Fic: Ticked Off 1/2
Title: Ticked Off
Author: triquetralmoon
Genre: Gen, H/C
Rating: R - just to cover bases, but mild swearing at most
Characters: Dean, Sam, and a dog
Warnings: Vague allusions to season 5.
Word count: ~11,000 in total
Summary: Dean picks up an unwanted passenger - and we aren't talking about the dog.
There is a black dog roaming a rather ill-kept graveyard in southern Colorado.
From what the locals had been saying, as soon as the sun goes down the howling and whining starts up. The lunar pattern doesn't indicate anything special. The area didn't have a pet cemetery. With the number of people who had heard it, it seemed doubtful that it was a hellhound.
So - a regular ol' black dog. That seems to be the consensus older and younger brother reach as they go scrambling through knee-high blades of grass, flashlight clenched in one hand, gun in the other.
The howling sounds like it is coming from everywhere; it ricochets off of century old oak trees and bounces toward them off of the ruins of an old stone church.
Dean's never heard a Shuck sound so sad before. From the short glimpses he gets of Sam's face in the darkness, he can tell his younger brother is thinking the same thing. But, there's no time to have a conversation about the emotive nature of spectral canines, whatever is out there in the dark has just let out a growl and is charging their way. They can’t see where it’s coming from, can only hear the sounds of four legs running through tall grass, plant-life being shoved aside by paws that rapidly plod along the earth.
"Sam!" Dean bites out sharply, pulling the trigger back on his revolver.
The boys stand back to back in the inky night, hardly any moonlight spilling downward from the cloudy sky. They move in a synchronized circle, aiming their beams of light into the darkness that surrounds them.
Dean feels Sam tense behind him.
"You've gotta be friggin' kidding me." Sam mutters softly. "Dean, turn around, but do it slowly."
"What? What the hell, Sam?" Dean spins around, not lowering his flashlight or his gun.
There is a high-pitched yelp and the dark shape backs out of the beam of the flashlight and further into the shadows.
Well, the locals were right.
It is black and it is a dog.
::: ::: :::
The poor mongrel, some kind of Labrador mix, is half-starved by the looks of him, his ebony coat a tangled mess of burrs. It doesn't take Sam more than five minutes to find the beef jerky that Dean had been hiding in the trunk and try to feed it to the dog.
Dean chuckles to himself. The dog apparently knows better than to take Dean Winchester's jerky without asking.
Sam tosses the Slim Jims to Dean without any warning. "Try and get him in the car."
Dean looks from the bedraggled dog to the car - his car, then gives his younger sibling a look that clearly implies he thinks Sam has lost his mind. "My baby, no, no way. We'll call animal control, tell them there is a mutt out here. It is their problem."
Even before Dean can make out the glare Sam is giving him in the darkness, he already knows it is a lost cause. This is the same Sam Winchester who spent the majority of their childhood begging for a dog. While his younger brother was old enough nowadays to understand the problems of keeping a pooch with you on the road when you were performing fraud just to keep yourself fed, Sam still wasn't going to agree to just leave the dog - who clearly needed care - this far outside the town.
"We're not calling animal control when we don't even know if there is a No Kill shelter in the area. Not happening." Sam huffs, pursing his lips severely.
"Fine, whatever." Dean retorts. It wasn't like he didn't have a heart for the poor pup. He whistles through his teeth and waves a piece of jerky toward the dog, who looks extremely torn between getting something to eat and getting within hitting distance of a human.
Dean keeps his voice low and soothing as he opens up the back door to the Impala. "C'mon, Lassie. Sammy fell in the well!"
The dog immediately charges into the car with a soft whuff of happiness.
It takes Sam forever to locate a No Kill shelter within an hour of where they are and it is closed until Tuesday. With a couple days of dog sitting on the horizon, it takes even longer to find a pet friendly motel.
Sam, as much as he actively tries to be dog's best friend, doesn't have much success. All the mutt wants to do is hang around Dean - which wouldn't be such a horrible thing, except the dog is disgustingly dirty, so having him jump on the bed is a problem.
Lassie shoves his (or her, they haven't checked) head under Dean's hand, who starts to stroke the matted fur, but then withdraws his hand in revulsion.
Dean decides the dog needs a bath and he tells his brother so.
"What do you want me to do about it?" Sam asks, twisting around from where he's seated his with his laptop.
"I dunno. Give him one."
"Dude, he's clearly attached to you. You're so worried about it, you give him one." Sam replies, turning back to the screen in front of him.
"Well, you’re the one who had this fantastic idea about inviting this fleabitten --," Dean flicks his eyes toward the dog, who is looking up at him with soulful eyes. If Dean thought it was possible, he'd think Lassie's feelings just got hurt. "-this dog into our motel room to stink up the joint. Besides, the cleaner he is - the more likely he is to be adopted right away, right? Why not get him off to a good start?"
Dean knows he's got his brother on the hook now, the way his mouth is twisting to one side.
Sam agrees to the task, but it takes the both of them to wrangle the stray into the bathroom. Dean escapes quickly and closes the door behind him, the sight of Gigantor struggling with a medium-sized dog a too-small bathroom with his too-large body is amusing. Adding water and suds to the equation is just hilarious.
Sam mutters softly to himself as he can hear his brother laughing. While the poor mongrel is scratching at the door to get to back to Dean, Sam turns on the water and grabs one of the tiny bottles of shampoo. Thank god for removable shower heads.
