Look ma! I'm updating early! Thanks so much to my beta for being amazing and insisting on being both grammatically and medically accurate! :)
Disclaimer: Everything I know about medicine came from Google and another story written by a true medical professional.
Dean gripped the steering wheel tightly, thoughts buzzing around his head in a panic.
Hospital or Motel.
Dean had been in his element while rescuing Sam. With a clear goal to keep him focused, Dean had kept a level head despite finding his brother in a pool of his own blood. Sam had passed out soon after Dean had managed to hoist him out of the basement that had been his prison. Dean's attempts to rouse Sam had all failed, the injured young man remaining unresponsive even when Dean deposited him somewhat roughly in the passenger seat of the Impala.
Dean didn't know what to do. It was so ingrained in him to avoid hospitals that he was subconsciously ignoring the obviously necessary course of action. No hospitals unless it's life or death, his father's voice rang in his head.
Dean reached across the front seat and placed his hand over Sam's heart. He was reassured by the steady but quick beat he found there; the quick, shallow breaths Sam was taking erased that relief as quickly as it had come. A pained expression came over Dean's face as he realized how precarious Sam's condition truly was. This was not something Dean could fix with gauze, whiskey, and time. No matter how much he wanted to, Dean couldn't take care of this.
His decision suddenly made, Dean turned left to follow the signs for the closest hospital.
Dean pulled the Impala under the awning meant for emergency vehicles figuring at that point he really was in an emergency and in a vehicle. He jogged around to the passenger side, opening the door and catching Sam before he fell out of the car. Dean managed to get one of Sam's arms around his shoulder and grasped Sam tightly around the waist with his other arm. He started to half carry, half drag him up the walk to the glass doors of the ER.
"Could use some help over here!" Dean called desperately to no one in particular.
He looked up when he heard footsteps and a rattling noise; two men in white EMT uniforms were running towards him and were noisily pulling a gurney behind them over the blacktop. The younger of the two, a thin man with ginger hair, reached the brothers first.
"His shoulder's dislocated. Don't mess with it." Dean said hurriedly as he moved to take Sam's other arm. The younger man backed off instead moving to steady the gurney brought by his partner, a man with kind brown eyes and dark brown hair. Together, the older man and Dean laid Sam down. Against the white sheet of the gurney, his face looked impossibly paler than it had been. "My name is Gary," the older man said, "How long has he been out?"
The group walked quickly through the ER entrance, Dean and Gary on either side of Sam. "Last 15 minutes at least. He's…he's lost a lot of blood." Dean said, startled to hear how shaky his voice was.
Gary looked down the Sam's prone form, finding Dean's quick patch job and the blood that was tinting the bandaging crimson. "We'll get him some help, ok?" Gary said in a steady voice, "Jack, run ahead and let trauma know we got a curbside with severe blood loss." With a curt nod, the ginger haired man ran ahead and disappeared around a corner.
Dean and Gary trailed behind, pushing through double doors that read TRAUMA in bold red letters with a bang. Gary directed them to a room with glass walls lined with medical equipment. A team of nurses and orderlies that were already there expertly transferred Sam from the gurney to the ER bed with Dean standing slightly off the center of activity. One of the nurses immediately began taking Sam's vitals by placing an oximeter on Sam's finger, a blood pressure cuff around his upper arm, and pads to his chest that led to a heart monitor. A middle aged man with black hair, tan skin, and a stethoscope around his neck suddenly appeared next to Dean. "What have we got?" he called out to his team.
"BPs 80 over 30, O2 in the upper 80s, pulse 150. Unresponsive and diaphoretic, Dr. S." A young nurse with blond hair reported.
"Get him started on a saline drip. Amy, draw a vial of blood; get it typed and start him on a unit of blood as soon as you can. Get that bleeding under control. I don't like those blood pressure numbers so keep a close eye on him now." Turning to Dean, he asked, "What's his name? Can you tell me what happened?"
"Sam. His name's Sam. I'm his brother." Dean said, relieved to find his voice steady again. He watched as the nurses cut the tattered remains of Sam's jeans off to get to his injured leg, his shoes having already been stripped off. "He fell from a ladder I think. I wasn't there. He dislocated his shoulder and cut his leg pretty bad." Sam was quiet in the center of a room of frenzied activity, the calm eye of the storm around him.
"Did you do this?" the doctor asked while a nurse started cutting away Dean's bandaging. Under the clinically bright hospitals lights the wound looked far worse than what Dean had been able to make out in the dark basement. The gash had resumed its bleeding in earnest now, the liquid running in red lines down Sam's leg and staining the white sheet below. Dean gulped nervously as a nurse placed a large pressure bandage over the injury. When Dean had wrapped it earlier, Sam had stirred almost instantly. Now, he remained still and quiet.
Dean gulped to clear the bulge that had appeared in his throat. "I, uh, yeah. I have a bit of first aid knowledge. Popped his shoulder back into place too." Dean reported, taking a small bit of pride in the impressed look on the doctor's face.
