Sammy is a Warm Gun
Title: Sammy is a Warm Gun
Summary: Immediately post-2.20 "What is and What Should Never Be," Sam has stomach flu and Dean has a weird dream.
Warnings/Spoilers: Ahem.
Wordcount: 4,409
Author's Note: Sammyverse, of course. Title's from "Happiness is a Warm Gun" by our good friends the Beatles. And just...yeah. I'm psyched for whatever feedback you've got.
--
“How did she look?”
It's the first thing Sam asks, and in total and complete fucking honesty, Dean wouldn't have it any other way.
“Beautiful,” he says. “Tall as all hell, I'd forgotten. Her hair was big. You should have seen the size of that ring you got her, God knows where you found the money. The way she smiled at you, Sammy...beautiful. She was beautiful.”
“Fuck, wish I could have seen her.” Sam lies on his back and looks up at the ceiling. Call him paranoid, but Dean doesn't really like when Sam does that ceiling-gazing thing when he's thinking about Jess, and when Sam says, “What about Mom?” while he's still fucking staring up at it yeah, that doesn't exactly ease Dean's mind.
“Just like in the old pictures,” Dean says. “Come on, get up, help me pack.”
Sam stuffs his socks in the side pocket of his bag. “And Dad was dead?”
Dean nods and zips up his duffel. “Was on a fucking softball team. Cannot get over that.”
“And you were some vagabond asshole with a hot girlfriend.”
“Yep.”
“And we didn't get along.”
Dean shrugs and sits down on the night stand. “Nothing in common, I guess. No reason we had to. We had Mom and Dad to look out for us, didn't exactly know about any of the scary shit out there. You were in school and I was fixing cars. It logically makes sense.”
“It logically fucking sucks.”
“Hey. I'm with you there. You ready to go?”
Sam nods and slings his bag over his shoulder. “Hey. I'm glad you came back. I kind of can't believe that you did. All of that was worth giving up just to have me hanging on to you all the damn time?”
“Wasn't real, Sam.”
“Still. Sounds like a nice dream.”
Dean unlocks the car and starts throwing in their shit. “Not all nice. You didn't ask how you were.”
Sam looks up. “Was I...something?”
“You were shitty.” He closes the trunk. “You breathed like you do during a bad night all the fucking time, and no one seemed to give a shit and you were really confused when I did. You sat and talked in short sentences and everyone apparently just fucking accepted it. I don't know, man. All those people around, someone should have taken care of you better than that. You should have fucking learned to take care of yourself better than that, but apparently...I don't know.”
“Probably didn't have much incentive,” Sam says. “Not like I needed to be able to run four minute miles, you know?”
“Someone should have fucking looked after you.”
They tug the car door opens and slide into their seats. Sam says, “Jess stayed with me anyway, though?”
“Yeah. Absolutely. You picked a good one, Sam.”
There's that ghost smile again, and it hurts Dean but he knows that Sam needs to hear this shit, that he likes it. It's been almost a year and a half since Jess died and Dean's figured out a lot of patterns. Her name should come up every three or four days; usually Sam will be the one to bring her up, but if he doesn't, it's good for Dean to mention her. If it's in passing--this one time when Jess and I were at a restaurant like this one-Sam gets just a nod of acknowledgment, whatever, but if Sam needs to chick-flick out Dean listens and says a nice thing or two and just gives the kid a fucking minute. Sam's pretty much a superhero about the whole thing.
“It scared the shit out of me,” Dean says, a few miles later. “Seeing you breathe like that. Realizing that that could have been your fucking reality, if we hadn't strengthened your lungs up and been really fucking careful with you when you were a kid. If I weren't on your ass all the time now telling you to load up on meds so you don't get me killed on a salt and burn.”
“Yeah, because that's why you nag.”
“Only reason.”
Sam smiles at Dean and then looks out the window for a while. Dean knows he's seeing Jess.
Dean is just hearing Sam breathe.
Twenty minutes later, Sam's in full bitch mode, whining about how Dean hasn't given him the proper coordinates so how is he supposed to do advance research and Dean do you really have to sing every time “Enter Sandman” comes on and why the hell is it so fucking cold in the middle of April blah blah bullshit Sam says and Dean can't stop smiling because fuck is this whiny wheezy piece of shit in his passenger seat here different from the sullen blue excuse for a brother he had in bizarro-world, fuck is this so much different, and he reaches over and knocks Sam's head to the side and Sam shoots him one of those lazy grins.
“You are so annoying,” Dean says.
“You.”
“Worst fucking thing in my whole life.”
“You're my whole life and therefore my life fucking sucks,” Sam says, throwing a balled-up tissue at him, thank you, Sammy, and Dean catches him a headlock at the next red light and Sam wraps a hand around Dean's ribcage and grips him for just a second.
**
Because they're Winchesters with Winchester luck, and because the djinn's lair was some nasty-ass warehouse, Sam's coming down with something not twenty-four hours later, he informs Dean all glumly. He sits in the diner in Lancaster, Pennsylvania and puppy-dog-faces his scrambled eggs.
“Whatever they did to you, they didn't mean it, Sammy,” Dean says, going for gentle because he can tell Sam's not feeling great, and he needs to suss out how big a problem they're dealing with.
Sam looks up with the same fucking expression and says, “I'm sorry. About...” and he gestures kind of vaguely at his chest, his body, himself.
“Yeah, that attitude's going to be a problem for me. Shut up, eat your eggs, feel better.”
Sam spears and eats a bite.
