AN: If blood grosses you out, you might want to skip this chapter. Consider yourself warned.
"So, it's been longer than a week since your last doctor's appointment," Dean says.
They're walking back to the car after interviewing the former owners of one extremely haunted house. Sam's still limping more than he'd like, but he can keep up. His dress shoe fit on his right foot this morning, so that's a plus.
"And?" Sam asks, loosening the knot in his tie.
"Think we should find a doctor in this town? Get your INR checked?"
"Nah."
"The last doctor said to have it checked in another week."
Sam breathes out a laugh. "And we started following doctors' orders and keeping regular appointments when, exactly?"
Dean's response is lighting fast. "When you were diagnosed with something that could kill you, Sam. That's when."
They get in the car. "You can't keep doing that, you know," Sam says. He rubs absently at his calf.
"Keep doing what?"
"Keep telling me this thing isn't going to kill me, then change your mind and tell me it is just because you want me to go to the doctor or rest. That's a low blow, man."
Dean puts the car in reverse and doesn't say a word. The steering wheel clenched tightly in his fists and the way his teeth are grinding together say it all.
"Look, I'm taking the Coumadin every day. My INR is fine. It was fine last week and it's fine this week."
"Yeah, like you can really tell that."
"I can," Sam says. "I feel the same as I did last week. My leg is getting better. My blood feels thin." This is 100% bullshit, but they're figuring out how to define this new version of normal, and Sam's not about to let the definition include wasting time in doctors' offices and allowing some number from a blood test to dictate his life.
Dean turns off the radio. He removes one hand from the wheel and places it firmly in the middle of Sam's chest. "Deep breath."
This is Dean's new thing. It seems to calm him down and assure him that Sam's not going to die right this fucking minute, so Sam's okay with it. He takes the deepest breath he can, letting Dean's hand rise and fall, letting him feel that he's breathing fine and there aren't any crackles and the clot is still very much in his leg.
"You're good, Sammy," Dean says as he claps his brother firmly on the chest. Sam grunts in response. "But a doctor soon, yeah? After we take care of this haunted house?"
"Yeah. Sure."
"Good. You know, maybe I should invest in a stethoscope."
Sam smiles and turns the radio back on. "You wouldn't know what to do with a stethoscope if one hit you in the face."
"Yes, I would. I'd put the ear pieces into your ears while you slept and fart into the other end. It would be epic."
Sam's head falls back against the seat as he laughs. "You would, wouldn't you?"
"Absolutely. Or I'd belch the alphabet and make you listen. Surround sound." When he turns to Sam, Dean is smiling. It's a good sight. "Hey, I'm starving. Want to get some food?"
This. This right here is the only definition of normal Sam wants.
The restaurant's waitress places one plate in front of Dean and in the other in front of Sam. "Enjoy, gentlemen," she says. "Let me know if there's anything else I can get for you."
"Hold it," Dean says, stopping her in her tracks. He points to Sam's plate. "What the hell is that?"
"Dean…"Sam warns.
"A grilled chicken sandwich with a side of vegetables. Just like he ordered."
"I thought you said the vegetable of the day was carrots," Dean says.
"Yeah. Peas and carrots."
"Do you know how much vitamin K is in a serving of peas?" Dean growls.
"Probably a lot," the poor waitress says with a smile, like it's a good thing.
"Exactly. And…" Dean trails off as he looks at Sam's sandwich. He knocks off the bun and points. "And what the hell is that?"
"Spinach," she says proudly. "The sandwich is one of our healthy menu items, so we put spinach on it instead of iceberg lettuce."
"Dean, it's fine," Sam says. "I'll take the spinach off the sandwich and I won't eat…"
"No," Dean interrupts. He picks up the plate and shoves it forcefully back at the waitress, who is now wide-eyed. A few peas roll off the plate and fall to the ground. "Make it again. And if I see so much as a ispeck/i of anything green on the plate, I swear to God, I'll…"
This time it's Sam's turn to interrupt. "That's enough, Dean." Sam smiles gently at the waitress. "If you're going to put spinach on it, you should probably say that on the menu."
She nods quickly. When she takes the plate, a few more peas fall to the ground. "Right. Okay. I'll…I'll tell my boss that. Sorry. Be right back."
"Fucking idiots," Dean says once she's gone, before shoving a few French fries into his mouth.
"You're going to have to relax about the vitamin K stuff, you know. You can't keep scaring waitresses and changing my dinner orders forever."
"Not forever. Just for the next 3-6 months."
Sam stares hard at the table and crumples his straw wrapper into a tiny ball. "Right."
Then he forces a smile and steals a fry from Dean's plate.
They take care of the haunted house a few days later. Unfortunately, a glass window is shattered in the process. Sam holds up his arms and tries to run, but he's not fast enough.
It's bad. He squeezes his left hand around his right elbow, hoping to fend off the worst of the bleeding.
"Sam? You okay?" Dean asks as he runs into the room.
"Yeah. Fine. Give me your shirt."
Dean tears off his shirt without a single lecturing word about how Sam should have been more careful.
