Somehow We Still End Up Here - Part 2
"Hungry?"
Sam shrugs, not bothering to uncoil himself from his warm cocoon of blankets and heating pads.
"You gotta eat something." Dean puts down the bowl of soup he is carrying. "What about tea? Or one of those smoothie or protein drinks you like."
"No thanks." Sam shivers and dry coughs into his shoulder. Even after brushing his teeth a few times, he can still taste the remnants of blood from the coughing fit he'd had a few hours ago.
"This isn't good." Dean wrestles one of Sam's arms out of his blanket cocoon. "Look at this." He pinches the skin on the back of Sam's hand. "You can't stay in bed all day, not eating and not drinking! Come on, you're just going to make yourself worse!"
Sam shrugs and pulls his arm back into it's warm hollow in the blankets. "I'll pass."
Dean huffs. "Do you want something to do? Your laptop, a book, anything?"
"I'm good." Sam settles back into his mountain of pillows, blankets, and hot water bottles. His eyes are heavy, he just wants to sleep.
"I'll unleash Kevin."
"Mmm." Sam mumbles, a shiver wracking his body a moment later. He coughs wetly into his shoulder and swallows down the blood that ends up in his mouth.
"Kevin!"
Sam listens to the prophet's footsteps in the hallway and keeps his eyes closed when a draft of cool air heralds the opening and closing of his bedroom door.
"You need something?"
It is weird to hear another voice after a week of only Dean talking to him. Sam frowns and opens his eyes.
"Can you sit with the grumpy green giant here for a while? I'm going to make a supply run." Dean tosses something at Kevin and leaves the room.
"I guess so. . ." Kevin looks at Sam and their eyes meet for a moment before Kevin looks away. "Do you need anything?"
Sam shakes his head. "I'm fine."
Kevin nods and Sam closes his eyes again. He hears the door creak open and slam closed and sighs. He always sleeps better when Dean isn't hovering over him or waking him up to ply him with food, meds, and drinks every few hours.
He wakes up face down on his bed with the blankets scattered everywhere. For once he isn't cold, but his throat hurts even more than usual. Sam coughs, trying to clear out whatever was left in it. An instant later, he turns just in time to hang his head over the side of the bed as he vomits blood up all over the floor. The smell hits him and he throws up again, the spasms in his throat and abdomen setting off anther coughing fit.
Sam retches onto the floor and lets his head down, resting his forehead against the edge of the bed. He sighs, breathing in through his nose and coughing as he breathes out through his mouth. He doesn't hear Dean and he can't imagine pulling his head up, let alone standing and walking around the bunker to find his brother.
Dean will find him. Sam still has faith in his brother. He spits out a mouthful of blood and stomach bile and waits.
"Careful, don't move Sammy."
Sam opens his eyes to see the ceiling moving above him. He is cold now, and sticky and wet.
"Dean?" Sam tries to sit up, he can't see his brother.
"Nah-uh. Don't move." Hands pushed down on his shoulders and Sam wants to flail out, but someone is holding his wrists. "We're almost there."
Sam shivers and coughs, it sticks in his throat and this time it's a dry cough. But Dean's there and his wrists aren't restrained anymore. Dean pulls him into a sitting position and leans him forward.
"You need a bucket?" Dean asks and Sam can feel every one of his brother's fingers splayed out on his back.
"Nah." Sam whispers and Dean lowers him back down to the gurney.
"Careful. Don't want you falling off." Dean's fingers brush across his forehead and Sam closes his eyes as the ceiling rushes past above him.
They stop moving and Sam opens his eyes. "Where are we?" Sam doesn't recognize the walls in here, they look. . .flowly. And this bed definitely doesn't have a mattress pad on it, like his bedroom and the kitchen room do.
"Just. . .give me a minute." Dean says and resumes whatever he is doing with his back to Sam.
"Are we still in the bunker?"
"What? Yeah, of course. Kevin's just down the hall getting you some fresh clothes."
Sam nods and tries to focus his eyes when Dean turns around with something in his hands. His hands that were bluish.
"Hey Dean?"
"Yeah?" Dean is touching him now, adjusting his arms and tugging the blankets around.
"Did you ever see Firefly?"
"Nope. Okay, hold still for me now." Dean grabs Sam's arm.
"This isn't your room." Sam mumbles, he tries to crane his neck to see what Dean is going to his arm, but his brother's head is in the way. "What're you doing?"
"One second. Gonna hurt."
Sam flinches away at a stab of pain, but Dean's fingers dig into his elbow and his arm stays where his brother wants it.
