mirabellafic | (no subject)

The fever spikes again an hour before sunset. Dean tries to get off the couch while Sam's in the bathroom and makes it as far as the floor before he blacks out again, and that's enough right there to tell him that he's not imagining the poison in his system. Within fifteen minutes he's begging Sam to take him to the hospital, because he was fine with the whole idea of protecting the civilians at all costs when he could still tell himself that Dad would be here to put him down if it came to that, but that was then. Now the light's going and Dean's terrified, and it looks like he's not half the person he hoped he was, because he doesn't care if he takes out an entire pediatric ICU when he turns as long as he doesn't hurt Sam.

"Just tell me, Dean," Sam breathes, wiping a cool cloth over Dean's face with a shaky hand. "I want to take you to the hospital, but right now, man, I'm scared to. Tell me the truth about what happened to you and make me believe it's okay to take you after you made me promise not to."

"Why're you doing this, Sammy?" Dean croaks out. "Just take me to the damn hospital. That's where you're supposed to go when you're hurt, ain't it? You know it's okay, c'mon, that was just me being stupid before."

"But you're not stupid," Sam says. "And you never do anything without a reason. Why didn't you want me to take you before?"

"Thought Dad was gonna be here," Dean answers after a minute. He hopes he and Sammy were both still on the same question, but right now it's hard to tell. He'll just have to give what answers he can and hope the question floats back around eventually. He shifts a little, restless, and for a moment he's standing on the shore of the lake in Minnesota where he and Dad put down a vengeful spirit that had been drowning children for forty years. He's ten years old, and he didn't really like being ten the first time around.

"Is it cold down there?" ten-year-old Dean asks the hazy water, and then Dean is blinking up into Sam's face.

"It's okay, Dean, I've got you," Sam whispers, but he doesn't look okay.

"You never answered," ten-year-old Dean says to the thing that once lived underneath that too-still surface. "I just wanted to know."

Sam touches his forehead to Dean's and the lake fades again. "Yes," Sam says, stroking the cloth over Dean's neck. "Whatever it is, the answer's yes."

Dean bites into his lip, trying hard to stay here with his brother. "Sammy, you gotta leave," he whispers, pushing his fingers into Sam's hair. "If you aren't gonna take me to the hospital then go, right now. Go stay at that girl's house, stay wherever, just go somewhere far away and don't come back until morning."

"You think I'd leave you like this?"

"You gotta. Please, Sammy. Trust me this once, huh?"

"You can't do this," Sam says, pulling away a little. "You don't get to show up on my doorstep bleeding to death and – Dean, give me one good reason I should trust you to take care of yourself."

"Christ, Sam –"

He'd think he's hallucinating the knock on the door, except that Sam goes tense and pulls back. "If that's Dad," he begins.

"Sam, answer the door!" Dean orders.

Sam's face pulls in on itself the way it does when he gets mad, but he goes to the door. Dean listens hard, unable to crane his neck around to look, hoping.

"Holy shit. Uncle Bobby?" Sam says, sounding a little dumbstruck and no wonder – it's been years.

"Good to see you, son. Where's your brother?" Bobby asks. He's missed Sam, it's in his voice, but he doesn't have time right now, and Dean gives a shaky sigh. He still wants his dad, but this is enough.

Bobby sits down on the coffee table, hat on as always, greyer now but still the same. "Well," he says quietly.

"Dad ask you to come?" Dean rasps.

Bobby looks like he's got a thing or two to say about that, but he refrains. "Yeah. He was lucky, caught me when I was close. I don't usually get out this way. Can you walk?"

"Wait," Sam says.

"Yeah," Dean answers, and damn well will whether he can or not.

Bobby reaches a little out of Dean's line of sight. There's a zipping sound, and he comes back with clothes. "Good enough," he says. "I got your bag out of the car. Let's get you dressed and hit the road."

Sam takes a step forward, and if Dean thought he had the looming thing down from a seated position, it's nothing compared to what he can do from a standing start. "Where are you taking him? Because I'm glad you came, Bobby, but if you're not taking him to the hospital then he's staying right here."

"Yeah, gonna take him to the hospital," Bobby says absently, sliding a t-shirt over Dean's head and gently helping him get his arms through the sleeves. "The one at the university. I need you to pick up a couple of things for me and meet us there."

