Fic: Oxidation 1/1
Title: Oxidation
Author: wave_obscura
Genre: Gen, H/C
Rating: PG
Word Count: ~3100
Summary: Soulless!Sam has an asthma attack. Dean is not amused.
Warnings/Spoilers: Middle of season 6. Language. Respiratory distress.
Disclaimer: No copyright infringement intended.
Note: I'm back with yet another laughably outdated fic! Enjoy?
Oxidation
by wave obscura
There were upsides to having a brother without a soul. The upsides were small and not at all worth the trade-off, but even Dean sometimes found it prudent to count his blessings.
For example, the Sam-bot wasn’t thoughtful but it was practical. Since it didn’t sleep and it knew humans needed to eat for energy, it had nothing more practical do to than make pancakes or French toast for Dean in the mornings.
Even the pancakes and French toast were creepy, though. Each day the meals tasted manufactured and eerily exactly the same, like the cardboard-but-comforting taste of a lukewarm McDonald’s sandwich.
The Sam-bot would sit across the table and drink his coffee with raised eyebrows, like he was hoping (or assuming logically) that Dean would grunt some kind of approval.
Dean never did, because fuck the fucking Sam-bot.
At first Dean hardly slept in its presence. He slept with his back to the wall. But as he watched the Sam-bot occupy its time in innocuous ways-furrowing its brow at a crossword puzzle, for example, or doing a thousand pull-ups-he began to sleep easier.
Maybe easier than he had in years. Because he knew that when he shut his eyes, the Sam-bot was awake and always vigilant.
Which didn’t make a goddamn bit of sense. The still-healing fang holes in Dean’s gums, the lingering metal-and-ass taste of blood in his mouth, this was proof that the Sam-bot would not protect him.
He still felt a relief he didn’t understand.
One night he woke to the Sam-bot digging through his leather jacket.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Dean said, bolting upright.
The Sam-bot’s shoulders were heaving oddly. He held up the car keys with one hand, put the other hand on his chest. “Driving myself to the emergency room.”
“Why?”
“To get a nebulizer treatment.”
“What?”
“The inhaler isn’t helping much. My chest is tight.”
Dean rubbed at his eyes. At first it was like the Sam-bot was speaking Spanish, or maybe he’d short circuited. It took a long silent moment to piece it together. The Sam-bot took short breaths, its chin slightly raised. On exhale, he sounded like a kazoo.
“Wait,” Dean said. “You-you still have… Sam’s-- you still have asthma?”
The Sam-bot knitted its eyebrows together. “As far as I know asthma isn’t a disease of the soul.”
It made sense. It was weird, but it made sense. Dean rolled over and pulled the blankets back over his shoulders. “Wake me up when you get back. Let me know Sam’s body is okay.”
“It’s my body.”
Dean rolled his eyes. “Whatever. Just go.”
He heard the Sam-bot fiddling with the sticky front door. The keys dropped, fell on the carpet. The Sam-bot leaned over with a wheeze to pick them up.
Dean sat up and threw the blankets aside. "I'm coming with you."
"Why?"
"Because… because I don't want you driving my fucking car."
The Sam-bot blinked, raised his chin to drag in another breath. His neck muscles tensed with the strain. "I'm licensed, same as you. And you taught me to drive."
“I taught Sam how to drive.”
The Sam-bot lifted one shoulder. “One way or the other.”
"Fine. Because I don't trust you with Sam's asthma."
"It's my asthma. My lungs.”
"Shut the fuck up," Dean said, "and give me my keys."
***
There was another upside to having a soulless brother: he didn’t sugar coat things.
“It’s getting worse,” The Sam-bot said about ten minutes out from the hospital. He scratched at his chest. “My lungs hurt.”
“That happens. Just don’t panic.”
Sam-bot looked confused. “I won’t. Unless panicking will help me breathe.”
“It won’t.”
“Then I won’t.”
“Good.”
Sam-bot was blessedly but worryingly quiet by the time Dean swung the car around to the doors of the ER. He was just breathing, all breathing, wheezing, gasping, coughing, and Dean couldn’t look, he couldn’t even fucking look. Maybe the thing wasn’t his brother, but when it was suffering, when it looked like this, he couldn’t tell the difference.
He kept his eyes on his lap. “Go on in and up to the front desk. I’ll park and be there in just a minute.”
The Sam-bot got out of the car, shut the door, but leaned down to the passenger side window. “Dean,” he gasped. “Can you...”
