Previously appeared in Ouch! 19 (2007), from Neon Rainbow Press

Lessons in White
K Hanna Korossy

Sam Winchester unlocked the motel room door, swung it open hard enough for it to smack the wall behind it, then disappeared from the doorway.

A minute later he was back, two feet lugging four feet's worth of weight, Dean heavy against his side and shoulder. He kicked back with one foot to shut the door behind them, balancing frantically for that second, then started forward momentum again.

He skirted Dean's bed—and that next-to-the-door thing was starting to become as much for shorter distance to cross when wounded as it was to protect Sam—and headed for his own because the kitchenette was on that side. And they had some serious cleaning up to do.

"Okay, we're here, Dean. Just a few more minutes and you can sleep," he promised breathlessly, and tried to ease more than drop his brother onto the edge of the bed. "Okay?"

"Yeah," Dean muttered, staying roughly upright only because he was curled forward on himself, center of gravity perched between dirt-brown bedspread and mud-brown rug. He was just conscious enough to know falling either way would hurt—well, hurt worse—and Sam was counting on him staying that way a few more seconds.

He began pulling off sodden clothing. The water was tepid, the temperature outside flirting with the sixties, but gooseflesh appeared wherever skin was exposed, and Dean started trembling. Which was really what they needed on top of the blood loss and bruising.

"Hang on, man," Sam soothed automatically. "I'm almost finished."

Three layers of shirts on the floor were soon buried under socks, two knives, a switchblade, and a small handgun, jeans that were crusted and stiffened with red-stained mud, and boxers. Only the amulet, its shine dulled with grime, stayed, because that was the one nakedness Dean would not tolerate.

He was starting to sway now, cold seeping away the last of his strength even faster. Sam grabbed his shoulders and lowered him down to the bedspread before he fell. "Okay, just rest a minute," he murmured. He snagged the covers from the other bed and covered his brother, tucking it in around Dean's back and legs. "I'll be right back."

To the bathroom for washcloths, the duffel for the first aid kit, the kitchenette for warm water in a bowl. Sam shucked his own wet jacket as he returned to the bedside. His own shivers weren't because of cold.

"Dean? I have to stop the bleeding, all right?" Sam was careful to announce each step and move slowly, because he knew better than to assume Dean was helpless, even half-unconscious. Dean jumbled out something vaguely permissive and peeved, but he was trying to relax, to still the shudders of reaction. For Sam's sake, and he really wished sometimes his brother didn't try so hard, but it was who Dean was.

Just like these injuries. Sam drew the blanket back to reveal only the parts he needed to get to. First Dean's side, because that wound had seemed the deepest, and he winced at the oozing punctures. The bunyip had snagged Sam's jacket, and Dean had instantly appeared at his side to whack the thing in the face. The creature hadn't taken too kindly to that, its next bite snagging Dean. Thankfully, the fang-marks were right over the hip, not sinking into internal organs, or they would have really been in trouble. But the teeth had scraped bone and left deep gouges in the flesh, and they probably hurt as bad as they looked.

Sam worried his lip as he carefully washed off the area around the wounds, then rinsed them out with fresh water, towels bunched to catch the run-off. Dean bucked once, his breath a hiss between locked teeth, and Sam curled a hand around his brother's shoulder for a moment. "Sorry, sorry," he said softly, then because that wasn't what Dean would want to hear, "Did it ever occur to you you're not a chew toy, Dean?"

"Shuddup." There was also a "Sammy" and a few highly unrepeatable words, and it made him grin. He circled Dean's wrist with his fingers, waited until his fist unclenched, and wrapped it around soft bedclothes instead. Dean had lost enough blood without Sam having to clean up half-moons of fingernail marks in his palm, too. He went back to the torn flesh on the hip, pressing on it until the sluggish bleeding stopped, then spreading it with antibiotic cream and covering it with taped gauze

Sam changed the water and moved on to the scratches on Dean's chest. The bunyip's bite had been followed by a lunge, and once more Sam had found a human obstacle between himself and the threat. And then Dean had found an arboreal obstacle between himself and the ground as the creature had slammed him into a tree.

"I had a gun, Dean. I wasn't exactly helpless," he complained under his breath, because he really had been ready to shoot the thing in the maw when Dean had taken it upon himself to intervene.

Dean sighed, head turning on the pillow. "Just…" His whole body flinched. "…do it, Sam." Even if he understood, he wouldn't listen. Sam being in danger equaled a need for desperate measures. It was the way it had always been, and would always be, no matter how good Sam had become at self-defense.

He shook his head, wiping away mud and half-dried blood, then eyeing the damage critically. Those scrapes had been through two layers of clothing, and the wounds were clean of debris. Just the pervasive dirt, and Sam cleaned gently without washing out this time, trying to take it easy. Dean's breath still hitched and rasped, but he didn't buckle away from Sam again, and that was something.

Man, he was cleaning Dean's injuries in a motel room and judging severity by how much his stoic brother writhed from the pain. Sometimes the twistedness of their lifestyle just hit home all over again.

More antibiotic cream, another layer of white. They'd have to restock the gauze soon at this rate, either lifting it from the next hospital one of them landed in or swiping it more conventionally from the next pharmacy they passed. Dean rarely paid for anything unless it was at a mom-and-pop place where the small business owners would suffer. He had his own strange code of ethics.

