Chapter 7

Sam thought his brother was going to faint as his face had turned pale with a sickly tinge of green around the lips.

"Dean?" What the hell was wrong a few moments ago his brother had been teasing him. "Dean."

The silence became achingly long before Dean finally spoke.

"You...you saw it." It wasn't a question and for a moment Sam was at a loss.

"You mean the racoon?" It was perhaps unusual to see the creature way out in the forest; the band-eyed scavengers seemed to favour more populated areas where there were easier pickings. However, seeing the animal could hardly be as earth shattering as Dean's reaction suggested so maybe he'd got it wrong.

"The racoon. It was here?"

So it was the wild animal that had Dean in a cold sweat. "Yeah, it ambled in not long after I found you. It came right up to us sniffing around." Dean seemed to go even paler.

"Did ...did it say anything?"

XXxxxxxxx

Dean was panicking his heart tightening in his chest. The racoon had been real. This fact shattered all his reasoning, all his rationale. The racoon was real.

"Dean?" Sam was up on his knees. The racoon was real. The phrase kept repeating itself echoing through Dean, his breathing becoming rapid matching his pulse, each breath dragged in as it felt like a weight compressing his chest. Sam and the hut and everything receded pulling away from him in a long dark tunnel. The racoon was real.

"Dean, come on man." Hands rested on his shoulders he could feel their grip but he was fastened into his dread, unable to find a response.

"Dean, DEAN!"

He could see Sam's lips moving but the ringing in his ears drowned out the sound. What the hell was happening? He didn't understand. Then Sam was fumbling in his backpack and holding something to his face.

"Breathe."

A bag covered his mouth and nose. The f**king racoon was real. Dean couldn't force his attention away from that fact even when his brother wrapped a hand around the back of his head and forced it forward sealing the bag to his face.

"Come on Dean breathe."

He understood Sam's actions and he tried, god knows he tried but his throat constricted making things worse. He struggled but his brain focused on only one thing; his terror at now knowing the green-eyed, grey-furred, musty-smelling creature had been real.

The elder hunter felt the sweat once again dampen the material of his shirt and he shivered, spots forming patterns in front of his eyes the black patches growing larger, merging as he slipped, struggling for breath, towards the darkness.

"DEAN! Look at me, LOOK AT ME."

He felt fingers under his chin applying a firm upward pressure. Dean's head rose clearing his airway somewhat.

"Good." Sam half smiled at him but the worried frown never left his brow.

"Take a breath in..."

Dean watched his brother's face, confused vaguely aware that Sam was trying to communicate. Then his body took over raking air into his starving lungs overriding the disorientation, asserting, maintaining his life.

"Now out..."

Reaching up Dean clutched onto Sam's arm with numb fingers, not to pull it away but to hang onto something solid, to give himself some kind of grounding in his fogged and dazed world.

"In ...out," Sam paused between each word, repeating the words at intervals, his eyes never leaving his brother's and gradually Dean's breathing eased and the ringing receded. Sam loosened his grip but continued repeating the two words staring concernedly at him waiting for him to finally relax enough to breathe regularly without intervention. He waited, then he asked the question Dean knew he didn't want to answer.

"You gonna tell me what that was all about?"

Dean blinking turned away from his brother gaze, still reeling, how the hell was he supposed to explain the animal offering him water and advice and sitting staring at him with those green eyes. His head couldn't get his around the reality; f**k it made more sense as a fevered illusion.

At least... a sudden thought hit him, the creature might be real but it's talking was an illusion. Dean clung onto that hope. Yes, his delirious mind took hold of something that was there and twisted it making it talk back to him. He could cope with that, live with it even. He relaxed even more, still aware that although it was a kind of an explanation it still didn't sit comfortably; he couldn't get away from the fact that he'd been speaking to a God damned racoon

"Dean?"

Sam wasn't going to leave this one alone but Dean didn't want to share and care and he wasn't sure that he could explain without sounding two sizes of crazy. It scared him that he felt so out of control.

