Title: somewhere a clock is ticking [6/?]
Author: alakewood
Warnings: Will be Wincest.
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1000
Summary: Sam does end up getting out of the house for a while, but it's not quite the way he would've imagined – Dean finds him unconscious on his bedroom floor and calls 911, and it's become quite obvious that something is really wrong with Sam.
Disclaimer: As always, I own nothing.
oxoxo
Dean woke slowly, started to roll over onto his back and suddenly stopped himself, not wanting to bump into his brother. Yawning, he leaned up on an elbow and peered over his shoulder – no Sam. A second glance of his surroundings explained his brother's absence. He wasn't in Sam's room, he was in his own. He flopped back onto his bed and rubbed at his eyes with the heels of his hands. The alarm clock on his nightstand showed 8:13, so, after lying there for a few minutes, he finally climbed out of bed and headed down to the kitchen to make breakfast.
He put on a pot of coffee then pulled the half-loaf of bread out of the breadbox on the counter, bacon and six eggs from the fridge, and got to work. Secretly, he really enjoyed the whole cooking aspect of sticking around one place for a while. He'd always been good at acquiring new skills, and it seemed that cooking wasn't exempt. His menu was short, but was slowly improving. Anything was better than a constant diet of greasy diner and microwaved gas station food.
Dean moved the eggs to the back burner, laid out the bacon on a paper towel on a plate, and dropped the toast in the toaster before stepping out into the hallway to see if he could hear Sam upstairs. Usually, the smell of freshly-brewing coffee would've had Sam seated at the kitchen table before Dean had put the bread in the toaster, but...no Sam. Again.
Dean peered back around the corner into the kitchen at the coffeemaker – he still had a few minutes. He took the stairs by twos, lightly rapping on Sam's ajar bedroom door with a knuckle, "Hey, Sammy," he began, pushing the door open, "you coming..." He trailed off as he caught sight of Sam in an awkward sprawl on the floor. "Sam? Sammy, hey!" He dropped to his knees next to his brother, gently rolled him onto his back.
Sam didn't respond, head lolling to the side as Dean turned him over.
Dean slipped a hand under Sam's neck and lifted his head. "Sammy? Sam, come on, man. Wake up." Smacked his cheek, shook him, let his free hand slide down Sam's arm to let his fingers curl around a bony wrist to feel a thready pulse. He carefully laid Sam back down on the floor and all but launched himself towards his brother's bed, knocking Sam's cell phone to the floor in his flailing attempt to grab it off the bedside table.
Dean dialed 9-1-1 even as he crawled across the floor to his brother's unconscious body, hunching over him, clutching Sam's cold hand as he told the operator what had happened.
oxo
Dean had ridden in the back of the ambulance with Sam to the hospital, silently watching as the EMT checked his brother's vitals and intently stared at the few monitors secured to the inside of the rig, occasionally scribbling onto a clipboard. When the ambulance backed up to the emergency entrance a few agonizingly long minutes later, Sam was quickly taken away by a doctor and a couple of orderlies, leaving Dean standing alone in the middle of the ER.
oxo
An hour later, a nurse approached Dean in the ER waiting room. "Mr. Winchester?" she asked, peering down at Dean over the papers she hugged to her chest and through the hair that fell across one of her eyes.
"Yeah," he said, sitting up straighter. "Is Sam-"
"Your brother is okay. He's awake now if you'd-"
"Yeah." He stood. "Yes, please."
An expression of disappointment briefly darkened her eyes and quirked her mouth, but she covered it with a smile as she turned. "Follow me."
Dean had interest in nothing but Sam. Barely even acknowledged the nurse's goodbye as she left him outside the door to Sam's room. He took a steadying breath before pushing the door open.
Sam was reclining back against the pillows propped behind him, the fluorescent lights making the skin on his face seem much too pale and stretched thin and exaggerating the dark circles beneath his eyes. He pulled the worn blue hospital blanket further up his chest as Dean's eyes slowly examined him, trying to hide anything else that might wordlessly argue his lies. "Hey," he said weakly.
"Hey?" Dean's voice cracked, a slight edge of hysteria pitching it just that much higher.
"What?"
"Sam...what- what happened? What's going on? What aren't you telling me?" He stood beside Sam's bed, shaking hands gripping the metal railing, too afraid to touch Sam.
Sam just closed his eyes and turned his face towards the window, the muscles in his throat visible as he swallowed thickly.
Dean poured water from the pitcher on the stand beside the bed into the empty plastic cup next to it and silently handed it to his brother.
"Thanks," Sam whispered, taking a sip. "I don't- don't know what's going on, Dean. Really."
"Then what do you think is going on? I mean, you've gotta have some sort of theory on what's going on with...whatever it is that going on with you."
Sam just gave him a one-shouldered shrug. "I'm not a doctor, Dean. I don't know what's going on."
But he still wasn't meeting Dean's eye, so Dean moved his hand to Sam's arm, gripping him lightly just above his wrist. "Sam. Please."
Sam looked every bit the terrified little brother Dean remembered when Sam had first learned what their father really did for work. "I don't know what's going on, Dean," he repeated, sounding broken and weary.
Dean's hand moved to cup the sharp jut of Sam's jaw and he pulled his brother's head to his chest, pressing his face against Sam's hair. "Whatever tests you need, I'll pay for. We'll find out what's wrong, Sam. I promise you."