“Seriously,” Dean says. “Why do you even try this self-loathing shit on me?”
“As a general rule I try everything on you. What else am I going to do with it?”
“How do you feel?”
“Okay. I just know it's coming.”
“Eat.”
Sam gnaws on his toast and looks through the case file. Dean sorts through the pages Sam's set aside. Pictures of the witnesses. Hello, Carrie Maren. Bartender. He'll be taking that interview, he thinks. Poor sick Sammy can stay home and rest.
Turns out by the time the bar's open, poor sick Sammy is puking up breakfast and running a low fever. They talk about finding a clinic but they fucking have everything that's ever prescribed because Dean got sick of hauling the kid there every time his immune system decided to crap out and started just stealing and hoarding crap because welcome to their lives, so Sam takes antivirals and antibiotics and curls up with Gatorade and a marathon of 24 (Sam: Nooooo, it's like watching my life tick away. Dean: you're a fucking hunter, aren't you used to that?) and Dean washes the fuck out of his hands and leaves to hit the bar.
Where Carrie Maren isn't working until later, Dean realizes four drinks in.
But he has distractions.
Because Jesus.
Sam hadn't even liked him.
Sam couldn't fucking breathe and when Dean tried to help he looked at him like he was a fucking monster (except bizarro-Sam had no idea how to look at monsters, bizarro-Sam thought the worst thing out there was a brother who stole his ATM card and Jesus, Dean, why did you do that?)
He couldn't fucking breathe and Jesus, bizzaro-Jessica, what kind of a fucking girlfriend are you that you'd let Sam suffer like that, and Jesus, bizarro-Dean, Jesus fucking Christ, because you weren't hunting with him you accepted that? That was e-fucking-nough for you, Sam choking on his own air and giving you a bland smile over fancy fucking dinners and leaving his inhaler on the nightstand in the guest room instead of carrying it in his pocket and Jesus Christ, you let a fifteen-year-old Sam get away with that shit? A ten-year-old? A five-year-old? (What the fuck kind of big brother would you be if you didn't have to count on Sam to watch your back?)
Yep, time for another drink.
Because look, you can think a lot of things about Dean Winchester, and trust that he's thought every single fucking one of them, but he is a good big brother. He works his fucking ass off at it, and maybe that's the fucking problem, that it isn't something natural. He wasn't made to take care of Sam. He had to force it. And what the fuck, what the fuck kind of thing is that to figure out about yourself? Being Sam's big brother is all he's ever fucking been (those four years before Sam was born are a fucking myth) and now you're telling him that if some fucking demon hadn't come along and pinned his mom up on the ceiling, he would have been the asshole who let his brother be sick and banged his prom date? Frankly, no.
Carrie shows up around then and Dean chats her up, tries to find out if she's noticed anyone in the town acting strange, and she's cute and flirty and unhelpful. Still, she has a pretty smile and a fantastic pair of tits, and it's not until she jokes that her sister's even hotter than she is that he remembers he has a sick kid at home who hasn't texted him in over an hour and wow, is Dean just going for worst brother of the year award this weekend or something? Bartender says no way is he driving and she's fucking right, but the motel's only a few blocks away and it's a nice night so no problem. He howls at the moon and laughs to himself.
And then he gets back to the motel to a Sam who's lying in the middle of his bed and breathing in this shallow fucking pants and just Jesus, Dean, the kid probably would have been better off with you hanging in a warehouse for all of goddamn eternity.
“Why can't you ever get a little sick?” Dean says, putting his hand on Sam's forehead. He's a furnace, of-fucking-course, and the puke bucket Dean left him with has been put to good use. Aw, Sammy. “Poor kid.”
“C-c-couldn't get outside,” Sam says.
“You are delirious,” Dean says, enunciating everything really carefully. “And gross. Gotta clean you up, c'mon.” He sits Sam on the side of the bed, then gets himself under his arm and hauls him up. He stumbles, and so does Sam. “I'm a bad doctor,” Dean says. “Fucking drunk. Lose my...doctor license.”
“I'm drunk,” Sam says. He drops down and sits on the bathroom floor.
“No. Sick.”
“You're sick?”
“I'm drunk.”
“I want to be the same as you...”
Dean tugs off Sam's shirt and wipes him clean with a warm washcloth. His skin is hot as all hell so using warm water pisses Dean the fuck off, but anything cold on Sam's chest is bad news and his lungs sound pretty decent right now, so no way is he messing with that.
“I can do it,” Sam says, eyes closed, head against the wall. “If you want.”
“No, 'sokay.”
Sam nods, wraps his arms around his waist and holds on tight.
“Stomach hurt?” Dean says. Sam nods and swallows, so Dean tugs him over to the toilet and rubs his back while he throws up. “It's okay,” Dean says. “It'll stop soon.”
Sam wheezes and presses his hand against his forehead. “Paper's due tomorrow and I just want to sleep.”
“I'll do the paper for you, okay?”
“Don't forget to cite your sources.”
“Won't.”
“You came back,” Sam says.
“Was just interviewing the witness. Sorry I left. You're shaking, you cold?”
“No. Djinn. You came back.”
“Yeah, Sammy.” He gets a cold washcloth because fuck it and holds it against the back of Sam's neck. It makes him shiver worse, but the kid needs to fucking cool down. “I came back.”
“E-even though you didn't have to take care of me there.”
“Missed my stupid sick kid.” Jesus, Dean's drunk.
“Me too. I'm the same as you...”
