How It Is
Title: How It Is
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 2100
Disclaimer: Not my boys. Kripke broke them long before I ever got to them.
Summary: Thirteen year old Dean and salmonella aren't ever going to be best friends. Sammy tries to be helpful, John doesn't.
Written for the Writing between the Lines Challenge on hoodie_time for Prompt 10 by dehavilland
Also, filling (food) 'Poisoning' for myangst_bingo card.
I would like to point out that this John only comes out when I've had a particularly enjoyable phone conversation screeming match with my own dad. Let's all assume John has a reason for acting the way he is. Maybe he's on a particularly scary hunt and hasn't slept in a couple of days.
Chicken casserole sucks. It sucks major ass. It may be Dean’s least favorite food in the history of ever.
Worse than peas even.
Chicken casserole is one of the most evil food items on the planet and Dean is seriously considering hunting down every last one of the fuckers and burning them in a huge funeral pyre.
Of course, technically it’s not the casserole’s fault Dean is a shaking mess of tears and sweat and puke right now. It’s his own fault’s what it is.
Pre-packaged food must have been created specifically as a God-send for teenage boys raising their younger brother. You just remove the cardboard, pop the container in the microwave for the prescribed 3 - 4 minutes and voila, dinner is served!
What the package doesn't include in its careful, concise instructions is that the chicken you're heating up may or may not have been pre-cooked and that you should watch out for aging motel room microwaves, because their 'high' setting might not be high enough.
“Dean, you gonna be sick again?” Sammy asks, a worried frown playing over his face.
I dunno, Sammy, don’t think there’s much left for me to chuck up.
“Ihaaguhndg…”
Yeah, that’s sort of almost coherent.
Sammy reaches over and places the faded pink trashcan right under Dean’s nose and okay, the disgusting smell of twenty minute old puke on old plastic sort of answers the question of whether or not he has anything left to throw up.
At least this time he manages to get all of the watery orange bile into the trashcan instead of aiming for his sheets first.
Sammy does his best to be supportive throughout the whole ordeal, rubs gentle circles over Dean’s shivering back, tries to talk him through it, but damn it, the kid is only eight years old and while he is freakishly smart, taking care of his salmonella infected big brother hasn’t really been covered by his training yet.
“I’ma clean out the can,” Sammy offers and hops off the bed with an awkward pat to Dean’s shoulder.
In Sammy’s little kid world ‘cleaning’ means dumping whatever will slide out of the trashcan into the toilet and not washing it out afterwards and even though the disgusting smell permeates the entire motel room, Dean doesn’t have the heart to tell him he’s doing it wrong. The kid’s doing the best he can.
“Hey,” Sammy chirps when he bounces back onto their bed, voice high and little kid loud. It makes Dean’s head pound even worse. “Bet you wish you’da listened to me now, huh?”
Dean groans and throws his arm over his eyes.
He sure as fuck wishes he’d have listened, that’s for sure, but one, Sammy is a bitchy little girl who makes a big fuss over every single meal Dean throws together, two, Dad has told them enough times to eat whatever’s been put in front of them and be grateful for it and three, Dean doesn’t listen to his baby brother, thank you very much.
Still, Sammy refused to eat the half cooked casserole and Dean ate both their helpings even though Sam warned him it tasted funny and now Dean is dying while his brother is just as bouncy and annoying as always.
Yippie-fucking-yay. It’s fun being Dean Winchester.
The nausea only gets worse as the night goes on, even though that shouldn’t really be possible. Sammy keeps shoving glasses of smelly tab water into Dean’s face (“you gotta drink, Dean. Ms Lopez says sick kids need to drink loads of water.”) and Dean keeps spewing it back up not five minutes later.
His stomach keeps constricting in painful cramps and spasms that have him clutching his middle, trying for all he’s worth to hold his insides together. The puking doesn’t stop either. Not even after Dean stops drinking all together and at some point his body decides that losing his guts through one orifice doesn’t quite cut it and Dean spends a good fifteen minutes crouched on the crapper, boxers in a smelly, stained mess around his ankles.
Dean wonders what will happen if he dies right now. He’s locked the door and Sammy isn’t really good at picking locks yet, so in all likely hood, Dad will be the one to find him in a couple of days, stiff, decomposing body permanently attached to the rusty toilet seat.
He wonders if Dad will salt’n’burn him right away or if he’ll let him turn into a vengeful spirit who throws feces at his helpless victims.
When the cramping finally stops and it becomes apparent that he is not at this very moment about to die - though it still feels like a very distinct possibility in the near future - Dean makes his way back into the main room, towel wrapped around his waist. They might be brothers, but really, Dean doesn’t need the extra embarrassment of running around butt naked. Being a crying miserable girl is more than enough right now.
Bonelessly he slumps down on their bed again.
Sammy groans next to him, eyes tiny slits, giving away that the boy is only staying awake by sheer force of will to keep his big brother company.
A bright neon sign, about level with their room’s window keeps illuminating the wall above the TV with its cheerful promise of Chix on Dix.
“You feeling any better?” Sammy mumbles into his pillow (the only one left. The one Dean didn’t throw up on.)
Dean shakes his head. The small motion makes the entire room spin left and right.
“Want some more water?”
Dean groans in reply. Sammy sighs and starts rubbing clumsy circles on Dean's arm again. “Want me to tell you about Dad?”
Dean almost laughs. Almost.
It’s their new ritual, whenever Sam has one of his crazy nightmares that leave him shaking and crying out for daddydeanmom Dean will cradle his brother’s shaggy head in his lap and tell him stories about John Winchester, Coolest Superhero in the Whole Wide World and Slayer of All Things Evil.
