Dean x Reader254Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4I5stRy1Tg
Warnings: angst, severe injury254Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXzqOsIQ2MD
Summary: Sam and Dean try to figure out what caused Y/N to crash the Impala so horribly as she tried to cope with the consequences.254Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGwn3OBmCP9
254Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6GOSOwSs7R
Sam was seated to your right, still holding gently to the two fingers you had free from sensors on that hand. Dean was at your left, elbows leaning on the edge of your bed, chair pulled right up next to you. His fingers were folded together and someone who didn’t know him might have thought he was praying. His eyes were continuously flickering up to your face and then tearing away again, finding the bloody, bruised version of you on the pillow too painful to focus on.
You were awake, but only one eye could open, the other too swollen to be of any use. You stared up at the ceiling, feeling worn from the pain all over your body already, despite only having been conscious for a short time. Finally, a doctor came in, grabbing your chart off the end of the bed.
”I’m so glad to see that you’re awake, Y/N,” he said, flipping through the pages in your file.
Dean looked over at the doctor, gulping down the constriction in his throat that was making it hard to breathe as best as he could. It made no difference. The tightness extended across his chest too; a by-product of his anger about what had happened to you, and confusion, and anxiety. He was still blaming himself. He shouldn’t have handed you those keys.
”How am I looking?” you choked out as best you could through scratchiness in your throat.
”Better than expected–“ he hesitated, looking up from the chart and from Sam to Dean.
Dean sensed the doctor’s hesitation to speak. It made him extremely uneasy. “Whatever you need to say you can say in front of us,” he said. “Right, Y/N?” He put a hand gently on your knee.
You looked at it there, his hand on your leg, for a long moment, tempted to furrow your brow again but remembering the unpleasant pull on the staples in your head it had caused earlier. You caught Dean’s eyes and frowned a little at him. “It’s alright. You and Sam should go get some coffee. And bring me some juice. I’ll be OK.”
”Are you sure?” Dean pressed. “I don’t really—“
”It’s ok, Dean. Just go take a walk or something for a minute. You need it,” you said, looking at the strained expression on his face. “Get some coffee, maybe Irish coffee, and I’ll see you in a few.”
Dean still didn’t want to leave, but he couldn’t refuse you, broken as you were. He nodded at you and finally agreed with a hesitant and gruff “alright.”
You turned towards Sam to meet his gaze and gave him a smile that only tugged up one corner of your mouth. “Bring me some apple juice?” you said. Sam nodded and gave your fingers a gentle squeeze before heading towards the door, brow deeply lined, and glancing back at you when he reached the threshold.
Dean’s hand was still resting securely on your knee. Finally, with a final glance at your swollen and beaten face, he stood with a heavy sigh and followed Sam out the door.
You waited until you heard their voices and soft footsteps fade down the hall before you turned back to look wearily out of your one open eye at the doctor. “Something is wrong with my legs.”
_ _ _ _ _ _
Sam and Dean wandered around the hospital, finally finding the cafeteria on the floor below. They were silent for most of the walk, neither even knowing where to begin, but as they finally sat down at one of the small tables with hands clutched around the small foam cups they looked at each other.
”What do you think?” Sam asked.
Dean shook his head, still feeling sick to his stomach. “I don’t know. But this is Y/N. And if she says something strange was going on, then something strange was definitely going on.”
Sam nodded, looking into the dark liquid swirling in his cup. “We need to take a look at the Impala. See if there is sulfur or EMF.”
Dean nodded stiffly. “Yeah. I’ll call Bobby and see if he can come down and tow it for us. I’m not leaving this hospital until we know for sure how Y/N is doing. Something about that doctor… I don’t know.”
Sam nodded, his midsection feeling empty. He couldn’t get your bruised face out of his head and how helpless you looked with so many wires and lines connected to you, like without them you’d run out of power. “You know she’s gonna try and send us home.”
”I know. Not happening,” Dean said, getting to his feet. “I’ll get her apple juice and then let's head back up. That doctor has had enough time to talk to her alone.”
_ _ _ _ _ _
They turned the last corner into the hall where your room was, Dean, clutching the little bottle of apple juice, which looked small in his hand. They walked again in silence, both of them wondering what kind of news waited for them when they got back to you. As they approached the door to your room a nurse was leaving and quietly shutting the door behind her.
She held her hands up to stop them and blocked the doorway. “Now isn’t really a good time for visitors,” she said, frowning.
”What do you mean?” Sam’s heart was pounding suddenly.
”She just needs some time—“
”Lady. That girl in there is a family. So whatever the hell is going on, we need to know about it. And we need to be there for her. She’s not going through this alone.” The nurse looked chastised at his stern tone but was still hesitant. “Now please… get the hell out of the way,” Dean said. He had no patience right now and his only thought was that you were alone in that hospital room, bruised and broken, trying to bear the weight of the consequences of the crash on your own.
Finally, the nurse stepped aside and Dean pushed through the door, Sam at his heels.
You heard them come in but keeping your face turned away, not wanting them to see your tear-stained cheeks and red nose. You knew it wouldn’t take long though for them to realize that you were emotionally much worse off now than you had been when they left you with the doctor. You stared at the curtains closed over the window and sank into the numb feeling that was overwhelming you. Dean set the apple juice down on the little table by your bed.
”What’d the doctor have to say?” he asked, again sitting in the chair at your side. Sam was standing next to him. You kept your face turned away and made no sign that you intended to answer. “Y/N?” Dean felt the lurch in his stomach, which was now becoming all too familiar.
