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Trauma surgery was demanding, and there were days when Sam hated it. The worst part was the interruptions. His team was good. They knew what they were doing. They still had to interrupt him frequently. On a busy night, things could get downright insane.
Tonight was a busy night. He had a woman in her 60s who was still stabilizing from a stroke, when he was interrupted by one of his nurses informing him that the 78-year-old man who had come in with chest pains had gone into a full heart attack, and then only seconds later another nurse popped in to inform him that a patient had just arrived by ambulance with multiple deep lacerations to the torso, severe blood loss, and likely organ damage. Sam sent Meg to get another doctor to handle the heart attack and left Piper in charge of the stroke victim with orders to interrupt someone else if something went wrong enough that she couldn’t handle it. He was the only one who could handle the surgery that would likely be needed on the new patient, so he needed to get there as soon as possible.
Then he got a look at the patient. One look was all he needed. “I can’t do this.”
“Yes, you can, you have to, we don’t have anyone else,” Ezekiel snapped at him. “I know you’ve seen worse before.”
“That’s not the problem. The problem is that the patient is my brother.” Ezekiel’s eyes widened in understanding. “I can tell you he’s going to need surgery. Dr. Roberts is on call. Call her in to handle the actual surgery.” Sam took another look at his brother, torn open by what looked to him like werewolf claws. “Tell them to check for anything that looks like bite marks.” With that, he took off.
“Hey!” Sam turned back around at Ezekiel’s shout. “Where are you going?”
“Heart attack. I’ll send whoever’s there your way to supervise surgery prep on Dean.” Ezekiel nodded, and Sam headed off to throw himself into work to forget that his brother was possibly dying.
The ER stayed busy until the end of Sam’s shift, which he was grateful for. Dean was still in surgery, which means that he wouldn’t be getting answers about his brother. Finding answers for others helped a lot. Even doing the writeups was welcome as he kept himself busy and focused. When the last writeup was done, though… he had to find himself something else to do.
One useful thing he could do was to call Gabriel. Where the hell was he, anyway? He and Dean were supposed to be hunting together, so Gabriel should be here making sure that Dean didn’t turn or die. Or he should be here getting his own damn treatment. Either way, he should be here.
Calls to Gabriel’s phone went unanswered. Sam didn’t want to worry Castiel, but he couldn’t think of anything else to do. “Hey, angel.”
“Sam? Are you on your way home, or calling to tell me to get Jack up and ready for school?” That was supposed to be Sam’s job this morning, since his shift ended early enough for him to be home and have something pleasant to do before he got some sleep.
Sam glanced at his watch. “Actually, neither, although you probably should get Jack up. I’m calling to let you know that Dean got to the hospital about four hours ago, he’s still in surgery, and I can’t get hold of Gabriel.”
“Gabe’s not there?” Castiel let a couple curses out. “I’ll be there as soon as I can get Jack up and over to Jody’s. Any idea who I should call to get looking for Gabe?”
“Jody wouldn’t be a bad choice, Claire and Alex can get themselves and Jack to school. Donna, maybe? Not sure who else would be in town.” Sam ran his fingers through his hair. “I’m really sorry to have to worry you. I’m sure Gabe will be all right.”
“If he’s all right when we find him, he won’t be when I get hold of him. Abandoning Dean like this? Even if he had to finish the hunt, I can’t believe there weren’t two minutes he could take to call me and let me know so I could be there for you once you heard. Or come back him up, for that matter. Assbutt. I’ll be there soon, Sam, try to keep yourself distracted.”
Distraction was hard to come by. It was nearly an hour before Castiel could get to the hospital, where he met Sam in the waiting room with a crayon picture of stick!Dean and stick!Gabriel holding hands and waving to stick!Sam, stick!Castiel, and stick!Jack. The lines were shaky, like they’d been done in the car. “Cas?”
“Jack thought it might make you smile. I am so glad that he doesn’t care at all that most people would say he’s too old to draw like this, because he was right.” Sam was, indeed, smiling at the picture. Most thirteen-year-olds wouldn’t have done it, but Jack was awesome. He could draw better than this, but this was exactly what Sam had needed. “Jody, Donna, and Claire are out looking for Gabriel. They asked me to tell Dean to kick this in the ass.” Castiel sat in the uncomfortable chair beside Sam, leaning over to wrap his arms around Sam for cuddles.
