Title: In the Long Run
Fandom: Supernatural
Rating/Warning/Notes: Gen. Rated PG-13 for language. Apocalyptic!fic. Angst. 3,096 words.
Written for the h/c meme at spn_hurtcomfort here in which the ever so talented roque_clasique asked for "Dean with a limp! Or anything where Dean has a permanently injured leg and can't walk well and it makes him sad." And then she went ahead and polished it up for posting, too!
Disclaimer: No copyright infringement intended. No money is made out of this.
Summary: Dean has to go and break his leg in the middle of the damn apocalypse.



In the Long Run
by Steffi

Dean has the best timing ever, no kidding. Or yeah, kidding, because seriously, Dean has the worst timing in the world. Probably in the entire universe. You’d think that thirty years would give him enough time to screw up his leg and have it be set in a hospital afterwards to make a full recovery.

No.

Dean has to go and break his leg in the middle of the damn apocalypse. Just after all hospitals have been stripped clear of medication by people just as desperate as Sam is.

Dean breaks his leg during a particularly nasty earthquake. One minute he’s trying to hold on to the ground beside Sam and the next moment, he’s vanished into an abyss that wasn’t there before. Sam screams, tries to see, but Dean remains hidden behind a wall of dust and dirt. Sam coughs, and digs his fingers into the soil.

After the shaking earth calms down and the fog sets, he spots his brother. Dean’s about ten feet below him, not too much further, thank God, and he yells something at Sam that Sam doesn’t understand. Because Sam is busy staring at Dean’s left leg, which seems to be at a very weird angle, an angle that shouldn’t by rights be possible…

The leg is broken. Thankfully the bone hasn’t penetrated the flesh, but there are no doctors and medication, no x-rays and scans that can tell him how bad the injury really is. There are only improvised splints made of planks that Sam uses to set Dean’s leg. He use s the last bit of alcohol they carry with them to disinfect the wound and to get Dean drunk enough so the setting will hurt less—and still Dean winces and groans as the leg snaps back into its old position. There’s no way of telling whether Sam has managed to position the fractured bones so they will connect and heal, though.

Dean’s lying on rotting straw in the ruins of some old barn, pale face and dark freckles. He doesn’t even notice when Sam pushes back on his feet and stumbles outside. Dean is too occupied trying to endure the pain and pretend it’s not hurting at all.

Sam wipes sweat from his forehead as he steps outside and glances up at the starless night. Then he bends over, and throws up.

Of course, that is not the end of it. Because Dean has to do things properly, he runs a fever for eight days after that. The wound is infected, the bones not healing like they should. Sam doesn’t sleep during that time, snaps awake from naps only to press a wet towel against Dean’s neck. Sam had long since given up praying, but he prays for that entire week.

***

He keeps Dean in bed for a month, ordering him to rest and let the leg heal. At first Dean doesn’t protest much because he’s too weak and spends most of the time asleep anyway. Sam goes out to find food and more water, and that turns into a tricky thing when he has to venture in greater cycles to find bread or berries or vegetables while Dean is getting restless and insists on coming along. Sam still goes on his own eventually, but he never knows what stupid thing Dean will do next when Sam’s not there.

Sam’s not there, for example, when Dean tries to stand up the first time, but when he returns one day—a few berries and some carrots in his bag—he finds his brother on the bed of straw, panting, face pulled into a grimace.

“Shit, Dean, what did you do?”

“Gonna need crutches,” Dean says.
***

They’re miles from the next town and an old barn isn’t a place where people typically store crutches. But Sam finds tools, a hammer and a saw and some rusty nails. So they take apart the divider that separates the boxes for the horses that used to live here, and Sam builds Dean an appliance that can at least be used as crutches.

Walking hurts him like a bitch, even if his bad leg doesn’t even touch the ground, but Sam knows his brother too well to expect an admission.

