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Dean sat on the edge of the cold concrete bench in the men of letters bathroom, sweat trickling down his temple and red soaked gauze in his hand. His towel was low around his hips, catching threads of blood tinged wetness that tracked their way down from his wounds. It was deep. Deeper than he’d originally thought.
He squeezed his eyes closed as a whimper pressed its way up through his pale lips.
The drive hadn’t helped. He was trying to keep an eye on Sam, who had just been glowing with trial juice only hours earlier. And he had had worse. But it didn’t mean this didn’t fucking sting.
Ellie had patched it up with a pressure dressing to slow the bleeding down, but the gashes needed washing out and stitching.
He’d moaned getting out of the car and again going down the steps into the bunker and Sam had thrown him a casual “you good?”. He’d followed it up with a grunt both times and retreated to his bedroom.
Now his hope of having a shower was fading as he realised the extent of his injuries.
He sucked in an uneven breath and blew it out slowly as a wave of nausea washed over him. Maybe he’d lost more blood than he thought.
A fist pounded on the bathroom door, “Dean? You alright in there?” Sam’s voice came in sounding muffled and oddly distant.
Dean’s lack of response, while he figured out how to answer the question was all the time Sam needed to know something wasn’t right, and the door opened without permission.
“Oh, crap,” Sam whispered, rough hand on Dean’s bare shoulder.
“I’m okay,” Dean bite out through gritted teeth.
“Yeah, I can see that,” Sam huffed.
“Think it… needs stitching,” Dean paused for breath while squeezing out the least amount of words he could muster.
“Yeah, no kidding,” Sam had a hand curled around his bicep, “Come on, let’s get you horizontal, then I can patch this up… you gonna puke?”
Dean shook his head, but his pursed lips and convulsive swallowing gave him away, and before he had a chance to move, he was blowing chunks all over their clean new bathroom.
“You’re okay, man,” Sam brushed his hand back and forth across his shoulders, “You done?”
Dean whimpered, his stomach muscles rippling, pulling on the wounds and alighting pain anew.
“Dean, I need you to move before you’re face down on this floor.”
Sam was commanding, his voice coming from all around him as Dean closed his eyes, fighting the encroaching vertigo that came with intense pain and blood loss. Before he had time to regroup, Sam was pressing the gauze back against his wounds and lifting him up to stand. He certainly knew how to kick it into gear when he needed to.
Dean gasped, a white knuckle grip on Sam’s shirt sleeves, as the room lurched dizzyingly.
“Ugh, this sucks,” Dean moaned, swallowing again.
“Don’t you dare puke on me,” Sam’s cheek twitched with a slight smile.
“No promises.”
Sam was still pressing the gauze into his stomach and as much as it hurt, it felt like it was the only thing keeping his insides… inside.
“How much blood did you lose?” Sam’s voice was close in his ear as he encouraged him down the hall towards his bedroom.
“Enough,” Dean groaned, thinking back to how much was on the floor of that barn and soaked into his clothes.
“Transfusion enough?” Sam glanced at him, the first suggestion of a trip to the hospital since Ellie had said it.
“No,” was all Dean replied. They still had some hydration packs kicking around in Baby’s trunk from the last time one of them had lost nearly transfusion enough.
“I’ll get the packs from the car when we’re done here. You still got Percocet left?”
“Mm.”
Dean groaned again as Sam sat him down on the bed.
“Hold that on. You need some pills before I go poking at this,” Sam grabbed Dean’s hand and placed it over the gauze, briefly touching his fingers to his forehead, “You got a fever?”
“Ugh,” Dean shifted, “I don’t think so. Not yet anyway.”
“If this hell hound got through to your bowel we will have to go to hospital, you know?”
“Yeah, I know,” Dean winced, a perforated bowel was not what he needed right now.
“Pills in the side table?”
“Mm,” Dean answered with a moan.
Sam obviously knew more than Dean wanted him to if he knew he kept his pills as close at that. Dean already drank enough and he often needed extra help sleeping at night. Especially since purgatory. Living through chemistry was all that kept him somewhat sane these days.
“Is 2 gonna cut it?” Sam raised an eyebrow.
“Better make it 3,” Dean said through clenched teeth.
Sam managed to wrangle Dean into some boxer shorts and got him lying down on his back in his bed after he’d given him the Percocet. He grabbed the first aid kit and rifled around until he found some local anaesthetic and a box of antibiotics that were still in date.
Even with 3 Percocet on board, Dean was not going to let him stitch up 3 large wounds without some local. They didn’t often need to use it for anything small but they knew how for situations just like this. It wasn’t the first time he’d had to do it.
“It’s bright,” Dean mumbled when Sam returned with their equipment.
“Yeah, I need to see what I’m doing, man. Just close your eyes,”
Dean groaned in disagreement, and Sam pointedly ignored him.
“We need local for this.”
Dean didn’t answer, and that was an answer in itself.
“You gonna be a baby about it?” Sam asked, tapping the side of Dean’s leg.
“Would you just get on with it, before I throw up again?”
“Right. Baby.”
“Shut your damn mouth and get to work.”
“Okay, man,” Sam said, pressing the dressing down over the freshly sewn wounds, “How you doing?”
Dean still had a hand over his face, shielding his eyes, and virtually hadn’t moved in over an hour.
“Dean?” Sam moved to sit on the edge of the bed nearer Dean’s head and placed a hand on his shoulder.
“Mm,” he groaned.
“Did I give you too many drugs?” Sam laughed, half earnest.
Dean sluggishly removed the hand but kept his eyes pressed shut, “are ya done?” He slurred.
“Yeah. Open your eyes.”
“Why?”
“Cause I wanna see your pupils. Just open your eyes, man.”
Dean carefully opened one and then the other, he glanced down at his stomach.
“I’m not narked, just fuzzy.”
He slapped a hand against Sam’s leg, “Thanks for patching me up.”
“Of course,” Sam huffed out, “Anytime.”
Dean shivered and Sam pulled the blanket up over him. He debated if he should stay with Dean, fuzzy with painkillers and white with blood loss, but his own head was swimming and he stumbled a little, catching himself on the dresser. Maybe the trial had done more to him than he realised.
“Dean?”
Dean peeled his eyes open, licked his dry lips, “Yeah, Sammy?”
“You gonna be alright?”
Dean smiled, warm, disinhibited, drugged to his eyeballs, “Always.”
And Sam let out a breath he’d been holding for days.
End.