He throws up for a while longer and Dean holds his fucking bangs out of his face and tries to get the kid to sip some water when he's done, but Sam's having fucking none of that and Dean can't really blame him. He hauls Sam back to bed and rinses out the ice bucket.
“You have to drink enough water to get meds down,” Dean says. Fuck, he's spinning now. He rests his forehead against the door frame. “Not nego..gotiable.”
“You sick?”
“Just drunk.”
“We're not even in Montana, Dean,” Sam says, all fucking sadly. Delirious damn thing.
Dean says, “I know, kid, but it's okay.”
“We'd go ice skating if we were, right?”
“Of course.” Ice skating sounds nice. Really nice.
“Okay,” Sam says. “Don't fall, though.”
“Yep.”
Sam shivers hard and Dean comes over with meds and a thermometer but doesn't bother taking his temperature, turns out, because the kid's on fucking fire and they're doing everything they can so there's no point in scaring the shit out of them.
“Clinic tomorrow,” Dean says, and Sam nods and puts his forehead against Dean's shoulder. “Fucking octopus handsy when you're sick, man.”
“Mmm,” Sam says, and promptly throws up all the fuck over Dean's pants, which is kind of gross but also not a first or anything, so when Sam tries to stutter out some apology Dean just pets his head a little and goes into the bathroom to rinse them and take them off. Sam's still fucking puking in there, and Jesus, this sucks. It's been a long time since one of them had a genuine stomach flu, and of course it had to be the one of them who has meds he needs to keep down.
Dean goes back to the bedroom and rubs Sam's back. “All done?”
Sam coughs and nods.
“That's my boy. Here.” He gives Sam some water so he can rinse his mouth out, then says, “Bedtime, c'mon, Sammy.” He pulls Sam up and over to the bed without the puked-on bedspread. “Bed for Sam, bed for Sam.”
“You're so drunk.”
“That is exactly what I am.” Dean shuts off the lights but keeps the one in the bathroom on so it's like a fucking beacon if they're looking for it, and the dim light makes Sam all navy-blue and soft, and Sam says, “M'cold, c'mere,” and tugs Dean down on the bed next to him.
“Let me hear you breathe, okay?”
Sam nods and rolls over so his mouth is close to Dean's ear. Kid smells like fucking trash and he's gross as hell, sweaty and sticky and shivering, and Dean pulls the sheet up to their waists and slings an arm over him. “Don't be so cold,” he says.
Sam rests his forehead against Dean's cheekbone and says, “Okay.” Jesus, Dean can't remember the last time they slept this close. Fucking elementary school, probably, when Sam was sick, or maybe that time when Sam was a freshman and ran away from school and found Dean and John found them but there's no John to find them and why should there be because they're not doing anything wrong, he's just warming up his sick kid and this feels like the best thing Dean's done in ages, see, he's a good brother, he's a fucking great brother, and Sam is clinging and whispering you came back you came back and he's feeling better and Dean is helping and Dean is just the best big brother in the whole world, and Sam uses that fucking scratchy-breathing lullaby he's so good at it and Dean is falling asleep with sick Sam breathing in his mouth and it's a good thing Dean never catches anything from him, and it's funny that he's immune to Sam's viruses when he's not immune to any fucking other thing in the world that Sam does and Sam tucks himself into Dean's neck and fuck he's hot and Dean is falling asleep.
**
Starts with this kiss.
This dry, light, quick kiss, more of a brush than anything but there's something about it, maybe the way his teeth catch on your bottom lip and that quick taste of something that isn't Sam, isn't even sick Sam, is different and sharp and scary and Christ you want more of that what is that--
then it all gets really vague and a lot less real, it's skin on skin, long legs, eyelashes against your cheek, your name whispered in your ear, fingers curled around your shirt so hard they turn red and then white, hand on your throat to feel you swallowing the fuck out of a kiss, rough skin, soft skin, undersides of arms and insides of thighs, some sound at the base of your chest and hair in your fists and you're holding on hard, ear and neck under your teeth, warm breath, cold sweat, hand on your stomach crawling down, you're not fucking wearing pants, holding your hip so hard it hurts, hand wrapped around your ribcage, gripping, gripping, what the fuck was that taste, shit-
**
The alarm goes off. Sam, hotter than last night, shivering and sweating and whimpering with fever, groans into Dean's shoulder, and Dean just had a sex dream with his half-naked delirious helplessfucking brother on top of him and fuck. Everything.
**
“Dean?” Sam says, when Dean stands up. His voice is this wavery fucking nightmare, and when he sits up Dean can tell it's taking about everything in him to keep his eyes from rolling back. “Where you goin'?”
Dean splashes cold water on his face for a whole fucking minute.
“Y-you sick?” Sam says.
“No.”
“C-can you come back? I'm freezing.”
Dean looks at the floor or the sink or somewhere, anywhere that is not the fucking mirror and is not not not fucking Sammy.
“Your fever's really high,” Dean says. His voice doesn't sound like his voice (he is matter-of-fact, he is cold). “You need a doctor before your lungs crap out.”
Sam doesn't answer, so Dean takes a big breath and looks in on him. He has his head in his hands and he's breathing all fucking shallow.
“F-feel really bad,” Sam says, without looking up. “Can you come here?”
“Just a minute, okay?”
“Dean.”
“I need a shower.”
Halfway through his shower, he hears running stumbling footsteps and then Sam throwing up, and he presses his forehead against the wall until it hurts.
**
“Okay.” He tosses Sam another sweatshirt. “You get one more.”
“More?”
