If Ever Sammy Strays
Title: If Ever Sammy Strays
Summary: Sophomore year. Sam is having a really, really bad week. Really.
Wordcount: 3,068
Author's Note: Sammyverse. I have a Jess-lives one coming up, I swear, but this one was already written so tada! Title is from "If Ever I Stray" by Frank Turner.
He's been off-kilter and wheezy for almost a week now, dealing with allergy attacks and coughing fits that leave him light-headed, but this is a special brand of shitty. It's already a depressingly familiar pattern. Last year, he could blame at least some of it on the stress of being away from home, on the effort spent breathing quietly rather than well to try to not wake up his roommate, on the pathetic terror of not having Dean, but now, after a year of adjusting, with his own bedroom in the four-guy suite, with dozens of asthma attacks that prove that Dean will always answer the phone, Sam can't hide from the fact that this is just how his fucking lungs work.
Or don't work, as the case may be.
"If I don't find my fucking key, it's fifty dollars and I swear to fucking God--"
"Did Emily take it?"
"Why would Emily take my key?"
"Because she's a psycho..."
"Dude, don't yell, I think Sam's sleeping."
"Doesn't he have class?"
Sam is sitting up in bed, hunched over, arms around his chest.
Come check on me. Come check on me.
"He was coughing all night."
"It's just asthma, I'm sure he's fine."
Come check on me. Ask if I need help. Just someone come sit with me, please.
The front door closes and they're gone.
**
It must be something they learned from TV, that people with chronic illnesses are embarrassed and ashamed (though treating him like he should be doesn't fucking help, Sam will give them that). He's not, and the Sam isn't feeling well, we should give him some space mentality makes no goddamn sense to him. Sam isn't feeling well. (Good, he knows, is the proper word, but Dad always said well and Sam isn't fucking feeling well, okay, give him a break.) Sam can't breathe. Sam doesn't have the air to ask for help. Just come check on him? He knows they're not his fucking friends, but they're friendly, they watch Deadliest Catch and grocery shop together sometimes and Sam helps them with papers and they help him with the periodic damn table, so why won't they knock on his door when he sounds so fucking sick?
"I don't get it," he says on the phone two hours later, barely pulling air in, on the verge of tears he can't afford to let go. "Why do they stop liking me when I'm sick?"
"In and out, Sammy. It's okay."
"It hurts too much. I've got to do shallow ones. I'm sorry."
"How long did you say this has been going on?"
"Four days. Worse today."
"Shit."
Sam's out of air, so he just nods.
"You need a hospital?"
"I don't know."
"Ask one of them to take you. How about Matt? Ask Matt."
"I don't know."
Dean sighs a little. Sam pretends he can breathe his air in through the phone.
"Have you been out of bed today?"
"Uh-uh."
"Please try? Eat something, at least tell one of them you're not doing well? You don't even have to tell them, just get out of your room and breathe like that and they'll know."
"They won't."
"You sound like you're fucking dying over there. Sam. Go to the hospital."
"I can do another day."
"You sure?"
"Yeah."
"Tell someone, Sam."
"Okay."
**
It takes him so damn long, but he drags himself up and into the kitchen when he hears someone come home. It's Tony, the one who calls him Sammy sometimes, and Sam doesn't like it but he puts up with it because it makes him feel protected, even if he knows that isn't what Tony means (and that's why he doesn't like it).
"Long time, no Sam," Tony says.
He fills a glass with water and does not does not does not pass out. "Breathing's been bad."
"That's rough."
Sam nods a little, which is enough to shake a cough out of his lungs, and then he's bent over hacking like he's never going to stop, Jesus, this is awful, this is so fucking bad, what he wouldn't give for a hand on his back and a little nudge back towards his room.
But no, Tony's standing way the hell back like he's worried Sam's either contagious or that being too close will make it harder for him to breathe, and they're both so untrue that Sam wants to throw something but he can't fucking breathe.
He pants, gripping the edge of the counter, and wonders how the fuck he expects them to be able to deal with this when he's had twenty years and he's standing here wondering what to do.
Selfish, Sam, stupid.
"Your class is in Hoover building, right? I'm going to be nearby tomorrow, you want me to pick up work for you?"
Sam closes his eyes and thinks about trying to read, trying to focus on words, trying not to pass out on the kitchen floor.
