Disclaimer: Supernatural and its characters are Kripke's brainchild. I make no claims to the contrary.
Set in the middle of Season 3.
Ruby kept one eye on the boys as she stirred together ingredients at the table, and though Dean tried to ignore her, he felt like a bug under a microscope.
He was sitting behind Sam on the cot, supporting his brother more-or-less upright so that he could choke down Ruby's potion. He could smell the unpleasant bitterness of the herbs, the sharpness of the wine, and something gamy he couldn't identify all combined together, and it turned his stomach to know that Sam had endured almost two mugfuls of the stuff. For the umpteenth time that night, he acknowledged to himself that Sam's resolve was a hell of a lot stronger than his. There was no way he could have done it.
Sam grimaced through another swallow from the mug Bobby held to his lips, then gasped and let his head fall back onto Dean's shoulder. His entire body was shivering, body unnaturally hot against Dean's, sweat dampening both of their shirts.
Bobby tipped the mug toward him again. "Come on, Sam," he urged gently, "just a little more."
Sam huffed tightly, head shaking, but he immediately pulled in another breath and strained his head forward anyway.
Dean closed his eyes against the painful stab in his heart, brotherly pride blooming inside him. Attaboy, Sammy.
Sam downed the remainder of the potion in three quick gulps, gasping for breath as he swallowed the last. Dean expected his head to fall back again, but it didn't; Sam spoke instead.
"Water," he rasped at Bobby, "please."
Bobby seemed to have anticipated the request, because he already had a glass in his other hand and had begun to raise it before Sam asked. Sam gulped the water desperately, swishing it around his mouth for a second to gather the taste of the potion before he swallowed. Only once he was satisfied did Sam lay his head back again with another full-body shudder.
"Oh, God," he groaned quietly.
Dean rubbed up and down his arm instinctively. "You're doing good, Sammy," he muttered into his ear, "you're gonna be alright."
"Dean," Sam breathed back, his frame quivering and relaxing in turns, as if he was trying to force himself to be still and couldn't quite manage it. "It hurts so bad."
"I know," Dean whispered back, though he knew that he didn't. Not really. "Just another minute. Ruby's working on it."
Another shudder. "I'm sorry."
Dean felt his eyebrows pull together, both in sympathy and confusion. "What for?"
"For..." Sam began, then stopped to swallow emotion. "For needing the spell." He shuddered again. "I'm sorry I...I wasn't strong enough..."
"Sam," Dean cut him off gently, leaning his head lightly against his brother's, "no."
This isn't on you, he thought desperately. Don't apologize for pain. Don't you dare.
He wished Sam could see right into his mind in this moment. He wished Sam could understand what he was feeling. He wasn't mad at him, not at all. He was worried. He couldn't stand anything bad happening to him. Not anything. Not some black, hairless monster on a hunt. Not some magic-born, evil, corruptive bacterial infection. Not some trojan horse spell worming into his head. Not agony and pain. And especially not this guilt eating his brother, when he'd shown unbelievable strength and courage, when all of this was so far beyond his control.
He wanted Sam to know all of that. But he didn't have the words.
"Don't you dare apologize for that," he said. "You have nothing to be sorry for."
Sam tensed again in his arms, like he was going to argue, but ultimately he said nothing. He just shifted against Dean with a grunt of pain, then shuttered out a resigned breath. From the corner of his eye, Dean saw a drop slide down beside Sam's nose, and he held his brother tighter. He clung to idea that it was a drop of sweat, but he knew that it wasn't.
For about a minute, no one said anything. There were no sounds in the kitchen except Sam's pained breathing and Ruby mixing things together in a small metal bowl. Then, finally, she turned away from the table, bowl in hand, and dropped to a crouch beside Sam's cot. Without a word, she dipped her finger into the bluish-grey concoction and touched it to Sam's forehead.
Dean held still as she worked. His prejudice for her slithered through him, but he kept it caged in the knowledge that she was helping Sam, trying to take away his agony. He would never trust her. He couldn't. But unfortunately for his prejudice, she had been helpful. He's never admit it aloud, but she had; and now was really, really not the time to fight her.
