Marking Time

A/N: 11x17 destroyed me too, okay? It begs for a tag, and while some folks whine about the writers leaving holes in the boys' story, I just see it as plot bunny food, and actually appreciate not having every detail spelled out, every scene filmed. Gives the imagination room to play.

So, masterminded by the ever-brilliant Nova42, chrissie0707 and I collaborated to bring you this. Chronologically, this tag takes place first, and her half, "Reaction Time" comes within hours of that. If you haven't already read "Reaction Time," then do so right after you finish this one, because to be frank, this one doesn't wrap up many loose ends, mostly sets the stage for the conversation in Chrissie's half.

Enjoy!

Sam sits quietly on the thin hospital mattress, trying not to be too obvious about watching his brother. Dean hasn't left his side since he killed Corbin, and Sam, despite his own not-insignificant pain, is actually worried about him. It's crazy that he's able to differentiate this, but he knows the difference between how Dean acts when Sam is hurt a little, when he's hurt a lot, and when he's died. The way Dean stumble-crawled to him when he fell in the hallway, just after shooting Corbin-the-werewolf, gripped the back of his neck and pulled him into a painful, desperate hug, the way he choked, "Dammit, Sammy"….Sam recognizes this behavior, and it makes his blood run cold.

Dean thought he was dead.

Considering it, Sam finds he's not really surprised. The doc says his heart rate and breathing slowed to nothing when Corbin choked him, and there's no other reason Dean would possibly have left him alone in a cabin with monsters on the loose, unless he thought him gone already. Sam's heart aches for his brother at the realization. He's careful not to push Dean too hard for answers—yet—when the older man is sitting beside his bed trying to cover up the fact that he looks like someone ripped his heart out and then gave it back.

Still, he manages to find out that Dean was tased by the local deputy when he tried to go back for Sam's body after dropping off the two honeymooners at the cop car; that the doctor diagnosed a couple of broken ribs and a nasty concussion; and that Michelle had been a real help while Dean was laid up. That last, Dean hadn't exactly specified, but Sam gleaned it from several comments and the fact that his brother mentioned seeing how the other woman was doing before they left.

The doc comes in to check him over moments later, and Sam refuses general anesthesia when she mentions it. Not because he wants to, but the expression on Dean's face is so extraordinarily close to panic, Sam would rather be stitched with no painkillers at all than put his brother through that. Doctor Kessler is surprisingly understanding, and stitches him up with only a local anesthetic—it hurts like a bitch, but at least Dean can breathe.

They discharge themselves a couple hours later—against Doctor Kessler's advice, but that's hardly new—and Sam asks the question that's been bugging him since that desperate embrace on the hard linoleum floor.

"So what did you do, when you thought I was dead?"

Dean cracks a joke about remodeling Sam's room, but not before Sam catches the hint of desolation in his dull green eyes.

Please don't, Sammy.

But he's not going to let Dean off that easily. He can't, because he needs to know; has to know that Dean is all right, that he didn't do anything rash, that his soul is safe and that Dean is actually okay. For real.

"Come on, man, really."

Dean sighs and starts the car. "I knew you weren't dead, Sam."

Sure you did.

"I knew."

They decide to try for the entire drive home, and at first, Dean is nearly exuberant. He blasts AC/DC and sings along off key, grinning at Sam every few minutes and driving way too fast. He's overcompensating, and Sam is almost insulted Dean thinks he buys it.

But as the miles roll under their feet, Dean starts to wilt, faster than what Sam is used to. First, he stops singing, slows to a reasonable speed, eventually turns down the music. His face pales and his hand shakes when, at the Utah border, he finally reaches over and turns it off entirely. Sam's aching head is grateful for the small mercy, and he knows his brother isn't doing well, but he says nothing. It's almost a hundred and fifty three miles before anything breaks the silence in the Impala.