Dean floored it, sped away. He didn’t want to hear it. He couldn’t.
***
The Sam-bot sounded awful but his oxygen levels made him a non-priority. They gave him a gown, put him in a bed, pulled up a chair for Dean and left.
Sam-bot couldn't stop moving, rearranging his limbs, shoving out his chest, leaning forward, falling backward in a wheezing huff.
“Why aren’t they helping me?” He said.
Dean was flipping mindlessly through the TV stations. “You’re getting enough air, it just doesn’t feel like it. They should be in with a neb in a few minutes.”
“My chest hurts.”
“So you said.”
“Where the fuck are they?”
“Calm down.”
“I’m calm.”
“The more you freak, the worse you’re going to feel.”
“I’m not supposed to fucking feel,” Sambot knocked his head against the bed. He was starting to sweat. The cords in his neck bulged. “I can’t... I can’t fucking breathe. You have to... you have to fucking tell them.”
Dean glanced at Sam’s oxygen levels. They were dropping a little, for sure, but Dean couldn’t bring himself to feel anything but pissed.
“What the fuck did you do?”
Sambot put his hand to his throat, swallowed painfully. “I need that fucking nebulizer.”
“What did you do?”
“What do you mean?”
“To trigger Sammy’s asthma.”
The Sambot rolled his eyes. “Of course you think I’m doing this on purpose. To betray you somehow.”
“Well?”
Sambot curled up in the ER bed and coughed dry and violent. Dean could hear it tearing at his throat. “I’m not sure staying alive is worth the effort. Find me a fucking doctor or I’ll just give up.”
“Bullshit.”
“Try me,” Sambot said, with a desperate, miserable face that dared Dean to press his luck, and no thank you, not today.
“I’ll be right back,” Dean said, standing up.
***
The Sambot got his nebulizer and sank into the bed, relieved. He sucked at the mist like it was something delicious.
“Just-- breathe regular, okay? You don’t need to hyperventilate.”
“I’m not.”
“Yes you fucking are.” Dean put his hand flat on the Sambot’s chest. “Just stop. Breathe normally.”
At least the Sambot listened. He closed his eyes, didn’t say another word until the treatment was finished. After a while the doctor returned with an inhaler, some Predisone, even a spacer. He looked at Sambot’s oxygen levels, nodded in approval and was about to tell them to piss off. But something was niggling at Dean. Something wasn’t right. He’d seen Sammy post-attack hundreds of times. He knew what it looked like, what it felt like.
This wasn’t it.
“It’s not over,” he said out loud.
Sambot’s attention snapped away from the doctor. ”What?”
“This-- I--- well. Nothing. Nothing. Nevermind.” Because really, how the fuck was he going to explain without sounding like a loon?
“I feel awesome,” Sambot said.
Dean shrugged. Maybe lacking a soul improved asthma, somehow.
***
On the way home the Sambot relaxed against the passenger seat, hands folded across his lap like he was lounging under a fucking beach-side cabana, and at first Dean couldn’t figure out why it made him so fucking mad. Then he remembered it was exactly what his Sam used to do, lay there like a cat in the sun and bask in the simple act of being able to breathe.
“I don’t know how your brother put up with this,” Sambot said.
“He wasn’t a whiny pissant like you.” Dean gripped the wheel tighter, and blinked a few times but definitely not because there were tears gathering in his eyes. “He’d dig a whole fuckin’ grave without a word. Fucking collapse as soon as the corpse was on fire.”
“You sound proud of him.”
“I am proud of him.”
“Why?” Sambot asked. “It was idiotic not to tell you, wasn’t it? He could have died. I almost died without trying to be tough about it.”
Dean would punch this motherfucker if it didn’t mean breaking Sam’s nose. He pulled into the motel parking lot so sharply that Sambot’s head smashed against the window.
“Ow.”
“Let me fucking tell you something. What you did in that ER? Not even close to dying. I’ve seen Sam struggle for days and not throw a fucking pansy tantrum like you did.”
Sambot blinked out the windshield to the motel door beyond. Looked thoughtful. “I shouldn’t say stuff like that about Sam. It makes you do that roaring thing, and it hurts my ears.”
“Fucking christ.” Dean got out of the car and slammed the door. The Sambot followed him obliviously, complaining that he was thirsty, that his chest was still aching.
“Just... lay down and shut up,” Dean said, but he started a pot of coffee brewing. He tapped the coffee pot. “When this is done, you need to drink some.”
“Why?”
“Because I fuckin’ said so.”
