Surviving Is Just Step One

Author: Cheryl W.

Disclaimer: I do not own any characters or any rights to Supernatural, nor am I making any profit from this story.

Summary: By the time Sam figures out that trekking through a forest, looking for a Wendigo, is the last place on God's green earth Dean wants to be, it's too late to turn back. No Slash.

Author's Note: Well, after a few times rewriting this chapter, here's the next update.

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Chapter 14: Fear is Unbiased

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Rule # 14: Here, fear is unbiased, dogs every step, hinders each breath, drenches all souls in darkness.

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For all of his astute powers of observation, Sam doesn't know how long the helicopter ride was, doesn't remember how they made it from the hospital roof down to the trauma unit, doesn't remember much except having to let go of Dean's hand at the ER door. And releasing Dean's hand, it was akin to losing a limb: sharp sense of overwhelming lost, agonizing pain and then, on its heels, frantic denial that it was … gone.

So he was left, maimed, torn asunder, reeling, alone, lost, right there at the swinging ER doors.

When a nurse took a hands-on approach and led him to the waiting room, he didn't even flinch at the unsolicited physical contact, didn't put up a fight, simply went there numbly, in shock. But instead of claiming a chair, he stood there and looked around the waiting room, at the hospital's four walls, at the place he had wanted to get Dean to so badly all night, the place that was supposed to be a haven. To the one place he hoped could make everything all right, trusted to make it all right, no matter modern medicine's earlier failures with Dean's heart and car accident and Bobby and his Dad. Trusted because it was all he had, all Dean had.

But the hospital, it didn't feel much like a haven, not when no one was telling him the one thing, the only thing he needed to hear: that Dean wasn't going to die. For someone in authority to deny the traitorous thought he couldn't shut out, that, even after everything, after the raging battle Dean had waged to live through the night, Sam was going to lose his brother anyway.

The medics in the helicopter, they hadn't been as coy as the search and rescue team, gave Dean's vitals in blunt terms even a layman would have understood. Severe blood loss. Acute shock. Erratic heart rate. Blood pressure dangerously low. Deep oblique muscle damage. Nicked kidney. In short, dying a little more each second that passed.

And now, Sam's expected to take a seat, to read a discarded magazine from off a nearby table, sit back with a cup of coffee and to do nothing, while Dean fights for his life?! That isn't his style, to let Dean fight a battle alone, to not do something for Dean, that Dean would want him to do. 'Go clean yourself up, Sammy' he hears in his head, like Dean's hardwired there, with him even when he's cordoned off into another section of the hospital, 'maybe dying.'

Clamping his eyes shut and fisting his hands, Sam wants to scream, to tell his malicious thoughts to shut up, to block out everything but the sound of Dean's voice, the reassurances Dean would be giving to him if he were there, if he knew Sam was losing control. But he doesn't hear Dean's voice again in his head, can only hear the rushing of blood in his own ears, the muted conversations around the waiting room, the frantic beat of his own heart.

Eyes flying open, he nearly stumbles his first two steps before he regains his equilibrium, has calmed down enough to find the bathroom. But as he reaches for the door handle, he falters, the sight of the blood on his hands stopping him mid-motion. The thought that he might leave Dean's blood behind, it freezes him. But as fate has it, someone comes out of the bathroom just then and he scoots in quickly before the door closes on its own.

Crossing over to the sink, he's never been so glad for automatic faucets and soap dispensers as he is then. With more brutality than care, he scrubs at his shaking hands, at Dean's blood that's stained into the life lines of his palms, under his finger nails, seemingly into his pores. Only stops when he knows he's on the verge of mixing his own blood with Dean's lingering DNA. But when he looks up, sees himself in the mirror for the first time, he nearly throws up.

Dean's blood, he's covered in it. And it's no hell trick this time, no nightmare, is grotesquely real. There's a smear of dark red on his cheek, like war paint in a battle he lost. And his coat, his shirt, his jeans, they all are marred with insidious dark stains, cruelly reminds him not only how much blood Dean has lost but how long Dean's been losing it. 'All night, every second he was in your arms.'