Dropping his gaze to the floor he pushed at Sam's chest.

"Get off me dude."

He knew it was unfair to take his anxiety out on his brother but right now he took a perverse comfort from it as he pulled his legs under his body and pushed himself up.

"Sonofabitch." Standing had been a bad idea. He swayed and blindly swung out his arm to steady himself contacting with the wooden planks of the wall. He noted that Sam remained kneeling and made no attempt to help. S**t! Was his brother gonna go all prima donna and bitch-faced on him. Dean had time to reflect that he couldn't blame Sam before his knees collapsed.

This time Sam caught him, easing him back down to the earthen floor.

"Try not to run before you can walk ...or stand for that matter. Mr. Gump."

"Cute." Dean cut back but the pain in his hip and ribs had been so acute that he gave in and let Sam help him sit up more comfortably without further protest.

XXxxxxxxx

Dean wasn't telling him something that much was obvious and whatever it was had shocked and scared his brother enough to trigger a panic attack. However unless there was an immediate danger Sam could bide his time, getting his injured sibling back down the mountain had to be his first priority

There was one thing that puzzled him; the racoon. What was it that Dean has said? 'Did it say anything?' It was a strange thing to ask but ... he gave a mental shrug, Dean had been pretty out of it when he'd found him maybe his brother'd had a dream about the animal having encountered it earlier.

Dismissing the racoon Sam turned to Dean. "Let me look at you." He wanted to assess for himself how bad his brother was because for certain Dean couldn't be relied on to tell the truth about his injuries. He'd once walked five miles on a broken ankle and not said anything. It had only been because Dean had passed out from the pain that Dad had known something was wrong.

"I'm fine." It was at that moment that Dean sucked in his breath involuntarily closing his eyes. Damn it why did Dean make these things so difficult?

"Yeah right and I'm your fairy Godmother."

"If the shoe fits..."

Sam smiled that's what he wanted to hear from Dean a little bit of snark. Ignoring his sibling's feeble attempt to bat his hand away he pulled up the sweat stained T-shirt and whistled silently between his teeth. The left-hand part of Dean's torso from just under his arm down and disappearing into the waistband of his jeans was a mass of blue and yellow bruises.

"Ouch."

"You ought to try being on this side."

Lightly pressing Sam felt for the bones underneath the discoloured skin. Dean hissed as the fingers manipulated the damaged ribs.

"Doesn't feel too bad, couple of fractures maybe."

Dean regarded him with sardonic disbelief but didn't dignify Sam's statement with a reply bearing the manhandling in a stoic but obviously martyred silence. Sam was almost tempted to press harder to get more reaction but he took pity on Dean because his brother really did look rough.

Needing to see how far round his brother's back the bruising went Sam, still supporting Dean, leant him forward rucking up the material at the back. The yellow and black, joined by a nasty shade of purple, extended across nearly to the spine. More probing brought curses from Dean and an extra special, "God damn it Sammy," as Sam touched the tender grazes, noting that Dean's restless movements had cracked the scabs from his red irritated skin, causing them to ooze more blood.

It was probably the source of Dean's infection but there wasn't much Sam could do apart from clean each cut thoroughly, he'd only brought a basic first aid kit leaving the anti-biotic pills and cream in the Impala thinking he probably wouldn't need them.

"That bad, huh." Dean pulled down his shirt wincing, waiting for the verdict and Sam realised that he hadn't spoken for several minutes.

"You've had worse." This was true but Sam still couldn't shake the feeling that something was off.

Easing back feeling like a trussed turkey Dean felt the pressure behind his eyes increase. Sam had done a good job of making him more comfortable; strapping him up, stripping off his own plaid shirt, tearing it into strips to bind around his brother's chest but that was old; Dean was used to physical trauma, the bruising, the strains and the cuts, those he could ignore to a certain extent but the curling pain he was experiencing in his head was proving relentless and refused to abate even with all the painkillers he'd downed.