"Tie it tight," Sam says, holding out his bleeding arm.
Dean does. "Too tight?" But he doesn't wait for an answer because right now "too tight" probably doesn't exist. "Come on. Let's get out of here."
They're in the car and heading for the motel in record time. The blood is seeping through Dean's shirt. Shit. This is bad.
When they get to the motel, Dean guides Sam straight to the bathroom with their first aid kit in hand. "Let me see."
That means showing Dean how much he's bleeding and how many bruises he has. This is going to be bad. Sam carefully removes Dean's ruined shirt. He carefully pulls his arm out of his own cut-up, bloody sleeve.
Dean is already running washcloths under the faucet. "Shit, that's a lot of blood. Gonna need stitches."
"Yeah." While Dean cleans the wound, Sam uses his other hand to pull out a needle and sutures.
"I'd give you a shot of whiskey," Dean says as he picks up the needle, "but…"
No alcohol. Sam tenses all of his muscles. Grits his teeth. Holds perfectly still, and says, "Just get it over with."
It hurts a hell of a lot even with Dean's quick, practiced motions. Sam is almost shaking with pain by the time Dean pats a clean washcloth to his arm and says, "Okay. Okay. Done."
Sam gasps out a breath and leans his elbows on the counter. "Fuck," he whispers. He stands there for a minute, catching his breath.
Dean gives him pain pills and water. "So," he says as he rubs antibiotic ointment onto the wound, "these bruises."
Sam shivers and closes his eyes. "The doctors said I'm going to bruise easily, Dean."
Dean rips a piece of medical tape from a roll. "Are you bruised like that anywhere else?"
"My leg. From the last hunt." The half-truth falls easily from his lips. He glances at Dean's reflection in the mirror. "But come on, how many times have you gotten banged up on a hunt, right? And if you had been hit with that window, it would be me doing the sutures right now."
"But it wasn't me," Dean says softly. He finishes taping a piece of gauze in place.
When Sam pushes away from the counter, Dean puts a hand on his chest. Sam takes a deep breath without being told what to do. It calms him almost as much as it does Dean.
"How's your leg?" Dean asks before taking his hand away.
"It's fine. I'm fine."
"We need to get your INR checked. Might be too high."
"Better than too low. It's Friday evening. No doctors open. We'll go on Monday."
Dean hesitates and nods.
But the air around them feels unstable. Like they're just waiting for a storm to hit.
"I really don't think it's just an angry spirit," Sam says, pulling up a search engine on his laptop. It's Sunday. Dean spent most of Saturday checking Sam's arm constantly like it was going to start bleeding spontaneously. But it's healing, and so are the bruises, and they're getting past it. Like normal.
"No? Why not?"
"I don't know. It just seems too random. Too many victims don't fit the patterns, either with where they were killed, or if they knew…" Sam trails off when he notices blood on the desk. A lot of blood. He checks his arm and his hands but doesn't see anything. Then he puts a hand up to his nose. It comes back covered in blood. Shit.
He stands and tries to get to the bathroom before Dean sees, but fails.
"Sam? Is that blood?"
Sam rushes into the bathroom and grabs a handful of tissues, shoving them up against his nose. When he looks in the mirror, he sees fear in his eyes and blood down the front of his shirt.
"What the hell?" Dean asks.
"Nosebleed," Sam says, but the end of the word is cut off when he starts choking. He coughs and splatters the sink with blood.
"All right," Dean says, clapping him on the back and tilting his head forward over the sink. "It's okay." Dean takes the soaked tissues from Sam and gives him a washcloth to use instead. Dean pinches his nose hard, and Sam knows he's going to have a bruise.
After a few minutes, Dean says, "Okay. I'm going to let go. See if it stopped yet. Okay?"
Sam nods. The washcloth that used to be white is now black-red. Sam pulls it away from his face and tosses it in the sink. Dean has a hand-towel ready, just in case. When Dean lets go, blood instantly gushes all over the place.
"Shit," Dean says, pinching Sam's nose hard again.
Sam holds the hand towel to his nose and tries not to panic. It's just a nosebleed. It will stop. But when they try again a few minutes later, it's still bleeding.
Sam has a serious case of déjà vu. Different day. Different hotel room. Different wound. But still Dean and Sam in a bathroom, up against Sam's blood.
Fuck.
After a while, Sam starts sweating. His heart pounds faster than it should. First aid training runs through his brain. Hypovolemic shock. Stage 2. His nose needs to stop bleeding. Now.
As if reading his mind, the fingers of Dean's free hand find Sam's jugular. "Talk to me, Sam. How are you feeling?"
"Heart's pounding," Sam mumbles into the towel. He feels Dean's hand return to his back. "Sweating."
"Yeah. I'm thinking we get you to a hospital now."
"No," Sam says. "It'll stop." It will. It has to. Dean says something in response, but Sam doesn't hear it. He's too busy trying to stop the bleeding and slow his pulse and breathe and stay upright.
This is bad. This is so fucking bad bad.
And that's the last thing Sam thinks.