SPN FIC - You Were There For Me
Sleepless nights. Lack of food. Too much alcohol, too much caffeine. The loss of Cas and Bobby, of Rufus and Jo and Ellen and Pamela, a long line of people they knew and cared for, running all the way back to Dad. Hell, running all the way back to Mom. The loss of the Impala, of the sense that they had a place of refuge somewhere...
It's too much.
CHARACTERS: Sam and Dean
GENRE: Gen (H/C - headache!Dean)
RATING: PG
SPOILERS: None
LENGTH: 2000 words
YOU WERE THERE FOR ME
By Carol Davis
Two days ago it was just a headache.
Yesterday it got worse.
Today it feels like something's trying to compress his head down to the size of an orange. Using ice picks. And battery acid. And hammers.
Light hurts. Sound hurts. The vibration of the car hurts.
Even Hell wasn't like this. Alastair always focused on his body, not his head.
He can't drive. Can't move. Can't talk. Can't think.
All Dean can do is something Bobby taught him years ago. Breathe in to a count of five. Breathe back out to a count of five.
In. Out.
In. Out.
~~~~~~
Thank God the road's clear.
No trucks, no little-old-lady drivers to maneuver around. Nothing that would call for revving the engine, changing its steady, untroubled thrum. It's a good road, too - recently repaved, from the look of it.
No bumps.
Maybe the sound of the engine's nothing more than white noise.
Sam remembers all too well the pain that came with Azazel's visions. Searing, tearing, such a pure, white pain that it made him breathe in gasps. The only good thing about it - if you could call it "good" - was that the pain never lasted more than a few hours.
This shit's been going on for two days.
The day before that, before this started, Dean was here in the driver's seat, humming along with the radio, tapping out an intermittent beat on the faded-ivory curve of the steering wheel, the king of all he surveyed. Now he's huddled in the passenger seat, arms and legs trembling, his head cushioned on a wadded-up hoodie.
That's not a good enough pillow.
Wouldn't have been, back in the days of Azazel.
Two days ago, a little after breakfast, Dean started answering questions in a grunt. Then he didn't answer them at all. The color started bleeding out of his face, and he drove canted toward the steering wheel, as if he was trying to urge the car to go faster.
As if he was riding a horse.
Aiming toward some finish line that's not visible anywhere ahead of the horizon.
When they stopped for lunch, he did nothing more than pick at his burger and fries. Sipped unenthusiastically at a cup of coffee. Dinnertime, he stayed in the car. Said the smell of food bothered him.
"Morning sickness?" Sam suggested.
Dean looked at him through eyes at half-mast and said, "Go fuck yourself."
He didn't say his head hurt; he didn't need to.
Sleepless nights. Lack of food. Too much alcohol, too much caffeine. The loss of Cas and Bobby, of Rufus and Jo and Ellen and Pamela, a long line of people they knew and cared for, running all the way back to Dad. Hell, running all the way back to Mom. The loss of the Impala, of the sense that they had a place of refuge somewhere.
Hiding for a few hours in abandoned houses with no running water, no source of heat.
It's too much.
It's all too much.
~~~~~~
He'd wish for death, if he felt that death would put a stop to this. But he's been there, and death's just a continuation of the same shit he's been dealing with all his life. Location's different, but the song's the same.
The air from the vent's too cold.
The sunlight's too hot.
Sitting, standing, lying down: it all hurts. All of it.
How long it's been, he can't tell, but it seems like there's nobody on this road but them, and they're moving as slow as a goddamn motorcade.
He'd wish to die, if he thought it would help.
~~~~~~
Can't keep doing this, Sam thinks. Can't keep driving when we're not going anywhere.
There's no case. Nothing to aim for. Nothing to run from, either, really - not right now, at least - and that's a plus. There's nothing snapping at their heels. Though maybe it'd be better if there were, because it would give them some sense of purpose.
He thinks, fleetingly, of the nursing home he and Dean visited a couple of weeks ago, to interview a witness.
The people there…
God.
Sitting. Staring at nothing.
Can't keep doing this.
His brother is all but cowering in the passenger seat, jaw set tight, as ashen as a week-old corpse. He's said nothing, made no sound, for hours. He's enduring, as if this were Hell all over again, as if there's no light at the end of this tunnel.
No hope.
The day before yesterday, Sam offered him what they had in the first-aid kit: a handful of ibuprofen.
Dean did nothing but stare.
Yesterday, Sam offered to find him some serious drugs. Boosting them from a pharmacy would be tricky, but you can buy Oxy on the street, if you know where to look, who to ask.