He's supposed to be saying something. He can't remember. Dean told him to say something.
Tony offered to do something. Okay. Maybe he's supposed to say thank you.
"Thanks," he says, when he can.
"No problem. You should probably get some sleep, yeah?"
Sam nods and says, "Thanks," again because that seems right, and then Tony's hand comes down on his shoulder and he breathes a little.
"Feel better, Sammy."
**
"He told me to feel better." Sam fumbles with the nebulizer. His fingers are too heavy. "Feel better, Sammy."
“Rat bastard.”
“De-ean.”
“...you just breathed in the middle of my name. You getting air in, kiddo?”
"Touched my shoulder."
"Did you ask him to check on you tonight?"
Sam pauses.
Dean says, gently, "We decided you were going to ask someone to check on you tonight, remember? The second time we talked."
“We talked twice?”
"Sam. You're really oxygen-deprived." Dean is starting to sound scared. No no no, Dean, don't be scared.
Sam's chest seizes and he curls up and hears some breathless sound escape from his throat.
"Sammy. Sam. You okay?"
"Touched my shoulder..."
"Sam, I need one of your roommate's numbers. Any of them. I'll call and explain what's going on, okay? I'll take care of it."
Sam tugs in a breath. "Will you...tell him to come sit with me?"
"You just want someone to sit with you, God, Sammy, yeah. Text me someone's number."
Sam's coughing again. It's an accident. He didn't mean to. "Okay."
"Such a good kid."
**
His roommates are in and out all evening, so Sam eventually figures out that the the best way to get to see anyone is to park himself on the couch and watch the traffic of the guys and their girlfriends and their endless parade of homework and soccer balls. He hugs the armrest and coughs as quietly as he can and tries his damn hardest to make conversation with anyone in the vicinity. His roommates give him nods and alternate between asking him if he wants to come kick around a ball with them (they know he can't right now, they're just trying to make him feel like less of an invalid, but it doesn't fucking help because of course he can't and of course he wants to come kick around a ball) and giving him these nervous, "Maybe you should go lie down, Sam?"s but he is lying down, he's just doing it out here where he doesn't have to be alone. No one else is using the couch. He's scrunched up small. Is he still in the way?
Text from Dean. did matt check on you?
brought me pizza
u eat?
a little
that all he did?
asked if I needed medicine
do you?
no, have it.
hospital?
haven't gotten worse. He pauses. lonely
caribou
Sam's breath catches and he coughs.
**
It's Wednesday, so Tony and Raphi bring friends home for poker and deal Sam in like always. He plays a few hands and gets halfway through his beer before the dizziness starts hitting him in waves, and the next thing he knows he's curled up in bed with no memory of how he got there.
It's fine. It's nothing to worry about. He takes his night meds and sets an alarm for a few hours from now so he'll remember to wake up and check his peak flow and take another hit and reevaluate this whole hospital thing. For right now he's okay. He's breathing. It sucks, and it hurts, but it's happening.
He starts to drift off and then accidentally thinks about his father, about what John would say if he saw Sam calling this breathing, how he would be so fucking calm in that way he only was when Sam was upset, how he'd rub Sam's back up and down so firmly and deliberately that it felt medicinal, and then he's tearing up and coughing into his pillow and fucking dying, dying, for a middle of nowhere motel room and a row of stitches in his arm and a mild concussion and a broken-wristed brother and all the other associated bullshit of hunting. He would take all of it, any of it, for a hand on his back right now.
It's so fucking stupid, but Sam actually didn't think about the asthma when he decided to come to school.
Don't get him wrong, he thought about it in terms of getting away from hunting--he thought about the fact that he wouldn't be running through any more fucking forests or getting bullets tugged out of his shoulders or hands around his fucking throat--but he never considered the flip side of it, and really what that means is he never considered how much of Dean and John's lives were devoted to making sure he was okay. The consolation is that he's pretty sure Dean and John didn't think about it either, that it was just their reality, it was just part of the incredibly long list (pulling each other out of fires, bandaging cuts, drinking to oblivion, savingSammyhuntingthings) of things they had to do to get by.
