Dean's chest heaved as he drew in a panicked gulp. "D'n't. No. Bobby. No..." He rolled his head to look pleadingly at his brother. "S'mmy, tell him we don't need to."
Sam swallowed and composed his voice. He touched his brother's shoulder. "Dean, you've got a really bad infection. We're cleaning it out and you'll be feeling so much better, okay?"
"No." Dean choked, utterly terrified, even through his haze.
Bobby raised an eyebrow. "Well so much for the Vicodin making him loopy or relaxed. Sam, son, I need you at his head to keep him calm." He looked at Dean's panicked expression. "Well... as calm as you can. Ellis, I'm gonna need you here to rinse the wound as I'm diggin."
She looked pale.
"I can do it," Sam said.
Bobby shook his head. "She's got tiny hands, they won't be gettin' in my way. And he's gonna respond best to you, son."
Sam looked like he didn't like the verdict but nodded his assent.
Ellis still seemed as if she was trying to regroup herself.
"I'm gonna need a huge pot of boiling water." Bobby continued, all business and efficiency. "I need to sterilize everything. Everything and anything that's gonna come in contact with him. We need to wash our hands thoroughly. I need clean towels."
"B'bby," Dean slurred, rolling his eyes toward him, swallowing thickly. "I can't."
Bobby turned his attention to him a moment. "Sure you can, son." His voice was paternal.
"N...uh." Dean's face scrunched up.
Bobby sighed. "Can't reason with him. He's too sick."
Ellis took Dean's hand in hers and gave it a squeeze. She could feel the pulse pounding in his wrist. "Dean, this is going to be over really soon."
"First thing I gotta do," Bobby said aloud, his expression pulled into a scowl of concentration, "is clamp the wound open a little. He ain't gonna like this. Sam keep a good hold of him, son."
Bobby inserted a small metallic clamp speculum and opened it slowly.
Dean cried out, thrashing as much as he could under his bonds.
"Easy, boy." Bobby barked.
The young man's whole body went tense and he started trembling. "N...n..no. Please! Please!"
"Hey," Sam whispered in his ear. "Stay with me, Dean."
Dean's eyes wandered down to the source of the pain and Sam blocked his view by putting his hand under Dean's chin and tilting it up. "Don't look, buddy. Don't look. Stay with me. Focus right here."
Ellis flushed the wound a little and Dean's nose flared as he began to breathe rapidly through it, almost hyperventilating.
"God. Those pain meds haven't done anything." She said, watching his chest rise and fall rapidly.
Bobby kept the scowl on as he worked. "It's that kid's damn tolerance." He picked up a scalpel. "He can drink any one under the table. Narcotics hardly effect him unless you have enough to kill a horse. His Daddy was the same way, it seems."
He went quiet for a moment. "See now you go in and cut away any tissue around the area. I'm gonna need you to flush it, Ellis."
She swallowed, shaking.
"Hey," He looked at her sharply. "Don't fall apart on me. I need you here." His tone was a rebuke. "Sam, keep a good hold on him."
Dean's entire consciousness was filled with pain. Being moved hurt, just when he'd start to drift off, hands were moving him, shifting him. Voices talking to him, rough and affectionate. Calm and familiar. Maternal and loving. He'd been frightened earlier but then the warm fevered thoughts of his mind wandered into a Vicodin haze.
When he realized that they were wrapping him in sheets to tie him down, his eyes shot open and he struggled to get up to no avail. Sam had an iron grip on him and Bobby was lashing him to the bed frame. He started to panic again, trying to wriggle free.
"Hey." The voice said. "Dean."
It was Sam.
"S'mmy?"
"Right here, buddy."
He felt a hand on his leg. It was Ellis. Soft, soothing. "It's okay, sweetheart."
"No." He mumbled, rolling his head fitfully. "Uh."
Sam was settling in behind him, lifting his head into his lap and wrapping his arms under Dean's armpits. "I've gotcha, buddy."
Dean blinked lazily. His side hurt, he felt air brush over it and it was enough to make him groan. Hands were on his hip and he tensed, bracing for pain. And there it was, something pressing his side...into his side. He cried out as it went in and began to beg, all pride gone. "NO. Please, please!"
White hot pain lanced through him, voices were trying to calm him. He just wanted away. Away from the pain.
He started to look down and Sam's big hand caught him under the jaw and pushed his head up and back. He rolled his eyes upward and saw his brother looking at down him, mouth drawn in a grim line.