Earlier he'd put the clashing cymbals down to the fever but now his temperature was lower and he was no longer sweating and shaking so much he had to confront the reality that he might have fractured his skull.

Carefully he probed his temple, feeling the swelling, wincing as he pressed.

"What is it?" Sam entering from leafy exterior pushing the door open with his shoulder was immediately alert.

Dean was quick to answer. "Nothing." Too quick as it happened and Sam's suspicion was aroused even more.

"Let me see.

Dean's irritation soared. "It's nothing, can't a guy scratch his head without the third degree." Sam regarded him dubiously, dumped the logs he'd gathered by the hearth and approached. Dean grouched, grumbling his discontent under his breath. He really wanted to shout at his brother and tell him unceremoniously to f**k off and leave him alone but underneath the pain he was scared. He debated letting Sam check him over without protesting but decided that if he'd hurt himself seriously he didn't want to know about it, he changed tack, brightening his demeanour in an attempt to throw Sammy of the scent.

"Sooner we get out of this place the better..." Dean held his hand up expecting his brother to grip and pull but his younger sibling pushed the arm aside, kneeling. Damn it Sammy wasn't going to be deflected.

"Sit still." Sam commanded as he gripped Dean's chin with one hand and used his long sensitive fingers to examine the contusion, deftly feeling around the edges.

"Oww!" Dean pulled his head away sharply making the pain swoop and slam.

"How did you do it?"

Dean mumbled. "Sleeping with my head on a downy pillow."

Ignoring him Sam continued. "What was it, the ground, a tree, a rock?"

Sam's persistence irked Dean even more. "What difference does it make, it still Goddamned hurts." The sick feeling was back and Dean sure as heck didn't want to hurl in front of his brother and prompt another round of questions. He turned away swallowing and then rounded back when the younger Winchester didn't move, irritated all over again at Sam's concern. "And stop looking at me like I've got brain damage, I'll be fine."

"Actually research shows that according to the classic definition of Concussion no structural brain damage occurs it's a functional state, the symptoms are caused primarily by temporary biochemical changes in neurons in the cell membranes and synapses."

"Thank you Doogie Howser."

The fingers were back pressing lightly.

"Mind you that has been recent research indi ..."

"SAM." Patience thin at the best of times ran out and Dean, much as he loved his brother's geekiness, wanted to finish the hunt, get out of the goddamned forest and back to civilisation where his Herculean headache could be negated by copious amounts of alcohol.

"Do you have a headache?" Sam persisted; Dean regarded him with a withering look as if the question was utterly stupid.

"Blurred vision?"

Shaking his head Dean wished he hadn't as the hut's interior swayed alarmingly in front of his eyes.

"Have you been feeling disorientated, confused in anyway..." Dean was about to give negative but green eyes in a band of black suddenly appeared in his mind and a light bulb lit in his mind. Duh, concussion! Of course that's why the racoon had been talking, he was concussed, damn it why hadn't he thought of that… may be because of the concussion? S**t he was going round in circles. Sam broke into his thoughts.

"Can you tell me what happened?"

Buoyed by his reasoning, the clutching fear receding, Dean sighed and realising that Sam wasn't going to leave this alone answered. "I head butted a rock...but it came off worse." There was a hint of amusement. Now he had a realistic, plausible explanation for the creature he felt like he'd regained some of his equilibrium.

"Funny." Sam held up three fingers. "How many fingers?"

"Goddamn it Sammy quit it I'm fine."

XXXxxxxxxxx

Dean was behaving oddly, well oddly for Dean. He seemed distracted and definitely evasive and then there was the panic attack. At first Sam had suspected a collapsed lung given the damage to Dean's torso but he'd managed to get his siblings breathing under control by just using the bag; if the lung had collapsed he would have had to apply pressure to the chest as well.

Sam mulled over his observations. The skin of Dean's scalp was discoloured under the dried blood but he'd been unable to feel the bone because of the swelling. Mild concussion could explain Dean's weirdness but if an area of the skull was fractured and depressed it could be causing internal bleeding and if that was the case then Dean was in big trouble. They needed to get off the mountain as fast as possible. He couldn't leave it alone.