He wrestles Lassie into the tub, the dog barking and whining as he attempts to wiggle out from Sam's grasp. Grateful that he doesn't have a biter on his hands, he carefully aims the shower nozzle, long fingers pulling debris out of the knotted coat.
The dog tries to jump out of the tub just as Sam pours a handful of shampoo into his hand, but is unable to escape when the hunter blocks him bodily, soaking wet fur rubbing up against his previously dry shirt front.
Sam sighs and shakes his head with a rueful smile. It was inevitable really. He wasn’t coming out of this without having a bath of his own.
Reaching out his soap-filled hand, he digs his fingers into gnarled up dog hair, working it into a lather. As the massage goes along and the canine calms down, Sam is able to get a good scrub going. Once or thrice, the pads of his fingers come across a bump, and he parts the fur to see what it is he's dealing with.
Ticks, engorged to varying sizes, one of which is nearly the size of a pencil eraser, bloated like a large pea.
After the pup is rinsed free of suds, Sam grabs the tweezers out of the first aid kit behind him.
"Good boy," he says in a low voice, taking care as he plucks out each one and drops them in the toilet bowl.
Sam stands back, admiring his handiwork. Lassie is clean - and not looking half-bad. He still looks like a mongrel, with the matted fur, but at least the soft ebony coat seemed shiny now.
"Maybe you're not just some stray, huh? Maybe you just got lost." Sam leans over and strokes the ears of man's best friend for a moment. In exchange for this, Lassie shakes his fur out, the bathroom experiencing a sudden bout of rain.
"Hey!" Sam protests, holding a hand up to shield his face as the dog sheds the excess moisture.
Dean hears all this and begins cackling on the other side of the door.
Sam figures out how he's going to get rid of the impossibly tangled sections of fur. An evil grin on his face, he grabs his older brother's electric razor.
::: ::: :::
Lassie is dropped off at an animal shelter and Sam gives the staff all the information they might need to reunite the pooch with his or her owners, if there are any. That day they pull out of town, both brothers giving wistful glances backward every once in awhile, the jagged peaks of the Rocky Mountains visible in the distance.
A week and a half later, they've just finished another hunt, a few hundred miles south of where they had been in Colorado.
It seems like one minute Dean is perfectly fine. In fact, at lunchtime he was. Then illness slams into him like a ton of bricks, his head throbbing, his stomach roiling. Dean's whole person is just a mass of hurt, joints protesting with the slightest movement. A deep soreness has set into his muscles, a full body Charley horse.
By two o'clock, his skin is crawling with that shivery feeling that only comes with fever.
Sam is asleep in the passenger's seat and Dean is fine with that, fine with Sam not seeing how he feels. He can do without being nagged by a Sasquatch, thank you very much.
That lasts about as long as his lunch does, which is about twenty more minutes. Dean finds himself pulling over to the side of the road in a hurry, pushing the door open, and hurling all his good eats onto the dirt.
Dean knows his younger brother is awake before he can hear Sam fidgeting nervously in the passenger seat, before he hears, "Uh, Dean, you okay?"
Dean's smart ass response is interrupted by more vomiting, this time splashback gets on his boots. Gross.
Sam twists around to grab a bottle of water out of the cooler in the backseat and gets out of the car. He takes a long look at his older brother and lets out a low whistle, absorbing the unhealthy flush contrasting against the pale skin of his face and the way Dean is obviously grabbing the door for support.
"You look friggin' awful."
"Nice, dude. Appreciated." Dean bites back sarcastically, taking the proffered bottle from Sam and doing a quick rinse of his mouth.
"I just mean…are you sick enough that we need to call it a day? Find someplace to stay?"
"No, dude, I'm good." When Sam eyes him suspiciously, he lies, "I feel much better now that I've-"
"Placed your lunch neatly on the side of Route 120?" Sam finishes for him.
"Pretty much, yeah."
Sam narrows his eyes while Dean withdraws back into the car under the intense scrutiny.
"C'mon, Miss Daisy. Don't you want to get to the Piggly Wiggly?" Dean waggles his eyebrows at the looming Gigantor to his left, his skull reprimanding him in response. Dean figures he keeps his poker face pretty well, though, because Sam retreats back to his side of the car and they get back on the road.
In another five minutes, Dean switches off the Motorhead album he's blaring, because damned if his head isn't beginning to throb in sync with the beat.
In another ten minutes, Dean is looking for a gas station where he can hole up in the bathroom for a few minutes and spew his guts away from prying eyes.
When involuntary shivers begin to wrack his frame, Dean knows the game is up.
Nothing is said for a further five minutes, Sam waiting for Dean to take it upon himself to admit he's sick. Of course, the elder Winchester says nothing. This is not unexpected and Sam is ready to give his brother a little prompting.
"Dude, you're sweating and shivering."
"…and?"
"And, you're only s'posed to do one of those at a time, I'm pretty sure."
"I'm just awesome like that," Dean tries to play off.
Sam is about to find something to say to bring Dean back to the subject of his obviously ailing health when the Impala is suddenly steered over to the side of the road and Dean scrambles to swing the door open, puking spectacularly on the gravel, yet managing to flip his middle finger at a truck that passes by the scene honking its horn.
Sam sighs and rolls his eyes, snagging the barely touched bottle of water off of the front seat where Dean left it, and strolling around the front of the car to where Dean is (still) hurling. Sam stays silent, pretends the landscape is intensely interesting. As soon as Dean is finished, he holds out his hand expectantly for the water, takes a swig, spits. It isn't until Dean goes to swing his legs back into the car that Sam speaks up.
"You look like you're gonna keel over. You really want to drive her like that?"