His first night alone, he startled at how fucking long it took to clean the neb after he used it and how nerve-wracking it was to report to the health center and his RA and how hard it was to not fucking wheeze-scream at the disability office where apparently they know Sam's lungs well enough to decide he doesn't qualify for notes to his professors. His first bad attack alone, the realization that no one could hear him left him balled up and shaking in the ambulance like some sort of junkie. He called John in tears, but as soon as his numbers were normal, his father hung up.
Sam didn't blame him.
The punchline is that Sam always thought he was a normal kid stuck in an abnormal life.
The punchline is that fighting monsters makes more sense than fighting for motherfucking air.
**
Sam wakes up sometime before the alarm goes off. He has no idea how much the fuck before, because his vision is blurry and spotted and he sits up and spins and it takes him a minute to realize why, what's the matter, what's wrong, Sam, and then he remembers to try breathing and it hurts and it doesn't work, shit, he can't breathe.
He feels around for his phone but finds his inhaler instead and okay, it's a sign, it's a fucking sign, he can do this on his own. He's done worse attacks. This is, comparatively, nothing.
He plants his feet on the floor and stares at the clock and times two minutes between hits. Holding his breath hurts almost as much as fucking breathing, but he keeps going, cuddling his inhaler to his chest between hits, presses his other hand to his sternum, breathe breathe breathe. As soon as he has enough air for it, he lets himself cough, hands braced on his knees, and it's soft and productive, which is a fucking godsend. He draws in breaths when he can and thinks it's getting a little better. He thinks maybe he's not going to die.
He's so fucking dizzy, and he wants to go back to sleep more than he can possibly describe, but he needs to find his phone first. He has to find his phone. That's his job. Okay. He stands up to look for it but standing up makes him lose his breath, and he stands in the middle of his floor with his arms around himself and just wheezes for a while.
There it is. Phone. Under his pillow.
Dean takes two rings to pick up. "Sam. Oh, God, listen to you."
"I'm okay. Way better."
"Way better than what? The fuck is that way better than? Fuck, Sammy, are you okay?"
No. "I need you to...call me in two hours."
"What?"
Not okay. "It's plateaued for now, but it's..." God, he just wants to get through a fucking sentence. "It's going to get bad again. Have to sleep. So dizzy. In two hours it'll be bad again, call and help? Please?"
Dean takes a minute to answer, and Sam thinks maybe he made him cry, maybe Dean's upset, no, but when he finally speaks it's calm, matter-of-fact.
"Matt's awake now. I'm telling him to make you some coffee and sit with you."
"Y-you too busy? You okay?"
"I'm not busy, and I'm okay, but Matt's there and you need someone there. This is bad, Sam. Dad is so fucking worried."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. I'm going to call you back in two hours, but by then you're going to have some coffee in you and you're going to have been up for a little and you're going to feel better, okay? I promise."
"Okay." There's a knock on the door. "Matt's here."
"Good. You let him help you, okay?"
What?
Sam's so stunned that Dean thinks that that's at all the problem that he forgets to say goodbye.
There are parts of this that no one is ever, ever going to understand.
**
"Come on, Sam. Drink." Matt yawns and nudges the coffee cup closer.
Sam holds his head and coughs and coughs.
"Come on," Matt says, more gently. "Your brother's going to wring my neck if you don't breathe."
Sam swallows. "M'brother."
"Yeah. He sounded really worried. I didn't know you were feeling that bad."
Something about the way he says that makes Sam want to curl up, to protect himself, to say something about how it's not him that's bad, it's the asthma. He's not struggling with the everyday shit of his lungs, he's fighting his way through this really hideous flare, why don't they understand? Why can't they see he can't breathe enough to explain?
"This must suck, huh?" Matt says, and Sam's nodding and crying, fucking crying. "Oh, hey, Sam, it's okay."
"I just want to sleep."
He's done this before, begged to be allowed to be sleep, and Dean and John have actually laughed, we let you sleep right now, you'll never wake up, you're so full of shit, Sammy, c'mere, huddle up next to me, breathe, baby, don't go to sleep, breathe, Sammy.
But he's so tired.
He's so tired.
Please?
"Okay," Matt says. "Bring the mug with you? Call me if you need help, okay?" Matt heads to his room and is gone before Sam has processed that Matt thinks he can back to his room alone.
So far away.
It's okay. He can sleep here. He tucks his head on his arm and picks the mug up to cradle it into his chest. Feels nice.