Dean went on staring out the window. Sam barely heard his whispered, "No."
"Dean, man, you can't -"
"It's just a fucking headache, Sam. Leave it alone."
But it isn't, is it?
It's not just anything. Not when it's robbed Dean of what little he has left to enjoy: the driving, the music, his burgers and fries, his pie, the sense that he's accomplishing something, helping someone. That he's here for a reason.
That his life means something.
They need to stop somewhere. Rest for a little while, although it's a fair bet that neither one of them will sleep. Somewhere quiet, Sam thinks, because he remembers the pain of AzazelVision, when the sound of water running in the bathroom made him want to scream.
A motel's no good, not with the people and the cars and the bad plumbing and the clanking heaters and the smell of everyone who's been there before.
There are no motels out here, anyway.
This isn't a place people want to be.
All that's here is left-behinds. Sad, random houses, one good gust of wind short of falling to the ground.
Good enough, Sam thinks.
He'll find one, and it will be good enough for now.
~~~~~~
What now? Dean thinks when the car shifts direction; when it slows, turns, when the wheels crunch over gravel and small branches.
What the hell NOW?
The car stops, and he hears the door creak open, feels the shift as Sam's weight leaves the seat.
He doesn't look.
Can't find it in him to care what's out there.
Some more time goes by. Then, he hears Sam's muffled voice say "Dean" somewhere close by. Sam intends to open the door he's leaning against, he understands, and the thought makes his stomach roll.
When it opens, slowly, Sam's hands are there.
~~~~~~
Dean resists him. Makes a sound in the back of his throat, something that's midway between a growl and a groan.
"Come on, man," Sam says softly.
The building behind him is more a shack than a house. How many people lived there, or when they lived there, he isn't sure; there's nothing left behind. Just walls, a floor, a roof, and their soundness is questionable - but since there's no hurricane in the forecast, nothing more dire than the chance of a drizzle, it ought to be shelter enough.
Warm enough, too. The air's mild. Smells good.
"Dean," he says, crouching alongside the car. "I laid out the sleeping bags. Huh? Lie down for a while."
Dean's right hand moves a little.
It's not an encouraging gesture.
I know, man, Sam thinks. I know, because he remembers the visions. The pain. The sense that nature should have allowed for a way to tear your head right the hell OFF. A while back, he saw a documentary on TV - saw some poor son of a bitch slamming his head against the floor, for no other reason than that he could control that, could make that particular pain come and go exactly when and how he pleased.
He remembers pain so bad it made him shake.
Remembers vomiting into his own lap. Remembers the stale, sour smell of what his body rejected.
Remembers gentle hands touching his shoulders, resting at the small of his back.
He would rather do almost anything than cause Dean more pain by urging him out of the car, wrapping an arm around his waist and guiding him into this forlorn, tilted collection of weathered old wood. There's no furniture inside, no running water, but the floor's dry and there aren't many signs that animals have decided to move in and make camp.
There aren't any strong smells, and the light inside is dim.
Dean cringes half a dozen times on the way down to the sleeping bags, as if he's trying to shrink into himself. Instead of lying down, he sits, and props his head carefully in the palms of both hands, holding it mostly upright.
His eyes are closed. Have been closed the whole time.
He caves to drinking some water Sam's poured into a cup. When the cup is empty, Sam empties the plastic bottle into it.
Come on, man, he thinks. Come on, now.
~~~~~~
It's good. The quiet. Here.
It's good to not move. To just be still and quiet; to not feel vibration underneath him.
Then there's water in a cup, and Sam's voice telling him he's dehydrated as all hell and it'll feel better if he drinks.
It would feel better if…
Yes.
There's cool wet moving against his face and the back of his neck. One of those little towels they boosted from the motel with the pink rooms. The towels are pink too, but they're towels. Multi-purpose. Cleaning rags.
Good for this. Cooling his face, his neck.
It's better, now.
~~~~~~
Yesterday, Sam started thinking things like aneurysm and stroke and brain tumor, but this is none of those.
This is just his brother, who holds everything inside.
Who is silent and taciturn, terse and violent. Who refuses anything that looks like kindness, though he is quick to offer it to someone else.
Anyone else.
Who says I'm dealing with it, when he's not.
They have two sleeping bags, boosted from the garage of a family obviously able to absorb the loss without difficulty - along with the loss of a Coleman stove, a couple of blankets, a lantern, and an assortment of tools. Sam stacked the sleeping bags one on top of the other. They're good and thick, make an acceptable bed.