Sambot shrugged. “Not Sam. You’re gonna have to give me a real answer.”
“You’re not done, that’s why.”
“Done with what?”
Dean chucked the inhaler at him. “Your asthma attack.”
“Sure I am.”
“Nope.” Dean pulled the pot before it was finished brewing. Coffee dripped, sizzled and scalded on the hotplate. “You might think you’re over it, but you’re not. Drink.”
“I already don’t sleep.”
“This isn’t to stay awake, idiot.”
Sambot wrinkled his nose at the cup. “I don’t want any coffee.”
It was that same obstinate look Sam always gave him. Dean closed his eyes against a wave of nausea, came that close to puking right there on the fucking floor.
“Fuck this,” he said. “Do what you want.”
Luckily there was a bar right across the street. Dean made sure to slam the motel door nice and loud behind him.
***
He was halfway through his third double shot when his phone rang. SAM, it announced, along with a picture of his little brother all disheveled and nursing a hangover in some nowhere diner, if only, if only.
He bitch-buttoned the Sambot, rested his forehead on the rim of his shot glass, and missed Sam so bad he could barely breathe.
His phone rang again. He came close to throwing it across the room. Then he got up and walked home.
***
The Sambot was sitting backwards in a chair, heaving. He’d discarded his shirt. Dean paused in the doorway, fucking horrified by how many new scars lay across Sam’s back.
“What the hell have you been doing with his body?”
Sambot looked at him. “Saving... people.”
“Why? What do you give a fuck?”
Sambot pressed his forehead into the back of the chair and coughed. “I’m having... an asthma... attack. Do we have to... talk...”
“I guess not. Where’s your inhaler.”
“Fucking... useless.”
Dean threw up his arms. “I fucking told you.”
“Didn’t know...”
Dean knelt down in front of the chair. “Stop freaking out.”
“Can’t breathe.”
“No shit. But half of it is panic, so slow down. Slow... down.” Dean demonstrated with slow, deep breaths. Now he was probably just being cruel. “Exhale.”
“Can’t.”
“I guess you’ll have to suffocate then.” Dean stood. His intent was to get the keys, drive the fuck away somewhere and let the Sambot call himself a goddamn ambulance. But the Sambot grabbed him by the wrist.
They met eyes. The Sambot looked so much like Sam in that moment that Dean’s heart began to pound, to flood his body with relief but it wasn’t real, it wasn’t real, because Sam’s body was here and his asthma was here but Sam was gone, maybe forever, probably forever--
“Dean,” The Sambot said, still staring up a him, squeezing him hard around the wrist. He draws a feeble breath, as if getting ready to say a mouthful. “When I was six.”
“You were never six.”
“I was. You used to make fun of me for watching Jem and the Holograms. You would sing the theme song until I cried.”
“So you have Sam’s brain. So what.”
“So I’m a piece of your brother damn it. Help me.”
That shut Dean right up. Because he liked things simple, clean, black and white, so there was Sam and there was not Sam. His brother, not his brother.
But he didn’t know what Sam was. He didn’t know the nuances of brain and soul, consciousness or... whatever the fuck made the Sambot tick. He had no idea what Sam was made of. But if there was an inkling, a fucking blink, a fucking drop of anything in there that was still his little brother...
Dean squatted down on his haunches. “You wanna go back to the hospital?”
The Sambot opened his mouth to answer but coughed instead. The cough drug on and on, stealing his breath. Sambot lifted his chin, arched his back. Gulped for air. He used his voice to gasp, making hideous, stuttering moans. He fought keep his eyes from rolling in his head.
Okay,” Dean said, “Back to the ER, okay? Goddamn it.”
***
Dean pushed him into the passenger seat, knelt outside the door. “You have to fuckin calm down. Just... you need to try to breathe slowly.”
“Can’t.”
“Yes you fuckin’ can. Listen to me, okay, because you’re not gonna make it to the fucking hospital if you don’t calm down, do you understand me? You’re going to fucking die.”
It was a complete and total lie, but it shut the Sambot up. His mouth closed. He made tiny breathes through his nose. But it only lasted a second before he was panicking again, wanting to flail his arms.
“HEY,” Dean caught his wrists, pinned them to either side of Sambot’s lap. “Put it on pause for just a few seconds, okay? Just try.”
The Sambot complied. He watched Dean, waiting for permission to breathe. There was trust in his expression, blind fucking trust.
Dean wasn’t going to make it through this night.
“Okay. A long, slow breath in.”