Everything is fuzzy and gray and he doesn't know how much time has passed, but he hears a knock on the door (and no, Sam does not get up, Sam can not get up) and then there's a click and the door opens and the next thing he knows there are hands on him, hands, pulling him gently up and helping in to his room.
"I was on the fucking bus, Sam," he says, softly. "I was already on my way."
"Dean, stop, I gotta hug you."
"Once we're back in your room." They're going so slow. "Did you really think you could do this one on your own?"
"NoIdidn't." His chest hurts. Oh God. "I thought I was supposed to."
"That's not how this works, Sammy. This your room?"
"Umm..."
"Nebulizer and Sasquatch-sized shoes, I'm thinking this is yours. C'mon, buddy."
He's sitting down on the bed and Dean is all around him, setting up the nebulizer, smelling like leather and now like Sam's medicine. Sam is shameless and curls up with his head in Dean's lap and Dean lets him.
"You get to ask for help," Dean says. "You don't have to be able to do this on your own."
Dean gives him the mouthpiece and guides him onto his pillow and turns him on his side. He drapes one arm over him and rubs his back with the other, DeanDeanDean.
"That's what 'sick' means, Sammy. Don't you get why we call you that?"
"'cause I'm sick." Sam rolls over so he faces him and tucks himself under Dean's chin.
Dean laughs a little. "Aw, Sammy. I missed you." He keeps rubbing his back. "We call you 'sick' so you'll get it through your damn skull that you always, always get help."
"I feel so bad."
"I know. You've been really tough. I'll take it from here."
"I don't want to need help all the time."
Dad would tell him not to sell himself short, he doesn't need help all the time.
The disability office would tell him that he shouldn't need help all the time, is he sure he's being vigilant with his medication?
The entire damn world tells him that he can't need help all the time.
But Dean, Dean here out of fucking nowhere, Dean with his damn arms all the hell around him, says, "Boo fucking hoo. It's who you are."
Sam kind of hadn't considered that response.
He doesn't know how to answer.
"Is that okay?" he tries.
"It's my fucking favorite."
"You just say that 'cause it's me."
Dean hugs him tighter and listens to him breathe.
"I would give you the whole fucking world," he whispers.
Sam nods and drinks medicine. "I know."
Summary: Sophomore year. Sam is having a really, really bad week. Really.
Wordcount: 3,068
Author's Note: Sammyverse. I have a Jess-lives one coming up, I swear, but this one was already written so tada! Title is from "If Ever I Stray" by Frank Turner.
He's been off-kilter and wheezy for almost a week now, dealing with allergy attacks and coughing fits that leave him light-headed, but this is a special brand of shitty. It's already a depressingly familiar pattern. Last year, he could blame at least some of it on the stress of being away from home, on the effort spent breathing quietly rather than well to try to not wake up his roommate, on the pathetic terror of not having Dean, but now, after a year of adjusting, with his own bedroom in the four-guy suite, with dozens of asthma attacks that prove that Dean will always answer the phone, Sam can't hide from the fact that this is just how his fucking lungs work.
Or don't work, as the case may be.
"If I don't find my fucking key, it's fifty dollars and I swear to fucking God--"
"Did Emily take it?"
"Why would Emily take my key?"
"Because she's a psycho..."
"Dude, don't yell, I think Sam's sleeping."
"Doesn't he have class?"
Sam is sitting up in bed, hunched over, arms around his chest.
Come check on me. Come check on me.
"He was coughing all night."
"It's just asthma, I'm sure he's fine."
Come check on me. Ask if I need help. Just someone come sit with me, please.
The front door closes and they're gone.
**
It must be something they learned from TV, that people with chronic illnesses are embarrassed and ashamed (though treating him like he should be doesn't fucking help, Sam will give them that). He's not, and the Sam isn't feeling well, we should give him some space mentality makes no goddamn sense to him. Sam isn't feeling well. (Good, he knows, is the proper word, but Dad always said well and Sam isn't fucking feeling well, okay, give him a break.) Sam can't breathe. Sam doesn't have the air to ask for help. Just come check on him? He knows they're not his fucking friends, but they're friendly, they watch Deadliest Catch and grocery shop together sometimes and Sam helps them with papers and they help him with the periodic damn table, so why won't they knock on his door when he sounds so fucking sick?