“We gotta get goin’,” Dean says. He’s limping up and down the barn with his makeshift crutches, a fine layer of sweat on his forehead. “We gotta find out if Bobby’s still alive.”

Dean’s right, of course he is. Phones won’t work, nothing that needs electricity to run works. The streets are torn and blocked with chunks of solid rock. They’ve got to walk the distance and Sam’s figured that it will take them about a week if they follow the interstates. Or it would take them one week if both of them were healthy with fully cooperative legs. No way Dean can make that distance.

But when Sam tells him that all that Dean replies is, “The longer we wait, the higher chances are Bobby will leave his house behind to find other survivors. He won’t wait to see if we show up forever, if he waits at all. If he’s still…”

And that’s that.

***

The first day, Dean makes it for three miles before his strength leaves him and he collapses. His good leg just buckles and Sam catches him right in time before Dean falls hard and screws up his leg even more.

He’d seen it coming for the past mile. The crutches had been shaking violently, the steps becoming shorter and less steady. Dean tried to hide it, but his lips were two thin lines and his eyes were fixed on the ground before him as if that would be enough to keep him on his feet.

“Dean, you gotta take a break,” Sam says. Dean eases down on what’s left of the road, and shakes his head.

“No time,” he pants.

“Your leg—“

Dean shakes his head. “No.”

They rest for a while, and Dean keeps quiet. Above them storm clouds gather, but he doesn’t seem to notice. His eyes are fixed on something in the distance, something that Sam can’t see.

They make it another mile in the afternoon before they find an abandoned motel that hasn’t been wrecked by the shaking earth. Dean wants to keep moving, even though his shirt is soaked in sweat, but Sam argues that it could be miles until they find another place to sit out the nearing thunderstorm, and reluctantly Dean agrees. His head has barely hit the pillows when he’s already asleep.

Sam doesn’t have a map, but he internalised the freeways and interstates a long time ago, and before his inner eye now unfolds the net of roads and highways, and he goes over it again and again trying to find a faster way to get to Bobby’s place.

There isn’t.

***

It takes Dean three more days of limping, of tumbling and tripping and trying to catch his breath, of falling behind and willing himself to continue until he suggests for the first time that Sam should leave him behind.

“I’m just slowing you down,” he slurs. He’s propped up against the trunk of a burnt tree, eyes closed. His broken leg is stiff, and Sam never sees Dean attempting to bend it, let alone put weight on it. It’s got to be hurting like crazy even when Dean doesn’t do anything, even when he’s just sitting down. Sam knew it was too early, and he knows he is not a doctor and the things that may have gone wrong setting the leg scare the crap out of him.

“I’m not leaving you behind.” Sam peels out of his shirt and props it in the curve of Dean’s neck as a pillow.

“You could come back again later.” The words come out as an exhausted sigh. Sam puts the back of his hand against Dean’s cheek, and the skin is cool and clammy.

“Just shut up.”

“I mean it,” Dean breathes. “I’m just…” His voice trails off, and it takes a moment until he picks up the sentence. “I can try to follow. Meet you halfway. But…I can’t…I’m slowing you down.”

“Dean.” It’s a half annoyed, half defeated sound. Sam eases down on the ground next to his brother until their shoulders are touching. Wind ruffles Sam’s hair. He hasn’t combed it in weeks. Tried to wash it, every now and then, but the only things he carries in his rucksack are a few weapons, a few clothes, and pictures. And Dad’s journal. That’s it. It’s all he could save.

“Sammy…”

“I’m not leaving you here. Alone. With that leg, okay?”

“Nobody’s here,” Dean argues and that’s true. They haven’t seen people or any creature really in a long time. A few bodies, here and there, but Sam would have expected long caravans of refugees. Hordes of demons. But there’s no one.

“It’s either both of us or neither,” Sam says. He waits for Dean to answer, but exhaustion has claimed his brother. His head sinks against Sam’s shoulder. And Sam, because he’s so damn tired, tilts his head so that it rests against Dean’s, and closes his eyes.