"Don't move." Dean warns and Sam takes a deep breath when he gets poked again. The deep breath provoked a cough and Sam turned away, splattering his shoulder with tiny drops of blood.
"That's done." Dean wraps a final piece of plastic medical tape across Sam's arm. There's an IV catheter disappearing into the underside of his forearm and Sam watches his brother connect the end coming out of him to a length of tubing.
"I don't need it." Sam complains, and he reaches down to rub just above the IV site where his arm hurts the most.
"You gotta eat." Dean says. He flicks the lock on the tubing and Sam watches the first yellow drop of fluid fall. "Drink this too." Dean plunks a bottle of Gatorade in Sam's lap. "There's red and blue too, you can pick your next flavour. After you finish this bottle."
This bottle of Gatorade is orange and that's Sam's least favourite colour, and he's pretty sure that Dean knows that too. His arm with the IV aches more than the rest of his body and he sips sulkily at his drink. Dean's stubborn and Sam doesn't think he's going to be left alone long enough to pull the tubing. Especially with the amount of tape Dean wrapped around and around his arm.
"What do you want to eat?" Dean asks and he writes something down on a piece of paper that he tucks back into his pocket.
Sam shrugs. He's not really hungry. Not in a way that makes him feel like fighting through the nausea and sore throat to swallow something down that's any thicker than the Gatorade.
"Soup then. Just picked up a variety case." Dean frowns at him, as if Sam refusing to cooperate really has any effect on his condition. Sam was pretty sure that eating soup or not eating anything isn't going to change what the Trials have done to his body.
"Stay still and drink your Gatorade." Dean orders him before going to the door. Sam watches, taking tiny sips when he feels like coughing. Dean only opens the door a crack and Sam knows that Kevin's on the other side, but he would have liked to see the prophet, even if just to assure himself that he was actually in the bunker, that everything around him was real.
Dean returns to his side and frowns at the mostly full bottle of Gatorade. Sam takes another miniscule sip of it and puts it off to the side. He coughs a little, the Gatorade coming up since he hadn't managed to swallow it all the way down.
"Whoa." Dean leans him forward and pats his back. He knocks into the bottle and it spills. "Can you breathe?"
Sam wants to reassure his brother, that he's mostly fine, but he actually can't breathe so he settles for opening and closing his mouth like a fish out of water and that really doesn't make Dean snap out of big brother mode at all.
Something presses over his face and Sam pulls back, his vision is a little dark, he can't really see.
"Don't fight it." Dean's voice is rough and he pushes past Sam's untethered arm. "It's just an oxygen mask". The dry breeze of air hits Sam's face and he feels himself breathing a little easier.
"Just stay still." Dean snaps the elastic band around Sam's face to hold the mask in place and steps away from the bed. "Do you think you can handle that?"
The question's sarcastic but there's a bite of truth to it and Sam nods before closing his eyes. His head feels heavy and the steady flow of cool liquid into his arm isn't helping him to relax very much. He can hear his brother walk away and he imagines the path that Dean's feet would take over the floor, his heavy boots coming down on the green tile and the gentle sound of cupboards opening and closing interspaced with the footsteps.
Sam groans a little when Dean returns to his side and he tries to roll away when Dean pulls his blankets covering him down. He shivers and Dean messes with his shirt.
"Cold." Sam mutters, but Dean doesn't do anything and Sam squirms at the injection that follows. "IV." He complains.
Dean grunts. "Yeah, hadn't thought of that."
Sometimes Sam wishes his brother would think a little bit more.
--
After two days of being kept on an oxygen mask that dries out his eyes and nose, being force fed soup by Kevin and Dean refusing to let him close the door every time he has to go to the bathroom, Sam finally snaps.
He waits until Dean leaves to get him soup. Kevin's supposed to be watching him, but the prophet has on headphones and is all jittery, the kind of jittery that comes from drugs. Probably the mixture of amphetamines and adderall Garth started him on. Anyway, he doesn't stir when Sam gets up and that's good enough.
Sam disconnects his IV. He's been slowly working at the tap and now it's not impossible for him to slide the catheter out of his vein and leave it on the gurney. His arm bleeds sluggishly and Sam clamps his hand over the open wound. It wouldn't do to leave a path for Dean to use to follow him.
He makes it out of the infirmary and heads down the hall towards his bedroom. Dean's got him taking baths in the infirmary and the only clean clothes he ever receives worn out sweatpants and too-thin t-shirts that are slightly too small of him. Dean would deny it if Sam asked him, but all of the clothes belong to his brother.