"I don't get it," he says on the phone two hours later, barely pulling air in, on the verge of tears he can't afford to let go. "Why do they stop liking me when I'm sick?"
"In and out, Sammy. It's okay."
"It hurts too much. I've got to do shallow ones. I'm sorry."
"How long did you say this has been going on?"
"Four days. Worse today."
"Shit."
Sam's out of air, so he just nods.
"You need a hospital?"
"I don't know."
"Ask one of them to take you. How about Matt? Ask Matt."
"I don't know."
Dean sighs a little. Sam pretends he can breathe his air in through the phone.
"Have you been out of bed today?"
"Uh-uh."
"Please try? Eat something, at least tell one of them you're not doing well? You don't even have to tell them, just get out of your room and breathe like that and they'll know."
"They won't."
"You sound like you're fucking dying over there. Sam. Go to the hospital."
"I can do another day."
"You sure?"
"Yeah."
"Tell someone, Sam."
"Okay."
**
It takes him so damn long, but he drags himself up and into the kitchen when he hears someone come home. It's Tony, the one who calls him Sammy sometimes, and Sam doesn't like it but he puts up with it because it makes him feel protected, even if he knows that isn't what Tony means (and that's why he doesn't like it).
"Long time, no Sam," Tony says.
He fills a glass with water and does not does not does not pass out. "Breathing's been bad."
"That's rough."
Sam nods a little, which is enough to shake a cough out of his lungs, and then he's bent over hacking like he's never going to stop, Jesus, this is awful, this is so fucking bad, what he wouldn't give for a hand on his back and a little nudge back towards his room.
But no, Tony's standing way the hell back like he's worried Sam's either contagious or that being too close will make it harder for him to breathe, and they're both so untrue that Sam wants to throw something but he can't fucking breathe.
He pants, gripping the edge of the counter, and wonders how the fuck he expects them to be able to deal with this when he's had twenty years and he's standing here wondering what to do.
Selfish, Sam, stupid.
"Your class is in Hoover building, right? I'm going to be nearby tomorrow, you want me to pick up work for you?"
Sam closes his eyes and thinks about trying to read, trying to focus on words, trying not to pass out on the kitchen floor.
He's supposed to be saying something. He can't remember. Dean told him to say something.
Tony offered to do something. Okay. Maybe he's supposed to say thank you.
"Thanks," he says, when he can.
"No problem. You should probably get some sleep, yeah?"
Sam nods and says, "Thanks," again because that seems right, and then Tony's hand comes down on his shoulder and he breathes a little.
"Feel better, Sammy."
**
"He told me to feel better." Sam fumbles with the nebulizer. His fingers are too heavy. "Feel better, Sammy."
“Rat bastard.”
“De-ean.”
“...you just breathed in the middle of my name. You getting air in, kiddo?”
"Touched my shoulder."
"Did you ask him to check on you tonight?"
Sam pauses.
Dean says, gently, "We decided you were going to ask someone to check on you tonight, remember? The second time we talked."
“We talked twice?”
"Sam. You're really oxygen-deprived." Dean is starting to sound scared. No no no, Dean, don't be scared.
Sam's chest seizes and he curls up and hears some breathless sound escape from his throat.
"Sammy. Sam. You okay?"
"Touched my shoulder..."
"Sam, I need one of your roommate's numbers. Any of them. I'll call and explain what's going on, okay? I'll take care of it."
Sam tugs in a breath. "Will you...tell him to come sit with me?"
"You just want someone to sit with you, God, Sammy, yeah. Text me someone's number."
Sam's coughing again. It's an accident. He didn't mean to. "Okay."
"Such a good kid."
**
His roommates are in and out all evening, so Sam eventually figures out that the the best way to get to see anyone is to park himself on the couch and watch the traffic of the guys and their girlfriends and their endless parade of homework and soccer balls. He hugs the armrest and coughs as quietly as he can and tries his damn hardest to make conversation with anyone in the vicinity. His roommates give him nods and alternate between asking him if he wants to come kick around a ball with them (they know he can't right now, they're just trying to make him feel like less of an invalid, but it doesn't fucking help because of course he can't and of course he wants to come kick around a ball) and giving him these nervous, "Maybe you should go lie down, Sam?"s but he is lying down, he's just doing it out here where he doesn't have to be alone. No one else is using the couch. He's scrunched up small. Is he still in the way?