And as bad as that is, Sam knows that's on the outside, the external damage, but internally, Dean's been bleeding for years. 'Since Purgatory, since Hell, since Dad's death, since Mom's.' And suddenly it's inconceivable that Dean has any blood left to lose, physically or emotionally. How he can still be alive, could want to be alive.

Sam's two seconds away from stripping off his coat, his shirt, wants to bury both away in a trash can, to make it not real, to ignore all the signs, all the clues he's refusing to follow, when Dean's taunting voice stops him, 'Oh, Sammy, I thought I was the only exhibitionist in the family.' And the knowledge that Dean totally would say that, that he's got Dean ingrained, not only in his soul, but in his mind too, reigns in his insanity, reminds him that, if he throws away the coat and his shirt, he'd be …shirtless. 'Ok, so not the way to go.'

So after swiping the blood from his cheek, he gives one final sick glance at his reflection in the mirror before he hurriedly pushes out the bathroom doors, dazedly follows the signs indicating public phones are somewhere on the premises. But feels nauseous dread when he finds the bank of phones, sees that no one's around, that he'll have his privacy, knows that there's no more justifiable delays to doing what he has to, what he swore to Dean that he would do once they got back to civilization.

When Garth answers the phone with "You got Garth," Sam finds his mouth's too dry to utter a sound, has to dry swallow three times before he can interrupt Garth's repeated greeting with an embarrassingly tremulous "Hey, Garth it's….Sam," his hesitation making it sound like he's forgotten his own name, had to think about it. And he did, because without Dean…there isn't much of him left. Suddenly, Gabriel's words in his Trickster persona echo through his head: 'Like it or not, this is what life's gonna be like without your brother.'

And for all the ways Garth isn't even on the list of people Sam wishes he could be talking to right then, the odd-ball but big hearted hunter senses the edge Sam's on, replies back in a gentle tone. "Whoa, Sam, you alright? You need help?"

Sam squeezes his eyes shut, wants to break down all over again, wants …needs help so badly it hurts. But what he needs from Garth, it isn't about him. "Yeah, there's…there's a Wendigo. I need someone else to finish the hunt and there are….were…." His throat just about closes up on him as he pictures Zeke, Ivan, Vicki, and even Mac. "…four people. I don't know…." '..the fate I doomed them to.' But a cold inner voice chides him, rips away the luxury of that denial by challenging, 'Don't you?'

"Sure, sure," Garth readily agrees. "Give me the coordinates and I'll have someone on it pronto."

Relaying the GPS coordinates he and Dean followed to the initial attacks, Sam tells Garth about the trapper cabins…the bodies of the Wendigo's earlier victims.

Garth's voice is careful, like he knows there's a line he shouldn't cross, as he asks, "Pretty specific. You get this lead from another hunter?"

"No, Dean and I…" Sam bites his lip, knows he has to say it, has to practice saying it so he can say it to Dean without a flickering of regret in his tone, will have to prove to Dean that he can live with his decision, can live with a lot of horrible decisions as long as he gets to keep Dean with him. "Dean and I were hunting it and Dean…he got wounded." Wounded, it sounded so benign, but all Sam can picture is Dean collapsing and not getting up, Dean's blood pooling on the ground, the sight of the wound exposing bone, Dean delirious and not recognizing him, sheltering his brother's failing body in his arms, terrified that Dean would breathe his last breath there.

Wiping away a traitorous tear, Sam exhales, struggles to shove it all down deep. To Garth's credit, he doesn't push, simply gives him the time to pull himself together. "The four people, they wouldn't….they knew about the Wendigo but they….Last time I saw them, they were tracking it to its lair."

"They hunters too?"

"Scientists," Sam spat with hatred. "Wanted to ….study it, save it." 'While they condemned my brother to die', and some of his guilt over his actions transforms to righteous anger again.

Garth said it best a moment later. "Save it?! Man, that's messed up."