The hallway is cold and drafty compared to the infirmary. Sometime during his stay, the place filled up with space heaters and hot water bottles. It's hot and steamy, there's a dehumidifier in the corner, but Dean leaves it off. The moisture helps stop the coughing.
His room is as he left it. Or as he can remember it was left. His dirty clothes are strewn over the floor and there's a pile of hot water bottles and moldy washcloths on the bed. The room stinks a little bit and the laundry hasn't been done.
Bending over to gather up a pile of dirty clothes makes Sam's head spin and he groans, sinking down to his knees. He feel better sitting on the floor and dumps out his duffel bag to repack it with his dirty clothes.
By the time his bag is full, he's feeling lightheaded and breathing heavily. Getting to his feet is something that takes him a couple of minutes to do. And lifting up his back to loop the strap over his shoulder, takes all of the strength he can muster in both of his arms. Still with the bag on his shoulder he starts walking down the hall, a little bit lopsided from the weight.
The laundry room is quiet and there's a load of damp, smelly clothes in the drier. Sam usually keeps the laundry moving and it looks like Dean hasn't kept on top of things. There's so much lint in the drier that the tray's stuck and Sam can't get it out. It's probably not going to catch fire anyway. He leaves Dean's wet load of laundry on the floor and fills it with his own.
There's no laundry soap readily available, so Sam passes on that and slams the door shut. It leaves a stream a blood down the front of the white drier, his arm is still bleeding where the IV had been. He turns the dials and the twisting motions make his hands ache, but the washer turns on and the promise of clean, comfortable clothes that actually fit are worth the pain.
With the laundry going, Sam makes his way back to the bathroom close to his room. There's clean towels in his closet and he turns the water on hot, waiting for steam to build up in the mirror before he climbs in. His shampoo and body wash cover the smell of sickness and sweat and Sam rinses his hair clean before sitting on the tile at the bottom of the shower.
He adds conditioner slowly and scrubs at his skin with the body wash. The water rinses away red from his arm, swirling down the drain mixed with fruity body wash and little exfoliating beads. Sam works his fingers through his hair, massaging his scalp, but it doesn't do anything for his headache.
Despite the hot water and the steam, the tile on the walls is still cool to touch. Sam slides back on the tile, leaning against it and arching his back to keep the skin more sensitive than his shoulders from getting chilly.
He closes his eyes and breathes the steam in, letting it swirl around him and slide down his poor, sore throat. The moisture soothes his lungs and his breaths don't feel so dry. Sam rests his head against the wall and takes slow, deep breaths without coughing for the first time in weeks.
When he opens his eyes again, the water is still hot, but he's not alone in the bathroom. Dean's just beyond the clear shower curtain, a book open in his lap and a pencil tucked behind his ear.
"Hey." Sam says and his voice is still weak, but the words don't scrap coming up out of his throat.
Dean looks up from his book. "Feeling better?" He asks, his voice low enough not to hurt Sam's head.
Sam nods and it takes him a moment, but he finds his feet and clambers up, leaning on the tiled wall and trying not to slip in the warm water that had pooled around him.
"Can you pass me-"
Dean reaches in and shuts off the water before handing in one of the massive, fluffy towels Sam bought at Target when they first moved in. It's big enough to wrap round him waist to knees and a second towel on his head keeps him warm, even stepping out onto the mat in front of the shower.
"Okay?" Dean asks when he wavers a little bit.
"Yeah." Sam looks for the dirty clothes he had discarded before getting in. He hadn't planned is far ahead and there were no clean clothes waiting for him.
"Sit down." Dean gestured to the closed toilet. "Your laundry's probably dry by now. I'll go grab it."
Sam sank to the toilet seat and Dean left him alone in the room. He wasn't sure what to make of this version of his older brother. He'd been expecting Dean to burst into the bathroom, haul him out of the shower and strap him down in the infirmary so he couldn't try and leave again. But after getting his laundry started and taking a shower on his own he left better than he had since the Trials started. Maybe his body was finally starting to recover, maybe this was the end of his sickness.
"I'm sorry." Dean said, offering Sam clean clothes and an actual apology.
Sam pulled on an ancient hoodie and stepped into a pair of sweatpants that actually fit. Dean had changed. They were back in the little room near the kitchen, mostly because Sam's bedroom wasn't fit for human habitation.
"Do you want a snack now?" Dean asks, hovering in the doorway.
Sam nods. If his brother is making allowances and giving him a little bit more space, then he's going to try to. He can eat something, it won't be enough to make Dean happy, but sometimes the effort counts.
