Episode tag to 11.17, Red Meat

shaindyl:

Written on the fly and posted without being proofed or beta’d. The muse struck and I’m not looking a gift horse in the mouth. Comments and concrit gratefully received.

---

“What took you so
long?”

The words slip out of
Dean’s mouth unthinkingly, a natural reversion to the sarcasm that he usually
relies on. He and Sam stare at each other across the space between them, and
Dean has just enough time to be awed by how his little brother is barely able
to stand yet his gun hand is rock steady before Sam is crashing hard to the
floor, the gun skittering out his hand.

He can see that Sam is
in agony from his rounded shoulders, his head hanging and his hair falling in a
curtain around his face. Dean’s moving before he even realises it, lunging for
his brother and pulling him into his arms just like Sam did for him after their
run in with the soul eater. He feels the moment when Sam lets go, trusting that
his big brother will take care of things now.

And he feels it a
moment later when Sam loses his grip on consciousness.

Dean bellows for help,
and doors start opening cautiously and people who had been hiding from the
chaos start slipping out. He lays Sam down carefully, and pulls open his jacket
and shirt, nearly gagging at the sheer amount of blood. How his brother made it
from the cabin all the way back to the clinic is beyond him. He’s always known
that Sam is the stronger of the two of them, but he is truly dumbfounded by
this.

Hands start pushing
him out of the way and he has to fight down the urge to strike back, knowing
that it’s the doctors and nurses who can save his brother’s life, but it’s a
close thing. A gurney is rolled up and it takes several of them to lift Sam
onto it, and then they’re gone, disappearing behind the swinging doors at the
end of the hall.

He looks down the hall
at Michelle, and their eyes meet. She’s still cowering on the floor where she
fell when her husband tried to reason with her, and she doesn’t look like she’s planning on moving anytime soon. Dean goes to her and reaches down a hand. Michelle looks
at it before taking it, and he helps her stand. She falls into him and he wraps
his arms around her.

Dean figures they both
need it right about now.