Sam's laughter is near hysterical, near sob because he could so hear Dean saying the same thing.

"No worries, I got this, Sam. And Dean, he's going to be OK, right?" Garth asked, his worry for Dean evident in his tone.

'That's Dean for you, always sneaking his way into the strangest people's hearts,' Sam thought before he blithely reassured, "Sure, this is Dean we're talking about."

But even Garth isn't buying what he's selling. "If you need me to come be with you, just say the word."

The offer's unexpected and nearly does Sam in. It takes him a few seconds of marshaling his emotions before he hoarsely declines, "Nah, we're ok. But thanks…for everything, Garth. Call me when…" Sam's voice trails off.

Garth doesn't force Sam to complete the sentence that Sam can't, says into the growing stretch of silence, "Yeah, I'll call you when I know the Wendigo's been put down." Wisely, he doesn't make mention of the four civilians that the hunters may find, most likely in pieces.

Not wanting to give Garth the chance to ask anything else, to offer up any more kindnesses that he can't bear, Sam hangs up the phone. Then it's back to the waiting room and he knows he has to take a seat, that there isn't a spell to find, a curse to break, not this time, that the outcome is fully out of his hands, is up to a medical team's skill and his brother's tenacity.

And sitting there, alone, he can only piece together one coherent plea and it plays over and over in his head: 'Please, Dean. Please.' Because, when it comes down to it, his faith's still where it's always been, with his bigger than life brother.

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When the doctor comes, Sam barely hears what comes after, "He's survived surgery" has heard it all before.

'He's fighting very hard, wouldn't have made it this far with the injuries he has if he wasn't.'

' Wait for him to wake up…if he wakes up.'

'Make him comfortable.'

But the doctor's "The next few hours, even days are critical and honestly, things could go either way," slices through his haze of bitter memories.

Live or die. It's the nature of their job, of their lives. And Sam has never hated it more, wishes more fervently that they lived normal, safe lives in some suburban town in no-where USA.

"Where's my brother?" is all he can say, all he cares about, believes somehow that he can shut out the ominous part of the doctor's prediction if he can only see Dean, lay hands on Dean and know he's not left him. But seeing, it isn't the reassurance it should be, not with Dean looking so vulnerable in the hospital bed, a monitor silently tracking his heartbeats in the corner. But mercifully, Dean's breathing on his own, doesn't need oxygen manually forced through his lungs to retain his hold on life. And Dean's hand when he holds it in his own, it's not as cold as it was in the helicopter, is warming up, no matter how marginally.

Foregoing the chair in the room, Sam sits on the hospital bed at his brother's knees, can't bear to be far away from Dean, not after spending the night believing that their physical connection was the only thing keeping Dean from slipping away, was the only way he had to reach Dean through his delirium and pain, to prove that he wasn't giving up on Dean, that he wasn't letting go and neither should Dean.

It is the same message Sam wants, needs to send now.

"Hey, it's Sam," he tremulously opens with and when that doesn't evoke a reaction from Dean he strings together more words. "The worst of its over, Dean. You're in a hospital." Gently squeezing the hand in his, he encourages, "Now all you have to do it wake up, 'kay. I know I tortured you all night with my off key singing and my lame stories and …" he runs out of air, has to gulp in a breath but tears fall in the lull and his brother's name tumbles out of him in a broken plea, "Dean."

Reaching up, he lightly settles his hand on Dean's chest. "We made it this far, you can't quit on me, not now, not when we're finally together again, not when I've let down my guard, let you back in knowing…knowing that to lose you again, I won't survive that, won't want to."

Dean doesn't react to his little brother's declaration, isn't talking, isn't moving.

But Dean's breathing, Dean's fighting to not leave him, Sam knows that, trusts that. And that's enough right now. It has to be.