It’s kind of a relief. Now that Sammy knows the truth, Dean can tell him real stories about ghouls and spirits and werewolves instead of having to make up some crappy lie about lovey-dovey picket fences and dogs and ball games.
Still, telling the stories is Dean’s way of taking care of Sam, not the other way ‘round.
He shakes his head, just as Sammy starts talking.
“So uhm…Daddy’s out huntin’ right? He’s after a…vampire.” Okay, so maybe Sammy knows what’s out there, but he’s still a little unclear on what monsters really exist and what are just on TV. “And it’s a really bad vampire, like, claws and huge teeth and he keeps biting people, so the papers started writing ‘bout it and that’s how Dad found out and now he’s huntin’ him, you know, so he can’t drink people’s blood no more.”
Dean groans when another wave of nausea rushes over him at the thought of blood and drinking and food. Sammy runs his hand through Dean’s short hair, like he’s a baby who needs comforting or some shit.
“Yeah, so Daddy found the vampire and he lives in a castle, y’know like the one in the Last Crusade so that's where Daddy went. And he…” Sammy stops his enthralling tale in order to stifle a yawn. “He’s gonna throw salt all over him so he’ll stop being bad, ‘cause that’s what you do when you hunt vampires and then when he’s done he’s gonna come back for us. The end.”
Sammy beams proudly and Dean tries to look like the story just magically made him feel good again.
The kid keeps up his low key babbling and his finger weave awkwardly though Dean’s hair and somewhere along the line Dean falls asleep.
Then suddenly he’s awake again with the shrill sound of the motel room’s phone in his ears.
“Hello?”
Did Sammy just answer the phone? They’re not supposed to answer the phone when Dad’s not around.
Dean can hear the angry growl from the other end and Sammy falters.
“…because I…but Dad, it was you…no, sir, but…yeah…nope, you can’t talk to Dean…no, he’s just asleep, he - “
The angry growl turns into even angrier shouting. Dean still can’t quite make out what exactly is being said, but he gets the general idea of why’s that lazy little shit still in bed? Dean's words, not Dad's, but it's basically the same.
“But he’s…no, Dad, he’s just…yessir.”
Dean feels the mattress shift and works to get his eyes open. Sammy is sitting in front of him, green phone clutched in both hands, eyeing him up with a disapproving frown on his little face.
“Wha’ issit?” Dean asks. His tongue is dry and tastes of dried up puke. He’s lying on his side, still curled up into a tight ball, arms clutched around his grumbling middle.
Sammy scrunches up his face, wrinkles his nose a little and holds the phone out for Dean. ‘DAD,’ he mouths, pointing at the earpiece.
“’lo?” Dean rasps into the phone, cringing even while he’s saying it. This so doesn’t seem like the right time to be disrespectful.
“Excuse me?” Low and dangerous. Dean’s spine straightens against the tight ball he’s trying to curl himself into.
“Yes, sir.”
Dad ‘humpf’’s. Sammy scatters away from the bed, like even through the phone he doesn’t want to be near their father when he’s in one of those moods.
“What’s your brother doin’ answering the phone?”
Dean runs his tongue over his dry lips, succeeds in spreading the vile taste even further.
“Dean…”
“Yessir, he’s answering the phone ‘cause I was asleep. Sir.”
His father sounding this pissed off this early on in their conversation is never a good sign. A little extra respect might just save his ass. Probably not though.
“It’s 1230.”
Dean shoots a quick glance at the old alarm clock on the nightstand.
“Yes, sir.”
Tense silence from the other end of the line. Dean thinks he should probably explain about not feeling so hot and the stupid casserole and all, but the words don’t quite find their way from his mind to his mouth. (And what’s up with that anyway? He isn’t that slow.)
“You wanna tell me what your ass is doing in bed at 1230?” Yup, explaining would have been the way to go. But Dad’s on a roll now. “Has your brother had breakfast yet? Have either of you done any training since I’ve been gone or do you think lying around all day is just so much more fun? I put you in charge, Dean. I trust you to hold the fort and this is how you do it? I’m tellin’ you if you think you can start some shitty teen rebellion thing on me, the two of us are gonna have problems.”
Dean yes and nosirs his way through the conversation. He tries to wrap his head around what is happening, but his brain is having real trouble catching on. One minute Sam’s telling some nonsense story about vampires, the next Dad is yelling into his ear and then all of a sudden the line is dead and Dean feels something wet trickling down his face.
He wipes at his eyes before Sammy can see and tries to roll out of bed without really uncurling.
“Dean?” Sammy shoots up from his place at the table in the corner, hovering like some mini version of a protective mama bear. He’s already got another one of his stupid glasses of water in his hand. Like that’s going to make everything better.
Dean tries to get his stomach to calm down enough to walk towards the closet and get dressed in his frayed sweat pants and a new shirt.
“What’d Dad say?”
Dean shrugs, the embarrassing burn behind his eyes is already making a comeback.
“Gotta work on your footwork,” he rasps around his dry throat. He thinks maybe he should take just a tiny sip off Sammy’s water, but then his stomach turns again.
“What?”
Eight year olds aren’t supposed to sound bitter and sad and mad at the world like that. “Dean, what’d Dad say?”
Dean shakes his head, hopes Sammy will take the hint and shut the fuck up and get with the training.
Dad’s right.
Even if he didn’t get the whole story, he’s right.
They need to train and Dean needs to make sure Sammy eats and it’s not Sammy’s job to hold his big brother’s hand because he’s got a little belly ache.
Dean bites down on his lower lip until he tastes blood (because tasting blood is still better than tasting bile or moldy water) and starts with a couple of pushups.