Dean gives Sam a look, but takes his hand off of the keys in the ignition anyway. Rather than just pushing over, Dean figures some fresh air will do him good. He goes to get up, his vision grays out and he finds himself collapsed against Sam's chest, his face smushed up against his brother's armpit, inhaling the scent of some cologne-laced deodorant.
Sam's breath is warm into his hair as he speaks. "Got your sea-legs yet?"
"Think so." Dean says, feeling more sure of the dirt under his feet as his brother helps him lean against the car.
Sam takes the opportunity of Dean looking so dazed to feel his brother's clammy forehead.
"Jesus, dude, you're on fire! Why the fuck didn’t you say anything?"
Dean pulls away, eyes blurred with a feverish glaze. "Say anything?"
"Were you sick when we were on the hunt?" Sam asks angrily.
Dean sways where he stands so Sam gently lowers Dean back onto the driver's seat, but then stomps over to the other side of the car so he can root around in the glovebox until he comes up with a bottle of Motrin.
Sam shoves it into his brother's hands. "Let's cut the dance we normally do short, shall we? You're not fine. "
"Sam-"
"What, Dean, what?" Sam snaps.
"Sammy..."
The exhaustion and misery in Dean's voice stop Sam cold, as well as the tirade building up in his mind, the chastising he'd love to give his irresponsible stubborn jackass of a brother.
"I felt fine before. I felt fine at lunch." Dean says in a dogged plain-as-day way that convinces Sam it's the truth.
"Oh." Sam replies, whatever he was planning to say lost on the warm New Mexican wind.
"Yeah. It kinda snuck up on me." Dean leans over again, his brain pounding even worse, but is able to hold whatever meager stomach contents he still possesses inside.
"Symptoms?"
"Aw, Jesus, Sammy!" Dean groans, pressing his palm into his sweaty forehead. "I feel like shit."
"Yes, Dean," Sam asks patiently, "You're sick - which is precisely why I'm asking. We already got fever and nausea, what else?"
"I dunno." Dean squints up at his brother. "Flu-ey. Y'know, achy? Probably that's what it is. Probably caught the damn flu."
"Maybe." Sam frowns. "You done decorating the roadside or you need another minute?"
Dean sits up, his hand cradling his belly. "Naw, I'm good."
"Good, then scoot over and take the meds."
Dean shuffles his bones over to the other side of the vehicle, grunting as each of his joints complains loudly.
When he gets himself settled, he sees Sam regarding him quietly.
"What?"
"You gonna make it?" Sam asks with genuine concern.
"Will you just drive?" Dean snaps back.
Sam says nothing, but glances meaningfully from Dean to the unopened bottle of Motrin in his elder brother's lap before restarting the car and pulling it out of park. Dean mutters to himself, but swallows down a few of the tan-coated tablets with as small a sip of water as he can manage.
It takes Sam an hour to get them to a town large enough to have a motel, an hour of surreptitious glancing at his trembling brother who is curled up in one of his usual jackets, plus the leather one. They only had to stop once for him to hurl, and now Dean's finally in some sort of half-sleep, damp hair matted to his head.
Sam wants to wake him up, get him to take the coats off, to shove water down his throat, but right now he just wants to get them to somewhere with a motel and a medical facility in case they need one. Parts of New Mexico are just one traffic light towns and vast space in between, and it with much relief that the Impala finally cruises through some city limits.
"Dean." Sam says, putting a hand on Dean's arm and squeezing gently. He gets nothing but some grumbling in response, so he squeezes a little harder.
Dean winces and sits up, his arms tucked against himself to keep in whatever warmth he can. He gazes blearily at his surroundings, a motel parking lot, which doesn't give him any clues.
"Where are we?"
"Las Vegas."
Dean blinks at Sam incredulously as he fists the gunk out of his eyes. "Why the hell did you drive us all the way to Vegas?"
"Las Vegas, New Mexico, dumbass." Sam smirks, but he softens when he sees how clearly out of it Dean is. "Lemme go get us a room. And drink some water."
"Yeah, yeah." Dean grumbles, still trying to get his bearings. He didn't think it was possible to feel worse than he did an hour ago, but here he is. There is a blacksmith inside his cranium pounding in the rhythm of his pulse, the clank of hammer harsh against the bones of his superheated skull. At least, he is assuming he's superheated. He feels like some mafia goons have stuck him in a meat locker.
The image of being surrounded by dozens of frostbitten carcasses has Dean hurriedly pushing open the door so he can aim dry heaves at the pavement, joints wrenching as he spasms painfully forward, but is only able to expel small amounts of sour saliva. A rush of air that has probably passed by a cactus or two on its way there feels like a cold winter wind as it blusters across his sweat-drenched skin. Someday bullshit irony like this is going to end up killing him.
A shadow looms over him. Sam.
"Think you can make it to the door?"
"Yes." The word whips out sharp and fast.
"Okay, alright, just asking." Sam shakes his head with the tiniest of smiles even as frustration rises up inside of him. This is a well-practiced dance routine, and Dean might be Anna Pavlova in this scenario, but even she had a choreographer.
Dean stands up slowly as if years of arthritis have besieged his knees and ends up immediately listing sideways like a housewife who hit the box of wine too hard. Sam's ready hands grab hold, fingers clutching the battered leather jacket as he hefts his brother upright, finding purchase on Dean's belt to keep him that way.
