Disclaimer: Supernatural and its characters are Kripke's brainchild. I make no claims to the contrary.

Another Disclaimer: I am not a medical professional. I just play one on FanFiction.


Dean slammed the trunk of the Impala closed and walked back around to the passenger side, supplies tucked under his arm. Sam sat sideways on the end of the bench seat, right leg balancing him in the doorway, left leg stretched out to the ground. He had his left arm braced on the dash, fingertips pressing into the plastic so hard that they were white, breathing deliberately through pursed lips as he waited for Dean to come back.

"How're you doing?"

Sam swallowed thickly before he answered. "Been better," he admitted.

Dean popped open the blister packaging for two tablets of medication he'd grabbed from the trunk and held them out. "Here, take these."

Sam pushed himself away from the dash and accepted the tablets hesitantly. "What are they?"

"Zofran."

"I'm not nauseous."

"You will be," Dean answered. "Remember that wendigo case with Dad?"

Sam's eyes widened slightly, and he swallowed again. He probably remembered that night just as well as Dean did. The wendigo had thrown their dad against a tree and broken his leg; and when Dean reset the bone, the pain was so bad that he couldn't keep his dinner down.

Of course, they hadn't thought to give the man a Zofran before getting him drunk on cheap whiskey. Hindsight was 20/20. Lesson learned. Without further argument, Sam popped the tablets into his mouth and let them dissolve on his tongue as Dean began to tear old tee shirts into makeshift bandages.

"How's the shoulder?" he asked as he pressed the torn shirts against the wounds.

Sam let out a shuddering breath before he answered. "Dislocated, I think." Another shaky breath. "Feels wrong. Can't move it."

Dean nodded as he reached for one of the ace bandages he'd brought from the trunk. He was well-acquainted with that particular sensation. "We'll get a good look at it when we get that coat off. Here, hold this right there."

Sam reached down to hold the tee shirt in place on his thigh as Dean got the wrap started, then braced his fist against the dash again. It took two ace bandages to wrap his freakishly long leg, and when Dean was done, he helped Sam turn his legs into the car before he went to the driver's side. Neither of them said anything else as Dean threw the car into gear.

The gravel road they were on was poorly maintained, plagued by harsh dips and gullies that bounced the car no matter how carefully Dean drove. As he eased slowly over the bumps, he could hear Sam trying—and failing—to fight down groans of pain. It only took a few minutes to reach the highway, but by then, Sam was gasping and sweating, leaning forward with his forearm on the dash, hand balled into a tight fist, face contorting like it did when he was having a vision.

Dean took one hand off the wheel—he didn't need it there anymore, now that they were on asphalt—and laid it across Sam's shoulder blade. Sam shuddered under his hand, head bowing forward so that Dean couldn't see his face anymore. Dean hoped that the smoother drive would made the pain a little better, but if anything, Sam seemed to groan and gasp and shake even more as the miles disappeared behind them.

Finally, after Sam had bitten out a few choice swears, Dean gave his shoulder a firm squeeze. "Just hold on a little bit longer, Sam. We're almost there."

Sam brought his head up again at Dean's words and looked through the windshield, as if checking to see if Dean was telling the truth, but there were no signs or mile-markers immediately around. He gasped as he leaned back into the seat, hand dropping to grip his thigh above the bandaging. "How long?"

Dean shifted his eyes from the road to his brother and back again. "About twenty minutes. You doing okay?"

Sam let out a miserable groan. "Pain's getting worse. Adrenaline's wearing off, I think."

Dean nodded, sympathetic. He tightened his grip on the wheel and pressed into the gas pedal a little more, urging his baby to drive just a little bit faster. Except for Sam's pained profanities, which increased steadily in frequency as the miles stretched on, neither of them said anything else for the rest of the drive. Finally, as they came up to the turn for Bobby's auto yard, Dean gave Sam's shoulder one last, firm squeeze before he let go to put both hands on the wheel again.

"Alright, Sam, here we are."

Sam grunted an acknowledgment and raised his head again. The first bump of the gravel drive seemed to hit him hard, and his fist was immediately braced on the dash again as he groaned loudly through his teeth.

"Hang in there, one more second."

Dean drove closer to the house than he usually did and swung the Impala around so that Sam's side was only ten feet from the porch. He threw the car in park and cut the engine. "Alright, we're here," he said as he opened his door, and he was around the car to Sam's side in less than five seconds. He was reaching in to ease his brother's legs out of the car before Sam had even moved.