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Having begged a hospital pullover shirt from one of Dean's attending nurses, Sam doesn't feel so conspicuous slipping down to the hospital gift shop and buying up every decent entertainment magazine they have on their shelves. Feels a tad embarrassed when he adds a teddy bear to his purchases, but the bear looks like that fabric softener bear, the one in the commercial that Dean hates and Sam is relishing the idea of Dean's reaction when he sees it. And his practical joke purchase, it isn't going to be all in vain because Dean is going to wake up. End of story.

Trying to not seem hurried, he returns to Dean's room in ICU, only releases the breath he doesn't know he is holding when he sees Dean, notes with relief that Dean's breathing, isn't conscious but hasn't worsened in the ten minutes he's been gone.

Reclaiming his chair beside his brother's bed, Sam pulls out the first entertainment magazine and peruses the content for something that might interest Dean. "Good news is, the blond chick you think is hot is going to be in a new show about a cult. Sounds right up your alley. Maybe you can write her a fan letter," he teases, shoots a look to Dean, but the taunt is lost on Dean at the moment. So he flips another page and another. "Sorry to tell you this, Dean, but 'Dr Sexy MD' lost out to 'Grey's Anatomy' in the People's Choice Awards for best drama. The dude from 'Castle' won best dramatic actor..but he wouldn't have been my first choice, not with who he was up against. And even you would have to agree, if he was going to get an award, it should have been for 'Firefly'."

And so goes the afternoon. Sam only leaves his brother's side when the nurses enforce their 'quiet time' rule and banish him to the ICU waiting room. There he reads the Wall Street Journal, paces and generally makes everyone else on edge, as if they weren't on edge already with someone that they love in ICU. It's a miracle he's not escorted from the room. As it is, he pounces out the door the second the two hour quiet time is revoked. Then he's back with Dean, reading to him or just sitting there, talking about lame stuff like who should be the new super hero added to the second Avenger movie and how Bear Grylls should have called "cut", jumped a helicopter and booked a luxury motel room for the night during some of those Man vs. Wild trips.

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Its day three and Sam's trying not to lose hope, the doctor has refused to be either optimistic or pessimistic, thinks he can pacify him with a "we have to wait and see." But Sam's waited and he's not seeing much, not much color back in Dean's face, not a single twitch of Dean's body, not a minuscule flutter of Dean's eyelids, nothing. No indication that Dean's ever coming back to him.

And it's during his lock out from Dean's side when his cell rings, and for a fleeting moment, he thinks "Bobby" before he remembers, Bobby's gone, he's alone. That he's all Dean has. But it is Bobby-wanna be. And its the call he's both been dreading and anxiously waiting for. "Garth, hey, hold on a second," he greets and leaves the waiting room, finds the closest exit to the hospital and hits the door, doesn't want there to be spectators to however he reacts to the news Garth has for him.

Finding himself in a small garden with green plants, brick walkways and wooden benches, he leans against a wall, steels himself for the news to come. "Ok, I can talk now."

"Just got the call. The Wendigo's been put down," Garth announces with a little too much false cheer, like he needs this welcome news to counter what comes next.

It takes longer than it should for Sam to force the one worded question from his raw throat. "Survivors?" Dully, he wonders if he'll even hear Garth's reply over the loud beating of his own tell-tale heart, but he does…and instantly wishes he couldn't.

"Sorry, Sam. There were no survivors," Garth sympathetically conveys, has an inkling of how hard Sam's going to take this, especially if Dean's wounded too badly to console his brother.

"No, but…" Sam stammers, because, as much as he was braced for this outcome, he can't accept it now. "They were bodies there when Dean and I found the cabin…couple of days …some a few weeks old. I mean, if that's the only corpses they found…."

But Garth cuts him off, regret and apology in every word. "Sam…they were fresh kills. My guys think…two …three days old."

Sam's breath deserts him. Closing his eyes, he leans heavier against the wall because the time frame fits. Remembers the rifle shot he heard, how useless bullets were against a Wendigo, how enraged the last Wendigo got when Roy shot at it. Still, he foolishly hangs onto hope, croaks out, "Four…there were four people," because just one survivor, one life not sacrificed for Dean would lessen the guilt, would lessen the guilt he knows Dean will try to bear for a decision that was for him but not his to make. 'Was mine. Was all mine.'