"It was a good call. You may just have saved his life," The doctor said evenly, "Is Sam allergic to anything?"
Dean shook his head, "No. No, he's not."
"Alright you need you to let us work now. Gary here will lead you back out into the waiting room, and we'll get your brother fixed up, ok?" the doctor said, trying to catch Dean's eye. Dean didn't notice, lost in the paleness of Sam's face.
Gary firmly grasped Dean's shoulder to lead him away. When Dean didn't budge, Gary said, "You've done everything you can. Don't worry. Dr. Suarez will take care of him."
"But…" Dean started, watching the nurses stick needles and affix pads to his brother's still form. Gary pulled him gently. Realizing the truth to Gary's words, Dean sighed and allowed himself to be led back through the double doors.
In the waiting area, Gary sat Dean down in a pale green, unforgiving plastic chair. The small room was nearly empty this early in the morning.
"A nurse will come find you once they have Sam stabilized," Gary said quietly, "You did everything right." With a reassuring smile, Gary squeezed Dean's shoulder in an act of solidarity before leaving him to his thoughts.
Dean sighed heavily, running a hand over his face. Some reunion.
This was certainly not the way Dean had envisioned reuniting with the brother he fallen away from months before. For a while now, Dean had considered simply driving to Stanford to find Sam and tell him that he was sorry for all the things he had said. Truth was he had agreed to take the stakeout in Fresno as a chance to contemplate the idea thoroughly without his father hovering over him. He needed to be able to think of what to say to Sam that would make everything ok again. Dean wasn't even sure if he was still mad at Sam, or even that he was ever truly mad at him. But there still had been angry words exchanged in their last conversation, and that bitterness needed to be mended. In the end, it was probably more that Dean simply missed Sam; the brothers had seldom spent more than a few days apart until Sam had left. But Dean wasn't about to confess that. He just wanted things to be how they had been before. Or at least, as much as they could be considering Sam's pursuit of the normal life.
It would be choice for each of them to get over their differing perspectives and desires to get back to being brothers.
Bobby's call that Sam was injured and needed help had taken that choice away from Dean. Sam needed Dean, and that was all Dean needed to hear.
At that moment, a nurse came by to report that Sam's bleeding was under control and that he was getting stitched up.
Relief filled Dean, easing the worry that he hadn't noticed had been eating away at his insides since stumbling upon Sam unconscious in the basement. So profound was his relief that it took a few seconds for him to realize the nurse was asking him something.
"…hate to ask right now, but do you have Sam's insurance information?"
"Uh…yeah." Dean pulled himself together with a quick breath. "Yeah you know I think he has something through his school. Sam Winchester. He goes to Stanford." Dean said wearily. His sleepless night was catching up to him now that his worry-fueled adrenaline was fading.
"Ah smart guy." The nurse said, clearly impressed, "We'll look him up in our system then; it's connected to the school," she told Dean before walking back to her post.
Dean chuckled quietly. Sam had always been the brains of the hunts. These days, though, Dean supposed Sam was using that brainpower to learn about non-demony, non-people eating things. What a life. Dean thought.
"Uh, sir?" Jack, the ginger EMT from earlier, was back. Dean looked blearily up into his face. "I'm sorry but could you move your car? It's still parked at ambulance arrival."
"Oh. Yeah, sure." Dean said gruffly. By the time Dean moved the Impala to a proper parking spot and returned to the waiting room, the blond haired nurse from earlier was there calling for the family of Sam Winchester.
"Yeah that's me!" Dean called out. "How's Sam? Can I see him yet?"
"My name is Amy. Sam's doing well, all considering. He's still kind of out of it, but you're welcome to come back and stay with him." the nurse said with a smile. As she led Dean back through the double doors, Amy called over her shoulder, "That quick first aid work you did probably did save his life you know."
"Um, thanks I guess." Dean said sheepishly. He had just done what he had been trained to do: fix the problem to the best of his abilities.
They came to a stop outside a room labeled "Recovery Room 3". Amy gestured inside, allowing Dean to enter first. Sam lay in a bed at the far end of the room, curtains pulled halfway around in a semblance of privacy. His eyes were closed, various machines and IV bags set up around him like medical ornaments.
"Looks like he fell asleep again," Amy said as she checked the monitors, "Don't worry about it- he's probably going to be exhausted for a couple of days. Blood loss is nothing to take lightly."
Dean just nodded in response. He pulled a chair from the corner over next to Sam's bed and sat down heavily in it.
"If you call his name he'll probably wake," Amy said quietly, "I'll leave you two alone." She left the room.
Dean just stared at Sam, elbows on his knees and his fingers laced together so that he could rest his chin on top. "Oh Sam." He whispered. Don't worry Sammy. I'm here.
A/N: One more chapter! :) I almost included it here, but then this would have been more than twice as long as my other chapters. It's nearly finished, so true reunion time is soon to come!