Sam changed the water again. "I'm going to turn you on your side, Dean—try to relax." He stood and leaned over for leverage, and lifted with soft motions at hip and shoulder. Dean groaned, but it was necessary to get to the long, deep gouges that crossed his back. Those Sam really had needed saving from; while Dean tried to recover from his meeting with the tree, Sam had taken over the attack. He'd managed to injure the bunyip, but it just made the creature mad. One hard butt from its head had sent Sam's shotgun flying, and the blunted but massive claws had just started swinging toward him when—surprise, surprise—he was tackled from the side by leather and testosterone. He'd felt Dean jerk as the claws had grazed his back instead. Thank God it was under the coat, because the destruction of his beloved leather jacket really would have been a mortal wound. As it was, Sam singsonged, "Almost there, just take it easy, almost there," as he flushed out the bloody scores—no telling what was on a bunyip's claws—and treated and taped and wrapped them, too, a few turns of gauze all around Dean's shallowly gasping torso.

Then there was the water he'd swallowed when the bunyip had tried to drag him under, again to save Sam from the same fate. His lungs had to be aching from that. And the black eye from the collision with the tree. Bruised ribs from the same. Darkening contusions along his side from impact with the ground, and Sam's and the bunyip's hard head. Another lighter set of claw-marks just breaking the skin above the collarbone. None of the injuries were severe, but together they added up to a lot of blood lost and several depleting sources of pain, and even a tough guy like Dean wasn't immune to physiological weakness. He breathed pantingly, body taut, sweat glinting off the short hair, and Sam hurried a little faster and stopped a little more often to wipe his face or massage corded muscles.

He washed and disinfected and wrapped, then filled two towels with small piles of ice to tuck against the worst of the swelling, heating a third to lay on Dean's chest next to the bandages to ease his breathing. Injuries in the line of duty, to help people who would never know, and to save Sam, who knew all too well.

"Okay, you're patched up," he announced softly, leaning forward again to peer into the half-circles of hazel. "Dean? Still with me?"

"'M here."

Slurred and a little hazy but more coherent than he'd really expected. Sam smiled, sliding a hand under his cheek to lift his head. "Good. Take these, and then I'm gonna clean you up a little more and you can rest, all right?"

It was even more mangled, but Sam thought he could make out "promises, promises." Dean obediently swallowed the pills, though, painkillers and antibiotics because the water had been nasty, and only choked a little on the water.

Sam changed the water in the bowl, traded the towel out for a fresh one, and started cleaning the dried grit off arms, legs, face. It might have been an embarrassing not-guy thing, except they'd performed this routine so many times, and Sam was as matter-of-fact about doing it as Dean was about the need to have it done. Besides, Dean had already done the manly bit, saving Sam's life. And they'd seen each other in the worst shapes and situations possible, leaving this minor league in comparison. If you couldn't be messed up in front of your family, at least when it came to their family, there was really nothing else left. The next day, Sam would throw in a few cracks about Dean's hygiene and choice of boxers and flabbiness around the middle, Dean would respond with a reminder of the time he'd had to strip an unconscious Sam and found those really impressive hickeys from the girl he'd been dating in high school, and they'd both pretend they didn't have to be doctor and therapist and caretaker for each other on a too-regular basis. It worked. They made it work.

Brotherhood smoothed over a lot, embarrassment and pain.

Not scars, though, and Sam traced a few as he worked. He recognized some, half of those also gained in his defense, but had no idea about others, like the jagged one underneath the left arm, or the neat row of punctures on one thigh. The line of pink inside the other leg he hadn't been there for until the aftermath, taking time off school to stay near the hospital where Dean recovered from nearly having bled out completely, without Dean or John ever even knowing it. Sam occasionally wondered if he could have prevented some of the marks if he'd stayed, and other times, if he was adding to them by being there. Dean was more reckless with him around.

No, not reckless. Driven. Enough things dodged past him and went straight to Sam for Dean to be determined to intervene whenever possible. Whether those things would have found Dean anyway was a question Sam tried carefully not to think about too much.

The water was muddy and the patient clean enough that he wouldn't chafe until he could shower. Sam stood and dumped the water, the towels, and the melancholy. "All set, Dean," he said as he got back, and rolled his brother gently first this way, then that, to maneuver Dean under the covers and between clean sheets. Twinges and held-breath was followed by a long sigh of relief. Some of the lines eased in Dean's face, and Sam could almost pretend it was five years earlier. A lot of time to miss, time marked in visible and invisible wounds.

He tucked Dean in on his side where he would put pressure on the least amount of injuries, repositioning ice and heat to do their job. Then Sam laid his brother's arm out over the covers so he could turn over more easily during the night if he wanted, or grab the glass on the nightstand, or throw something at Sam to wake him up. Two of the fingers were wrapped, too, older, stained bandages from the previous job, where Dean's only souvenir had been deep rope burns from reeling Sam away from a jacko that was determined to carry him off. Sam brushed over the white strips, and the signs of his brother's love they hid.

"Must be dying," Dean mumbled.

Sam looked up at him, startled. "What? What're you—?"

"Holding my hand, Sammy?"

Sam let him go, frowning darkly. "I should've let you drown in the bunyip's pond," he said acidly.

"Maybe," Dean agreed easily, and, flinching at some stray pain, his eyes sank shut.

Sam sighed, long-suffering. "Go to sleep, jerk."

"Next job, no water," Dean whispered, and surrendered to sleep in the way he only did when Sam was there. Sam had only realized there was a difference when he'd taken a walk once before bed and stood watching Dean through the window a long time before coming back in. The uneasy shifting and tense posture had melted away the moment Sam had opened the door. He could fool himself sometimes that it was about Dean needing someone to watch his back, but Sam knew it was at least as much about Dean being able to watch Sam's again.

Blood and scars and bandages… It was the way Winchesters showed love.

Sam showered and slid into the other bed, watching his brother a minute before letting Dean's congested breathing lull him asleep.

Dean wasn't the only one who slept better when his brother was there.

The End