Instead of confirming or denying Sam's tally, Garth counsels, "Sam, this is not your fault. You said they knew what the Wendigo was, that they snack on humans."

"Did they see four bodies!" bursts out of Sam like a shout, a held back scream, because Garth doesn't understand, he didn't just leave Mac and the others…he sacrificed them, sent them headlong into the Wendigo's lair, used them to distract the Wendigo, to ensure the Wendigo didn't come after Dean again.

"Let it go," Garth orders, sounding as serious as Sam's ever heard him. "Focus on your brother."

"I am!" Sam rails back because it's ludicrous to think his mind's anywhere but on Dean, on how Dean will take this news, of how Dean will see him now, as something cruel, less than human, as a monster, all over again. "What do you think's going to be his first question to me? He'll want to know how many people I killed to save his life, Garth!"

"Sam, that's not…."

"Just tell me, Garth," Sam commands and at Garth's pause his voice turns savage, "Tell me!"

Understanding that Sam will not drop this, has to know the worst of it if he's going to find a way past it, Garth describes the scene the hunters found. "Two had their necks broken."

Fighting down bile, Sam bit out, "What did they look like?"

"Don't do this to yourself," Garth entreats, doesn't want to score more pain on Sam with the details. "We can't save everybody. You saved your brother, right? Most of the hunters get into this life because they failed to save someone that they love, but you didn't fail, Sam."

"Didn't I?" Sam hoarsely challenges because it's not looking like a victory where he stands, not when Dean has yet to wake up, hasn't given any indication that he won't die soon.

Garth reads between the lines. "Wait. Dean's…he's doing good, right?"

Wearily running his hand down his face, Sam exhales, won't have that conversation with Garth. "Describe the bodies, Garth."

Sam's avoidance, it tells Garth more than he wants to know. If Dean's not doing well…it's a miracle Sam's wasting time talking to him, is only doing it for one reason only: to know the fate of the four civilians he had to leave behind in order to save his brother. But it doesn't make it any easier to be the bearer of bad news. "Woman and a guy with military tattoos. Their deaths were quick."

'Vicki and Ivan,' Sam grimly identifies, tries to console himself with the knowledge that they suffered a quick death but it doesn't help much. Not when their blood is on his hands. "The other two bodies…" he quietly presses, needs to know all of it.

Garth exhales loudly because the next news is worse than the first. "Not so much bodies as …pieces. CSI would be lucky to make positive IDs but…there were four backpacks …and they found….blond hair."

With a cry of rage, Sam punches the wall, relishes the agony radiating from his hand through his arm, through his body before he collapses against the wall and buries his face in the rough brick. Dead. They were all dead and he had been the one to seal their fate nearly as much as the Wendigo had. 'And you rather it be Dean who's dead?! Because you couldn't do both, save Dean and save them. You couldn't. No one could.' And he wants to believe that, to know he had done the only thing he could, that this path was the only one that ended with Dean still alive. And for all the times Dean's given him a free pass, no matter what he does, he fears this might break that chain. 'But will he absolve me this time, when the choice I made, the consequences, they were all to save him, only to save him.'

"Sam, you still there?' came Garth's tentative voice through the cell phone.

"Yeah," Sam gravely acknowledges before he pushes off the wall, stands erect, struggles to balance the weight of guilt on his shoulders.

"I'm not Bobby but I know, if you asked him who you should have saved, your own brother or four strangers who wanted a meet and greet with a Wendigo, I know what he would have said." Then Garth mimics Bobby at his most gruff, "Your brother, idgit."

"Your brother, idgit," Sam says at the same time as Garth, gives a weak, broken chuckle at the certainty they both have of Bobby's answer.

Feeling like he has done all he could, Garth bids, "Well, take care Sam and say hi to Dean for me."