The best Sambot could manage was a pathetic, strangled noise.
They had to fucking go.
Dean sped down the road. He knew he needed to do what he did best during Sam’s attacks: babble.
But what the fuck would the Sambot want to hear?
“It wouldn’t be logical for you to die at this point,” he tried, rather desperately. “Um. We’re so fucking close to the hospital. Also, you have yet to, uh, pass on your genetic code. And, uh. There are still monsters in the world that need killing. So it would be stupid to die, am I right?”
Sambot’s head lolled on the headrest. His hand, a minute before clenched white at his chest, was open and limp. His eyelashes fluttered.
“Goddamn it wake up.” Dean punched him in the shoulder, punched harder when he didn’t respond. “Don’t give up so easily. Where’s your fucking will to live? Did you leave it in hell?”
The Sambot barely flinched, but his eyes opened a little, a wrinkle formed between his eyes. His bottom lip moved up and down.
“That’s it. You fucking talk to me. Say something.” Dean shoved him toward the dash so he was sitting up. “Get your elbows up on that dashboard.”
Sambot did nothing, so Dean reached over and did it himself. Sambot’s head fell onto his crossed arms.
“Almost there. Fuck. Sam. Almost there. You can’t fucking-- it doesn’t make any sense. What the fuck are you good for?”
A hiss of air came from Sambot’s mouth. Sounded almost like a voice.
“What did you say?”
“Aaa.” And then just a wheeze.
“Come on, goddamn it. Stay awake. Say something. Fucking spit it out.”
Sambot opened his mouth again. “Ass. Asshole.”
“Yes,” Dean laughed, relieved. “Yes.”
***
He drug a big blue almost-corpse into the ER. Everyone came running, they swept the Sambot away in a whirlwind.
Dean didn’t follow. He found the nearest corner, slid down the wall, put his head in his hands.
***
Eventually a nurse found him, drug him to his feet. “Your brother is asking for you,” she said, and it gave him this ridiculous hope that maybe she’d lead him into the hospital room and it would somehow be Sam in the room, like all he needed was one good asthma attack to bust him out of hell.
“He’s having a rough time,” she said.
They had the mask on him. He didn’t say anything, sort of nodded when Dean came in. His chest heaved, his breathing was loud.
Dean sat in a chair next to the bed because that’s where someone put the chair.
He maybe felt a little bad for the Sambot. It--- he looked exhausted, ready to give up, still actively suffering.
He wondered if the Sambot would want to be touched. Dean reached over and touched his arm, rubbed his thumb along the soft underside of his wrist.
The Sambot looked confused. “Dean,” he said.
“Yeah.”
“Is it... getting better?”
“I dunno, uh.” A pet name, one of Sam’s -- Buddy, Dude, Sammy-- is on his tongue but he bites it back. “What did the doctor say?”
“Fuck what the doctor says.” And there’s that look again. Blind trust.
Dean glanced at Sambot’s monitors. His numbers were pitiful. “You’re gonna be fine.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“Really.” He moved his hand up to Sambot’s shoulder and squeezed. Sambot didn’t seem to get it, the touching, but it made Dean feel better, so fuck it.
“I’ve never felt like sleeping before,” Sambot said. “I feel like sleeping.”
“Maybe you should.”
“I don’t think I can.”
They were quiet for a long moment, Sambot staring at the ceiling, Dean picking his nails.
“You’re gonna get him back,” Sambot said.
Dean laughed, though he felt like crying. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
“What the fuck do I care about making you feel better.”
“Then why’d you say it?”
“Because it’s true. You’ll get him back. Because this,” he gestured at himself, “Me. It’s not... natural. It breaks the rules.”
“So you admit you’re an abomination.”
Sambot shrugged. “But thanks for not letting me die.”
“Thanks for not killing my brother’s body.”
“You’re welcome.”
“This incident doesn’t make us friends.”
Sambot snorted. “What the fuck do I care about being friends with you?”
“Good, because we’re not,” Dean said.
“Good,” the Sambot said, and closed his eyes.
::::
The End.
Author: wave_obscura
Genre: Gen, H/C
Rating: PG
Word Count: ~3100
Summary: Soulless!Sam has an asthma attack. Dean is not amused.
Warnings/Spoilers: Middle of season 6. Language. Respiratory distress.
Disclaimer: No copyright infringement intended.
Note: I'm back with yet another laughably outdated fic! Enjoy?
Oxidation
by wave obscura
There were upsides to having a brother without a soul. The upsides were small and not at all worth the trade-off, but even Dean sometimes found it prudent to count his blessings.