“No. You'll overheat.” Dean pushes Sam's hair back and presses the heel of his hand against his forehead. “Shit. I hope they don't fucking hospitalize you with this shit.”
Sam sneezes and looks up at him all sadly.
“You ready to go?” Dean says.
“Help me up?”
“Of course.” He wraps an arm around Sam's waist and pulls him up. “See? Everything's fine.”
**
They don't admit him, but they do insist on setting him up for a few hours with fluids and some oxygen (even though by Dean's standards he's breathing fucking fine, and isn't it just fucking adorable that he comes back from bizarro-world and he still doesn't think Sam's lungs are worth fussing over, fucking awesome) and Sam is too tired to even give a shit. He shivers on his side and throws up in the bedpan and breathes in sharply if anyone but Dean touches him.
“Hey,” Dean says to him, when the fever's dropped (to a hundred and fucking three) and he looks like he's starting to fall asleep. “You okay if I get going?”
Sam looks up at him.
“Demon's out there killing people.” He plays with Sam's hair. “I've got to take care of this.”
Sam nudges off the oxygen mask. “You need backup?”
Fuck this kid.
“No,” Dean says. “I've got this one.” He cups Sam's cheek. “You stay safe, okay? Don't let them give you any meds you don't know. Nurses have my number.”
Sam leans into his hand.
“Are you mad at me?” Sam says, quietly. “For last night?”
“What? No. I've puked on you in the past, if you recall.”
Sam closes his eyes.
“I just need to take care of this,” Dean says. “I'll be back as soon as I can.”
“Come back,” Sam says, curling up tighter. “Just don't forget to come back.”
“I'll always come back.”
Sam nods and drifts off, and Dean gets out of there as fast as he fucking can.
**
He interviews witnesses, trails the guy, practices his Latin, draws a Devil's trap, exorcizes the bitch, goes through the fucking motions, whatever.
Sam trusted him.
Sam was sick and weak and needy (and handsy and warm and fucking needy) and whether or not Dean was dreaming about Sam he was fucking dreaming with Sam fucking on top of him and he's not sure what was happening in most of it, who the fuck that was, maybe Carmenthebartenderbartender'ssister it could have been a lot of fucking people okay but that kiss, the only clear part of the dream, that kiss at the beginning, that was definitely one hundred percent Sam and what the fuck, Dean.
He parks outside the hospital and drinks Jim Beam from the bottle while Sam and his fucking fever shiver inside and why the fuck did he ever think he was a good brother, seriously, this is not what good brothers do and not what good brothers think and when the fuck did this all get so complicated (it's not complicated, it is the least complicated thing in the fucking world: Dean loves his fucking kid so why does he feel like he's going out of his fucking mind).
He curses and drinks and curses and drinks and that's Dean's afternoon.
**
They're back at the motel now, early evening and they're both so fucking exhausted and Dean wonders why the hell the doctors let Sam go because Sam's just as fucking bad if he was this morning, maybe worse, sleeping huddled on the bed with that fucking high fever and a headache and a sick stomach and Dean's sitting in the chair in the corner with his head in his fucking hands and thinking that Sam is really gross right now so he really shouldn't want to go over there and hold him, that's really not fucking normal, when it's still not fucking complicated, Sam is sick and confused and cold, what the fuck else is he supposed to want to do? (He's not supposed to want to do other fucking things or fucking think about thinking about other fucking things especially not when the kid is sick and helpless and needy.)
John's fucking voice, asking if he was taking advantage of Sam, and shit. Just...shit.
He shouldn't have come back.
Sam's wheezing stutters into coughs, and then he's padding over in his socks, same as when he was a little kid.
“Hey,” Sam says. His hand is on Dean's back. “Hey, what's wrong? I thought you were sleeping.”
“Tried.” Dean's voice sounds fucking broken.
Sam's hand moves to his shoulder. “Did you have a bad dream?”
Dean nods hard.
“Me too. Fucking fever.” He palms Dean's forehead. “You don't feel hot.”
“Like you'd know, you're a thousand degrees.” Dean straightens up and wipes his hand over his mouth. “No. Not sick. Just a dream.”
Sam nods. Watching him with those fucking eyes.
“Are we okay?” Sam says, eventually.
“What? Of course.”
“All right. I just...I'm sorry.”
That's when Dean realizes that his hands are in fists and he's pulling away from Sam. Awesome. Sam's got the fucking flu and he's here trying to comfort Dean and Dean's being an ass. (Dean doesn't know what else to be.)
So he takes a deep breath and says, “It was a shitty dream. And it scared the hell out of me.”
“Was it about me?”
“I don't know.”
Sam nods. “Sometimes that happens to me too.”
“Not tonight?”
He shakes his head. “This was just stupid fever stuff.” He shivers. “I'm so fucking cold, can you lie down with me again?”
Dean swallows, nods.
Sam tugs him to the bed and lies down next to him. They're close but not touching. Sam is breathing kind of shitty, and Dean rubs up and down his arm a little without really thinking about it (the way he's supposed to do it).
“I'm sorry I scared you,” Sam says. “I...”
“You're fine.”
Sam nods and scoots closer, tucks himself under Dean's chin. “Just really glad you came back. I like you here, y'know?”
“I know.”
God, the kid's a mess. Cold sweat over hot skin, every bit of him shaking. And so fucking calm.
“M'sorry I kissed you,” Sam says. “Was feeling really bad. Didn't mean anything by it.”
Sam falls asleep, and Dean squeezes his eyes shut and tilts his head back as far as it will go.