"Hey, come on, talk to me. You know where we are, right?" One last check for shock before he had to carry his brother's giant ass inside.

Sam pushed away from the dash, panting and shaking heavily. "Bobby's."

"Alright, just making sure, just one more time," Dean prefaced. "Do you feel dizzy? Lightheaded? Cold? Nauseous?" Dean rattled off the symptoms quickly, knowing that the longer the Q&A lasted, the angrier Sam was likely to be about it.

Sam's face twitched from pain to annoyance faster than Dean thought possible, but he didn't offer a retort; he just pursed his lips and shook his head. Hesitant, Dean watched his expression for another moment. He wanted to ask Sam if he'd admit it if he was feeling the symptoms of shock, but he knew it wouldn't go over well.

"Dean, I know better than to lie about that."

Dean nearly snorted as he dropped his head, amused that Sam could still read his face, even though he was clearly in mind-numbing pain. "Am I that obvious?"

Sam shrugged and let Dean pull him up from the seat. He gasped and gritted his teeth as he wrapped his arm around Dean's shoulders, and Dean steadied him carefully until he found his balance on one leg.

"You good?"

Sam nodded tightly. "Yeah," he breathed, "I'm good."

As Dean eased his brother away from the car, he heard Bobby's ancient screen door slam and looked up to see Bobby crossing the porch.

"Glad to see you boys made it," he acknowledged gruffly as he descended the porch stairs. Then, before Dean could stop him, Bobby started to reach for Sam's other arm, obviously intending to help bring him into the house.

"No, don't touch me!" Sam huffed urgently as he flinched away from Bobby's outstretched arm, and he overbalanced all 200 pounds of his weight into Dean's side.

Dean was caught completely off guard, and if not for the open door of the Impala beside them, he knew they'd have both hit the ground. His swears of surprise, though, were drowned out as Sam continued to babble, "Please, please don't touch me!"

Bobby backed away from them quickly, hands palm-out by his shoulders in surrender, eyes wide as he glanced confusedly between the two of them. Dean pushed his brother back upright with another swear and leveled his eyes with Bobby's, realizing that they'd never addressed Sam's shoulder over the phone.

"His shoulder's all fucked up," he explained, trying to offer Bobby an apologetic expression that probably didn't land.

Bobby's eyes flicked from Dean to Sam's arm, then to Sam's face, then back to Dean. With a heavy sigh, he nodded and lowered his arms, stepping to the side to let them pass. Dean tightened his grip around Sam's waist and pulled him forward a little, trying to urge him into motion. The few stairs up onto the porch were a challenge, but they managed to conquer them one at a time and finally made it into the house as Bobby held the screen door open.

"Where do you want him? Couch?"

Bobby closed the front door to keep the cold outside. "Kitchen, for now," he answered, "til we see what's what."

Dean led Sam through Bobby's library toward the kitchen. Ellen was there, cleaning and arranging medical supplies at the table. She looked up as they shuffled in and offered them the customary, "Hey, Sam, Dean. Good to see you." She swung one of the chairs away from the table and pushed it back toward the wall. "Wish it was under better circumstances, of course. Here, put him here."

Dean lowered Sam gently into the chair, and by the time he'd straightened up again, Bobby had set a hefty glass of whiskey on the table where Sam could reach it. "Drink up," he grumbled, "you're gonna need it."

Sam was hissing between his teeth, but he managed to give Bobby a grateful nod as he reached for the glass. He took two big gulps of whiskey, pulled away to wince briefly at the burn, then went in for a third before setting the glass back on the table with an indelicate thunk. Bobby chuckled ruefully and set the rest of whiskey bottle on the table next to the glass.

Ellen was back to fussing with the supplies on the table, but she watched Sam carefully as she worked. "Jo went out to get a few things we're gonna need, but she should be back soon." She came around the table and laid a hand on Sam's shoulder. "How're you feeling, sweetie?"

Sam tipped his head back to look up at her, panting through the pain and giving her what could only be described as puppy-dog eyes. But it only lasted for a second or so before he swallowed heavily and somehow managed to force a little smile. "Not drunk enough," he answered her, making a play for humor.

"Yeah, well, we got time," Ellen drawled. "Let's get you out of that coat, shall we?"

Sam swallowed again and nodded, and Dean immediately stepped forward to help. "Careful of his shoulder," he warned as he steadied Sam with both hands, "it's probably dislocated."

Ellen hesitated for a second as she comprehended what Dean had said. "Well, you boys never do anything halfway, do you?"