He can use the stove in the morning to warm up some soup.
For now, he sits cross-legged alongside the stacked sleeping bags, a hand laid flat and firm against the small of his brother's back.
"There's a pond out there," he says after a while.
Keeps his voice low, not much above a whisper. The way Dean always did, after the visions.
"Looks like it might be good for a swim," he says. "Weather's pretty mild. Nobody around, that I can tell."
Dean makes a small sound.
"Been a while since we went swimming. Laid out in the sun."
They've got plenty of bottled water. Sam made sure of that yesterday, when he stopped for gas. There's a sack of groceries sitting alongside the Coleman stove: a six-pack of applesauce, some juice, saltine crackers. Jell-O. Tomato rice soup. The stuff Dean doled out for him when they were little, when Sam was sick.
After a while, Dean opens his eyes about two-thirds of the way.
"Shit," he mutters. "Hate this shit."
They were…what, Sam wonders. Dean was twelve, maybe? Down with the flu.
He remembers a night, in some no-name motel. Stumbling out of bed to use the bathroom, and finding Dean huddled in the tub, crying into a wadded-up towel.
Unwilling to wake anyone.
Unwilling to ask for help.
He empties another half a bottle of water into the cup and holds it so that Dean can sip from it. He'll have to drink the whole dozen to make up for the lack of fluid in his system - but they've got all night.
They've got quiet, and solitude.
Each other.
There's no TV here, and no WiFi connection. Sam makes up for it by sitting alongside his brother and relating what he remembers of a TV show about the creation of the universe, narrated by that guy from Dirty Jobs.
Someday, he thinks, they should track that guy down.
Tell him what a dirty job really is.
After a while, Dean fumbles with one hand, uses it to guide his way down onto the sleeping bags. That he doesn't curl up like a pill bug seems like a good sign.
As he drifts off to sleep, he murmurs something that ends with "…Sammy."
That's definitely a good sign.
Sam's got no bed but the floor - but he's made do with worse. He stretches out on his back, pillows his head on the wadded-up hoodie Dean was using in the car, and lays a hand on Dean's shoulder, relieved when he doesn't feel any trembling, any sign that Dean is doing anything but resting. He knows better than to think Dean will be firing on all cylinders in the morning, but they can let that happen in its own good time.
They can eat.
Talk.
Swim.
And the rest of it?
They'll deal with that when it comes.
* * * * *
It's too much.
CHARACTERS: Sam and Dean
GENRE: Gen (H/C - headache!Dean)
RATING: PG
SPOILERS: None
LENGTH: 2000 words
YOU WERE THERE FOR ME
By Carol Davis
Two days ago it was just a headache.
Yesterday it got worse.
Today it feels like something's trying to compress his head down to the size of an orange. Using ice picks. And battery acid. And hammers.
Light hurts. Sound hurts. The vibration of the car hurts.
Even Hell wasn't like this. Alastair always focused on his body, not his head.
He can't drive. Can't move. Can't talk. Can't think.
All Dean can do is something Bobby taught him years ago. Breathe in to a count of five. Breathe back out to a count of five.
In. Out.
In. Out.
~~~~~~
Thank God the road's clear.
No trucks, no little-old-lady drivers to maneuver around. Nothing that would call for revving the engine, changing its steady, untroubled thrum. It's a good road, too - recently repaved, from the look of it.
No bumps.
Maybe the sound of the engine's nothing more than white noise.
Sam remembers all too well the pain that came with Azazel's visions. Searing, tearing, such a pure, white pain that it made him breathe in gasps. The only good thing about it - if you could call it "good" - was that the pain never lasted more than a few hours.
This shit's been going on for two days.
The day before that, before this started, Dean was here in the driver's seat, humming along with the radio, tapping out an intermittent beat on the faded-ivory curve of the steering wheel, the king of all he surveyed. Now he's huddled in the passenger seat, arms and legs trembling, his head cushioned on a wadded-up hoodie.
That's not a good enough pillow.
Wouldn't have been, back in the days of Azazel.
Two days ago, a little after breakfast, Dean started answering questions in a grunt. Then he didn't answer them at all. The color started bleeding out of his face, and he drove canted toward the steering wheel, as if he was trying to urge the car to go faster.
As if he was riding a horse.
Aiming toward some finish line that's not visible anywhere ahead of the horizon.
When they stopped for lunch, he did nothing more than pick at his burger and fries. Sipped unenthusiastically at a cup of coffee. Dinnertime, he stayed in the car. Said the smell of food bothered him.