Dean returns with a bottle of Gatorade, blue this time, and the soup is only broth. Sam's hand shakes as he raises the spoon to his mouth, but he gets it up and swallows slowly. It's not bad going down his throat.
Sam manages a third of the soup and half the Gatorade before he can't eat any more and Dean takes the soup away. His brother gives the blue drink a pointed looked and Sam leaves it on his bedside table, he'll finish it later.
"Just, give a minute." Dean says when he returns, a cardboard box in his arms. "We'll try this for now. But we're doing it my way."
Sam crosses his arms over his chest, but he doesn't argue. Dean giving him any options, like moving out of the infirmary, is a step in the right direction. And once Dean sees he's feeling better, Sam has no doubts that his brother will start to cut him more slack.
"C'mon." Dean gives Sam a thermometer and takes his wrist to feel his pulse before taking his blood pressure. Sam lets him, he's feeling better and if Dean has numbers that can prove it, Sam is sure his brother will trust the way he knows his body feels.
"Yeah?" Sam asks when he hands over the thermometer, glancing at the number first. It's down, almost normal, half a degree doesn't count as a fever.
Dean grunts. "That's better."
"Right." Sam groans when Dean takes a baby monitor out of the box. "Where'd you ever get that thing?"
"Found it at the electronics store in town. We needed a blender." He plus it into the wall and fiddles with the dial until the low hum disappears.
The rest of the box is emptied out. A small oxygen tank and mask, those get put in a corner, along with the dehumidifier and one of the smaller space heaters. Sam's not even sure how all of that fit in the box and Dean keeps pulling out more stuff.
"It's been a couple hours since the last one." Dean gives Sam a bottle of something, painkillers, and a handful of syringes in sealed plastic packages.
"I'll pass." Sam keeps the supplies within reach. It's been awhile, since he was without the painkillers, maybe the pain's stopped.
"And this." Dean pulls a length of thick tubing out of the bag and two gigantic looking needles. Sam's no stranger to large gauge syringes, he's had enough traumatic injuries to have actually needed blood fast, but even a glance at the needles makes his arms ache.
"I'm good." Sam covers the mark on his arm where he'd pulled the IV from. Besides, he'd had the soup and drank some of the Gatorade, he didn't want another IV.
Dean shook his head. "It's not for that. You lost a lot of blood when you pulled it."
"Not really." Sam squeezed his hand into a fist. "It just mixed with the water in the shower."
"No." Dean produced a couple packages of blood. "I tracked you down the hall from the drips. There's a lot."
Sam frowned. "I don't feel low."
"But you don't feel any shittier." Dean ripped open a package of blood. "Look, I'm just going to give you a little bit of mine. It'll help."
There was a package of gloves for Sam too and a bottle of Jack Daniels because Dean hadn't been able to find any alcohol wipes.
"This is sketchy." Sam put on his gloves and took one of the prep pads Dean soaked in alcohol before downing a healthy swallow. "Are you trying to get me drunk off of your blood?"
"Don't be silly. Tap it." Dean extends his arm and turns his head away. Sam palpates for the vein. It's sort of nice to be doing this without the rush, without being covered in his brother's blood or racing against time to get a line going.
He gets it in on his first try and secures the line with a piece of tape. Out of the injuries and illness the Winchester family has gotten over the years, Sam does more of the first aid. Mostly because Dean will drag his little brother's ass to the hospital if he's even a little bit worried, while he refuses to go if it is he who needs assistance.
"You don't know what you're doing." Sam said, looking down at the crook of his arm where Dean was wiping an alcohol drenched piece of cotton in circles. They'd never passed blood this way. It always went from Sam to Dean and Sam usually set up both of the connections. But his hands were shaky and he wasn't feeling good enough to do it one handed. Better Dean do it than having to stick himself multiple times.
"Shush, let me focus. I'm about to stick a needle in your arm." Dean snapped one of his gloves menacingly.
"All right." Sam watched with interest as Dean rubbed his fingers over the cleaned skin. "Shouldn't you have done that before you cleaned it?"
"Shut up." Dean stopped rubbing and grabbed the needle he'd prepared.
"This isn't even going to help. I didn't lose that much blood. And I drank most of the Gatorade." Sam flinched as Dean advanced the needle. "Shit!"
"Sorry, sorry." Dean pulled it out. "This is hard. And it wasn't even half the bottle."
"You could stop." Sam replied back.
"Nah." Dean grinned at his brother. "I think I'll try again."