Bullets, Not Just For Breakfast

I try to play fair…..Sam/hurt last time, Dean gets a turn this time!

Salt and burn gone bad….

Thanks to Eric Kripke!

Hugs to Mish, Beta Diva!

Too much blood. There was too much blood. Sam grabbed more gauze and pressed over the already saturated cloth on the wound. This evoked a groan from the other occupant in the room.

"Hang on Dean. DEAN! Listen to me!" Sam's shout was laced with fear. Fear that Dean might not make it back from this one. Fear that no deal with a crossroad demon could be made this time. Fear that he, Sam might have to go on without Dean. No! Couldn't think that way! Dean'd pull through, he always did. This was just worry talking….Dean would be okay.

Sam pulled the gauze up just a little and saw that the bleeding was slowing, but not by much. He blew air up into his hair, poofing it out of his eyes.

"Sm….wha?" Dean groaned and mumbled something else, but it was too garbled for Sam to understand.

"Shhh, Dean, it's alright. Hold still will you? I need to get this bleeding stopped." Sam gently pushed Dean back onto the ugly orange blanket on the lumpy bed. He reached for more clean gauze and the bottle of sterile saline on the nightstand.

"Fu…Sam….hurts…..what happened?" Dean was more coherent now, but pain and confusion echoed in his voice. Sam's brow wrinkled, he hated not being able to stop the pain that his brother felt.

"Not sure…I was doing the salt and burn…you were going back to the car to get more gas. Couldn't have been the ghost….she was toast by the time I heard you yell. Found you next to the car, with this hole in your leg."

Sam pored saline around the edges of the hole, cleaning the blood off with more gauze. He thought that stitches might be possible. Closing the puncture would be tricky, but they had both had worse. It was the bleeding that concerned Sam. With so much blood, he was worried that an artery may have been nicked.

Dean nearly came off the bed as Sam's cleaning came to close to the jagged edge of the wound, "Son of a …!" Teeth gritted, panting heavily, Dean groaned as he pushed back into the mattress.

"Freaking bitch wasn't the only ghost! Think her son was out there too. Came at me outa' nowhere. Didn't the newspaper….ah! Shit!"

Sam winced as he poured holy water over the wound. "Better safe than sorry dude."

"Newspaper…" Dean tried again, but gave up talking and ground his teeth.

"Easy…..yeah, the newspaper said that her son killed himself just a month after she died. Hung himself in the attic of the house. Dean, I've got to stop this bleeding. Maybe we should get you to the hospital…."

"No, we're to close too St Louis. Can't risk it." Dean, along with Sam was very much aware of the murder Dean had been pinned with due to the shape shifter in the Missouri city. Taking Dean to the hospital with the odd puncture in his leg would draw attention to the boys, and attention they just didn't need.

"So, what are our options Dean? I don't think it's an artery now that I can see it good, but there is just so much torn flesh here…"

"Dude, really? Giving me way to much visual here, yeah I get it, I have a freaking big hole in my leg." Dean gave a deep sigh. "Remember when we were at Pastor Jim's that summer when those two hunters came in? One of them had a hole ripped in his shoulder big enough to put your hand in…"

Sam's stomach rolled as he remembered the torn flesh of the screaming hunter. "Dean, uh, he died. So that serves us here, how?"

Dean pressed his lips together in impatience, "Yeah he died from blood loss. From before they got him to the church. But Pastor Jim was able to stop the bleeding before he died. It was just too late."

Sam's brow furrowed, then his eyes widened with the memory, "No! I'm not doing that to you, Dean!"

"Got any better ideas, Sam? You said it yourself, I'm loosing too much blood, we can't go to the hospital, I don't see any other options. Believe me; I am not looking forward to it either!"

Sam jumped up and paced the small motel room. Dean could see the fear and frustration on his brother's face, and didn't envy the job ahead for Sam.

"Come on, Sam, you gotta do this…I trust you man." Dean looked across the room at his brother, then lay his head back down with a sigh. "Can't hurt worse than it does now, Sam….please."

Sam could take a lot from his pain in the ass brother, but pleading wasn't one of those things.

"Fuck!" Sam stormed out of the room, was back in a couple minutes with a large duffel from the truck of the Impala. After rummaging through it and setting things out beside the bed, he looked up at Dean.

"Sure?" He looked at Dean lying on the bed, eyes closed.

"Yeah…..yeah I am, Sam. Get it over with."

"Alright….here we go."

Sam took a pair of pliers and gently pried the bullet out of a casing. Tossing the bullet to the side, he sprinkled the gunpowder from inside the casing into the deep puncture, listening to the pained hiss from his brother. He sat back for a second, took a deep breath.

"Here, bite this, try not to scream." He held Dean's belt out, Dean took it with shaky hands and bit down.

He then took a match from the box and slid it across the side. Watching the flame flare up, before bringing it to the bleeding hole, and touched the flame to the gunpowder.

After, as Sam threw up in the bathroom, he didn't think he would ever forget the smell of burnt flesh or the agonizing scream that had emanated from his brother. The scene itself, a touch of hell. The sulfur and blood had been too much for Sam. It had been all he could do to dress the wound before running to the toilet. The pain had been too much for Dean. Passing out had been a blessing for both the brothers, Sam didn't think he could have handled another second of his big brother screaming in pain.

Dean woke to the pulsing throb in his leg. Painful, yes, but manageable. Sammy must have given him something; he vaguely remembered swallowing a couple of tablets somewhere during a lucid moment, he couldn't really remember, he was sure he had been unconscious for quite some time now.

"Sam?"

It irritated him at how weak his voice sounded in the empty room. Panic wiggled a little in the pit of his stomach as he saw that he was alone in the room. Then he heard a sound in the bathroom. Struggling to hear better, he slowly sat up, wincing at the pain in his leg. Sounds came again from the other room. He recognized them now; Sam was throwing up.

Dean stopped and lay back down, groaning again as he lowered himself carefully on to the broken bed.

The door opened, Sam was there, haggard looking, dark circles under his eyes.

"Dude, you look like crap."

"Should take a look in the mirror. At least I'm on my feet."

"Barely."

The brothers looked at each other for a second. A hint of a smile crossed Dean's lips, "Thanks."

"Welcome. Just don't break it open, I sure as hell don't want to go through that again. You've been unconscious for over an hour, and every time I think about what I did, well… you heard."

Sam still looked a bit green, Dean knowing that if he had been in the same situation, if he had been forced to do the same to Sammy, he'd probably feel just as sick. He tried to lighten the moment.

"Gee, I'll keep that in mind, Doctor Gargantula!"

"Bite me."

Dean half grinned, half winced.

Sam sighed as he dropped into the other bed, comforted in the knowledge that Dean would be okay having warded off any possible infection. Sleep catching him almost instantly.

Dean lay staring at the ceiling, thinking. Thinking about the pain he had seen in his little brother's eyes.

He sighed, tired beyond belief. As he drifted off his last thoughts were of the ghost he was going to roast and toast as soon as he could gimp around and of his gangly little brother, who he would give his own soul for, and knew he shared something with that fucking ghost. Love.

Okay, too corny? Let me know the verdict, and remember, they aren't mine. I just borrow them from time to time.