Sam uses his foot to close the door to the Impala, frowning severely when his older brother doesn't make so much as a grumble about such sacrilege behavior. Talking small slow steps to cause the least amount of pain to the pitiable corpse he's hauling along with him, Sam manages to get them both inside the motel room. Before going back outside to collect their things, particularly the first aid kit, he grabs a plastic cup from the bathroom counter and fills it with tepid water, not wanting to shock Dean's digestive tract into reversal again.
When he comes out of the bathroom, Dean has flopped down on the bed without removing either jacket or his boots. The boots can wait a little longer, the jackets can’t. Sam places the water on the nightstand.
"Hey, Dean. C'mon, I need you to stay awake for another ten or fifteen max."
His older brother's face twitches, prompting a large bead of sweat to roll downward from his saturated hairline, the drop darting its path through freckles as if his face is a sickly pinball machine. Instinct causing his own stomach to plummet, Sam lays his hand along Dean's neck only to find the skin to be scorching underneath the perspiration.
"Dean, c'mon, man. Wake up." Sam squeezes the back of the elder hunter's neck with a sense of urgency.
"S'mmy?" Dean slurs slightly, the heavy lids of his eyes opening slightly to reveal slivers of dull green. "Wha'appened? Wha's wrong?"
"Nothing, man. I just need you to sit up for me and take the jackets off, okay?"
"Fuckin' freezin'." Dean replies, grunting as he sits himself up.
Sam watches his older sibling slowly peel off the two jackets, revealing a drenched AC/DC t-shirt clinging like a second skin. The exposure of air to wet clothing and skin causes Dean's body to be immediately wracked with shivering, his teeth chattering even as he tries to clamp his jaw firmly together. Pain lines are embossed deeply in his face, but he stays silent except for the clattering of his teeth.
"T-shirt off." Sam grabs a towel from the bathroom and a cheap bathrobe from the closet. It's by no means some one hundred percent cotton terrycloth spa robe, but it's dry, which is what matters until Sam can go grab the bags.
Dean’s hands and arms are trembling so badly, he can't do more than get one arm out of the soaking wet tee. Watching this is like torment for Sam, one quick pull upward and Dean'd be that much closer to some sort of better comfort, and Sam'd be that much closer to the thermometer, Tylenol, and pumping Dean with as much fluid as he can. Bouncing anxiously on the balls of his feet, he tries to be patient - to not be the hovering mother-hen his brother always accuses him of being.
"S-s-sam..." Dean stutters as tooth enamel clacks together, the frustrated appeal for help clear in his eyes, trapped in damp fabric like a gnat in a spider's web. Without another moment's hesitation, Sam yanks the shirt over Dean's head before deftly patting the feverish skin dry and wrapping his brother in the bathrobe.
"I'm gonna go get the kit. Here…" Sam goes to give Dean the cup of water, but one glance at the quaking hands in front of him and he knows the contents of the wide-mouthed cup would slosh onto the floor. "Okay, be right back."
As soon as Sam is on the other side of the door, Dean flops back down on the bed. Unable to focus on why Sam needed him awake, he's become a heat-seeking missile, his arm managing to weakly tug the coverlet over his wretched form.
Roadkill, that's what he feels like. Roadkill that was run over by a racist truck after spending the entire night evading a fucking wendigo.
"No, no, no - uh-uh, Dean. I know you wanna get warm, man, but you're just going to feel worse."
His vision is all blurred and he feels the covers pulled off right as gigantic hands are pulling him up to rest against the cheap pressed wood headboard, its surface - cold and hard - increasing the hurt that is already wired into the muscles of his back. The idea of the blanket being gone sounds like the end of the world and a whine - pitiful and low - sounds in Dean’s ears. It takes him a moment to realize that it was him.
The crinkling of plastic and the light smell of something sweet yet nauseating have him blinking his eyes to get a better look at what is going on. Sam is opening a pack of Twizzlers he must have gotten from the vending machine.
Dean presses his hand against his mouth for a moment, swallowing hard. "Sammy, that is just not happening."
"Not for eating. Don't worry."
Sam opens up a twenty ounce of water, gulps down an inch or two, and then bites off both ends of one of the thick red licorice wands, dropping it in the bottle as a makeshift straw before putting it into Dean's shaking hands.
"Shouldn't spill as much. Small sips."
"My brother - the genius," Dean mutters.
"Hey, you were the one that taught me the whole Twizzler straw trick. I never thought I'd see the day where it had a practical use. Hold still," Sam says, pressing the digital thermometer into his brother's ear.
After thirty seconds, it beeps loudly and Dean has to crane his neck to see the frown on his brother's face.
"Can't be good with that face."
"102.8," Sam answers, pressing a couple caplets of Tylenol into his ailing sibling's palm. "Take those and keep drinking."
After a few minutes, Dean is staring vacantly toward the floral pattern of the bedspread and Sam has to snap him back to attention. "Hey, man, keep drinking, alright? Unless you want a trip to the hospital."
"Just the flu," Dean replies, kneading his forehead with his knuckles.
"The flu lands people in the hospital. Besides, I'm not sure it is - no cough, no congestion."
"Stomach flu, then - whatthefuckever."
What-the-fuck-ever it is, after two and a half miserable days of a fever that sinks its tenterhooks into his flesh, Dean is finally feeling better, weak and wrung out, but still so much better that he practically hits Sam in the temple with the keys in his excitement to leave town. He's fine with recovering more on the road so long as the road includes leaving this godforsaken room and this godforsaken city, because - frankly, after feeling like complete shit for the better part of three days, he really could have done with a jaunt to one of Las Vegas's finer strip clubs. It seems cruel and unusual punishment that he wakes up in the wrong Las Vegas.