For example, the Sam-bot wasn’t thoughtful but it was practical. Since it didn’t sleep and it knew humans needed to eat for energy, it had nothing more practical do to than make pancakes or French toast for Dean in the mornings.
Even the pancakes and French toast were creepy, though. Each day the meals tasted manufactured and eerily exactly the same, like the cardboard-but-comforting taste of a lukewarm McDonald’s sandwich.
The Sam-bot would sit across the table and drink his coffee with raised eyebrows, like he was hoping (or assuming logically) that Dean would grunt some kind of approval.
Dean never did, because fuck the fucking Sam-bot.
At first Dean hardly slept in its presence. He slept with his back to the wall. But as he watched the Sam-bot occupy its time in innocuous ways-furrowing its brow at a crossword puzzle, for example, or doing a thousand pull-ups-he began to sleep easier.
Maybe easier than he had in years. Because he knew that when he shut his eyes, the Sam-bot was awake and always vigilant.
Which didn’t make a goddamn bit of sense. The still-healing fang holes in Dean’s gums, the lingering metal-and-ass taste of blood in his mouth, this was proof that the Sam-bot would not protect him.
He still felt a relief he didn’t understand.
One night he woke to the Sam-bot digging through his leather jacket.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Dean said, bolting upright.
The Sam-bot’s shoulders were heaving oddly. He held up the car keys with one hand, put the other hand on his chest. “Driving myself to the emergency room.”
“Why?”
“To get a nebulizer treatment.”
“What?”
“The inhaler isn’t helping much. My chest is tight.”
Dean rubbed at his eyes. At first it was like the Sam-bot was speaking Spanish, or maybe he’d short circuited. It took a long silent moment to piece it together. The Sam-bot took short breaths, its chin slightly raised. On exhale, he sounded like a kazoo.
“Wait,” Dean said. “You-you still have… Sam’s-- you still have asthma?”
The Sam-bot knitted its eyebrows together. “As far as I know asthma isn’t a disease of the soul.”
It made sense. It was weird, but it made sense. Dean rolled over and pulled the blankets back over his shoulders. “Wake me up when you get back. Let me know Sam’s body is okay.”
“It’s my body.”
Dean rolled his eyes. “Whatever. Just go.”
He heard the Sam-bot fiddling with the sticky front door. The keys dropped, fell on the carpet. The Sam-bot leaned over with a wheeze to pick them up.
Dean sat up and threw the blankets aside. "I'm coming with you."
"Why?"
"Because… because I don't want you driving my fucking car."
The Sam-bot blinked, raised his chin to drag in another breath. His neck muscles tensed with the strain. "I'm licensed, same as you. And you taught me to drive."
“I taught Sam how to drive.”
The Sam-bot lifted one shoulder. “One way or the other.”
"Fine. Because I don't trust you with Sam's asthma."
"It's my asthma. My lungs.”
"Shut the fuck up," Dean said, "and give me my keys."
***
There was another upside to having a soulless brother: he didn’t sugar coat things.
“It’s getting worse,” The Sam-bot said about ten minutes out from the hospital. He scratched at his chest. “My lungs hurt.”
“That happens. Just don’t panic.”
Sam-bot looked confused. “I won’t. Unless panicking will help me breathe.”
“It won’t.”
“Then I won’t.”
“Good.”
Sam-bot was blessedly but worryingly quiet by the time Dean swung the car around to the doors of the ER. He was just breathing, all breathing, wheezing, gasping, coughing, and Dean couldn’t look, he couldn’t even fucking look. Maybe the thing wasn’t his brother, but when it was suffering, when it looked like this, he couldn’t tell the difference.
He kept his eyes on his lap. “Go on in and up to the front desk. I’ll park and be there in just a minute.”
The Sam-bot got out of the car, shut the door, but leaned down to the passenger side window. “Dean,” he gasped. “Can you...”
Dean floored it, sped away. He didn’t want to hear it. He couldn’t.
***
The Sam-bot sounded awful but his oxygen levels made him a non-priority. They gave him a gown, put him in a bed, pulled up a chair for Dean and left.
Sam-bot couldn't stop moving, rearranging his limbs, shoving out his chest, leaning forward, falling backward in a wheezing huff.
“Why aren’t they helping me?” He said.
Dean was flipping mindlessly through the TV stations. “You’re getting enough air, it just doesn’t feel like it. They should be in with a neb in a few minutes.”
