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Bile rises in the back of his throat, and Sam is pretty sure he pukes on himself.
Strong hands tip him to the side so he at least doesn’t add choking on his own vomit as part of his pathetic display, and in his daze, Sam plucks gratitude from his currently scant mental resources.
He coughs weakly and tries to sit up, or at least what he thinks might be up, because he can’t really tell with the way everything is spinning. His head is pounding, like someone is chiseling cement in there, and when he manages to force his eyes open he can’t see past the brightly colored spots dancing across his vision.
“Easy, bud. Just stay down for a minute, she cracked your gourd pretty good.”
A voice joins the hands, familiar, stern but gentle, and Sam has no trouble recognizing it as Dean’s despite the ache buffeting his head.
Sam groans, reaching a shaky hand to probe said “gourd" for damage. It comes away sticky with blood.
He wracks his battered, throbbing brain as to how he ended up lying here with what is, undoubtedly, another concussion, and where here even is. When he can finally blink the stars out of his eyes, he’s looking up at a dusty, dilapidated ceiling, and his brother’s worried face.
Ah. Right. Hunting. Vengeful spirit.
“D’we get her?” Sam slurs.
“For now.” Dean frowns, casting furtive glances around the dark room. “Pumped her full of rock salt. Not before she split your forehead open, though.”
Sam winces, slowly recalling the ghostly woman’s apparition hurling ornate, derelict furniture across the room at him. One of those hits evidently landed.
“Wha’s the plan?” Sam asks, trying with minimal success to get his arms underneath him and push himself up.
Dean’s there right away with a steadying grip on his arm.
“Right now,” Dean says, with a tip of his head towards Sam, “the plan is to get you the hell out of dodge. We’ll regroup, come back another night.”
“What? No,” Sam argues, squeezing his eyes shut and pressing his hand to his temple against the new wave of dizziness that sitting up has brought up.
“You’re hurt. We’re leaving. That’s it,” Dean says, in his best no-arguments Dad-voice.
Sam sighs. He doesn’t want to be the reason they pause the hunt, but the pounding in his head isn’t getting any better, and he knows Dean is right. Sam will only be a liability if they’re still here when the spirit comes back.
“Come on,” Dean tells him. He grabs Sam’s clammy hands and steps lightly on the toes of Sam’s boots, using the leverage to haul him upright.
Standing up, Sam feels every ounce of blood drain from his face, the vertigo increasing tenfold, and he fights not to black out, swallowing back nausea and lightheadedness. He topples towards Dean, nearly doubled over, and Dean just takes his weight in stride, slinging one of Sam’s arms across his shoulders and wrapping his own arm around Sam’s hip.
“I got you, Sammy,” Dean murmurs, guiding him towards the exit and holding him up when Sam trips over his own uncoordinated feet.
It’s dark outside, too, not even the moon shining through the clouds to cut through the pitch black of the middle of the night. Dean leads them to the car and carefully deposits Sam in the passenger seat, making sure his arms and legs are safely tucked inside before shutting the door.
Sam grimaces, the noise grating on his sensitive…well, senses. He rests his forehead against the cool glass of the window.
Dean must double back for their gear inside the old, abandoned house, because the car doors open and close twice more and the duffle of weapons and salt rattles in the backseat.
“How you doin’?” Dean asks him as the engine rumbles to life.
“Peachy,” Sam mumbles, keeping his answers short because Dean would probably kill him if he threw up in the car, and the more he talks, the higher the risk.
Dean huffs. “How bad’s the head? Hospital bad, or sleep it off, bad?”
“Sleep it off.” Sam’s familiar enough with getting injured to know what can be handled in the motel room and when they need to call in the big guns.
“Okay. You hurt anywhere else?”
“No.”
Dean seems satisfied with that, and he puts the car in drive, switching the radio as low as it will go without being completely off. Sam’s raging headache is thankful for the reprieve, and he curls deeper into the seat, shivering slightly. It’s not that cold of a night, but his body’s all out of whack after the knock to the head.
He must fall asleep or pass out at some point during the drive, because when he comes to, they’re parked outside the motel and it’s started to rain outside, big, fat drops sliding down the Impala’s windows.
Dean is shaking his knee lightly. “Wake up, Sammy.”
“‘M’wake,” Sam mutters, very convincingly. He swats uselessly at Dean’s hand.
That same hand is helping him out of the car moments later, and Dean half carries him to their room.
He avoids puking again, but it’s a near thing, and he keeps a queasy death grip on the sleeve of Dean’s jacket to ground himself even after he’s lowered to sit on the edge of his bed, shivering full force now from the rain.
“Let’s get you cleaned up,” Dean says softly.
Sam stares numbly at the floor as he’s relieved of his boots, belt, overshirt, and wet jacket, which is quickly replaced with a blanket wrapped around his shoulders.
“Wait here,” Dean instructs, as if Sam even has the faculties right now to do anything else.
He returns a minute later with a flimsy plastic cup from the bathroom filled with water, and two pills. Sam doesn’t ask what they are, doesn’t much care, just does as he’s told and swallows them, trusting that Dean knows what he’s doing.
Dean disappears again and comes back with Sam’s toothbrush this time, loaded with a frankly obscene amount of toothpaste. Sam is touched, to know that Dean knows, and remembered, how much he hates the gross aftertaste of losing his lunch. He brushes his teeth slowly, letting Dean prop him up again whenever he lists to the side. He spits in the cup, lets Dean take that and the toothbrush away, and this time he reappears with a washcloth and starts dabbing at the side of Sam’s head, cleaning away blood and grime.
Sam hisses when he makes contact with the wound, and Dean cups the other side of his head to hold him steady.
“Almost done, Sammy,” he says.
“Sam,” Sam corrects him, not because he even really cares right now, but because he needs some semblance of control now that he’s not only botched their hunt, but is also sitting here having Dean look after him like a baby.
“There,” Dean says, either ignoring or ignorant to Sam’s inner conflict. “Better?”
Sam’s still feeling pretty lousy, but he nods anyway, only to regret the motion a second later when it sets everything spinning again. He groans, and the next thing he knows, Dean’s poking and prodding at him until he’s lying down.
Dean sits next to him on the bed, gently pushing Sam’s hair out of his face, and Sam can’t help the soft sigh that escapes him. God, he’s pathetic.
“Sorry,” Sam mumbles.
Dean doesn’t answer him, at least not directly, just says, “When you’re feeling better, we’ll go gank that bitch for good, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Good. Now get some sleep.”
Dean doesn’t get up and leave right away like Sam is expecting him to, instead leaning back against the headboard to watch over him a little longer. Despite his earlier thoughts about being babied, Sam is silently grateful for the closeness. He’ll probably blame the clinginess on the head wound later, but it’s nice being with his brother again, being protected, cared for. Loved.
It reminds him that when his dreams at Stanford went up in flames, he didn’t lose everything.