Part 2
Author: triquetralmoon
Genre: Gen, H/C
Rating: R - just to cover bases, but mild swearing at most
Characters: Dean, Sam, and a dog
Warnings: Vague allusions to season 5.
Word count: ~11,000 in total
Summary: Dean picks up an unwanted passenger - and we aren't talking about the dog.
There is a black dog roaming a rather ill-kept graveyard in southern Colorado.
From what the locals had been saying, as soon as the sun goes down the howling and whining starts up. The lunar pattern doesn't indicate anything special. The area didn't have a pet cemetery. With the number of people who had heard it, it seemed doubtful that it was a hellhound.
So - a regular ol' black dog. That seems to be the consensus older and younger brother reach as they go scrambling through knee-high blades of grass, flashlight clenched in one hand, gun in the other.
The howling sounds like it is coming from everywhere; it ricochets off of century old oak trees and bounces toward them off of the ruins of an old stone church.
Dean's never heard a Shuck sound so sad before. From the short glimpses he gets of Sam's face in the darkness, he can tell his younger brother is thinking the same thing. But, there's no time to have a conversation about the emotive nature of spectral canines, whatever is out there in the dark has just let out a growl and is charging their way. They can’t see where it’s coming from, can only hear the sounds of four legs running through tall grass, plant-life being shoved aside by paws that rapidly plod along the earth.
"Sam!" Dean bites out sharply, pulling the trigger back on his revolver.
The boys stand back to back in the inky night, hardly any moonlight spilling downward from the cloudy sky. They move in a synchronized circle, aiming their beams of light into the darkness that surrounds them.
Dean feels Sam tense behind him.
"You've gotta be friggin' kidding me." Sam mutters softly. "Dean, turn around, but do it slowly."
"What? What the hell, Sam?" Dean spins around, not lowering his flashlight or his gun.
There is a high-pitched yelp and the dark shape backs out of the beam of the flashlight and further into the shadows.
Well, the locals were right.
It is black and it is a dog.
::: ::: :::
The poor mongrel, some kind of Labrador mix, is half-starved by the looks of him, his ebony coat a tangled mess of burrs. It doesn't take Sam more than five minutes to find the beef jerky that Dean had been hiding in the trunk and try to feed it to the dog.
Dean chuckles to himself. The dog apparently knows better than to take Dean Winchester's jerky without asking.
Sam tosses the Slim Jims to Dean without any warning. "Try and get him in the car."
Dean looks from the bedraggled dog to the car - his car, then gives his younger sibling a look that clearly implies he thinks Sam has lost his mind. "My baby, no, no way. We'll call animal control, tell them there is a mutt out here. It is their problem."
Even before Dean can make out the glare Sam is giving him in the darkness, he already knows it is a lost cause. This is the same Sam Winchester who spent the majority of their childhood begging for a dog. While his younger brother was old enough nowadays to understand the problems of keeping a pooch with you on the road when you were performing fraud just to keep yourself fed, Sam still wasn't going to agree to just leave the dog - who clearly needed care - this far outside the town.
"We're not calling animal control when we don't even know if there is a No Kill shelter in the area. Not happening." Sam huffs, pursing his lips severely.
"Fine, whatever." Dean retorts. It wasn't like he didn't have a heart for the poor pup. He whistles through his teeth and waves a piece of jerky toward the dog, who looks extremely torn between getting something to eat and getting within hitting distance of a human.
Dean keeps his voice low and soothing as he opens up the back door to the Impala. "C'mon, Lassie. Sammy fell in the well!"
The dog immediately charges into the car with a soft whuff of happiness.
It takes Sam forever to locate a No Kill shelter within an hour of where they are and it is closed until Tuesday. With a couple days of dog sitting on the horizon, it takes even longer to find a pet friendly motel.
Sam, as much as he actively tries to be dog's best friend, doesn't have much success. All the mutt wants to do is hang around Dean - which wouldn't be such a horrible thing, except the dog is disgustingly dirty, so having him jump on the bed is a problem.
Lassie shoves his (or her, they haven't checked) head under Dean's hand, who starts to stroke the matted fur, but then withdraws his hand in revulsion.
Dean decides the dog needs a bath and he tells his brother so.
"What do you want me to do about it?" Sam asks, twisting around from where he's seated his with his laptop.
"I dunno. Give him one."
"Dude, he's clearly attached to you. You're so worried about it, you give him one." Sam replies, turning back to the screen in front of him.
"Well, you’re the one who had this fantastic idea about inviting this fleabitten --," Dean flicks his eyes toward the dog, who is looking up at him with soulful eyes. If Dean thought it was possible, he'd think Lassie's feelings just got hurt. "-this dog into our motel room to stink up the joint. Besides, the cleaner he is - the more likely he is to be adopted right away, right? Why not get him off to a good start?"
Dean knows he's got his brother on the hook now, the way his mouth is twisting to one side.
Sam agrees to the task, but it takes the both of them to wrangle the stray into the bathroom. Dean escapes quickly and closes the door behind him, the sight of Gigantor struggling with a medium-sized dog a too-small bathroom with his too-large body is amusing. Adding water and suds to the equation is just hilarious.
Sam mutters softly to himself as he can hear his brother laughing. While the poor mongrel is scratching at the door to get to back to Dean, Sam turns on the water and grabs one of the tiny bottles of shampoo. Thank god for removable shower heads.
He wrestles Lassie into the tub, the dog barking and whining as he attempts to wiggle out from Sam's grasp. Grateful that he doesn't have a biter on his hands, he carefully aims the shower nozzle, long fingers pulling debris out of the knotted coat.
