only been in this school for about three weeks, long enough that kids still stare even when he's not mummy-wrapped and black-eyed, and he feels eyes boring into him as he makes his way to his locker.
He fumbles with the combination one-handed, then gives himself a second to lean into the cool darkness of his locker, take a couple deep breaths, despite his ribs. His shoulder is throbbing fiercely, a steady pound that works its way up through his neck and jaw, and his ribs are making him painfully aware of every movement.
Thank god he's got lunch next. He's not sure if he could sit through another class like this, and he needs a smoke.
His shoulder's hurting too much for him to think of eating anything, though, and he wishes he'd listened to Sammy and taken the fucking pain pills he'd tried to force on Dean this morning.
Instead of going to the cafeteria, Dean heads outside to the small hill behind the football stadium, eases himself carefully down onto the grass with the minimum of curses. He grapples with his pack of cigarettes, clumsy fingers trying to work one free and get it lit, and when he finally does he takes a careful drag, trying not to breathe too deep and set his ribs off, then goes about attempting to find a comfortable position.
Apparently they don't really exist. He ends up on his back, with his head propped up on his backpack, feet planted on the ground, knees to the sky. He rests the cigarette in mouth, gets his good hand tight around his bad elbow, pulling it even closer to his body, willing it to shut the fuck up for just one goddamn second.
The sun feels good, warm and expansive, and the smoke goes a little ways towards making him feel better.
He feels a shadow cross over him, and he opens his eyes just in time to see a hand reach down towards his face and snatch the cigarette from between his lips.
"Dude," Dean protests as Sam's face comes into focus above him. "Seriously, what, are you in training to be a D.A.R.E. officer or something?"
Sam doesn't say anything, just tosses the butt onto the ground and grinds it out with one sure foot before he flops down next to Dean.
Dean starts to sit up, but it's easier said than done, and he has to squeeze his eyes shut to get his shoulder to quit screaming at him. He feels Sam work a gentle hand under his back, and he doesn't really have another choice but to let his brother help raise him to a seated position, trying to keep his breath shallow.
"You should go home," Sam says worriedly.
Yeah, Dean's with him all the way, there. But he doesn't have the car, and he can't walk home like this. He's worried he'd fall over.
"Maybe," Dean says. "Maybe I'll just hang out here. Work on my tan. Watch the cheerleaders. Wait 'til you're done." When Dad shows up to give them a ride.
Sam eyes him, reaches out a hand and lightly touches Dean's temple, where he knows he's got a pretty nasty bruise.
"I could be done now," he suggests. "We could walk home together."
Dean doesn't raise his eyebrows, 'cause his head's hurting a little too much for that, but he does say, "Sammy. You suggesting you skip class?"
Sam shrugs a little. "It's just Global History, and we have a sub 'cause Mr. McKenna's sick, and then P.E., which is fucking boring. We're playing ping-pong, isn't that stupid? It's like, beautiful outside, and we're stuck in the smelly gym playing ping-pong. I suck at ping-pong."
Dean hesitates. He would give pretty much anything to be in his bed right now, get a little pharmaceutical relief in him. But he can't just—
"Please?" Sam wheedles, looking up at him with those wide hazel eyes.
"You're just looking for an excuse to ditch," Dean snorts.
"Yeah," Sam agrees immediately.
Dean wants to protest, he wants to, so bad, but—
"Fine," he says, huffs a fake-sigh that has him wincing as his ribs protest. He tries to think of a good insult, but he's too fuckin' tired. "Loser."
Sam rolls his eyes, clambering to his feet and waiting patiently as Dean slowly pushes himself upward. Everything spins for a couple seconds, then evens out, but Dean's listed to the side enough that Sam's moved closer, clearly at-the-ready in case Dean should take a nosedive.
He seems to have grown three inches in the past week, and Dean notes with surprise that the top of Sam's head is now level with his nose.
"Come on," Sam says, nudges him a little, and Dean follows his little brother off the campus and down onto the bright street.