Dean shook his head as he stabilized the injured shoulder carefully. Sam flinched once under his hands, then went still and blew out a breath, eyes falling closed as he forced himself to relax.

"That's it, Sam, breathe," Dean encouraged. "Let us do all the work."

Ellen glanced between the two of them before she started to work on Sam's left sleeve. "Arm up," she commanded gently, and Sam carefully raised his arm over his head to that Ellen could pull the sleeve off without pulling too much on the back of the coat. When it was done, he dropped his arm again and leaned forward a little to let them unwrap the coat from his back toward the injured side.

Dean released one hand from Sam's shoulder and rested it on Sam's forearm instead. "Need to straighten your arm a little, Sam," he warned as he eased the coat down from the shoulder. Sam hissed in pain as Dean straightened his elbow, then gritted his teeth and strained his head back as the coat sleeve pulled down on his whole arm. Once it was free, Dean dropped the coat unceremoniously to the floor.

"Overshirt, too, I think," Ellen said.

Sam panted once, clearly displeased by the suggestion, but he leaned forward again and let them repeat the entire process until he was dressed only in his white tee shirt. Disrobed of all the extra layers, Dean could clearly see the deformity in Sam's shoulder: a sharp angle jutting out where there shouldn't be one and a pronounced dip just beneath.

Dean ghosted his fingers over the unnatural angles. "Yeah," he sighed, "dislocated for sure."

Sam chest heaved as he panted and turned his head to get a look. His eyebrows shot up a little, then he looked up at Dean. The change in expression was subtle, but Dean could see the flash of panic there.

Dean knew that feeling, too: that internal exclamation of "Oh shit, my body's not supposed to look like that." He got that same, brief panic every time he saw his own fingers bent wrong or his toes crooked or, hell, his shoulder dislocated. He never got used to it, no matter how many times it'd happened or how many times he'd seen it on someone else. That fleeting moment of "Oh shit" always struck him just as hard as the times before.

He chuckled at him anyway, an instinctual attempt to lighten the mood. "What, never seen a dislocated shoulder before?" he ribbed, because he knew full-well that Sam had. Hell, he routinely saw a lot worse than this.

The comment worked, though, because Sam's subtle expression of panic was quickly replaced by another bitch-face. And that was fine with him, because as long as Sam wasn't freaking out, he wasn't making their job harder than it had to be.

"So," Ellen jumped in, "shoulder first, yeah?"

It wasn't really a question as much as a gentle prod to get things moving along. Dean nodded and stood up straight again, reaching for his belt for the second time that night. Sam reached for his glass of whiskey and drained the rest of it in one gulp as Dean started to thread the belt under the dislocated shoulder. Even that tiny movement in the joint made him hiss sharply. On his other side, Ellen pushed the table away a little to ease herself behind Sam's chair.

"What the hell," Bobby started from the doorway between the library and the kitchen, "are y'all doing?"

Ellen shot him a faintly amused look as she pulled the ends of the belt up diagonally across Sam's chest and back. "Just 'cause most hunters do it quick and dirty don't mean it's the right way," she said. "Likely to do more harm than good if we just shove it back in."

Dean nodded in agreement—their Dad had explained that to them the first time they'd set another hunter's shoulder—but he couldn't help looking over at her curiously. "Where'd you learn this stuff, by the way?"

Ellen met his eyes with an equal curiosity, as if she didn't know what he was asking. "Learn what?"

Dean gestured at the table, where she'd carefully laid out all the tools she'd need to clean and stitch Sam's leg on a clean bath towel. She hadn't half-assed it; the array looked almost professional, despite the less-than-sterile environment, as if she'd done it many times before. "What, were you a doctor in a past life?"

Ellen glanced at the table and back to Dean. "ER nurse," she answered coolly, "before I met Bill. That's how we got together."

"Oh."

"Matter of fact, I'm the one who taught your daddy how to do this in the first place," she added, tightening her grip on the ends of the belt. "You learned it from him, but he learned it from me."

A newfound respect for her bloomed in Dean's chest. "Well, damn."

"Yeah, yeah. Let's just get this done."

She positioned herself over Sam and pulled up gently on the belt, readying to apply counter-traction to the shoulder. Dean shifted his hands on Sam's arm, bending the elbow carefully to ninety degrees. Sam tensed and hissed, shifting uncomfortably in his chair. Dean watching as he took a deep breath and blew it out slowly.

"Alright, Sam, just keep breathing," he encouraged lowly, gripping the back of Sam's upper arm with his left hand, sliding his right hand into Sam's. "It's gonna feel wrong as hell, but don't tense up."