"I will," Sam replies and ends the call, feels both wretched and guiltily relieved to be where he is, to not still be in the woods waiting for Mac and the others to come back to help him get Dean to civilization. To have Dean with him, alive, to be someplace where, if the slightest wrong thing happens with Dean's health, someone's there to do something about it, someone who has a chance of fixing it.

'But what's Dean going to say when he knows they are all dead, Zeke, Vicki, Ivan and Mac? What's he going to think about his little brother now? How is he going to forgive me for doing this for him?' he despairing wonders before resolve takes over. Dean is just going to have accept that he made the only choice he could live with, that he had to choose him, had to choose his survival over anyone else's. 'Just like Dean's chosen me, my life over others, so many times before.'

Stepping back into the hospital's interior, he determinedly heads to Dean's room, needs to see his brother, screw quiet hours rules. Sends out a wholly unrepentant apology to his brother on the way. 'Sorry, Dean, I wouldn't undo what I did, not when it saves you. And if that makes me a monster…fine. But I hope you remember that I learned from you to put family first.'

And he's almost got himself thinking things are going to be alright…until he gets shoulder checked by a male nurse passing him from behind at a run. But when the nurse turns right into Dean's room, when more medical personnel bolt into the room, all Sam can think is 'Nnnnoooo!' Because he's been here before, more than once: Dean flatlining, Dean dying.

Charging into the room, he doesn't care about procedures, about giving them space, about letting them do their job. Protecting Dean, saving Dean is his job. Always and forever. Roughly pushing aside the male nurse and another female nurse, he gets his first look at Dean. And it's not what he's expecting, is both better and worse.

Dean's not flatlining, he's flaying in the bed.

Horrified, Sam watches as his brother rolls wildly from one side of the bed to the other while his badly shaking hands run up and down his body, over his face, through his hair, before repeating the process, scouring frantically for something that's not there. And though Dean's eyes are open, there's no recognition for his surroundings, only wild savage terror pouring out of them.

When the closest male orderly manages to grab one of Dean's arm, tries to arm wrestle it to the bed, to the restraints waiting, Dean gives a nearly inhuman feeble cry of terrified protest before he lashes out with all the weak strength he has, desperate to free his arm from the man's hold.

SNSNSNSN~ Purgatory ~ SNSNSNSN

They were close to the portal, Dean could sense it, would say his spidey senses were tingling…if he thought for a second either of his companions would get the comic reference, which they wouldn't. Sam would get it but roll his eyes. And the thought of Sam, of maybe being only days away from getting out, of seeing Sam again, it gave him something he had not dared to harbor since he and Cas dropped into Purgatory: genuine hope.

Not just…a 'lukewarm maybe' but a feeling of urgency, like there was finally a goal to reach, a reward for the nightmare cross country trek they had hacked their way through. That the carrot someone had dangled in front of him wasn't just a mirage, another way to screw with him, might be real.

He was imagining the look of surprise on Sam's face when he showed up. 'I'm like some bad penny you can't get rid of, Sammy' he jovially thought, right before he felt a prick of a pain in his neck.

Even as his hand flew up to swat at the insect, he knew something was wrong. His hand felt heavy, took effort to keep it raised, and his legs felt…wobbly. Then there was the fact that it suddenly was proving hard to swallow.

Before he could process the implications, his legs crumbled under him like someone had severed his spinal cord. Then he was falling and he couldn't break his fall, not when his arms were refusing to move. His impact with the ground was akin to doing a belly flop …on cement, knocked the breath out of him, stunned him. But that didn't account for his total lack of ability to move, any body part, to even friggin' blink his eyes.

So he remained in the graceless heap, legs tangled together, arms crushed under his own weight, cheek pressed into the underbrush. And try as he might to call out for Benny or Cas, to scream, to moan, his vocal chords proved as useless as the rest of him. With a string of curses looping over and over in his head, his eyes darted around, tried to locate the fugly that had downed him. But there was nothing in his limited line of sight and that was so not the good news.