Ruby finished painting a complicated symbol on Sam's forehead with her finger, got up to set the bowl on the table, and returned to Sam's side. "Sam," she said gently, "I need you to stay relaxed. Don't fight the spell. No matter how strange it feels, don't fight it, or the pain will be worse."
Sam nodded slightly, head still resting back on Deans shoulder.
Ruby shifted to the side slightly to look directly at Dean. "I need to recite the spell without stopping," she said, rubbing her fingers together for a second before settling two fingers against Sam's temple. "You need to keep him calm."
Apprehension flared in Dean's gut, but before he could ask what she meant, Ruby began her incantation. Eyes closing in concentration, she murmured a low string of Latin, and from the corner of his eye, Dean saw the symbol on Sam's forehead begin to glow blue.
Sam's response was immediate. He very nearly yelped as his frame went tense, back arching slightly, hands scrabbling to grip Dean's arms around him, head tipping back harder into Dean's shoulder. Dean gripped Sam tighter, already pulling his leg up to kick Ruby away from his brother. Around the foot of the cot, Bobby, Ellen and Jo all started forward.
But in the very next instant—not even the span of a second—Sam's body went lax against his, practically melting into him, hands loosening, head lolling slightly to the side into Ruby's fingers. "Oh!" he exclaimed on a deep sigh of relief.
The sudden change in response caught Dean off-guard, and he didn't know what to do with it. His foot was still raised slightly off the ground, leg hovering protectively between Ruby and Sam, stopped just short of his previously-intended kick. "Sam?" he said uncertainly, an apprehensive, urgent edge in his voice.
"It's okay," Sam breathed, turning his head slightly back toward Dean. "It's fine. I'm good."
Dean glared at Ruby over the top of Sam's head, leg lowering slowly to the floor. "How's the pain?"
"It's fine," Sam answered, shifting against Dean. "It just...uncomfortable. Like...like it should hurt, but it doesn't."
Dean swallowed and hugged his arms more tightly around his little brother. Hovering around the foot of the bed, the other three seemed to take a collective breath as they leaned away again. Ellen and Bobby shuffled off to the kitchen table—probably preparing to clean out Sam's leg, now that the pain was managed—and Jo scooted her chair closer to Sam. She reached across Dean with a dampened cloth to dab away the sweat on Sam's neck. Sam startled lightly at her touch, but settled quickly again.
Ellen and Bobby returned to the foot of the cot after a moment with blue nitrile gloves and a pair of chairs. Ellen pulled two large, individually-wrapped syringes from a white box, opened the wrapping, and handed one of them to Bobby. Dean watched as they both leaned down with the syringes for a moment, and though he couldn't see what they were doing from his angle, he knew they were drawing the lambs blood to apply in Sam's wounds.
"Remember to relax, Sammy," Dean murmured in his brother's ear as Ellen and Bobby emerged again, syringes full of blood.
Sam pulled his head up from Dean's shoulder to watch as the blood was carefully dispensed into the wounds. He let out a low, slow breath as they worked. At first, it seemed that nothing major was happening. Sam could feel it, Dean was sure, but it didn't seem to cause him any pain.
Then, several seconds later, as Ellen and Bobby bent down to refill the syringes, Sam gasped and stiffened once again.
"Oh!" he exclaimed, squirming in Dean's arms. "Oh, God, that's..." He gasped again, head falling back.
Dean could already see what Sam was reacting to. Only a small area of the wounds had been treated, but the black lines nearest the blood were pulsing under Sam's skin.
"Sam, hey, relax," Dean commanded, gently but firmly, as he rubbed Sam's arm again.
Sam gasped, his back arching slightly. "Don't—don't do that!" he burst, reaching across himself to still Dean's hand on his arm. "Don't—it's too much!"
Suddenly, as Sam shuddered against him, Dean understood what was happening: Sam wasn't in pain, per se, but just as Ruby had said, he could feel every little thing that was happening. Given his reaction, he could feel it in sharp detail. The infection pulsing lightly under his skin must be uncomfortable, overwhelming, even if it didn't hurt.