Next to him Sam gulped and exchanged a harried look with Dean. “What did he say?” Sam asked quietly.
You closed your eyes tight, a tear leaking out from underneath one of your eyelids, and forced in an audibly shaky breath. “My legs,” you started, intending to rush through it at once but stalling out immediately.
Dean felt frozen. He swore his heart stopped. He swore every muscle ceased to move, and neurons stopped firing, cells stopped dividing, lungs stopped breathing.
Sam felt the emptiness in his chest spread down to the tips of his fingers. He suddenly felt like he wasn’t even present in his own body. “Y/N…” he whispered.
You finally turned to gaze at them, tears flowing out more quickly as soon as you looked blearily at their faces, pale and afraid and anxious. “The swelling in my brain. I’ve lost motor control for my legs. I still have some sensation, the broken one actually hurts a lot… but I—I can’t move them.”
The room reeled and Dean grabbed onto the bed rail to steady himself as his eyes went wide and his mouth fell slightly open, uncomprehending how any of this could actually be true, could have actually come to pass. Had it only been a day or two ago when you had both been racing to the Impala as you left the bar, challenging and goading each other at the shooting range, laughing, smiling, bright and vibrant? Now you were this broken body on a hospital bed, still the same fundamentally but also completely changed.
Sam was suddenly stuttering, trying to remember everything he had ever learned in school, or even read, that could change what you just said and somehow make it not so scary or so true. “But the swelling in your brain, I mean, once that’s gone, once you heal, you’ll be fine, right?” He looked desperately at you. “Right?” he was asking you for reassurance, and even as he did it he knew it should be the other way around. He was supposed to be there to be strong for you, to reassure you, but the desperation in his voice was all too consuming.
You looked sadly up at Sam and managed to speak only in whispers now. “Not necessarily, Sam. They don’t know for sure. But the damage to my nervous system could be permanent,” and voicing this brought more tears flowing down your cheeks. “They don’t know yet.” You shut your eyes against the tears, leaning back into the pillow. Dean had been silent so far, but you heard the chair scrape against the floor as he stood up abruptly.
Sam looked at his brother and saw that his hands were shaking. “Dean—“
You opened your eyes in time to see him start to stalk towards the door. Sam called to him again and he faltered a little, but as his eyes landed back on your face, locking with yours, again seeing the one swollen shut and the other glistening with a sheen of tears, he lost it. The staples in your head were too much. The cuts and nicks all over your skin were too much, looking like frays and rips in delicate silk. Your broken leg in a cast was too much. You being unable to walk was too much. He swallowed hard and bit back the hot flood of tears to his own eyes. He suddenly seized hold of a nearby metal cart and with a frustrated, terrified, helpless, angry yell hurled it down against the wall and floor, sending clattering metal ringing against the tile and sterile packages of useless medical supplies scattering across the foot of your bed. He ran a shaking hand over his face, pressing it hard into his forehead, too scared to look at you and see your reaction and still feeling too out of control. He kicked the swinging door to your room open with the toe of his boot and burst into the hallway.
Dean hadn’t seen the flinch and pained expression on your face. The pain at that moment was not corporeal but instead the result of his reaction; pain at how you knew he was hurting on your behalf, probably tearing himself up with guilt all because he had leaned you the car, handed you the keys.
Sam cast you an unreadable look, grabbed and gently squeezed your hand quickly. He let it slip from between his fingers and pursued Dean out into the hallway, stepping carefully over the debris left in his wake.
Dean’s breathing was too ragged and he began to feel lightheaded. He sank down onto an empty hospital bed against the wall in the hallway, cradling his head in his hands, trying his damndest to stop any of the stinging tears from falling. He felt like he had no control over anything. He sensed Sam standing in front of him suddenly and didn’t look up, sniffing hard instead as the tears finally bested him and dripped out, landing onto his worn jeans and staining them with dark droplets.
”Save it alright, Sam,” he said, still just staring down at his elbows resting on his knees, and digging his fingers into his scalp as he cradled his head in his hands. “I know that wasn’t helpful.”
Sam didn’t say anything and only sat down on the bed next to his brother, clasping his hands together between his knees. He heaved a heavy sigh and looked up at the ceiling, trying to convince himself that breathing deeply would steady him. Sam felt like there was a hot poker in his chest, stuck upwards between his lungs. He reached a hand up and rubbed at it to no effect. “Move forward,” he murmured quietly, his voice sounding flimsy and weak as he also tried to fight off despair and denial. “That’s all we can do.”
Dean gritted his teeth, nodding a little stiffly and passing his hands over his face again, staring up at the opposite wall. “How the hell do we do that?” he asked, his voice even deeper and more gruff than usual.
Sam glanced over at his brother, frowning and furrowing his brow at the tormented and strained look evident on Dean’s face. “We start with the car. And we help Y/N get through this as best we can. But to do that,” he swallowed, a little hesitant to voice his next thought, “you’re going to have to stop blaming yourself for this.”
Dean hung his head again. “I can’t, Sammy,” he whispered. “I had a bad feeling. I knew. And I ignored it. How am I supposed to let that go when Y/N might be—“ his voice broke and he pressed his hands to his face, shaking his head.
Sam knit his brow more deeply, drawing his eyebrows down and together, struggling to find the right words to make Dean understand. “If you can’t do it for you, do it for Y/N. She’s going to need you whole to get through this thing.”
Dean set his jaw and swallowed hard. How could he be whole when you weren’t?
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