"I can ride with you, or take both of you in the Impala." Sam's voice is as polite and respectful as ever, but he doesn't believe Bobby for one damn minute and it's in every line of his body.

Bobby gives him a stern glance and eases onto the end of the couch to slide the legs of a reasonably clean pair of jeans over Dean's feet. "Boy, I drove eight hundred goddamned miles out of my way to pick up your brother and see to it that he makes it to the hospital in one piece. I think you can pick me up a burger and a six-pack."

Dean shifts as much as he can, glad his jeans are loose. Bobby slides them up and zips him into them like he was dressing a toddler, his gaze raking over the stitches on Dean's stomach.

"Yeah," Sam says. "But –"

"You stitch him up?" Bobby interrupts.

Sam makes a frustrated sound. "Yeah, this afternoon."

"Good job," Bobby says. "Maybe nothing left for the doctors to do but pump him full of antibiotics and give him some shots. Dean, we're gonna stand up now. Don't use your stomach muscles, or any other muscle you can help, just gimme your weight."

It's fucking excruciating. Dean doesn't care. He just leans into Bobby and meets Sam's anguished gaze.

"You do what Bobby says," he orders. "Gonna see you at the hospital, right? Don't take too long."

Sam opens his mouth, closes it again, then says, very quietly, "I won't. I'll be right behind you."

"Good boy. Pabst and Burger King, none-a that McDonald's shit," Bobby orders. "Get some fries for your brother, he's gonna be hungry when they get him put back together."

"Right," Sam says in a thin, taut voice. He's crossing his arms tight over his chest, shoulders hitched up, stubborn and beautiful, and this is the last time Dean will ever see him.

"See you there," Dean says, and wishes Sam knew what he meant.

"Hurt bad?" Bobby asks quietly as they head west on the highway, trying to outrace the dark.

"Yeah," Dean croaks.

"What'd you tell Sam?"

"Pit bulls," Dean says, a little morosely. "He didn't believe me."

Bobby slants an unreadable glance at Dean out of the corner of his eye. "You tell him that before or after he stitched you up?"

"Before."

"And he just kept askin' afterward, huh?"

"Yeah. You know how he is," Dean says, closing his eyes to lean his head against the window. His abdomen actually hurts a little less now; he's not sure why, but he's not even going to hope that the reason is anything good.

"I saw an old barn on the way into town," Bobby tells him. "Didn't look like there was anything around it for miles once you get clear of the highway."

Dean wants to ask where Dad is, but he doesn't. He wants to tell himself it doesn't matter, but it does. The sky to the west is a solid band of scarlet shading into purple, and Dean wishes – selfishly, he's pretty sure – that it could be Dad's hand pulling the trigger.

But it doesn't matter now as much as it did. Sam's safe and Bobby's going to take care of Dean, and two out of three's enough.

It's twilight when they get to the barn, full dark maybe a quarter hour away, and Dean is about to climb out of his skin. Bobby grabs a halogen lamp and some blankets out of the trunk and helps him into the barn; the blankets go down in front of some sort of support beam and Dean goes down on the blankets, leaning against the beam, his breath coming in short gasps as Bobby carefully handcuffs him to the sturdy wood. Dean's shaking so hard that it ought to be ripping stitches, but he can't feel any pulling out. Of course, between sick fear and the Wild Turkey Bobby started pushing down his throat outside of Santa Clara, Dean can't feel much of anything at all right now.

Bobby pulls up a crate about ten feet away from him and sits. "Wish we coulda met again under better circumstances."

"Yeah, me too." Dean cracks an eye open and shifts his hands, rattling the cuffs pointedly. "Look, though… let's not draw this out, huh?"

"Hold your horses, boy," Bobby says, pulling a gun out of his jacket and letting it dangle loosely from his fingers. "We're gonna wait a while."

"Why?" Dean means to snap out the question, but it comes out so plaintive that even if he wasn't about to wolf out he'd be tempted to grab that gun away from Bobby and shoot himself just to restore some dignity.

"Because your brother's not a fool, that's why, no matter what you and your daddy always thought," Bobby says. "He cleaned you up and stitched those gashes. If he still didn't believe it was pit bulls when he was done, I'm thinking it's 'cause he didn't see anything that would make him think there were bite marks under there somewhere. Let's wait a bit and see if he was right before I go putting you down like Old Yeller."

"Isn't safe," Dean argues, closing his eyes. The wood of the support beam is cold against his face.

