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Dean hasn’t moved for four days now.
Sam chewed his lip, tasting the bitter tang of blood as he stared at his brother, eyes stinging from being kept open for so long without sleep, or blinking. Sam only closed his eyes when absolutely necessary, and even then he regretted it - the images of the blade driving through Dean’s gut and protruding from his back flashing through the underside of his eyelids.
Dean lay on Bobby’s couch, head propped up on Bobby’s cleanest cushion and a scratchy blanket pulled up to his waist. He was shirtless, his entire abdomen wrapped in bandages, clean from being changed just an hour before. It had only taken a day for the bandages to stop soaking in blood.
So why wasn’t he waking up?
His skin was pale, no longer holding the faint tan. A thin sheen of sweat shimmered across his face and chest, which rose and fell with the same ease and consistency of someone sleeping. There hadn’t been so much as a slight stutter in his breath for the last forty-seven and a half hours..
Sam would know. He’d been watching over his older brother since the day he dragged him in, half dead, to Bobby’s house.
Dean’s face was lax, peaceful, and the only reason Sam believed he wasn’t just asleep was that it was still, no longer scrunched up or twitching as his brother’s sleep was plagued with nightmares. He was far too still to be asleep.
Bobby had done all he could in cleaning and stitching up the hole in Dean but he wasn’t exactly a doctor, and they couldn’t risk a hospital right now, not with their faces all over every wanted list across the states. And Cas...well, they had no idea where Cas was at the moment.
In fact, the fact that they had no idea where Cas was might have been the overarching reason Dean got impaled in the first place.
Sam readjusted his position in the chair next to the couch, leaning back with a sigh but never taking his eyes off Dean. It was strange to see his older brother, known for not being able to sit still in one place for an extended period of time, be so motionless. Growing up, he was jittery, fidgety, eager to get out there and go, always on the balls of his feet, ready for the next hunt. Nothing had changed when he got older, and seeing him still was, to put it simply, weird. Unnatural. The only indication he was even alive was the steady rise and fall of his chest.
It wasn’t like Sam was scared - his brother had been through a lot worse and had come out just fine. It was just the uncertainty he didn’t like. Yes, Dean has been shot and stabbed and freaking nuked by angels more times than the two of them could count, but never has Dean played the waiting game in crawling back to consciousness.
Ever since they were kids, Dean has had a very high pain tolerance. It took one heck of a lot of pain to cause him to pass out, and even if he did, he always came back around a few hours, maybe a day, later.
It has never taken this long.
Two days in and Sam had started praying, initially to Cas but, when that went unanswered, to God, hell, to anyone who was listening, any angel willing to heal the famous Dean Winchester, or at least tell him why he was still asleep.
The front door opened, Bobby’s familiar footsteps coming in. Sam didn’t look away from Dean, but simply muttered a hoarse, “Hey, Bobby.” and picked up the washcloth from the bowl on the floor, mopping the sweat on Dean’s brow, neck and chest.
They had come to an unsteady conclusion that the fever was the most likely reason for his comatose state. ‘Unsteady’ being the key word there.
Bobby sighed as he walked over, kneeling next to Dean and feeling his forehead with the back of his hand with a frown. He shook his head at Sam.
“No change.” He muttered, scratching his beard and taking the other seat opposite Sam’s. Sam resisted the urge to roll his eyes - he knew that. He would be the first to know if anything did change. “You get any sleep last night?”
Sam took a moment to respond, finally tearing his eyes away from Dean to look at Bobby. He cleared his throat. “Uh, no, I didn’t.”
Bobby sighed, rubbing his hands together. “You’ll be no use to him when he wakes up if you yourself are on the verge of passing out.”
Sam leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and running his hands down his face, looking back at Dean. “ If he wakes up.”
“Don’t say that.” Bobby spoke, running his hand through Dean’s sweat-soaked hair and giving it a short ruffle, like he used to when they were younger. “He’s one of the strongest people I know, he’ll pull through.”
“He got-” Sam swallowed around the lump of exhausted emotion in his throat. “He got impaled, Bobby. We can’t get him to a hospital, we don’t have an angel to heal him and he’s running a fever, indicating the wound has gotten infected, and we can’t do jack shit about it!”
Sam let out a shaky breath, tears forming in his eyes. He hadn’t realised how much he had been holding all that back.
Bobby’s face was an emotionless mask as he studied Sam. “He’ll be fine, Sam. Don’t go getting yourself worked up.” He stood with a grunt, walking over to the kitchen and opening the fridge. “You want a beer?”
Sam leant back in his chair, closing his eyes against his palm. “No, thanks, I’m good.”
“Well, it’s beer or sleep, boy. Your choice.”
Sam glared at him. “Fine. I’ll have a beer.”
Bobby groaned. “You gotta sleep at some point, Sam.”
Sam’s gaze returned to Dean. “I’ll sleep when I know he’s safe.”
He heard a sigh from the kitchen but didn’t answer. Instead he grabbed Dean’s hand and put his fingers to his wrist, feeling his pulse. It was surprisingly strong, steady, as if he really was asleep.
“Come on, Dean.” He muttered. “Wake up.”