Summary: Immediately post-2.20 "What is and What Should Never Be," Sam has stomach flu and Dean has a weird dream.
Warnings/Spoilers: Ahem.
Wordcount: 4,409
Author's Note: Sammyverse, of course. Title's from "Happiness is a Warm Gun" by our good friends the Beatles. And just...yeah. I'm psyched for whatever feedback you've got.
--
“How did she look?”
It's the first thing Sam asks, and in total and complete fucking honesty, Dean wouldn't have it any other way.
“Beautiful,” he says. “Tall as all hell, I'd forgotten. Her hair was big. You should have seen the size of that ring you got her, God knows where you found the money. The way she smiled at you, Sammy...beautiful. She was beautiful.”
“Fuck, wish I could have seen her.” Sam lies on his back and looks up at the ceiling. Call him paranoid, but Dean doesn't really like when Sam does that ceiling-gazing thing when he's thinking about Jess, and when Sam says, “What about Mom?” while he's still fucking staring up at it yeah, that doesn't exactly ease Dean's mind.
“Just like in the old pictures,” Dean says. “Come on, get up, help me pack.”
Sam stuffs his socks in the side pocket of his bag. “And Dad was dead?”
Dean nods and zips up his duffel. “Was on a fucking softball team. Cannot get over that.”
“And you were some vagabond asshole with a hot girlfriend.”
“Yep.”
“And we didn't get along.”
Dean shrugs and sits down on the night stand. “Nothing in common, I guess. No reason we had to. We had Mom and Dad to look out for us, didn't exactly know about any of the scary shit out there. You were in school and I was fixing cars. It logically makes sense.”
“It logically fucking sucks.”
“Hey. I'm with you there. You ready to go?”
Sam nods and slings his bag over his shoulder. “Hey. I'm glad you came back. I kind of can't believe that you did. All of that was worth giving up just to have me hanging on to you all the damn time?”
“Wasn't real, Sam.”
“Still. Sounds like a nice dream.”
Dean unlocks the car and starts throwing in their shit. “Not all nice. You didn't ask how you were.”
Sam looks up. “Was I...something?”
“You were shitty.” He closes the trunk. “You breathed like you do during a bad night all the fucking time, and no one seemed to give a shit and you were really confused when I did. You sat and talked in short sentences and everyone apparently just fucking accepted it. I don't know, man. All those people around, someone should have taken care of you better than that. You should have fucking learned to take care of yourself better than that, but apparently...I don't know.”
“Probably didn't have much incentive,” Sam says. “Not like I needed to be able to run four minute miles, you know?”
“Someone should have fucking looked after you.”
They tug the car door opens and slide into their seats. Sam says, “Jess stayed with me anyway, though?”
“Yeah. Absolutely. You picked a good one, Sam.”
There's that ghost smile again, and it hurts Dean but he knows that Sam needs to hear this shit, that he likes it. It's been almost a year and a half since Jess died and Dean's figured out a lot of patterns. Her name should come up every three or four days; usually Sam will be the one to bring her up, but if he doesn't, it's good for Dean to mention her. If it's in passing--this one time when Jess and I were at a restaurant like this one-Sam gets just a nod of acknowledgment, whatever, but if Sam needs to chick-flick out Dean listens and says a nice thing or two and just gives the kid a fucking minute. Sam's pretty much a superhero about the whole thing.
“It scared the shit out of me,” Dean says, a few miles later. “Seeing you breathe like that. Realizing that that could have been your fucking reality, if we hadn't strengthened your lungs up and been really fucking careful with you when you were a kid. If I weren't on your ass all the time now telling you to load up on meds so you don't get me killed on a salt and burn.”
“Yeah, because that's why you nag.”
“Only reason.”
Sam smiles at Dean and then looks out the window for a while. Dean knows he's seeing Jess.
Dean is just hearing Sam breathe.
Twenty minutes later, Sam's in full bitch mode, whining about how Dean hasn't given him the proper coordinates so how is he supposed to do advance research and Dean do you really have to sing every time “Enter Sandman” comes on and why the hell is it so fucking cold in the middle of April blah blah bullshit Sam says and Dean can't stop smiling because fuck is this whiny wheezy piece of shit in his passenger seat here different from the sullen blue excuse for a brother he had in bizarro-world, fuck is this so much different, and he reaches over and knocks Sam's head to the side and Sam shoots him one of those lazy grins.
“You are so annoying,” Dean says.
“You.”
“Worst fucking thing in my whole life.”
“You're my whole life and therefore my life fucking sucks,” Sam says, throwing a balled-up tissue at him, thank you, Sammy, and Dean catches him a headlock at the next red light and Sam wraps a hand around Dean's ribcage and grips him for just a second.
**
Because they're Winchesters with Winchester luck, and because the djinn's lair was some nasty-ass warehouse, Sam's coming down with something not twenty-four hours later, he informs Dean all glumly. He sits in the diner in Lancaster, Pennsylvania and puppy-dog-faces his scrambled eggs.
“Whatever they did to you, they didn't mean it, Sammy,” Dean says, going for gentle because he can tell Sam's not feeling great, and he needs to suss out how big a problem they're dealing with.
Sam looks up with the same fucking expression and says, “I'm sorry. About...” and he gestures kind of vaguely at his chest, his body, himself.
“Yeah, that attitude's going to be a problem for me. Shut up, eat your eggs, feel better.”
Sam spears and eats a bite.
“Seriously,” Dean says. “Why do you even try this self-loathing shit on me?”