"I'm just gonna sit here and pretend like you aren't trying to argue me into shooting you out of hand," Bobby tells him.

"C'mon, Bobby, Jesus. I've gotten hurt bad like this before and was never this sick. Something's in me."

"Yeah, and I'd give good odds that it's a foul-assed case of blood poisoning, which you ain't never had or you'd probably have died of it because your daddy's as stubborn as you are. You know how filthy those things' claws are? If you're still you in the morning I'll give you some antibiotics, the really strong stuff, and you're gonna take every one of 'em if I have to drag you back to North Dakota and sit on you until they're gone."

"Just do it," Dean whispers, too cold and tired and drunk to raise his voice. "I never asked you for anything, Bobby, but I'm asking for this. Let me go now while I'm still me and I can still see the bullet coming."

"Jesus God," Bobby says. "Next time I see your daddy I'm gonna beat the living shit out of him and send him on his way with an ass full of buckshot."

"Ain't Dad's fault," Dean mutters. "It's mine. I was stupid, didn't have a backup weapon I could get to easily, and then I went to Sam's place because it was close and I wasn't thinking straight."

There's a long minute of silence before Bobby sighs. "Get some rest, Dean," he says. "You know I'll take care of you if it comes to that."

"Doesn't look like you're doing too good a job of it right now," Sam says from the barn door.

Dean jolts out of his daze with a start that sends pain roaring through him like napalm. There's nothing but inky black outside the door; Sam's just inside the circle of lamplight, right hand in a solid grip on the Desert Eagle. The gun's not pointed at Bobby, not quite, but one twitch of Sam's wrist is all it will take.

Bobby glances up at him, notes the gun in Sam's hand but doesn't set his own down. "Don't look at me, boy," he says. "I'm not gonna pussy-foot around you like you were too young to pour a salt line. John should have filled you in years ago."

"Bobby, no!" Dean groans.

Sam moves carefully toward Dean, not turning his back on Bobby. "So what did this to him?"

"Bobby, don't you fucking tell him –"

"Dean, man, I think he's going to fill me in," Sam says grimly. "Bobby, we owe you a lot but you've got my critically injured brother handcuffed to a barn in the middle of nowhere and a gun drawn on him, so whatever you're about to tell me better be good."

"Werewolf," Bobby says, unfazed. Dean has to hand it to him, and also doesn't want to think about the things Bobby's seen that make six and a half feet of pissed-off Winchester drawing down on him something he can face without batting an eyelash. "That's all I know. I'm guessing your daddy sent him to tackle it by himself; he got hurt, and he thinks he's been bit. We're waiting here to see if he's right."

"Werewolf," Sam says, and there's something in his voice that gives Dean hope, like Sam's not ready to believe yet, like he knows full well that he still has a chance to call bullshit on the monsters and walk away from all this.

"Sam," Dean says. "Don't do this. I'm gonna be okay, man, you'll see, just get in the car and go."

"Too late for that, I'm thinkin'," Bobby says, and sounds a little like he regrets it after all.

"Werewolves are real," Sam says like he's testing it out. He's gone white and the gun is shaking a little in his hand.

Bobby shrugs. "Werewolves, ghosts, demons, shapeshifters –"

Sam holds up a hand, moving a few more steps toward Dean. "Dude, just – let me sort through the werewolf thing first, okay?"

"Go home, Sammy," Dean says, swallowing when his voice cracks.

Sam kneels down beside him and smoothes over Dean's forehead with his hand, then his sleeve, wiping away sweat. "I have a test tomorrow," he says, and gives a strangled laugh with no humor in it at all. "Econ. I hate that class."

"Go home," Dean repeats. "Got a test tomorrow, you need your rest."

Sam's hand slides down Dean's face, over his neck to rest on his chest on top of the too-fast thudding of his heart. Sam looks back over his shoulder at Bobby; Dean hadn't noticed before but Sam's between him and Bobby's gun now, close enough to shield him from any shot Bobby might take. "What's going to happen to him?"

Bobby doesn't answer for a minute. When Dean looks away from Sam, Bobby's watching them with a strange, bleak look on his face.

"Bobby?" Sam prompts.

