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Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda
Word Count: 399
The world that had once been a constant and treacherous assault is now a gauzy blur of shuttered, dreamy light. The searing pain that had he'd endured for so long is blessedly blunted. Exhaustion is woven into his joints and soul, like the invasive roots of a tree, and that actually aches more than the wound. Sam sinks into the cocoon of warmth he thought he'd never experience again, and tries to sleep.
A calloused hand settles on his arm. The touch is a worryingly gentle departure from Dean's usual gruff-and-grab.
Sam's eyes seep open, fluttering in a feeble effort to focus. He lavishes in the well-known lines of Dean's shadowed profile. Neither Winchester speaks. They don't need to. They're together, and that's always been enough.
Reality lingers on the fringes, outside of the pleasant cushion of painkillers and the charged quiet of the hospital room.
"I would've carried you," Dean's voice rumbles with conviction. His hands are clasped, knuckles bruised and bloody. Sam sees the tightness in his shoulders as they try to carry the anvilous weight of the past day. "I would've built that litter, and put Michelle on my back, and hauled us out of those damned woods."
Sam manages a voiceless, "I know."
Dean turns to him, but his gaze only reaches the bulge of bandages over Sam's belly. The bullet hadn't breached the abdominal wall. A few centimeters deeper, a few more hours without medical care, and death would've claimed Sam once and for all.
"I never should have left you alone with him. I would've ripped Corbin apart limb by limb if I knew what he'd…" He swipes a hand over his mouth, and looks old, scared. "I don't know how you survived."
The crazy thing is Sam doesn't either.
He taps Dean's hand with the tip of a finger until he finally looks at him, all silver-eyed and quivering chin, and offers the barest of smiles, "No hipster's gonna take me out."
Dean snorts with short-lived laughter before he wilts, brooding again. Sam reminds himself to find out what Dean did when he thought he was dead, and that this is Dean's nightmare too.
Dean's hand returns, clenching hard enough to bruise. It's a pain born of comfort, one he welcomes. He's not remotely okay, but he knows that whatever happens, wherever he goes, Dean will help him find his way home.