Around noon, Castiel offered to go get them some food. Sam wasn’t hungry, but Castiel gave him a skeptical look that had him relenting and agreeing to eat food if Castiel brought him some. A little while later, one of the nurses came in. “Dr. Winchester?”
“Yes?” Sam looked up to see a rather nervous-looking Naoki looking at him. “Is it something about Dean?”
“No, it’s…” Naoki shook her head. “Your husband’s causing a bit of a commotion out front. At first it looked like there was going to be a fight, but then… he started making out with the guy.”
Sam blinked. “This guy… short, light brown hair, cute in a somewhat goofy way?”
“Yes, that’s him, do you know him?”
“Yeah, he’s my brother-in-law. Thank god he showed up, we were seriously worried.” At the look on Naoki’s face, he hurried to clarify, “Dean’s husband. Dean and I know all about their relationship with each other.” They were cousins, too, but Sam really didn’t feel the need to clarify that. He couldn’t even blame Castiel too much for forgetting they were in public with people who might recognize them. “Thanks for letting me know. I can understand your concern. I’d appreciate it if this didn’t make it into the gossip, but since it’s probably too late for that…”
Naoki nodded, concern finally fading to a smile. “No one will hear it from me, but if I hear it from someone else I’ll get the facts out.”
Castiel and Gabriel got up there not long after Naoki left. “Sorry to worry you,” Gabriel said as he flopped dramatically on the ground. “Ex troubles. I think Kali was actually thrilled that I didn’t have time for her bullshit what with Dean being in the hospital, and dragged the fight out just to keep me away from him and you guys. And you know Kali, if I’d just walked out, she’d have burned the whole city down…”
Sam winced. He’d only met Kali once, but if anything, Gabriel was understating. She might not stop with the city. “Oof. I’m glad you’re all right, at least. What happened to Dean?”
“It’s the last night of the full moon, he didn’t want to wait another month to get this werewolf, so he went after him by himself when Kali showed up and dragged me off. Kali played the voicemails you left for me. When Dean gets healed up enough, he’s going to get a long dissertation about how happy I am I escaped and found him.” Off Castiel’s glare, he added, “You get yours when we get home. Or if you’d rather wait and join me and Dean…”
“Sam?”
“What? It’s up to…” Sam trailed off as Castiel raised an eyebrow at him. Gabe’s snickering gave him the clue. “Oh. Uh… yeah, sure, I’ll join you guys if Gabe’s okay with that. Which… I’m assuming…”
“Yeah, dude, I’m all for it. Just gotta wait for Deano to get better enough, which is going to be annoying. Patience… not really my thing.”
They didn’t have long to wait for the news that Dean was out of surgery, at least. Out of surgery, awake, and demanding to see his brother. Some things never changed. “Hey, Dean. How do you feel?”
“Unbitten, thankfully. Listen, man, Gabe…”
Sam huffed a soft laugh and squeezed Dean’s hand. “Got away. He and Cas are here, Dean. They’re gonna keep you a day or two, make sure everything’s healing up properly…”
Dean groaned. “And you’re gonna make sure Meg knows to keep an eye on me once I get to where I can get up, aren’t you.”
“Damn straight. Gabe’s got plans for when you’re healed up, and you gotta actually heal up before I’ll let him go through with them.” Sam let go of Dean’s hand and crossed his arms. “Of course, you can go without me, but…”
“I’ll be good, but dude, you know I heal fast. Don’t be unreasonable about it.” Sam just stared at him, and Dean sighed. “Fine. I’ll be a good little patient. Sit here until the docs say I can leave, but then, you’d better at least let me have some cuddle time.”
Sam blinked a couple times and then burst out laughing. “Yeah, man, if you’re asking for it, no problem. I’ll sign off on cuddle time as soon as we get you home.” Dean rolled his eyes, but didn’t take it back. “Okay, next question: what the hell were you thinking? Jody and Donna both want to know why you took off without calling one of them for backup. Heck, Cas and I do too.”
“I was thinking I couldn’t take my rage out on Kali, but there was a job to do that would let me work off the aggression. It… kind of backfired, I got sloppy… but I did get the job done. Won’t be back in a month.” Dean ducked his head. “Sorry, man. I fucked up. Hope like hell there’s not a next time Kali fucks up a hunt, but if she does, I swear I will call for help.”