Sighing, Bobby pulls his hat off, runs his hand over his head, and slips his hat back on. "Son of a bitch," he says softly. "I keep thinking I can't have any lower an opinion of your daddy's sense, and then you boys… I don't know what's gonna happen to him, not yet. If he turns, one or the other of us is gonna have to put him down and I think for your sake it'd probably better be me. If he's still himself by morning it'll mean he wasn't bit, but he ain't out of the woods yet – he really does need a hospital."

Sam turns back to Dean. "You weren't bitten," he says like he can make it true by sheer force of will. "You're gonna be okay. You are."

"Go on home, Sam," Bobby says quietly. "If he's okay there's nothing you can do right now, and if he's not you're not gonna want to watch what has to be done."

"Isn't there a fucking cure?" Sam snaps. "You can't just kill him, Jesus Christ. We can figure this out."

"No cure, Sam," Bobby tells him. "Lots of people have looked, people who loved some werewolf like you love Dean. If there was a cure somebody would have found it by now."

"You're not killing him," Sam says, his fist clenching in the front of Dean's shirt. "I can keep an eye on him, we can find some way to –"

"What, Sammy?" Dean asks. "Keep me locked up like a dog during the full moon, so I can worry every goddamned day of my life how many people I'll fucking eat if I don't get to the cage in time? I don't wanna live like that, man. I don't wanna be one of the things me and Dad hunt."

"Dean," Sam says. The lamplight glints off tears standing in his eyes, and Dean has to look away. "No. I'm not gonna let you leave me. Not like this."

"You left us," Dean reminds him. He doesn't mean it to hurt, not really; he doesn't mean it to do anything at all. "Told me not to call."

Sam swallows hard. "I'll make you a deal. I'll tell you why I told you not to call, okay? Everything, the whole truth. But I'm not going to tell you tonight. It has to wait until you're better."

"Sammy, one way or another I'm not gonna be around after this. What good'll it do to tell me then, huh?"

"You're going to the hospital," Sam says. "Then we're going to go to Bobby's until you're better, because he offered and I know damn well you won't stay with me –"

"Whoa, junior," Dean says, trying for stern and only managing sick. "You got tests and shit, remember? You're not going anywhere but home."

"You're right," Sam whispers, stretching his fingers over Dean's chest again. "Not going anywhere but home. Now shut up and go to sleep."

"Do as your brother says, Dean," Bobby says with weary good humor.

Sam and Bobby are still talking quietly when Dean realizes that he can't keep track of what they're saying anymore. He just has time to realize that Sam's voice might be calm enough but his grip on that gun is as solid as ever and then he's dreaming, dark water and dead children and Sam's voice soft in his ear.

The sky outside is the color of gunmetal when he opens his eyes again. Sam's still talking, his voice slurred with exhaustion.

"You're okay," he's whispering, over and over. "You made it. It's morning."

Dean tries to move and thinks better of it pretty quickly. "You sure?" he croaks.

Bobby hunkers down next to him, slots a key into the handcuffs, and gives Dean a Look. "Yeah, you caught us," he says dryly. "You turned into a werewolf and slept plumb through the screaming and the villagers with pitchforks. Your brother wanted to put your paw in a bowl of warm water but I made him behave hisself."

Dean's pretty sure he's really fucking relieved, but that's just an intellectual thing. The feeling itself is too big to make sense of, all wrapped up in pain, Bobby's drawl, morning light, and Sam – tired voice, warm breath on Dean's throat, hands that feel like they're resting lightly on Dean because if they don't they'll grab hold of him and never let go, all six foot five of Sam bleeding into the air around Dean until he doesn't know which one he's breathing and doesn't care. It's too much; so Dean peels off one tiny slice of it to have, Sam's hands on him and the taste of morning in the air, and puts the rest away. He's alive, for now anyway, and that's enough.

"Gotta get you to the hospital, Dean, come on," Sam urges.

"You got a test, Sammy, go home," Dean orders, and wow, he really wishes he had some coffee right now. Or toothpaste. Or even some more of that Wild Turkey.

"Dean," Bobby says, and waits until Dean looks up at him. "Sometimes things don't stay the way you think they oughta be. Whatever John thought he was doing, it did more harm than good. Time you and your brother had a nice long talk."

"Thanks, Bobby," Sam whispers.

"Wait and see if you thank me afterward, son," Bobby says as he stands.

Dean doesn't remember until two weeks later, when he's out in Bobby's yard tuning up a '73 GTO, and then he does but he nearly doesn't ask.