“As a general rule I try everything on you. What else am I going to do with it?”
“How do you feel?”
“Okay. I just know it's coming.”
“Eat.”
Sam gnaws on his toast and looks through the case file. Dean sorts through the pages Sam's set aside. Pictures of the witnesses. Hello, Carrie Maren. Bartender. He'll be taking that interview, he thinks. Poor sick Sammy can stay home and rest.
Turns out by the time the bar's open, poor sick Sammy is puking up breakfast and running a low fever. They talk about finding a clinic but they fucking have everything that's ever prescribed because Dean got sick of hauling the kid there every time his immune system decided to crap out and started just stealing and hoarding crap because welcome to their lives, so Sam takes antivirals and antibiotics and curls up with Gatorade and a marathon of 24 (Sam: Nooooo, it's like watching my life tick away. Dean: you're a fucking hunter, aren't you used to that?) and Dean washes the fuck out of his hands and leaves to hit the bar.
Where Carrie Maren isn't working until later, Dean realizes four drinks in.
But he has distractions.
Because Jesus.
Sam hadn't even liked him.
Sam couldn't fucking breathe and when Dean tried to help he looked at him like he was a fucking monster (except bizarro-Sam had no idea how to look at monsters, bizarro-Sam thought the worst thing out there was a brother who stole his ATM card and Jesus, Dean, why did you do that?)
He couldn't fucking breathe and Jesus, bizzaro-Jessica, what kind of a fucking girlfriend are you that you'd let Sam suffer like that, and Jesus, bizarro-Dean, Jesus fucking Christ, because you weren't hunting with him you accepted that? That was e-fucking-nough for you, Sam choking on his own air and giving you a bland smile over fancy fucking dinners and leaving his inhaler on the nightstand in the guest room instead of carrying it in his pocket and Jesus Christ, you let a fifteen-year-old Sam get away with that shit? A ten-year-old? A five-year-old? (What the fuck kind of big brother would you be if you didn't have to count on Sam to watch your back?)
Yep, time for another drink.
Because look, you can think a lot of things about Dean Winchester, and trust that he's thought every single fucking one of them, but he is a good big brother. He works his fucking ass off at it, and maybe that's the fucking problem, that it isn't something natural. He wasn't made to take care of Sam. He had to force it. And what the fuck, what the fuck kind of thing is that to figure out about yourself? Being Sam's big brother is all he's ever fucking been (those four years before Sam was born are a fucking myth) and now you're telling him that if some fucking demon hadn't come along and pinned his mom up on the ceiling, he would have been the asshole who let his brother be sick and banged his prom date? Frankly, no.
Carrie shows up around then and Dean chats her up, tries to find out if she's noticed anyone in the town acting strange, and she's cute and flirty and unhelpful. Still, she has a pretty smile and a fantastic pair of tits, and it's not until she jokes that her sister's even hotter than she is that he remembers he has a sick kid at home who hasn't texted him in over an hour and wow, is Dean just going for worst brother of the year award this weekend or something? Bartender says no way is he driving and she's fucking right, but the motel's only a few blocks away and it's a nice night so no problem. He howls at the moon and laughs to himself.
And then he gets back to the motel to a Sam who's lying in the middle of his bed and breathing in this shallow fucking pants and just Jesus, Dean, the kid probably would have been better off with you hanging in a warehouse for all of goddamn eternity.
“Why can't you ever get a little sick?” Dean says, putting his hand on Sam's forehead. He's a furnace, of-fucking-course, and the puke bucket Dean left him with has been put to good use. Aw, Sammy. “Poor kid.”
“C-c-couldn't get outside,” Sam says.
“You are delirious,” Dean says, enunciating everything really carefully. “And gross. Gotta clean you up, c'mon.” He sits Sam on the side of the bed, then gets himself under his arm and hauls him up. He stumbles, and so does Sam. “I'm a bad doctor,” Dean says. “Fucking drunk. Lose my...doctor license.”
“I'm drunk,” Sam says. He drops down and sits on the bathroom floor.
“No. Sick.”
“You're sick?”
“I'm drunk.”
“I want to be the same as you...”
Dean tugs off Sam's shirt and wipes him clean with a warm washcloth. His skin is hot as all hell so using warm water pisses Dean the fuck off, but anything cold on Sam's chest is bad news and his lungs sound pretty decent right now, so no way is he messing with that.
“I can do it,” Sam says, eyes closed, head against the wall. “If you want.”
“No, 'sokay.”
Sam nods, wraps his arms around his waist and holds on tight.
“Stomach hurt?” Dean says. Sam nods and swallows, so Dean tugs him over to the toilet and rubs his back while he throws up. “It's okay,” Dean says. “It'll stop soon.”
Sam wheezes and presses his hand against his forehead. “Paper's due tomorrow and I just want to sleep.”
“I'll do the paper for you, okay?”
“Don't forget to cite your sources.”
“Won't.”
“You came back,” Sam says.
“Was just interviewing the witness. Sorry I left. You're shaking, you cold?”
“No. Djinn. You came back.”
“Yeah, Sammy.” He gets a cold washcloth because fuck it and holds it against the back of Sam's neck. It makes him shiver worse, but the kid needs to fucking cool down. “I came back.”
“E-even though you didn't have to take care of me there.”
“Missed my stupid sick kid.” Jesus, Dean's drunk.
“Me too. I'm the same as you...”