The dog tries to jump out of the tub just as Sam pours a handful of shampoo into his hand, but is unable to escape when the hunter blocks him bodily, soaking wet fur rubbing up against his previously dry shirt front.
Sam sighs and shakes his head with a rueful smile. It was inevitable really. He wasn’t coming out of this without having a bath of his own.
Reaching out his soap-filled hand, he digs his fingers into gnarled up dog hair, working it into a lather. As the massage goes along and the canine calms down, Sam is able to get a good scrub going. Once or thrice, the pads of his fingers come across a bump, and he parts the fur to see what it is he's dealing with.
Ticks, engorged to varying sizes, one of which is nearly the size of a pencil eraser, bloated like a large pea.
After the pup is rinsed free of suds, Sam grabs the tweezers out of the first aid kit behind him.
"Good boy," he says in a low voice, taking care as he plucks out each one and drops them in the toilet bowl.
Sam stands back, admiring his handiwork. Lassie is clean - and not looking half-bad. He still looks like a mongrel, with the matted fur, but at least the soft ebony coat seemed shiny now.
"Maybe you're not just some stray, huh? Maybe you just got lost." Sam leans over and strokes the ears of man's best friend for a moment. In exchange for this, Lassie shakes his fur out, the bathroom experiencing a sudden bout of rain.
"Hey!" Sam protests, holding a hand up to shield his face as the dog sheds the excess moisture.
Dean hears all this and begins cackling on the other side of the door.
Sam figures out how he's going to get rid of the impossibly tangled sections of fur. An evil grin on his face, he grabs his older brother's electric razor.
::: ::: :::
Lassie is dropped off at an animal shelter and Sam gives the staff all the information they might need to reunite the pooch with his or her owners, if there are any. That day they pull out of town, both brothers giving wistful glances backward every once in awhile, the jagged peaks of the Rocky Mountains visible in the distance.
A week and a half later, they've just finished another hunt, a few hundred miles south of where they had been in Colorado.
It seems like one minute Dean is perfectly fine. In fact, at lunchtime he was. Then illness slams into him like a ton of bricks, his head throbbing, his stomach roiling. Dean's whole person is just a mass of hurt, joints protesting with the slightest movement. A deep soreness has set into his muscles, a full body Charley horse.
By two o'clock, his skin is crawling with that shivery feeling that only comes with fever.
Sam is asleep in the passenger's seat and Dean is fine with that, fine with Sam not seeing how he feels. He can do without being nagged by a Sasquatch, thank you very much.
That lasts about as long as his lunch does, which is about twenty more minutes. Dean finds himself pulling over to the side of the road in a hurry, pushing the door open, and hurling all his good eats onto the dirt.
Dean knows his younger brother is awake before he can hear Sam fidgeting nervously in the passenger seat, before he hears, "Uh, Dean, you okay?"
Dean's smart ass response is interrupted by more vomiting, this time splashback gets on his boots. Gross.
Sam twists around to grab a bottle of water out of the cooler in the backseat and gets out of the car. He takes a long look at his older brother and lets out a low whistle, absorbing the unhealthy flush contrasting against the pale skin of his face and the way Dean is obviously grabbing the door for support.
"You look friggin' awful."
"Nice, dude. Appreciated." Dean bites back sarcastically, taking the proffered bottle from Sam and doing a quick rinse of his mouth.
"I just mean…are you sick enough that we need to call it a day? Find someplace to stay?"
"No, dude, I'm good." When Sam eyes him suspiciously, he lies, "I feel much better now that I've-"
"Placed your lunch neatly on the side of Route 120?" Sam finishes for him.
"Pretty much, yeah."
Sam narrows his eyes while Dean withdraws back into the car under the intense scrutiny.
"C'mon, Miss Daisy. Don't you want to get to the Piggly Wiggly?" Dean waggles his eyebrows at the looming Gigantor to his left, his skull reprimanding him in response. Dean figures he keeps his poker face pretty well, though, because Sam retreats back to his side of the car and they get back on the road.
In another five minutes, Dean switches off the Motorhead album he's blaring, because damned if his head isn't beginning to throb in sync with the beat.
In another ten minutes, Dean is looking for a gas station where he can hole up in the bathroom for a few minutes and spew his guts away from prying eyes.
When involuntary shivers begin to wrack his frame, Dean knows the game is up.
Nothing is said for a further five minutes, Sam waiting for Dean to take it upon himself to admit he's sick. Of course, the elder Winchester says nothing. This is not unexpected and Sam is ready to give his brother a little prompting.
"Dude, you're sweating and shivering."
"…and?"
"And, you're only s'posed to do one of those at a time, I'm pretty sure."
"I'm just awesome like that," Dean tries to play off.
Sam is about to find something to say to bring Dean back to the subject of his obviously ailing health when the Impala is suddenly steered over to the side of the road and Dean scrambles to swing the door open, puking spectacularly on the gravel, yet managing to flip his middle finger at a truck that passes by the scene honking its horn.
Sam sighs and rolls his eyes, snagging the barely touched bottle of water off of the front seat where Dean left it, and strolling around the front of the car to where Dean is (still) hurling. Sam stays silent, pretends the landscape is intensely interesting. As soon as Dean is finished, he holds out his hand expectantly for the water, takes a swig, spits. It isn't until Dean goes to swing his legs back into the car that Sam speaks up.
"You look like you're gonna keel over. You really want to drive her like that?"