"Is your headache at the back or centred around where you hit?" Sam tried to remember the list of symptoms for subdural hematoma and subarachnoid haemorrhaging, while he waited for Dean to answer both were potentially fatal and difficult to diagnose without specialist equipment but there were certain things he could look out for.

"Headache, what headache?"

Sam smiled he didn't think sarcasm was on his list but he mentally ticked irritability. He did, however, note that irascibility was normal where Dean was concerned and could probably be discounted as an indicator if other symptoms were not present. What he was really looking for were changes in behaviour, lethargy, evidence of nausea...

"You feeling sick?" His brother made a disgusted noise.

"Hearing stuff? Seeing things?"

"What! … No."

That had hit nerve the panicked look was back; Sam fumbled again in his back pack while still watching his brother carefully. What the hell was going on with Dean? "You're sure? You're not seeing double or anything." He saw the alarmed look drop from Dean's face but the elder Winchester avoided Sam's gaze as he spoke.

"No."

Sam found the flashlight suspicion burgeoning; Dean was hiding something. Was his brother hurting more than he wanted to let on? That was more than a possibility judging by past experience but Sam had a feeling that this was something else. He'd seen his brother being cagey before but this was different there was a kind of anxiousness to Dean, if he hadn't know better Sam would have thought that Dean was scared.

He held the penlight up and pressed the button. The beam of light hit Dean full in the face.

"Damn it Sam are you trying to blind me." Dean wrenched the flashlight from him twisting it away with considerable force. "Look, I'm peachy. Given that I fell off a very high cliff and had a close encounter with a very large rock, I'll concede a headache and bruising if you drop the..."

Dean's bitching faded and Sam looked up sharply. His brother, mouth open, was staring past him towards the open doorway.

XXXxxxxxxx

The racoon, the f***ing racoon was sniffing around, scratching and nibbling at the floor like nothing. Dean tried to articulate, his arm wavering ineffectually as he unconsciously tried to connect with Sam.

Then his words came out in a rush "Sonofabitch." His hand clenched into a fist, anger now racing through him. This thin had wrung him inside out, frightened that his psyche had done a double flip. Goddamn it he'd been half way to a rubber room before Sam had found him and now there it was in all its smelly glory an irrefutable, corporeal, stick its nose up its ass racoon. The fury escalated in his system fuelled by his relief and chagrin.

"Give me your gun."

"What? No Dean."

"Sam this is not the time to go all f***ing Grizzly Adams. Give me the gun." Head pounding harder Dean squinted his eyes against the pain and held out his hand he was gonna show this …

Sam squared off to him. "Dean, I'm not gonna let you shoot the racoon."

The silence, punctuated by the seemingly unaware creature's snuffling, hung heavily in the stale air of the hut. Sam was eyeballing him, standing his ground, refusing to hand over the weapon. Dean felt annoyed and then immediately censured. Crap, he couldn't think straight with the jackhammer slamming through his brain. He ran the hand he'd held out over his face, he was so turned around he couldn't think straight. This wasn't some demonic monster it was a just a Goddamned racoon. He could feel himself swaying and then Sam's arm was round him, steadying.

"You'd better sit him down before he falls down." The low rasping voice was dismayingly familiar.

Dean blanched and felt his knees give. This time Sam's reactions weren't fast enough and Dean slipped through his brother's arms. The hard ground slammed into his body, winding him, leaving him gasping for air as he rolled groaning from the shock of pain in his ribs. A metallic taste filled his mouth, sh*t had he punctured his lung? He coughed and the violent, involuntary movement sent firecrackers of pain into his head. He coughed again and spat blood wishing upon wish that the blackness of unconsciousness would swallow him up. He didn't want to face this, he wanted everything to go away and leave him alone but the powers that be didn't give him that mercy and through the haze of hurt he heard the racoon speak again.