He throws up for a while longer and Dean holds his fucking bangs out of his face and tries to get the kid to sip some water when he's done, but Sam's having fucking none of that and Dean can't really blame him. He hauls Sam back to bed and rinses out the ice bucket.
“You have to drink enough water to get meds down,” Dean says. Fuck, he's spinning now. He rests his forehead against the door frame. “Not nego..gotiable.”
“You sick?”
“Just drunk.”
“We're not even in Montana, Dean,” Sam says, all fucking sadly. Delirious damn thing.
Dean says, “I know, kid, but it's okay.”
“We'd go ice skating if we were, right?”
“Of course.” Ice skating sounds nice. Really nice.
“Okay,” Sam says. “Don't fall, though.”
“Yep.”
Sam shivers hard and Dean comes over with meds and a thermometer but doesn't bother taking his temperature, turns out, because the kid's on fucking fire and they're doing everything they can so there's no point in scaring the shit out of them.
“Clinic tomorrow,” Dean says, and Sam nods and puts his forehead against Dean's shoulder. “Fucking octopus handsy when you're sick, man.”
“Mmm,” Sam says, and promptly throws up all the fuck over Dean's pants, which is kind of gross but also not a first or anything, so when Sam tries to stutter out some apology Dean just pets his head a little and goes into the bathroom to rinse them and take them off. Sam's still fucking puking in there, and Jesus, this sucks. It's been a long time since one of them had a genuine stomach flu, and of course it had to be the one of them who has meds he needs to keep down.
Dean goes back to the bedroom and rubs Sam's back. “All done?”
Sam coughs and nods.
“That's my boy. Here.” He gives Sam some water so he can rinse his mouth out, then says, “Bedtime, c'mon, Sammy.” He pulls Sam up and over to the bed without the puked-on bedspread. “Bed for Sam, bed for Sam.”
“You're so drunk.”
“That is exactly what I am.” Dean shuts off the lights but keeps the one in the bathroom on so it's like a fucking beacon if they're looking for it, and the dim light makes Sam all navy-blue and soft, and Sam says, “M'cold, c'mere,” and tugs Dean down on the bed next to him.
“Let me hear you breathe, okay?”
Sam nods and rolls over so his mouth is close to Dean's ear. Kid smells like fucking trash and he's gross as hell, sweaty and sticky and shivering, and Dean pulls the sheet up to their waists and slings an arm over him. “Don't be so cold,” he says.
Sam rests his forehead against Dean's cheekbone and says, “Okay.” Jesus, Dean can't remember the last time they slept this close. Fucking elementary school, probably, when Sam was sick, or maybe that time when Sam was a freshman and ran away from school and found Dean and John found them but there's no John to find them and why should there be because they're not doing anything wrong, he's just warming up his sick kid and this feels like the best thing Dean's done in ages, see, he's a good brother, he's a fucking great brother, and Sam is clinging and whispering you came back you came back and he's feeling better and Dean is helping and Dean is just the best big brother in the whole world, and Sam uses that fucking scratchy-breathing lullaby he's so good at it and Dean is falling asleep with sick Sam breathing in his mouth and it's a good thing Dean never catches anything from him, and it's funny that he's immune to Sam's viruses when he's not immune to any fucking other thing in the world that Sam does and Sam tucks himself into Dean's neck and fuck he's hot and Dean is falling asleep.
**
Starts with this kiss.
This dry, light, quick kiss, more of a brush than anything but there's something about it, maybe the way his teeth catch on your bottom lip and that quick taste of something that isn't Sam, isn't even sick Sam, is different and sharp and scary and Christ you want more of that what is that--
then it all gets really vague and a lot less real, it's skin on skin, long legs, eyelashes against your cheek, your name whispered in your ear, fingers curled around your shirt so hard they turn red and then white, hand on your throat to feel you swallowing the fuck out of a kiss, rough skin, soft skin, undersides of arms and insides of thighs, some sound at the base of your chest and hair in your fists and you're holding on hard, ear and neck under your teeth, warm breath, cold sweat, hand on your stomach crawling down, you're not fucking wearing pants, holding your hip so hard it hurts, hand wrapped around your ribcage, gripping, gripping, what the fuck was that taste, shit-
**
The alarm goes off. Sam, hotter than last night, shivering and sweating and whimpering with fever, groans into Dean's shoulder, and Dean just had a sex dream with his half-naked delirious helplessfucking brother on top of him and fuck. Everything.
**
“Dean?” Sam says, when Dean stands up. His voice is this wavery fucking nightmare, and when he sits up Dean can tell it's taking about everything in him to keep his eyes from rolling back. “Where you goin'?”
Dean splashes cold water on his face for a whole fucking minute.
“Y-you sick?” Sam says.
“No.”
“C-can you come back? I'm freezing.”
Dean looks at the floor or the sink or somewhere, anywhere that is not the fucking mirror and is not not not fucking Sammy.
“Your fever's really high,” Dean says. His voice doesn't sound like his voice (he is matter-of-fact, he is cold). “You need a doctor before your lungs crap out.”
Sam doesn't answer, so Dean takes a big breath and looks in on him. He has his head in his hands and he's breathing all fucking shallow.
“F-feel really bad,” Sam says, without looking up. “Can you come here?”
“Just a minute, okay?”
“Dean.”
“I need a shower.”
Halfway through his shower, he hears running stumbling footsteps and then Sam throwing up, and he presses his forehead against the wall until it hurts.
**
“Okay.” He tosses Sam another sweatshirt. “You get one more.”
“More?”