***

“It’s not healing right,” Dean says one day, out of the blue and in a voice so tiny that Sam’s not even sure it’s really Dean talking.

“What do you mean?”

Another roadside motel. Empty, as all of them. But at least there are still some canned goods in the storage room, so that night they eat the healthiest they have in a while. They’ve been going for ten days, and they’ve almost put half of the distance past them.

Dean tries, he really does. But there is only so much pain his body can take before it collapses. With each day, the time span between Dean setting out and Dean having to take a break and sleep the pain off grows shorter. He’s exhausted and going on the last bits of his strength, they both know it, but Dean refuses to quit.

“It feels weird.” Dean shrugs. He digs the spoon into the ravioli half-heartedly. They have to eat all food cold, because the stove isn’t working and Sam doesn’t want to set the motel on fire. “Like…they’re not growing together. The bones.”

“Shit.”

“It’s gonna be screwed up forever.”

Sam watches his brother as he pushes the ravioli around in the can without taking a bite. Dean’s lost weight—well, hey both have. But Dean’s already using up the last reserves of his strength, and he is constantly exhausted, and shit, he needs to eat or—

“You don’t know that.”

“No?” Dean laughs bitterly. “What are you gonna do? Break the leg again and set it new? Doctors can do that, but as far as I can tell, there are no doctors around. Anywhere.”

“It might still heal,” Sam says with the defiance of someone who knows there is no hope, and hopes just because.

Dean shakes his head and releases a sharp sigh. “No, it’s not.”

He puts the can aside without having taken a bite, and pulls his bad leg up on the bed with a hiss. It doesn’t even bend a little, even with the splint off. Dean mutters something about taking a nap and Sam mutters something about Dean finishing his meal first, but Dean’s already asleep.

***

Five days later, the fever’s back. After three-quarters of the way, his body finally gives in under the strain that Dean has put himself through. He goes to bed one night, and doesn’t wake up the next morning.

Sam has no pain killers. No antibiotics. Nothing to bring the fever down but water. He places wet towels on Dean’s neck and on his forehead. He talks, mutters, coaxes Dean into waking up. He pours drops of water into his brother’s mouth, rubbing Dean’s throat so that he’ll swallow the liquid. He doesn’t sleep, knows that he should, but he can’t. He needs to stay awake, needs to monitor Dean’s fever.

Fevers shouldn’t be like that, shouldn’t threaten to take everything that you’ve got left away from you. It should be treatable with pills, it should be nasty but it should be okay in the end. Give him a sleepless night or two but with the knowledge deep down inside that everything will be fine. This here, though, is some fucked up new reality where all it takes to rip his brother away from him is a fever.

The fever spikes in the late afternoon and again the day after in the evening. Dean’s semi-conscious in the moments between when the fever ebbs away just to wash over him again, stronger.

When Dean is aware of his surroundings, he begs. Begs Sam to just leave him here, let him die. He can’t fight with his leg like this, he’s only going to get Sam killed because he makes such easy prey. He’s slowing Sam down, and the leg hurts so much, so fucking much.

“Please, Sam,” he whispers. His voice sounds raw and broken, his eyes shine like glass. “Just leave me here. Go. Find others. Find Bobby.”

Sam shakes his head, bites his lip and tries hard not to cry. Dean’s fingers fumble for the collar of his shirt, for his wrists, anything he can hold onto. “Please.”

“No,” Sam manages to get out. “No.”

A sound that might be a sob escapes Dean’s lips. His fingers loosen their grip, sink back on the mattress.

“I’m sorry, Dean,” Sam says. “I’m sorry, but I can’t.”

***

Dean never talks about those days when he was delirious enough to admit defeat and beg Sam to just let him die there. He pretends it never happened, but he grows even quieter after that. When Sam talks to him he answers in short one-word sentences. He’s still shaky on his feet, but it’s like he has decided he won’t let that stop him. He marches on stubbornly, as if the constant pain has numbed him so much he doesn’t notice anymore.