"Morning sickness?" Sam suggested.
Dean looked at him through eyes at half-mast and said, "Go fuck yourself."
He didn't say his head hurt; he didn't need to.
Sleepless nights. Lack of food. Too much alcohol, too much caffeine. The loss of Cas and Bobby, of Rufus and Jo and Ellen and Pamela, a long line of people they knew and cared for, running all the way back to Dad. Hell, running all the way back to Mom. The loss of the Impala, of the sense that they had a place of refuge somewhere.
Hiding for a few hours in abandoned houses with no running water, no source of heat.
It's too much.
It's all too much.
~~~~~~
He'd wish for death, if he felt that death would put a stop to this. But he's been there, and death's just a continuation of the same shit he's been dealing with all his life. Location's different, but the song's the same.
The air from the vent's too cold.
The sunlight's too hot.
Sitting, standing, lying down: it all hurts. All of it.
How long it's been, he can't tell, but it seems like there's nobody on this road but them, and they're moving as slow as a goddamn motorcade.
He'd wish to die, if he thought it would help.
~~~~~~
Can't keep doing this, Sam thinks. Can't keep driving when we're not going anywhere.
There's no case. Nothing to aim for. Nothing to run from, either, really - not right now, at least - and that's a plus. There's nothing snapping at their heels. Though maybe it'd be better if there were, because it would give them some sense of purpose.
He thinks, fleetingly, of the nursing home he and Dean visited a couple of weeks ago, to interview a witness.
The people there…
God.
Sitting. Staring at nothing.
Can't keep doing this.
His brother is all but cowering in the passenger seat, jaw set tight, as ashen as a week-old corpse. He's said nothing, made no sound, for hours. He's enduring, as if this were Hell all over again, as if there's no light at the end of this tunnel.
No hope.
The day before yesterday, Sam offered him what they had in the first-aid kit: a handful of ibuprofen.
Dean did nothing but stare.
Yesterday, Sam offered to find him some serious drugs. Boosting them from a pharmacy would be tricky, but you can buy Oxy on the street, if you know where to look, who to ask.
Dean went on staring out the window. Sam barely heard his whispered, "No."
"Dean, man, you can't -"
"It's just a fucking headache, Sam. Leave it alone."
But it isn't, is it?
It's not just anything. Not when it's robbed Dean of what little he has left to enjoy: the driving, the music, his burgers and fries, his pie, the sense that he's accomplishing something, helping someone. That he's here for a reason.
That his life means something.
They need to stop somewhere. Rest for a little while, although it's a fair bet that neither one of them will sleep. Somewhere quiet, Sam thinks, because he remembers the pain of AzazelVision, when the sound of water running in the bathroom made him want to scream.
A motel's no good, not with the people and the cars and the bad plumbing and the clanking heaters and the smell of everyone who's been there before.
There are no motels out here, anyway.
This isn't a place people want to be.
All that's here is left-behinds. Sad, random houses, one good gust of wind short of falling to the ground.
Good enough, Sam thinks.
He'll find one, and it will be good enough for now.
~~~~~~
What now? Dean thinks when the car shifts direction; when it slows, turns, when the wheels crunch over gravel and small branches.
What the hell NOW?
The car stops, and he hears the door creak open, feels the shift as Sam's weight leaves the seat.
He doesn't look.
Can't find it in him to care what's out there.
Some more time goes by. Then, he hears Sam's muffled voice say "Dean" somewhere close by. Sam intends to open the door he's leaning against, he understands, and the thought makes his stomach roll.
When it opens, slowly, Sam's hands are there.
~~~~~~
Dean resists him. Makes a sound in the back of his throat, something that's midway between a growl and a groan.
"Come on, man," Sam says softly.
The building behind him is more a shack than a house. How many people lived there, or when they lived there, he isn't sure; there's nothing left behind. Just walls, a floor, a roof, and their soundness is questionable - but since there's no hurricane in the forecast, nothing more dire than the chance of a drizzle, it ought to be shelter enough.
Warm enough, too. The air's mild. Smells good.
"Dean," he says, crouching alongside the car. "I laid out the sleeping bags. Huh? Lie down for a while."
Dean's right hand moves a little.
It's not an encouraging gesture.
I know, man, Sam thinks. I know, because he remembers the visions. The pain. The sense that nature should have allowed for a way to tear your head right the hell OFF. A while back, he saw a documentary on TV - saw some poor son of a bitch slamming his head against the floor, for no other reason than that he could control that, could make that particular pain come and go exactly when and how he pleased.