'Calm down, Cas and Benny will catch up to you in a few minutes,' he coached himself but that resolve went out of the window when movement caught his eye….movement not from above but movement on the ground, eye level with him. Heart thudding in his chest, dread cued up to make an appearance because this didn't bode well, he watched as the movement came again, leaves shifting, ground cracking.

Then hundreds of caterpillars broke through the dirt and surged onto the surface. And they all moved in the same direction: toward him.

Though Dean commanded and cursed and pleaded with his body, his limbs to move, they didn't, they couldn't. And his voice was in the small mode of mutiny, wouldn't emit a squeak let alone a bellowing call for help. So he was helpless to do anything other than watch the army of worms determinedly trek across the leaves and downed branches and come his way.

And as ridiculous as he knew it was to be afraid of something small and fury that would morph into a pretty butterfly one day, when the first caterpillar scampered onto his forearm, he would have yelped like a girl if he could have. Instead he watched in horror as caterpillar after caterpillar scampered up his hand and elbow until soon, his entire arm was covered in them. But it wasn't just his arm they were using as a jungle gym. He could feel the tickle of their hairy legs on his ankle, climbing up his shin. While others were just beginning to slither across his chest, march over his shoulder.

When the first one dropped onto his face, he thanked God he had closed his mouth before the full paralysis set in. But as more climbed onto the surface of his face, traveled up his throat, crept over his lips and up his cheek, headed for his eyes, he fervently wished that his eye lids would obey his command to slip shut.

As if things weren't bad enough, the next second he felt a flare of pain in his legs, then his arm, his shoulder, his chest. Apparently his freeloaders weren't content making him their Mt. Everest, were now adding biting to their repertoire, sending even more venom thrumming through his system. Then there was the unending stream of caterpillars still piling out of the ground, still making their way to him, on him.

His belief that things could always get worse proved right yet again when suddenly it felt like someone had reached into his gut and was trying to rip his stomach out. He would have screamed if he could have, regardless who and what heard him. Especially when the agony didn't abate but seared up his spine, into his chest, up his neck. And venom he knew, this…this was someone else, something worse. Something he had only experience once before…when he took the vampire cure, when the potion had felt like it was tearing him apart molecule by molecule, changing him, turning him inside out until he didn't know what he would be on the other side.

Metamorphosis.

And not from something this time but to something. To something that belonged in Purgatory, that would no longer be human. He choked on his next shallow breath as the agony spiked higher deep within his organs, his muscles. And he knew his chance was slipping away, to get out of Purgatory, to see Sam. The portal, it was meant only for a human to pass through. And what he would soon be…wasn't going to be that.

Suddenly, he knew if he was down to his last feeble breath, if he could call out one name, it wouldn't be the name of an angel or a vampire. It would be the name of the person he always ached to have at his side when the worst fate seemed inevitable. 'Sam!'

SNSNSNSN~ Present ~ SNSNSNSN

Done using kid gloves with his patient who, for a guy who just snapped out of a coma, is managing to surprisingly land some decent blows, the orderly practically tackles Dean to the bed, leans over him and roughly pins his hands over his head. Dean violently bucks against the weight pressing down on him, struggles to get his hands free of the orderly's bruising grip, tosses his head left and right on the pillow. But he's too weak to override the orderly's brute strength.

Paralyzed by fear, by despair, Sam doesn't move, can't move, stands immobile while Dean comes apart. Fighting down a sob even as he's in denial, because this isn't Dean, Dean's all about control, about a brave front, about shutting down his emotions, not about frantic panic, terror.

And what's worse is, it's not him at Dean's side, holding Dean hard and close, breaking his brother's personal space barrier that applies to everyone but Sam. That the orderly's ordering others to put the restraints on Dean's wrist, to bind his brother, to bind Dean…who spent thirty years bound to a rack in Hell.

It's all wrong, wrong, wrong! And still Sam doesn't move, knows instantly what's holding him back: the fear of failure. That the medical team can help Dean better then he can, that he can't bring Dean back from wherever nightmare he's in, that he'll hurt Dean, worse than he already is.

