Hey guys :) Thanks SO much for all the reviews so far! They're so amazing, and they really inspired me to stop being lazy and get this chapter up tonight… Also, a bunch of thanks for all the alerts and favourites – it's really great to know that so many people like this!
There will be one more chapter after this one, which will probably be posted tomorrow night as I'm going away on Saturday :) Sorry for any mistakes or stupid stuff, I don't have a beta reader! I hope this chapter is okay…
Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural.
Summary: Dean could deal with blood. No big deal – except when it was Sam's blood. So he slowly starts to break apart as he waits in the waiting room, Sam's blood staining his hands, the clock counting down the seconds of Sam's life.
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The room seems to be closing in on Dean when he hears the doctor's next words, "Could you tell me what happened, Mr. Singer?" He knows that he obviously can't tell the truth, he'd sound insane if he did, but Dean's lost for words. His head is pounding once again, hands shaking slightly, and breathing suddenly getting a lot harder.
All the cover stories that him and Sam have come up throughout their whole lives go out of his head, and Dean's left stuttering and fumbling over words while his stomach churns again. He's back in the abandoned house once again, body pounding with adrenaline, gun comfortable in his hands. Its only when he's shaken out of the flashback and opens his eyes does Dean realise that he's sunk to his knees.
Ignoring the doctor's offered hand, Dean rises shakily, and pulls himself together, "Uh, we were checking out a house that Sam was interested in investing in, and he fell down the stairs…" Dean knows that the lie is one of the worst that he's come up with, explaining almost none of Sam's injuries, but it comes blurting out before he can stop himself.
The doctor looks perplexed, "But then, how did he get the large laceration across his upper torso? I'm afraid that I'm, going to need a better explanation that that, Mr. Singer. Just tell me what really happened?"
"There was a hobo in the house, and he, uh, had a knife. The dude wasn't happy with me and Sam looking around, and he…" Dean stopped abruptly, unable to continue, "I'm sure that you can guess what happened." It was still a shockingly bad lie, but the doctor looked pretty gullible, and seemed to buy it. Or maybe he just didn't want to question the guy that had him pinned against the wall less than twenty minutes ago.
A moment of silence followed Dean's statement, Dean clenching and unclenching his hands out of worry, his eyes daring the man to tell him that he was lying. "Can I see him now? Please, I need to see for myself that he's okay." Dean has to force himself to breathe in and out normally, ignoring the way his heart is hammering and blocking out the slideshow of heartbreaking images that he saw when he rounded the corner and first saw Sam on the ground.
The doctor nods curtly, leading the way out of the room. Dean takes a second to run his hands though his hair, having to check his hands again to make sure that they aren't dripping with Sam's blood like he keeps picturing, before following the doctor. Nurses stare in the hallways on the way to Sam's room, curious about the tall, dangerous looking stranger who looks like he's on autopilot. Any looks of sympathy or curiosity are deflected by Dean's expressionless face that he has securely on, a mask for his feelings in place.
He walks tall, mouth set firmly in a straight line, all traces of nearly shed tears gone. Dean slipped into 'hunter mode,' and let everything flow away. He's perfectly concentrated on following the doctor, determined not to let any shred of emotion slip out, fearing that he might lose control again.
His green eyes told the real story, flashes of pain and panic visible, no matter how hard Dean tried to keep it all together. His long strides through the corridor are the same ones that he'd made in the waiting room, that desperate pace that he has grown accustomed to. The need to just focus on the next step, to ignore the flashing images in his head that show Sam unconscious and dying over and over again, to just keep going.
He walks to a chant of Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam, eyes scanning the floor for any piece of dishonour that he's forgotten to feel. Dean feels like he's falling apart under the weight of his stupid choices, the guilt that screams at him every time he thinks of Sam tearing him apart from the inside.
All too soon they arrive at the door to Sam's room, and Dean suddenly realises that he isn't ready to see his brother yet. After all those hours of torturous waiting and praying that Sam would be alive, Dean hadn't thought of what Sam might say to him. He doesn't think that he can face the look of disappointment and blame that Sam is perfectly entitled to give him for the rest of their lives.
But he still pushes the door open, turning his back on the doctor in the middle of the guy's speech that Dean has been ignoring since it started. He takes one look at the figure in the bed, and the flashbacks hit him full force.
They're right in the middle of an intense hunt, a salt and burn that's particularly interesting. Apparently the poor sucker died from a stabbing from his fiancé's secret boyfriend, on their wedding day, and he's been known to rampage around the house each year on his death-day. It'd been going on for a few decades, with casualties every couple of years, so the brothers had decided to put an end to the spirit before any more people could die.
Their guns were loaded with rock salt, and their goal clear: Find the body and salt and burn it. It was rumoured that no one had found the man's body after he had been killed, and all the research that Sam had done pointed to the body still rotting years on in the house. "I'll take downstairs, you search upstairs, okay, Sammy?" Dean had whispered, as they entered the abandoned house.
"I don't think that we should split up on this one, man," Sam had muttered back, an uneasy tone in his voice, "I have a bad feeling about this spirit. Not anything physic, I don't think, but… I think that we should stay together."
"Don't be such a baby, Sam I'm sure that we can handle one little ghost. And I'm tired, so I kinda just want to get this hunt over with, you know? Now, get your ass upstairs, and burn him if you find the body, okay? Shout if you need me," Using the harsh tone that he'd learnt from John Winchester, Dean sent his younger brother upstairs, and started to prowl around downstairs. The only warning that he had that something had gone wrong was the sound of Sam yelling, and then stopping abruptly, as if he'd been cut off mid-shout.
Then Dean had started running.
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