He remembers pain so bad it made him shake.
Remembers vomiting into his own lap. Remembers the stale, sour smell of what his body rejected.
Remembers gentle hands touching his shoulders, resting at the small of his back.
He would rather do almost anything than cause Dean more pain by urging him out of the car, wrapping an arm around his waist and guiding him into this forlorn, tilted collection of weathered old wood. There's no furniture inside, no running water, but the floor's dry and there aren't many signs that animals have decided to move in and make camp.
There aren't any strong smells, and the light inside is dim.
Dean cringes half a dozen times on the way down to the sleeping bags, as if he's trying to shrink into himself. Instead of lying down, he sits, and props his head carefully in the palms of both hands, holding it mostly upright.
His eyes are closed. Have been closed the whole time.
He caves to drinking some water Sam's poured into a cup. When the cup is empty, Sam empties the plastic bottle into it.
Come on, man, he thinks. Come on, now.
~~~~~~
It's good. The quiet. Here.
It's good to not move. To just be still and quiet; to not feel vibration underneath him.
Then there's water in a cup, and Sam's voice telling him he's dehydrated as all hell and it'll feel better if he drinks.
It would feel better if…
Yes.
There's cool wet moving against his face and the back of his neck. One of those little towels they boosted from the motel with the pink rooms. The towels are pink too, but they're towels. Multi-purpose. Cleaning rags.
Good for this. Cooling his face, his neck.
It's better, now.
~~~~~~
Yesterday, Sam started thinking things like aneurysm and stroke and brain tumor, but this is none of those.
This is just his brother, who holds everything inside.
Who is silent and taciturn, terse and violent. Who refuses anything that looks like kindness, though he is quick to offer it to someone else.
Anyone else.
Who says I'm dealing with it, when he's not.
They have two sleeping bags, boosted from the garage of a family obviously able to absorb the loss without difficulty - along with the loss of a Coleman stove, a couple of blankets, a lantern, and an assortment of tools. Sam stacked the sleeping bags one on top of the other. They're good and thick, make an acceptable bed.
He can use the stove in the morning to warm up some soup.
For now, he sits cross-legged alongside the stacked sleeping bags, a hand laid flat and firm against the small of his brother's back.
"There's a pond out there," he says after a while.
Keeps his voice low, not much above a whisper. The way Dean always did, after the visions.
"Looks like it might be good for a swim," he says. "Weather's pretty mild. Nobody around, that I can tell."
Dean makes a small sound.
"Been a while since we went swimming. Laid out in the sun."
They've got plenty of bottled water. Sam made sure of that yesterday, when he stopped for gas. There's a sack of groceries sitting alongside the Coleman stove: a six-pack of applesauce, some juice, saltine crackers. Jell-O. Tomato rice soup. The stuff Dean doled out for him when they were little, when Sam was sick.
After a while, Dean opens his eyes about two-thirds of the way.
"Shit," he mutters. "Hate this shit."
They were…what, Sam wonders. Dean was twelve, maybe? Down with the flu.
He remembers a night, in some no-name motel. Stumbling out of bed to use the bathroom, and finding Dean huddled in the tub, crying into a wadded-up towel.
Unwilling to wake anyone.
Unwilling to ask for help.
He empties another half a bottle of water into the cup and holds it so that Dean can sip from it. He'll have to drink the whole dozen to make up for the lack of fluid in his system - but they've got all night.
They've got quiet, and solitude.
Each other.
There's no TV here, and no WiFi connection. Sam makes up for it by sitting alongside his brother and relating what he remembers of a TV show about the creation of the universe, narrated by that guy from Dirty Jobs.
Someday, he thinks, they should track that guy down.
Tell him what a dirty job really is.
After a while, Dean fumbles with one hand, uses it to guide his way down onto the sleeping bags. That he doesn't curl up like a pill bug seems like a good sign.
As he drifts off to sleep, he murmurs something that ends with "…Sammy."
That's definitely a good sign.
Sam's got no bed but the floor - but he's made do with worse. He stretches out on his back, pillows his head on the wadded-up hoodie Dean was using in the car, and lays a hand on Dean's shoulder, relieved when he doesn't feel any trembling, any sign that Dean is doing anything but resting. He knows better than to think Dean will be firing on all cylinders in the morning, but they can let that happen in its own good time.
They can eat.
Talk.
Swim.
And the rest of it?
They'll deal with that when it comes.
* * * * *