"I'm right here. Stay with me, Dean. Stay with me. You're gonna feel something-"
"Oh god!" Dean cried out and arched his head back into Sam, banging his skull into his brother's stomach. It was horrible. Felt exponentially worse than Ellis fishing the bullet out the first time. He gasped and panted and fought. Felt Sam's grip tighten around his chest and arms like a vice. "Easy, easy. Shhh. Okay buddy. Okay. I've gotcha."
He felt he was going to lose consciousness and then the sensation was out, until he felt Ellis start to flush the wound. Another cry peeled from him. "Stop! Please fucking... stop." He was hiccuping in between panicked gulps.
"Dean." Sam's grip tightened again, his arms around him in a desperate bear hug, firm enough to hurt. "Don't make me break your rib." His voice was strained with effort.
"Okay, boy. We're almost done." Bobby assured.
"See?" Sam panted, his voice soft like when he talked to a victim. "Almost done. You're doing good."
Dean struck out blindly, felt his elbow connect with something. Possibly the side of Sam's head.
There was a searing horrible internal pain again that peeled up inside of him, branched around and down his hip, into his groin, up into his ribs and his lungs. He vaguely heard himself making gasping heaving sobbing noises.
"Almost done, kid. And here it is."
Dean's body sagged like a tire that someone let all the air out of. He couldn't catch his breath. Couldn't stop making noise.
He felt Sam pat his head with a few roughly affectionate slaps. "It's over bud. They got it."
"Hey. It's over. You did good," Sam coaxed.
Dean was still making horrible gasping sounds of pain. Sam was shaking almost as hard as Dean. He slipped out from behind his brother.
"Untie him!" Ellis was scrambling for the edge of the sheet and trying desperately to get the knot lose.
Bobby started on the other set. "Jesus woman, calm down. It ain't a race. He ain't goin' nowhere." His bloody fingers loosened it.
The minute Sam was out of the way and Dean was loose, she was on the bed.
Ellis pulled Dean up into her arms and held him against her breast, muffling his dry gasping sobs into her shirt. "Shhhh. Shhhh."
Sam and Bobby looked done in.
"Balls," Bobby whispered. "That was hard. I need a drink."
Tears were standing in Sam's eyes.
Ellis rocked him absently. Dean's hands went up and fisted into the fabric, weak and trembling.
She kept him in the embrace, rubbing his back in gentle soothing circles, ignoring the fact that when leaning on her like he was a child he was fucking heavy. He pushed against her, burrowing for comfort. "We're done, baby. It's all over. We're done. Shhh."
He dropped his full weight on her which she could barely hold and his head slid down into her lap.
"I'm so sorry." She stroked his shortly cropped hair.
"S'mmy?"
Ellis looked up. "Sam, he wants you, I think."
Sam knelt on the edge of the bed, took Dean's limp hand. "I'm here, Dean."
Dean didn't respond much, his body a dead weight, slack except for the trembling that shook his big frame for a second or two every few minutes.
"That was hard and you did good." Sam assured.
Dean responded with a squeeze of his fingers in between his labored breathing.
Ellis kept petting.
Bobby walked back in and raised an eyebrow at the scene. He was done with beer and had moved on to the hard stuff. He assessed them a moment. "He okay?"
"Yeah." Sam said.
"No." Ellis replied.
"I hate to interrupt Sharing and Caring Theater, but you should probably let 'im get some sleep."
Ellis visibly bristled. "You have a problem with me comforting him, Singer."
Bobby's brows narrowed, and he opened his mouth in a half scowl at the challenge in her voice.
Sam's eyes darted between them apprehensively, sensing some pending eruption. "He's right though. We should let him sleep."
"What, he can't fall asleep in my lap?"
The men seemed a little off put by the tone of her reply. Sam gave Dean's hand one last firm squeeze and wandered over to Bobby. "Leave it. She's in Momma Bear Mode." He said, his voice low.
"Yeah. I see she has that setting. Guess maybe there's no harm in letting her stay with him for now."
Sam nodded. "He's really hurt. I haven't seen him this bad."
He swallowed, clearly emotional, likely on the verge of crying.
"Awww Hell." The older hunter cocked his head. "Don't you fall apart too. Already got one over-reacting female. Don't need two."
Sam choked down his emotion, shoved it under, reined it back, his handsome face composing itself carefully. He nodded.
Bobby put his arm around him. "Let's get you fed, kid."
Okay that was horrible! I promise I'm done with the extreme physical pain for a while. Now we get some comfort with our hurt and some action and major plot complications. Thank you for all the awesome reviews, including the people who commented as a guest. I appreciate those too, I just can't answer you. :)