Dean gives Sam a look, but takes his hand off of the keys in the ignition anyway. Rather than just pushing over, Dean figures some fresh air will do him good. He goes to get up, his vision grays out and he finds himself collapsed against Sam's chest, his face smushed up against his brother's armpit, inhaling the scent of some cologne-laced deodorant.
Sam's breath is warm into his hair as he speaks. "Got your sea-legs yet?"
"Think so." Dean says, feeling more sure of the dirt under his feet as his brother helps him lean against the car.
Sam takes the opportunity of Dean looking so dazed to feel his brother's clammy forehead.
"Jesus, dude, you're on fire! Why the fuck didn’t you say anything?"
Dean pulls away, eyes blurred with a feverish glaze. "Say anything?"
"Were you sick when we were on the hunt?" Sam asks angrily.
Dean sways where he stands so Sam gently lowers Dean back onto the driver's seat, but then stomps over to the other side of the car so he can root around in the glovebox until he comes up with a bottle of Motrin.
Sam shoves it into his brother's hands. "Let's cut the dance we normally do short, shall we? You're not fine. "
"Sam-"
"What, Dean, what?" Sam snaps.
"Sammy..."
The exhaustion and misery in Dean's voice stop Sam cold, as well as the tirade building up in his mind, the chastising he'd love to give his irresponsible stubborn jackass of a brother.
"I felt fine before. I felt fine at lunch." Dean says in a dogged plain-as-day way that convinces Sam it's the truth.
"Oh." Sam replies, whatever he was planning to say lost on the warm New Mexican wind.
"Yeah. It kinda snuck up on me." Dean leans over again, his brain pounding even worse, but is able to hold whatever meager stomach contents he still possesses inside.
"Symptoms?"
"Aw, Jesus, Sammy!" Dean groans, pressing his palm into his sweaty forehead. "I feel like shit."
"Yes, Dean," Sam asks patiently, "You're sick - which is precisely why I'm asking. We already got fever and nausea, what else?"
"I dunno." Dean squints up at his brother. "Flu-ey. Y'know, achy? Probably that's what it is. Probably caught the damn flu."
"Maybe." Sam frowns. "You done decorating the roadside or you need another minute?"
Dean sits up, his hand cradling his belly. "Naw, I'm good."
"Good, then scoot over and take the meds."
Dean shuffles his bones over to the other side of the vehicle, grunting as each of his joints complains loudly.
When he gets himself settled, he sees Sam regarding him quietly.
"What?"
"You gonna make it?" Sam asks with genuine concern.
"Will you just drive?" Dean snaps back.
Sam says nothing, but glances meaningfully from Dean to the unopened bottle of Motrin in his elder brother's lap before restarting the car and pulling it out of park. Dean mutters to himself, but swallows down a few of the tan-coated tablets with as small a sip of water as he can manage.
It takes Sam an hour to get them to a town large enough to have a motel, an hour of surreptitious glancing at his trembling brother who is curled up in one of his usual jackets, plus the leather one. They only had to stop once for him to hurl, and now Dean's finally in some sort of half-sleep, damp hair matted to his head.
Sam wants to wake him up, get him to take the coats off, to shove water down his throat, but right now he just wants to get them to somewhere with a motel and a medical facility in case they need one. Parts of New Mexico are just one traffic light towns and vast space in between, and it with much relief that the Impala finally cruises through some city limits.
"Dean." Sam says, putting a hand on Dean's arm and squeezing gently. He gets nothing but some grumbling in response, so he squeezes a little harder.
Dean winces and sits up, his arms tucked against himself to keep in whatever warmth he can. He gazes blearily at his surroundings, a motel parking lot, which doesn't give him any clues.
"Where are we?"
"Las Vegas."
Dean blinks at Sam incredulously as he fists the gunk out of his eyes. "Why the hell did you drive us all the way to Vegas?"
"Las Vegas, New Mexico, dumbass." Sam smirks, but he softens when he sees how clearly out of it Dean is. "Lemme go get us a room. And drink some water."
"Yeah, yeah." Dean grumbles, still trying to get his bearings. He didn't think it was possible to feel worse than he did an hour ago, but here he is. There is a blacksmith inside his cranium pounding in the rhythm of his pulse, the clank of hammer harsh against the bones of his superheated skull. At least, he is assuming he's superheated. He feels like some mafia goons have stuck him in a meat locker.
The image of being surrounded by dozens of frostbitten carcasses has Dean hurriedly pushing open the door so he can aim dry heaves at the pavement, joints wrenching as he spasms painfully forward, but is only able to expel small amounts of sour saliva. A rush of air that has probably passed by a cactus or two on its way there feels like a cold winter wind as it blusters across his sweat-drenched skin. Someday bullshit irony like this is going to end up killing him.
A shadow looms over him. Sam.
"Think you can make it to the door?"
"Yes." The word whips out sharp and fast.
"Okay, alright, just asking." Sam shakes his head with the tiniest of smiles even as frustration rises up inside of him. This is a well-practiced dance routine, and Dean might be Anna Pavlova in this scenario, but even she had a choreographer.
Dean stands up slowly as if years of arthritis have besieged his knees and ends up immediately listing sideways like a housewife who hit the box of wine too hard. Sam's ready hands grab hold, fingers clutching the battered leather jacket as he hefts his brother upright, finding purchase on Dean's belt to keep him that way.