“No. You'll overheat.” Dean pushes Sam's hair back and presses the heel of his hand against his forehead. “Shit. I hope they don't fucking hospitalize you with this shit.”
Sam sneezes and looks up at him all sadly.
“You ready to go?” Dean says.
“Help me up?”
“Of course.” He wraps an arm around Sam's waist and pulls him up. “See? Everything's fine.”
**
They don't admit him, but they do insist on setting him up for a few hours with fluids and some oxygen (even though by Dean's standards he's breathing fucking fine, and isn't it just fucking adorable that he comes back from bizarro-world and he still doesn't think Sam's lungs are worth fussing over, fucking awesome) and Sam is too tired to even give a shit. He shivers on his side and throws up in the bedpan and breathes in sharply if anyone but Dean touches him.
“Hey,” Dean says to him, when the fever's dropped (to a hundred and fucking three) and he looks like he's starting to fall asleep. “You okay if I get going?”
Sam looks up at him.
“Demon's out there killing people.” He plays with Sam's hair. “I've got to take care of this.”
Sam nudges off the oxygen mask. “You need backup?”
Fuck this kid.
“No,” Dean says. “I've got this one.” He cups Sam's cheek. “You stay safe, okay? Don't let them give you any meds you don't know. Nurses have my number.”
Sam leans into his hand.
“Are you mad at me?” Sam says, quietly. “For last night?”
“What? No. I've puked on you in the past, if you recall.”
Sam closes his eyes.
“I just need to take care of this,” Dean says. “I'll be back as soon as I can.”
“Come back,” Sam says, curling up tighter. “Just don't forget to come back.”
“I'll always come back.”
Sam nods and drifts off, and Dean gets out of there as fast as he fucking can.
**
He interviews witnesses, trails the guy, practices his Latin, draws a Devil's trap, exorcizes the bitch, goes through the fucking motions, whatever.
Sam trusted him.
Sam was sick and weak and needy (and handsy and warm and fucking needy) and whether or not Dean was dreaming about Sam he was fucking dreaming with Sam fucking on top of him and he's not sure what was happening in most of it, who the fuck that was, maybe Carmenthebartenderbartender'ssister it could have been a lot of fucking people okay but that kiss, the only clear part of the dream, that kiss at the beginning, that was definitely one hundred percent Sam and what the fuck, Dean.
He parks outside the hospital and drinks Jim Beam from the bottle while Sam and his fucking fever shiver inside and why the fuck did he ever think he was a good brother, seriously, this is not what good brothers do and not what good brothers think and when the fuck did this all get so complicated (it's not complicated, it is the least complicated thing in the fucking world: Dean loves his fucking kid so why does he feel like he's going out of his fucking mind).
He curses and drinks and curses and drinks and that's Dean's afternoon.
**
They're back at the motel now, early evening and they're both so fucking exhausted and Dean wonders why the hell the doctors let Sam go because Sam's just as fucking bad if he was this morning, maybe worse, sleeping huddled on the bed with that fucking high fever and a headache and a sick stomach and Dean's sitting in the chair in the corner with his head in his fucking hands and thinking that Sam is really gross right now so he really shouldn't want to go over there and hold him, that's really not fucking normal, when it's still not fucking complicated, Sam is sick and confused and cold, what the fuck else is he supposed to want to do? (He's not supposed to want to do other fucking things or fucking think about thinking about other fucking things especially not when the kid is sick and helpless and needy.)
John's fucking voice, asking if he was taking advantage of Sam, and shit. Just...shit.
He shouldn't have come back.
Sam's wheezing stutters into coughs, and then he's padding over in his socks, same as when he was a little kid.
“Hey,” Sam says. His hand is on Dean's back. “Hey, what's wrong? I thought you were sleeping.”
“Tried.” Dean's voice sounds fucking broken.
Sam's hand moves to his shoulder. “Did you have a bad dream?”
Dean nods hard.
“Me too. Fucking fever.” He palms Dean's forehead. “You don't feel hot.”
“Like you'd know, you're a thousand degrees.” Dean straightens up and wipes his hand over his mouth. “No. Not sick. Just a dream.”
Sam nods. Watching him with those fucking eyes.
“Are we okay?” Sam says, eventually.
“What? Of course.”
“All right. I just...I'm sorry.”
That's when Dean realizes that his hands are in fists and he's pulling away from Sam. Awesome. Sam's got the fucking flu and he's here trying to comfort Dean and Dean's being an ass. (Dean doesn't know what else to be.)
So he takes a deep breath and says, “It was a shitty dream. And it scared the hell out of me.”
“Was it about me?”
“I don't know.”
Sam nods. “Sometimes that happens to me too.”
“Not tonight?”
He shakes his head. “This was just stupid fever stuff.” He shivers. “I'm so fucking cold, can you lie down with me again?”
Dean swallows, nods.
Sam tugs him to the bed and lies down next to him. They're close but not touching. Sam is breathing kind of shitty, and Dean rubs up and down his arm a little without really thinking about it (the way he's supposed to do it).
“I'm sorry I scared you,” Sam says. “I...”
“You're fine.”
Sam nods and scoots closer, tucks himself under Dean's chin. “Just really glad you came back. I like you here, y'know?”
“I know.”
God, the kid's a mess. Cold sweat over hot skin, every bit of him shaking. And so fucking calm.
“M'sorry I kissed you,” Sam says. “Was feeling really bad. Didn't mean anything by it.”
Sam falls asleep, and Dean squeezes his eyes shut and tilts his head back as far as it will go.