tarotgal

Summary: Scenes of hurt/comfort from before
Sam figures about about Dean's care-giving kink...
and scenes set afterward.
Pairing: Dean/Sam | Rating: Various (G through NC-17)

Part 26. A Before

Dean wakes with a cough right into the oxygen mask encompassing his nose and mouth. He pulls it off with another cough. “Sammy?” His voice is weak—barely a croak. He looks around, surveying his surroundings, realizes he’s in an ambulance. Alone. He slides his arms back, bends them, propping himself up on his elbows. It’s enough to allow him to see the devastation outside. Firefighters running. The ruin of a house on its last, charred, black supports.

“Whoa there,” A hand on his shoulder applies pressure. His arms give out and he’s back down on the cot. The hand puts the mask back on Dean.

He can breathe better with it on, he’s got to admit, but he can’t really talk with it there. So he yanks it off again. “Sammy? Where’s my brother?”

The paramedic is a woman. Her voice is full of practiced calm. “He’s in the other ambulance, along with the little girl you two saved. He refused to leave her alone.”

Dean thinks back. He remembers finding the little girl huddled in her closet, hiding from both the demon and the fire it had set. He remembers grabbing the girl, wrapping his arms around her and trying to run. He remembers looking for a window. He remembers doubling over, feeling dizzy and coughing from the smoke. And he remembers Sam’s arm around his stomach, hoisting him up, guiding him to fresh air and a fall. But he doesn’t remember anything after that, after leaving Sam behind in that house.

He hears an ambulance siren and tears off the mask. He sits up all the way. “Sammy!”

“We’re going to have to strap you in if you don’t settle down.” She pushes him back down and puts his mask on.

“Hospital,” he says into it, fogging up the plastic cup. Then he takes a slow, deep breath to show he’s obeying her.

He can’t distinguish the sound of the siren belonging to Sam’s ambulance over the sound of his own, but his doesn’t leave more than a few seconds after the other, so he imagines he’s directly behind. Dean spends the entire drive mapping the route in his mind, every stoplight, turn and curve.

When he gets to the hospital, he rips off the mask and jumps out of the ambulance on his own, entirely ignoring the shouts from the paramedics. They try—and fail--to hold him back.

Dean storms in through the emergency entrance and catches sight of someone on a stretcher, being pushed through strong doors. The doors close and lock in place. Dean pushes and pounds but the door won’t open for him. And, just then, hospital security shows up to make absolute sure Dean won’t be going through the doors.

“Dean?”

Wheeling around, he finds Sam standing there with his arm in a sling. Dean latches onto him at once with a careful hug, but Sam’s good arm tightens around him, pulling him closer. “The little girl landed on my arm when we jumped. It’s only bruised and sprained. You lost consciousness. How do you feel?” Sam asks.

Dean feels fine, and he’s sure that as long as he can keep hugging Sammy, he’ll stay that way.