Text from Dean. did matt check on you?
brought me pizza
u eat?
a little
that all he did?
asked if I needed medicine
do you?
no, have it.
hospital?
haven't gotten worse. He pauses. lonely
caribou
Sam's breath catches and he coughs.
**
It's Wednesday, so Tony and Raphi bring friends home for poker and deal Sam in like always. He plays a few hands and gets halfway through his beer before the dizziness starts hitting him in waves, and the next thing he knows he's curled up in bed with no memory of how he got there.
It's fine. It's nothing to worry about. He takes his night meds and sets an alarm for a few hours from now so he'll remember to wake up and check his peak flow and take another hit and reevaluate this whole hospital thing. For right now he's okay. He's breathing. It sucks, and it hurts, but it's happening.
He starts to drift off and then accidentally thinks about his father, about what John would say if he saw Sam calling this breathing, how he would be so fucking calm in that way he only was when Sam was upset, how he'd rub Sam's back up and down so firmly and deliberately that it felt medicinal, and then he's tearing up and coughing into his pillow and fucking dying, dying, for a middle of nowhere motel room and a row of stitches in his arm and a mild concussion and a broken-wristed brother and all the other associated bullshit of hunting. He would take all of it, any of it, for a hand on his back right now.
It's so fucking stupid, but Sam actually didn't think about the asthma when he decided to come to school.
Don't get him wrong, he thought about it in terms of getting away from hunting--he thought about the fact that he wouldn't be running through any more fucking forests or getting bullets tugged out of his shoulders or hands around his fucking throat--but he never considered the flip side of it, and really what that means is he never considered how much of Dean and John's lives were devoted to making sure he was okay. The consolation is that he's pretty sure Dean and John didn't think about it either, that it was just their reality, it was just part of the incredibly long list (pulling each other out of fires, bandaging cuts, drinking to oblivion, savingSammyhuntingthings) of things they had to do to get by.
His first night alone, he startled at how fucking long it took to clean the neb after he used it and how nerve-wracking it was to report to the health center and his RA and how hard it was to not fucking wheeze-scream at the disability office where apparently they know Sam's lungs well enough to decide he doesn't qualify for notes to his professors. His first bad attack alone, the realization that no one could hear him left him balled up and shaking in the ambulance like some sort of junkie. He called John in tears, but as soon as his numbers were normal, his father hung up.
Sam didn't blame him.
The punchline is that Sam always thought he was a normal kid stuck in an abnormal life.
The punchline is that fighting monsters makes more sense than fighting for motherfucking air.
**
Sam wakes up sometime before the alarm goes off. He has no idea how much the fuck before, because his vision is blurry and spotted and he sits up and spins and it takes him a minute to realize why, what's the matter, what's wrong, Sam, and then he remembers to try breathing and it hurts and it doesn't work, shit, he can't breathe.
He feels around for his phone but finds his inhaler instead and okay, it's a sign, it's a fucking sign, he can do this on his own. He's done worse attacks. This is, comparatively, nothing.
He plants his feet on the floor and stares at the clock and times two minutes between hits. Holding his breath hurts almost as much as fucking breathing, but he keeps going, cuddling his inhaler to his chest between hits, presses his other hand to his sternum, breathe breathe breathe. As soon as he has enough air for it, he lets himself cough, hands braced on his knees, and it's soft and productive, which is a fucking godsend. He draws in breaths when he can and thinks it's getting a little better. He thinks maybe he's not going to die.
He's so fucking dizzy, and he wants to go back to sleep more than he can possibly describe, but he needs to find his phone first. He has to find his phone. That's his job. Okay. He stands up to look for it but standing up makes him lose his breath, and he stands in the middle of his floor with his arms around himself and just wheezes for a while.
There it is. Phone. Under his pillow.
Dean takes two rings to pick up. "Sam. Oh, God, listen to you."
"I'm okay. Way better."
"Way better than what? The fuck is that way better than? Fuck, Sammy, are you okay?"
No. "I need you to...call me in two hours."
"What?"
Not okay. "It's plateaued for now, but it's..." God, he just wants to get through a fucking sentence. "It's going to get bad again. Have to sleep. So dizzy. In two hours it'll be bad again, call and help? Please?"