Sam gave a small nod, eyes closed, as he slowly blew out another breath. Dean flicked his eyes to Ellen to check that she was ready, then started pulling slowly on Sam's arm. Immediately, Sam groaned, the muscles in his arm seizing up involuntarily.

"Relax your arm, Sam," Dean ordered, his voice firm. "Bone can't move 'til you relax."

Sam swallowed thickly and blew out another breath, faster this time. Under his hand on the back of Sam's arm, Dean felt the muscles flutter and begin to loosen. "That's it," he encouraged. He gave Sam another moment, then slowly pulled just a little bit more.

It felt like a long process. Pull a bit, hold, repeat. Over Sam's other shoulder, Ellen pulled back on the belt, matching her tension to Dean's, and offered encouragements to Sam intermittently. Sam breathed quickly, deeply, deliberately, rhythmically as he fought his body's instinct to tense up.

Dean could tell when the head of the humerus started to pull away from the socket, ligaments stretching between the bones, because the muscles under his hand fluttered and Sam groaned between his teeth.

"Almost there, Sam. Just relax."

Sam panted as he tried to obey, eyes wide and unfocused. Now that the bone was pulled away from the joint, Dean needed to rotate it just slightly so that it slid back into place. With his hand in Sam's, he applied gentle pressure to the palm so that Sam's entire arm rotated outward a few degrees. Sam's breath hitched, his other arm shooting out to grab at the edge of the table.

"Easy, Sam, almost done."

Sam shuddered out another breath, tightening his grip on the table, uninjured leg shifting restlessly on the floor. Dean applied a little more pressure against Sam's hand, arm rotating another few degrees. Come on, come on, almost there...

The bone under his hand shifted substantially, sliding back where it was supposed to be. Sam jerked sharply in his chair, a surprised yelp bursting from his chest, and Dean quickly eased his hold on his brother's arm, letting the ligament retract the bone into place. With both hands, he held the shoulder stable in its socket as Sam rocked in his chair, just in case it wanted to pop out again.

"Ah! Ah!" Sam panted out, mouth wide, eyes closed tightly. The muscles under Dean's hands were nearly vibrating as they contracted. He knew that every nerve was firing, freaking out, shouting wrong wrong wrong to Sam's brain, and there was legitimately nothing Sam could do about it except ride it out.

"That's it, sweetie, just breathe," Ellen soothed as she pulled the belt free from under his arm. She rubbed her hand back and forth across Sam's heaving back a few times.

After a few moments, Sam managed to reclaim control and leaned back in his chair again, intense pain etched into his face. "Oh, God."

Dean let go of Sam's shoulder and took his belt back from Ellen. "Should be getting better now," he said as he began threading it through his belt loops again.

Sam swallowed and groaned, head pulling back up again. "No, it is," he panted, "it's just—my leg—"

He broke off and swallowed again, reaching for the bottle of whiskey on the table. He couldn't quite reach it without leaning, though, so Ellen took it for him and poured another generous glass.

"It's—I think something's wrong," Sam ground out, suddenly uninterested in the whiskey even as Ellen tried to hand it to him.

Dean stepped toward him automatically, apprehension and worry rising again, and he heard movement behind him from the doorway where Bobby was standing. "Sammy?"

Sam was panting, shaking, face paling further, sweat beading up on his brow. "Something's—something's not right," he nearly whined, and he looked up at Dean with pleading eyes. "It hurts—God, it hurts worse than—than it should—"

Dean had been planning to wait until Jo came back to unwrap Sam's leg, but that plan went out the window as soon as he saw tears gathering in his brother's eyes. He might call Sam a girl on a regular basis, but that was just brotherly ribbing. He knew is brother, and Sam was no wuss when it came to hunting. He could kick some major ass, take a beating like a champ, and he never bitched about pain.

So if Sam said something was wrong, he believed him. Especially when he looked like that.

Dropping to one knee by Sam's leg, he started pulling at the bottom of the ace bandages, vision tunneling as he unwrapped it as quickly as possible. It seemed to take an eternity before Sam's leg was unwrapped to the knee, and Dean abandoned the ace bandage to peel the tee shirt away from the wounds.

What he saw made his blood run cold.


Law of Parsimony: the philosophical or scientific principle, according to which an explanation is made with the fewest possible assumptions.

Also known as Occam's Razor or the Precedence of Simplicity: of two competing theories, the simpler explanation is to be preferred.