Sam uses his foot to close the door to the Impala, frowning severely when his older brother doesn't make so much as a grumble about such sacrilege behavior. Talking small slow steps to cause the least amount of pain to the pitiable corpse he's hauling along with him, Sam manages to get them both inside the motel room. Before going back outside to collect their things, particularly the first aid kit, he grabs a plastic cup from the bathroom counter and fills it with tepid water, not wanting to shock Dean's digestive tract into reversal again.
When he comes out of the bathroom, Dean has flopped down on the bed without removing either jacket or his boots. The boots can wait a little longer, the jackets can’t. Sam places the water on the nightstand.
"Hey, Dean. C'mon, I need you to stay awake for another ten or fifteen max."
His older brother's face twitches, prompting a large bead of sweat to roll downward from his saturated hairline, the drop darting its path through freckles as if his face is a sickly pinball machine. Instinct causing his own stomach to plummet, Sam lays his hand along Dean's neck only to find the skin to be scorching underneath the perspiration.
"Dean, c'mon, man. Wake up." Sam squeezes the back of the elder hunter's neck with a sense of urgency.
"S'mmy?" Dean slurs slightly, the heavy lids of his eyes opening slightly to reveal slivers of dull green. "Wha'appened? Wha's wrong?"
"Nothing, man. I just need you to sit up for me and take the jackets off, okay?"
"Fuckin' freezin'." Dean replies, grunting as he sits himself up.
Sam watches his older sibling slowly peel off the two jackets, revealing a drenched AC/DC t-shirt clinging like a second skin. The exposure of air to wet clothing and skin causes Dean's body to be immediately wracked with shivering, his teeth chattering even as he tries to clamp his jaw firmly together. Pain lines are embossed deeply in his face, but he stays silent except for the clattering of his teeth.
"T-shirt off." Sam grabs a towel from the bathroom and a cheap bathrobe from the closet. It's by no means some one hundred percent cotton terrycloth spa robe, but it's dry, which is what matters until Sam can go grab the bags.
Dean’s hands and arms are trembling so badly, he can't do more than get one arm out of the soaking wet tee. Watching this is like torment for Sam, one quick pull upward and Dean'd be that much closer to some sort of better comfort, and Sam'd be that much closer to the thermometer, Tylenol, and pumping Dean with as much fluid as he can. Bouncing anxiously on the balls of his feet, he tries to be patient - to not be the hovering mother-hen his brother always accuses him of being.
"S-s-sam..." Dean stutters as tooth enamel clacks together, the frustrated appeal for help clear in his eyes, trapped in damp fabric like a gnat in a spider's web. Without another moment's hesitation, Sam yanks the shirt over Dean's head before deftly patting the feverish skin dry and wrapping his brother in the bathrobe.
"I'm gonna go get the kit. Here…" Sam goes to give Dean the cup of water, but one glance at the quaking hands in front of him and he knows the contents of the wide-mouthed cup would slosh onto the floor. "Okay, be right back."
As soon as Sam is on the other side of the door, Dean flops back down on the bed. Unable to focus on why Sam needed him awake, he's become a heat-seeking missile, his arm managing to weakly tug the coverlet over his wretched form.
Roadkill, that's what he feels like. Roadkill that was run over by a racist truck after spending the entire night evading a fucking wendigo.
"No, no, no - uh-uh, Dean. I know you wanna get warm, man, but you're just going to feel worse."
His vision is all blurred and he feels the covers pulled off right as gigantic hands are pulling him up to rest against the cheap pressed wood headboard, its surface - cold and hard - increasing the hurt that is already wired into the muscles of his back. The idea of the blanket being gone sounds like the end of the world and a whine - pitiful and low - sounds in Dean’s ears. It takes him a moment to realize that it was him.
The crinkling of plastic and the light smell of something sweet yet nauseating have him blinking his eyes to get a better look at what is going on. Sam is opening a pack of Twizzlers he must have gotten from the vending machine.
Dean presses his hand against his mouth for a moment, swallowing hard. "Sammy, that is just not happening."
"Not for eating. Don't worry."
Sam opens up a twenty ounce of water, gulps down an inch or two, and then bites off both ends of one of the thick red licorice wands, dropping it in the bottle as a makeshift straw before putting it into Dean's shaking hands.
"Shouldn't spill as much. Small sips."
"My brother - the genius," Dean mutters.
"Hey, you were the one that taught me the whole Twizzler straw trick. I never thought I'd see the day where it had a practical use. Hold still," Sam says, pressing the digital thermometer into his brother's ear.
After thirty seconds, it beeps loudly and Dean has to crane his neck to see the frown on his brother's face.
"Can't be good with that face."
"102.8," Sam answers, pressing a couple caplets of Tylenol into his ailing sibling's palm. "Take those and keep drinking."
After a few minutes, Dean is staring vacantly toward the floral pattern of the bedspread and Sam has to snap him back to attention. "Hey, man, keep drinking, alright? Unless you want a trip to the hospital."
"Just the flu," Dean replies, kneading his forehead with his knuckles.
"The flu lands people in the hospital. Besides, I'm not sure it is - no cough, no congestion."
"Stomach flu, then - whatthefuckever."
What-the-fuck-ever it is, after two and a half miserable days of a fever that sinks its tenterhooks into his flesh, Dean is finally feeling better, weak and wrung out, but still so much better that he practically hits Sam in the temple with the keys in his excitement to leave town. He's fine with recovering more on the road so long as the road includes leaving this godforsaken room and this godforsaken city, because - frankly, after feeling like complete shit for the better part of three days, he really could have done with a jaunt to one of Las Vegas's finer strip clubs. It seems cruel and unusual punishment that he wakes up in the wrong Las Vegas.
Part 2