Dean takes a minute to answer, and Sam thinks maybe he made him cry, maybe Dean's upset, no, but when he finally speaks it's calm, matter-of-fact.
"Matt's awake now. I'm telling him to make you some coffee and sit with you."
"Y-you too busy? You okay?"
"I'm not busy, and I'm okay, but Matt's there and you need someone there. This is bad, Sam. Dad is so fucking worried."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. I'm going to call you back in two hours, but by then you're going to have some coffee in you and you're going to have been up for a little and you're going to feel better, okay? I promise."
"Okay." There's a knock on the door. "Matt's here."
"Good. You let him help you, okay?"
What?
Sam's so stunned that Dean thinks that that's at all the problem that he forgets to say goodbye.
There are parts of this that no one is ever, ever going to understand.
**
"Come on, Sam. Drink." Matt yawns and nudges the coffee cup closer.
Sam holds his head and coughs and coughs.
"Come on," Matt says, more gently. "Your brother's going to wring my neck if you don't breathe."
Sam swallows. "M'brother."
"Yeah. He sounded really worried. I didn't know you were feeling that bad."
Something about the way he says that makes Sam want to curl up, to protect himself, to say something about how it's not him that's bad, it's the asthma. He's not struggling with the everyday shit of his lungs, he's fighting his way through this really hideous flare, why don't they understand? Why can't they see he can't breathe enough to explain?
"This must suck, huh?" Matt says, and Sam's nodding and crying, fucking crying. "Oh, hey, Sam, it's okay."
"I just want to sleep."
He's done this before, begged to be allowed to be sleep, and Dean and John have actually laughed, we let you sleep right now, you'll never wake up, you're so full of shit, Sammy, c'mere, huddle up next to me, breathe, baby, don't go to sleep, breathe, Sammy.
But he's so tired.
He's so tired.
Please?
"Okay," Matt says. "Bring the mug with you? Call me if you need help, okay?" Matt heads to his room and is gone before Sam has processed that Matt thinks he can back to his room alone.
So far away.
It's okay. He can sleep here. He tucks his head on his arm and picks the mug up to cradle it into his chest. Feels nice.
Everything is fuzzy and gray and he doesn't know how much time has passed, but he hears a knock on the door (and no, Sam does not get up, Sam can not get up) and then there's a click and the door opens and the next thing he knows there are hands on him, hands, pulling him gently up and helping in to his room.
"I was on the fucking bus, Sam," he says, softly. "I was already on my way."
"Dean, stop, I gotta hug you."
"Once we're back in your room." They're going so slow. "Did you really think you could do this one on your own?"
"NoIdidn't." His chest hurts. Oh God. "I thought I was supposed to."
"That's not how this works, Sammy. This your room?"
"Umm..."
"Nebulizer and Sasquatch-sized shoes, I'm thinking this is yours. C'mon, buddy."
He's sitting down on the bed and Dean is all around him, setting up the nebulizer, smelling like leather and now like Sam's medicine. Sam is shameless and curls up with his head in Dean's lap and Dean lets him.
"You get to ask for help," Dean says. "You don't have to be able to do this on your own."
Dean gives him the mouthpiece and guides him onto his pillow and turns him on his side. He drapes one arm over him and rubs his back with the other, DeanDeanDean.
"That's what 'sick' means, Sammy. Don't you get why we call you that?"
"'cause I'm sick." Sam rolls over so he faces him and tucks himself under Dean's chin.
Dean laughs a little. "Aw, Sammy. I missed you." He keeps rubbing his back. "We call you 'sick' so you'll get it through your damn skull that you always, always get help."
"I feel so bad."
"I know. You've been really tough. I'll take it from here."
"I don't want to need help all the time."
Dad would tell him not to sell himself short, he doesn't need help all the time.
The disability office would tell him that he shouldn't need help all the time, is he sure he's being vigilant with his medication?
The entire damn world tells him that he can't need help all the time.
But Dean, Dean here out of fucking nowhere, Dean with his damn arms all the hell around him, says, "Boo fucking hoo. It's who you are."
Sam kind of hadn't considered that response.
He doesn't know how to answer.
"Is that okay?" he tries.
"It's my fucking favorite."
"You just say that 'cause it's me."
Dean hugs him tighter and listens to him breathe.
"I would give you the whole fucking world," he whispers.
Sam nods and drinks medicine. "I know."