"Hey," he says finally. "You said you'd tell me why you told me not to call."

Sam, leaning against the car a few inches away, stops in the middle of a rambling and one-sided discussion of whether McDonalds or Wal-Mart is more likely to be owned and operated by the forces of Hell. Out of the corner of his eye, Dean sees him swallow convulsively. "Yeah," Sam says. "I did."

Dean eyes him for a minute, then turns back to the car. "Yeah, well," he says. "I wouldn't want to hear it anyway, would I?"

Sam reddens, fidgeting against the car. "How about if I tell you why getting laid at that party was such a disaster?" he asks, not looking at Dean.

Dean stares at him, utterly unable to process the kind of blackmail material Sam is voluntarily handing him. "Sure, Sammy," he says, carefully. "You wanna share that with me, I'm here for you, buddy."

Sam glares briefly at him, then looks away again. "I… accidentally said someone else's name. You know. When."

Forgetting that he was going to pretend to be supportive, Dean clucks his tongue reprovingly. "I taught you better than that, man. Never say names. Sure as god made little green apples, you're gonna slip up sooner or later. Did you bullshit your way out of it?"

"It was a guy's name," Sam says between his teeth.

Well. That's… unexpected, but whatever, it's not like Dean's all that picky about the equipment either. "Okay, well, that's a little harder to bullshit through, but it can be done –"

"She already knew my brother's name was Dean," Sam says, well on his way to turning purple with mortification but plugging on with dogged Winchester determination.

It takes Dean a minute to figure that one out, and when he does he almost drops the socket wrench he's holding. He's pretty sure he should be grossed out, or take a swing, or something; but Sammy's a clever little fucker, because all Dean can do is stand there staring blankly at the engine and envisioning the enormous awkwardness that has to follow screaming your brother's name when you come. He honestly doesn't know what to do with this, except that he really hopes it's okay that he's still going to be teasing Sam about it when they're dead.

"Jesus, Sammy," he says finally. "When you screw up, you don't fuck around about it. What did you do?"

Sam rubs his hands over his face. "I said 'Oh my god' about ninety-six times. She gave me the number of her therapist."

Somewhere in Dean there is still a freakout flailing to get out, but it's having to share head space with the urge to double over and laugh until his stomach explodes and so far the freakout is losing. "Well, yeah," he says finally. "Um, I can see how that might put you off your game a little."

"I've got it bad for you, Dean," Sam says quietly. "Stupid, dorky, 'Oh my god I just fell on my face in front of the head cheerleader kill me now' bad. I've done a lot of dumb things to try to make that go away, and one of them was telling you not to call me. I thought it was just a lame crush and it'd go away if you weren't right in my space all the time, but it didn't work. I missed you so much, and when you showed up bleeding and half-dead… Look, I'm not saying this because I – want anything in return, or expect – I just, I promised I'd tell you and I'm telling you. Okay? I'd have told you any damn secret I had if it meant you wouldn't die on me, and this one was the biggest. I'm… gonna go do something else now. Inside."

And here's the weird thing: Dean doesn't want him to do that. Because it turns out that he wasn't quite as okay with not having Sam at his back as he thought, and it turns out he really wasn't okay with the college thing, and it even – fucked up though it is – turns out that he's not that okay with Sam having one-night stands that he's not even paying attention to. So Dean, who may just go ahead and adopt Fuck it, I'll think about it later as his official life motto, reaches out and slides his hand around Sam's wrist, leaving black finger-shaped smears on Sam's skin.

"This thing you're doing inside," he says as Sam stares at Dean's hand like it might bite him. "It wouldn't happen to be making coffee, would it?"

Sam looks cautiously back at Dean. "Could be," he allows.

"Good. Bring me some, bitch," Dean orders. His fingers slip off Sam's wrist slower than they should. He can't kiss Sam, not right there in full view of the windows with no idea where Bobby is; but he wants to, wants to know how Sam's mouth tastes and whether he uses his tongue right, and for as long as it takes, he lets Sam see it. He figures you're allowed to do stupid things like that when you're two weeks into a life you shouldn't have been able to have.

Sam blinks a little, then smiles, slow and sweet. "Better fucking tip me, jerk."

He's gone before Dean can decide which of a dozen comebacks he likes best, but that's okay. For the first time in maybe ever, Dean's pretty sure he'll be back.