But then he remembers everything Dean's gotten him through: Being without a mom, living with Dad, losing Jess, discovering his soul's tainted, missing his soul, his broken, Hell ravaged mind. And not once did Dean quit on him, stand back and hope someone else stepped in to fix him. No, Dean fixed him, each and every time. No matter how impossible it seemed or how unworthy he was, Dean fixed him…fixed things for him, made him ok.

And now it is on him to fix Dean, to be there…not because Dean is letting him but because Dean needs him to. Because, for the first time, Dean is too broken for facades, doesn't know where he is or even who he is with, is wholly vulnerable.

'And I'm standing here letting some stranger brutalize him!' Sam bitterly recognizes even as he surges forward, pushing aside anyone that stands in his path to reach his brother.

When Dean hoarsely calls out "Sam!" in his vulnerability and panic, it's the most wretched sound Sam's ever heard, breaks him in ways nothing has yet. Because Dean isn't coherent enough to know he's there but he's calling for him all the same. 'And I'm right here, could have been with him from the start of all this, if I hadn't let fear rule me!'

Suddenly something snaps in Sam, something just as frantic, just as savage as Dean's emotions and he roars, "Stay away from him!" before he roughly shoves the orderly back, brutally breaks the man's ruthless grip on Dean. Then he's the one leaning over Dean. But instead of trying to capture Dean's hands, stop his brother's defensive blows, Sam slips his arms around Dean, enfolds Dean in a hug, not a cage. Practically in the bed with Dean, Sam pulls Dean gently up to lean against him, pinning Dean's flinging arms between them and cradling Dean's neck with his hand. "Sh…sh… I'm here, Dean. It's Sam. You're ok," he quietly entreats by Dean's ear, his brother's too hot forehead pressing into his cheek. "You're not there anymore, you're with me, Dean. It's not real, whatever you're seeing, its not real. Sh…Sh…calm down, I gotcha."

The fevered, wounded body in his arms slowly stills but Sam doesn't pull back, can't, because letting go…isn't something he can do. But he gentles his hold, erases the lingering edge of command in his tone, "That's it, deep breaths. We're ok, we're out of the woods, Dean." Praying that his statement's true, literally and metaphorically.

"Sam…my," tentatively comes up from within the confines of his arms and it's the sweetest sound, almost eclipses the horrible memory of Dean's other heartbreaking call for him.

His system overflowing with relief, love for his brother, for the stupid nickname, Sam gives Dean a gentle squeeze, acknowledges with a voice that's raspy and trembling, "Yeah, it's Sammy." Then he eases Dean's frail frame back onto the bed, slipping his hand from behind Dean's neck only after he's carefully settled Dean's head onto the pillow. But Sam doesn't go far, compensates for Dean's new position by leaning close and meets his brother's feverish gaze. "You know where you are now?" he gently prods, needs to know Dean's not still lost in Purgatory.

Dean is actually holding his gaze, says confidently, if weakly, "With you."

Something half between a laugh and a sob slips out of Sam. Cupping Dean's face with his hand, he gives his brother a watery smile. "Yeah, yeah you are."

And it's not alarming when Dean's eyes flutter closed a few seconds later. Voluntarily, Sam pulls his touch free of Dean and steps back from the bed so the medic team can assess his brother's condition, even though he doesn't need to hear their results. He knows that Dean is with him now and his brother isn't going anywhere.

But Sam refuses to budge from Dean's side from there on out, trails his brother's wheeling bed to any and all testing areas then dutifully follows in his brother's wake back to his room, calmly but inflexibly refuses to be banished from the room during quiet time, is a fixture in the room, at Dean's side. Because Dean has done his part, he's not left him. Now Sam knows its his time to return the favor, to not leave Dean. To show Dean, to prove to Dean that there is nowhere else he would rather be than with him.

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Tbc

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Thanks for reading and for the generous souls who give me such wonderful words of encouragement on last chapter!

Have a great day!

Cheryl W.