Dean swallowed, stilling as much as he could. Sam gasped again as more lamb's blood was applied, as more of the wounds were covered, as more of the infection seemed to come to life.
"Talk to us, Sam," Ellen said as she finished the second syringe-full, hesitating for a moment as she waited for Sam's answer. "How's the pain?"
Sam gasped, still shaking. "It's not—it's not pain—it's just—ugh!—it's intense," he panted. "I can—oh, fuck—I can feel it moving!" He collapsed back into Dean, chest heaving as he panted through pursed lips.
Dean almost shuddered at the thought of something squirming under his skin, his stomach turning a little. He shifted his arms, taking Sam's hands in his, and Sam immediately latched on tightly. "Breathe through it," he encouraged, "just keep breathing."
Sam growled lowly. "I'm fucking trying!" His other leg shifted on the cot, knee bending slightly, then straightening again, heel catching against the thin mattress.
Dean gave him a few seconds to ride it out before Sam finally seemed to rally. He pulled his head up with a new determination, as if he'd processed the initial shock of the sensation. He let out three short, rhythmic puffs, then he nodded at Ellen and Bobby to continue.
Dean squeezed Sam's hands firmly in his. Good job, little brother. He didn't think it would go over well if he said it out loud, but the pride was still there.
"Jesus Christ," Sam growled through his teeth, shuddering against Dean again, "This hunt is going on the 'Top Ten Stupidest Dean Winchester Decisions' list."
Guilt gripped Dean's chest again, but he forced himself to let it go. It had been his idea, but Sam wasn't mad at him for this. Not really. He was just distracting himself from what was happening by picking a dumb fight.
He knew his brother.
"Pretty sure you're the one who got jumped," he bantered back. "Gettin' rusty there, kiddo."
"Fuck you," Sam grunted tightly. "Two weeks ago, this was you."
Dean flicked his eyes over to Ruby, a retort about the evilness of witches on his tongue, but she raised an eyebrow at him as if daring him to go ahead say it. Her incantation remained seamless and unbroken, two fingers still pressed to Sam's temple, but the silent threat was unmistakable: she could get up and walk away right now and leave Sam in agony. She'd saved his life already; the only reason she was still here was that Dean had asked.
Making a rude comment about witches or demons in this moment would probably take first place on the aforementioned 'Stupidest Dean Winchester Decisions' list.
He went a different direction. "Hey, I'm not the one who knowingly grabbed a cursed object," he said, "and then subsequently lost it to a pickpocket. Like I said: rusty."
Sam shuddered out a sharp breath that might have been a laugh. "Y-you got me shot because you c—ah!—you couldn't stop running your damn mouth," he bit out around a yelp. "I think I've paid for my moment of rustiness."
Okay, fair point, Dean thought as he bit his lip.
"A-and you said," Sam continued on a shiver, "that I was gonna get lucky."
Dean shrugged. "Eh...maybe you still will."
Sam's whole body cringed. "Oh, man, don't put that in my head!"
"What, you and Bela?" Dean teased. "I'd say you could do worse, but I actually don't think you can."
Sam growled again, shaking his head. "I swear, if I start having sex dreams about Bela now, I'm gonna kick your ass."
"Dude, if you're having sex dreams about the bitch that shot you, then you really do need to get laid."
Sam flinched and let out a few more puffs of air before he answered. "I'm gonna get blackout drunk when this is over," he groaned, "just to forget this conversation."
Dean couldn't stop a quick chuckle. "It don't think that's gonna help."
Sam seethed in another breath. "I don't fucking care. It's never stopped you before."
Dean shrugged in concession. "You drink, you don't get the good drugs."
"You don't have any of the good drugs."
Ellen interrupted before Dean could answer back. "We'll get some tomorrow. Deep breaths, Sam."
Sam and Dean both looked her way to see that she and Bobby were holding syringes of water rather than blood. Holy water. The long gashes in Sam's leg were heavily coated in what looked like black sludge. They'd been so absorbed in their bickering that neither had noticed.
A+ distraction technique, Dean thought.