The tiny ding! of the gas tank takes Sam by surprise, speaks volumes about what kind of shape Dean's actually in—he usually doesn't let them get that low before filling up. Luckily, there's a Conoco station off the next exit, some tiny town south of Salt Lake City, and Dean takes it without a word, pulling the sleek car in smoothly despite his clear discomfort. Sam opens the door when they pull up to the pump, sighing with relief as he unfolds his legs from the passenger's seat, reevaluating his request that they push for home. It is a long-ass drive, and every inch of him hurts. He imagines Dean feels about the same, gunshot or no. His brother doesn't move at first. Sam pauses, looks back at him with one leg out of the car and a hand over his sore side.

"You good, man?"

Dean nods, looks vaguely green, and seems to reconsider his answer. Sam raises a brow but doesn't move—if Dean wants to continue his charade, he'll break the moment first, get out of the car and start filling her up, call for Sam to make his lazy ass useful and grab snacks while he's inside powdering his nose…

Instead, Dean sighs. "No," he mutters, as unhappy with the answer as he is having to admit it, Sam thinks. "We need to get a room, I'm beat."

Sam stifles the twinge of disappointment at that—he really had hoped to make it home—focusing instead on how proud he is of his brother admitting he needs rest, and nods quickly. "Of course, Dean," he tries to catch his eyes, but the man won't look at him. Probably ashamed or something, the dumbass. He throws his brother a line, hoping to lessen the blow to his pride. "I think it's likely we both need it. I'm not even supposed to be upright."

Dean tosses him a smirk, but Sam can see the exhaustion lining his brother's features. He's almost gray with it, dark circles under his eyes, cracked dry lips, scruff making his face look almost dirty. More than that, Dean moves like every motion is not only painful, but near impossible. Sam frowns; seldom has he seen his brother like this. Dean, for all his ferocity, is total grace and surety, always has been.

Sam grabs some snacks, water and beer so they don't have to go out for food later, and then they locate the nearest flea-bag motel and settle in for the night. Though he cringes at the thought of moving more, Sam corners Dean where he's standing at the sink trying not to look like he's in pain.

"All right," Sam orders. "Shirt off."

Dean barely manages to force a smirk. "Gotta buy me dinner first, little brother."

Sam rolls his eyes. "Don't you ever come up with new material?" Dean looks highly offended, which makes Sam work to hold back a laugh. "C'mon," he says instead. "Let's take a look at those ribs."

"Nah," Dean answers, trying to brush past Sam breezily. He only succeeds in tripping over his own feet and barely managing to not face-plant on the ugly brown carpet. "I'm good." But his voice is strained, and Sam's not buying it.

"Dean, don't make me wrestle you into those bandages," he says wearily. "I've already taken out like five werewolves today, don't think I can't get you fixed up without your express permission."

Dean stops, his back to Sam, and the younger can see the moment he gives in. His shoulders do this folding-in thing, and he looks smaller than he really is when he finally releases his macho façade. Sam grabs the first aid kit silently, moving toward his brother, who sits himself gingerly on the bed and is trying to remove his red button-down. He gets it over his shoulders before hissing in pain, and Sam hurries to pull it down his arms in the back.

"It's all right, let me help," he murmurs. Dean tenses but says nothing.

The t-shirt is harder still to remove, and in the end Sam just cuts the thing off—to Dean's very vocal displeasure, but the man can't lift his arms high enough to get it over his head. Sam has to bite off a gasp when his brother's bare back comes into view.

He is a mass of bruises, some deep blue, some mottled with ugly red just under the surface. The worst of them are over two ribs on his left side, and there are some near his brother's belt line that imply he was kicked in the lower back while he was down. Two neat small punctures decorate his right shoulder blade, and after the initial fear that Dean was bitten by…something…Sam realizes that's where his brother was tased by the deputy.

His heart does this funny double-thump while he wishes nothing but ill on the trigger-happy bastard, but he swallows and goes to work bandaging Dean's torso. The bruising is almost worse in the front, the two broken ribs obvious, but not the only injuries Dean has.

His brother sits quietly and helps guide the bandages, but Sam worries when he notices Dean's breathing getting shallower and his face getting impossibly paler. He comes around for the last pass of bandages and nearly yelps at the sight of Dean's deathly-white lips and the way his eyes are rolling. Without warning, his brother starts to slump, and Sam hurries to catch him. He gasps in pain when Dean crashes into him, nearly bringing them both down, and his side screams in agony. A sharp pain follows, like the ping of a knife, and Sam knows he just lost at least one of those professional-grade stitches.