Sam attempts to slow him down, but Dean won’t have it.

“You’re just going to catch another fever,” Sam says.

“No I won’t,” Dean replies, as if that statement alone makes it true. He keeps going as if his life depends on getting to Bobby’s place as quickly as possible. He stumbles, trips, but that doesn’t slow him down. He ignores these hick-ups and keeps on walking, and Sam really doesn’t know where the sudden burst of energy comes from.

Bobby’s house has survived the earthquakes, but there are cracks in the walls and the lower bathroom is flooded. Bobby’s not there. Looks like he hasn’t been for a few months.

“We didn’t miss him,” Sam says. “He was gone long before we set out.”

Dean nods, like he doesn’t really believe it but nods out of courtesy.

He drops on the old couch with a sigh and curls up, his head sinking into the soft pillows. He falls asleep instantly, and even though it’s only noon he doesn’t wake up until the next morning. Maybe he borrowed strength that he didn’t have, Sam thinks, and needs to pay it back now. He feels his brother’s forehead but it’s cool, and Dean’s breath is coming in steady draws. He’s not sick. Just really, really exhausted. Sam curls up on the floor beside him, and sleeps too.

Dean is strangely at ease the next day. He eats well enough, picks up little conversations with Sam and seems to be perfectly fine just resting on the couch for a while. He even smiles at little, occasionally nods to himself like this here is just right, like this is what gave him the strength to walk those last few of miles.
“This is good,” he says in the afternoon. Outside it’s growing dark rapidly, and Sam rummages through the cupboards and cabinets to find some candles. He turns around, glances over his shoulder and Dean is nothing but a shadow in the dim light.

“What is?”

“This.” Sam sees his brother making a broad gesture. “I can stay here.”

“We can,” Sam corrects him.

“Yeah.” He doesn’t sound convinced. There’s more. “Sam,” he adds hoarsely. “I…”

He stops, lost for words, but far be it from Sam to prompt him. He knows what his stubborn ass of a brother’s going to say anyway. Dean’s probably been waiting for the dark all day long so that he won’t have to look Sam in the eye when he gets the words out of his system.

“I know you want to fight,” Dean finally forces out. “I know you want to be in that war, on the right side. Fighting. And they need you, too. You know it.”

Sam listens. Doesn’t say anything. In the dark, he sees Dean shift uncomfortably.

“Just…this place is good. Safe. I can stay downstairs. I can sleep here. I’ll be fine.”

“What if you get sick again?” The tone of his voice surprises as much as it scares him. When did he start sounding like a terrified four-year old? “What if demons come? What if there’s another earthquake?”

Dean stays quiet, so Sam continues. “I’m not gonna leave you here so you can put a bullet to your head.”

Silence. Long, suffocating silence. Then Dean’s voice, tiny.

“It hurts so much, Sam. So fucking much. And I’m useless now. Can’t fight. Can’t even walk on my own. Just…shit, Sam. Let me do this for you.”

The worst part about it is that in his screwed-up mind, Dean actually thinks he’d be doing Sam a favour. In the darkness, Sam fumbles his way back to the couch. He wishes he could toss something around, just throw some damn plates against the wall. If he could, he’d scream at Dad. “Look. Look what you’ve done to him!” Instead, he wordlessly helps Dean back into a lying position, and Dean, who seems tired all of a sudden, lets it happen. Sam props him up against pillows and helps him get the stiff leg on the couch. He puts cushions under the leg and Dean sighs heavily.

“This…the apocalypse? It’s not going to last forever. Our side is going to win. Somehow, they will. And then everything will be better. We will rebuild everything. And your leg will be better too. You’ve got to hold out until then.”

“Sam—“

But Sam doesn’t let him finish. “It will get better. You’ll see.”

A moment passes, before Dean briefly nods. “Okay,” he says. “Okay.”

-end-