Sam's rhythmic puffs quickened, his hands gripping Dean's so hard it hurt. Dean started to think that maybe it wasn't such a good idea on Ellen's part to warn Sam what was about to happen, because now he was starting to panic.
The instant the water hit the wounds, they hissed and steamed, and Sam lurched in Dean's arms. "Fuck! Fuck!" he cried out, his right foot pushing into the mattress, his whole body pressing back into Dean's.
"Sam!" Dean warned, throwing one arm back to prop himself up, keeping them from falling off the cot as Sam writhed. "Sam, deep breaths. Keep breathing."
Sam keened out a deep breath, trying to obey.
"That's it, Sam, that's it. Are you in pain?"
Sam shook in his arms. "I don't—I don't know!"
Dean took that as a no; if Sam were feeling the pain, he's have been unconscious again. Ruby's words about the spell came to mind again: "His body will feel everything, but his mind will interpret it differently."
Sam probably had no clue how to describe what he was feeling. Morbidly, Dean wondered for a moment what it felt like to experience the pain with a filter like that; then he immediately dismissed the thought. He hoped he'd never have to know.
He looked down over Sam's shoulder at his leg again as Ellen and Bobby flushed the blackened blood from the wounds. It was a disgusting image: the infection had caused the blood to congeal in the wounds, and the holy water was causing it to flake off in pieces. He wondered if that was what Sam's blood was like in the infected capillaries, and he turned his head away immediately, throat clamping around the urge to gag. Blood and gore, he could handle; but that image was disturbing in a whole other way.
His eyes landed on Jo, sitting beside them opposite Ruby. She was markedly pale, jaw clenched, facing turned determinedly toward the library as she tried to distance herself from the horror. Her wide eyes glanced briefly at the movement as he turned, and she quickly lowered her eyes to the floor.
Dean recognized the flash of shame, and he chuckled lightly in empathy without meaning to. "Hey, I can't look either."
Jo glanced up at him again, meeting his eyes for longer this time, and Dean offered her a weak smile. She nodded once jerkily and raised the damp cloth in her hands to the side of Sam's neck again, catching several fresh drops of sweat.
Sam jumped under her touch, as he had before, but after a moment, he gave a whole-body shudder and began to relax again. His head rolled lazily on Dean's shoulder, and his breath began to slow. For a moment, Dean thought he might be passing out again, but then he realized that he couldn't hear the holy water hissing anymore. Chancing another look at the wounds, he was relieved—for Sam and for himself—to see that they were clean. No more black sludge, no more steaming. The infection was still clearly present beneath the skin, but the affected area seemed to have shrunk slightly. Sam's breath still hitched on every inhale, but his exhales came in sighs of relief.
Dean gave Sam's shoulder a gentle squeeze. "Sammy? You still with us?"
"Yeah," Sam answered quietly. "It's—it's getting better now."
"Okay," Dean soothed, "alright, you're alright. Just breathe. Relax for a minute."
Sam pulled in a breath and, with a great deal of effort, managed to raise his head up from Dean's shoulder.
"Hey, hey, what did I just say?"
Sam ignored him—the stubborn bastard—and looked down at his leg. Dean couldn't read his reaction; on the one hand, his sigh indicated relief that the treatment was working, but on the other, the shuddering whine at the end indicated that he knew it wasn't over yet.
Ellen peeled one of her gloves off inside out and absently rubbed Sam's foot for a second. "You're doing good, Sam," she encouraged, pressing her thumb into the ball of his foot. "Just rest for a second. Take a break."
Sam's hummed softly as he lowered his head back to Dean's shoulder. His body still trembled lightly, but for just a moment, before the next round started, he was at peace. Dean closed his eyes and turned his forehead into Sam's damp hair, emotion beginning to overwhelm him again.
Around them, he could hear Bobby and Ellen and Jo moving around. He could hear disposable gloves coming off, fresh ones put on, low voices as they discussed things Dean couldn't hear. Beside them, Ruby never ceased her incantation, voice muttering quietly as she eased Sam's burden. Dean paid them no mind. He needed the moment just as much as Sam did.
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.