"Dammit, Dean," he croaks, pushing his brother back until the man collapses heavily on the bed. Sam stares down at him, trying to rationalize away the incipient panic that's building in his own chest. He bends down to tie off the torso bandages—good thing Dean lasted that long, at least, and he'll get his brother some painkillers for when he wakes up—when he notices something he didn't before. One of the bruises on Dean's chest, just over his heart, has a tiny prick-mark in the center of it. Like…

Like an injection site.

He tilts his head, wondering what that's doing there. He doesn't remember Dean mentioning anything about needing an injection to the heart—adrenaline is the only thing Sam can think of that would be administered there, and only if…

His headache spikes as his jaw tightens. Sam pulls out his phone and dials the number the doc had given him before they left.

"Cottonwood Urgent Care, how can I help you?"

"Hi, I need to speak with Doctor Kessler, please. She treated my brother and me earlier today."

"Please hold."

Sam looks down at Dean, takes a deep breath while the boring hold music plays in his right ear. He can't believe Dean didn't tell him how bad it was, how much he was hurt, racks his brain to figure out when Dean received any injury bad enough to warrant an adrenaline shot—

"This is Doctor Kessler."

"Hey, doc," he tries to control the waver in his voice. "Sam Winchester. I'm, uh, with my brother, and he's in pretty bad shape. I just noticed the injection site over his heart, and I was wondering what happened. Didn't want to give him any meds if—"

"No, no, Sam," the doctor's voice is urgent. "Don't give him anything, not for at least six days. We had to administer naloxone and then shoot his heart full of adrenaline to start it up again. He'll be in a lot of pain over the next few days and will probably throw up every few hours. Try to keep him hydrated—"

"Wait, wait," Sam interrupts, brain still screaming shoot his heart full of adrenaline to start it up again on a loop. "When did his heart stop?"

There's a pause. "He…didn't tell you?"

Sam tries not to snap at the doctor. "Apparently not."

"He overdosed on barbiturates while he was here. Just…opened up a bottle and took a bunch of them." Sam sits, feeling dizzy. "The woman you guys brought in, Michelle, she came and got me. Saved his life."

Sam can't say anything. His head is swimming and the lump in his throat is the size of a tennis ball. The doctor sighs after a moment. "Sam, he'll be okay as long as you monitor his vitals. They'll suck for a little while—shallow breathing, low blood pressure, high heart rate. But physically, he will recover. I wouldn't have let him go if I thought otherwise. However," here she pauses, and Sam can sense her hesitance over the line. "You may want to explore therapy options going forward. Your brother attempted suicide."

Sam hangs up a moment later. He thinks he thanked the doc and said goodbye, but he's too numb to remember.

So Dean had done it again. After everything they've been through and as many times as they've talked about this, Dean had gone and tried to off himself the minute he thought Sam dead. Or at the very least, tried to make a deal.

Again.

Sam is seeing red now, having trouble not punching a wall or something; and as the cyclone of how dare he? and he promised we'd stop this! gathers speed in his head, he hears his own heart beat accelerate until it thumps madly in his ears. He tries to breathe slowly, but can barely see through eyes that are wet with tears he dashes impatiently off his cheeks. His chest aches with the thought.

"Your brother attempted suicide."

"Fuck, Dean," he hears the words leave his mouth in a wrecked groan as he collapses into his chair. "Come on, man, how could you do that?"

Dean answers by gasping a few times, a horrible churning sound coming from his belly, and Sam rushes to get the trash can to him on time. He does, and he helps Dean turn over, barely conscious, to throw up white foam and bile into the cheap plastic bin. After, he gently pushes the man back onto the bed. Dean is out before his head hits the pillow.

Sam rinses out the small can, then places it beside the bed and drops heavily into the chair again, ready to sit vigil until Dean wakes up fully.

How could you, man?