“My chest hurts.”
“So you said.”
“Where the fuck are they?”
“Calm down.”
“I’m calm.”
“The more you freak, the worse you’re going to feel.”
“I’m not supposed to fucking feel,” Sambot knocked his head against the bed. He was starting to sweat. The cords in his neck bulged. “I can’t... I can’t fucking breathe. You have to... you have to fucking tell them.”
Dean glanced at Sam’s oxygen levels. They were dropping a little, for sure, but Dean couldn’t bring himself to feel anything but pissed.
“What the fuck did you do?”
Sambot put his hand to his throat, swallowed painfully. “I need that fucking nebulizer.”
“What did you do?”
“What do you mean?”
“To trigger Sammy’s asthma.”
The Sambot rolled his eyes. “Of course you think I’m doing this on purpose. To betray you somehow.”
“Well?”
Sambot curled up in the ER bed and coughed dry and violent. Dean could hear it tearing at his throat. “I’m not sure staying alive is worth the effort. Find me a fucking doctor or I’ll just give up.”
“Bullshit.”
“Try me,” Sambot said, with a desperate, miserable face that dared Dean to press his luck, and no thank you, not today.
“I’ll be right back,” Dean said, standing up.
***
The Sambot got his nebulizer and sank into the bed, relieved. He sucked at the mist like it was something delicious.
“Just-- breathe regular, okay? You don’t need to hyperventilate.”
“I’m not.”
“Yes you fucking are.” Dean put his hand flat on the Sambot’s chest. “Just stop. Breathe normally.”
At least the Sambot listened. He closed his eyes, didn’t say another word until the treatment was finished. After a while the doctor returned with an inhaler, some Predisone, even a spacer. He looked at Sambot’s oxygen levels, nodded in approval and was about to tell them to piss off. But something was niggling at Dean. Something wasn’t right. He’d seen Sammy post-attack hundreds of times. He knew what it looked like, what it felt like.
This wasn’t it.
“It’s not over,” he said out loud.
Sambot’s attention snapped away from the doctor. ”What?”
“This-- I--- well. Nothing. Nothing. Nevermind.” Because really, how the fuck was he going to explain without sounding like a loon?
“I feel awesome,” Sambot said.
Dean shrugged. Maybe lacking a soul improved asthma, somehow.
***
On the way home the Sambot relaxed against the passenger seat, hands folded across his lap like he was lounging under a fucking beach-side cabana, and at first Dean couldn’t figure out why it made him so fucking mad. Then he remembered it was exactly what his Sam used to do, lay there like a cat in the sun and bask in the simple act of being able to breathe.
“I don’t know how your brother put up with this,” Sambot said.
“He wasn’t a whiny pissant like you.” Dean gripped the wheel tighter, and blinked a few times but definitely not because there were tears gathering in his eyes. “He’d dig a whole fuckin’ grave without a word. Fucking collapse as soon as the corpse was on fire.”
“You sound proud of him.”
“I am proud of him.”
“Why?” Sambot asked. “It was idiotic not to tell you, wasn’t it? He could have died. I almost died without trying to be tough about it.”
Dean would punch this motherfucker if it didn’t mean breaking Sam’s nose. He pulled into the motel parking lot so sharply that Sambot’s head smashed against the window.
“Ow.”
“Let me fucking tell you something. What you did in that ER? Not even close to dying. I’ve seen Sam struggle for days and not throw a fucking pansy tantrum like you did.”
Sambot blinked out the windshield to the motel door beyond. Looked thoughtful. “I shouldn’t say stuff like that about Sam. It makes you do that roaring thing, and it hurts my ears.”
“Fucking christ.” Dean got out of the car and slammed the door. The Sambot followed him obliviously, complaining that he was thirsty, that his chest was still aching.
“Just... lay down and shut up,” Dean said, but he started a pot of coffee brewing. He tapped the coffee pot. “When this is done, you need to drink some.”
“Why?”
“Because I fuckin’ said so.”
Sambot shrugged. “Not Sam. You’re gonna have to give me a real answer.”
“You’re not done, that’s why.”
“Done with what?”
Dean chucked the inhaler at him. “Your asthma attack.”
“Sure I am.”
“Nope.” Dean pulled the pot before it was finished brewing. Coffee dripped, sizzled and scalded on the hotplate. “You might think you’re over it, but you’re not. Drink.”
“I already don’t sleep.”
“This isn’t to stay awake, idiot.”
Sambot wrinkled his nose at the cup. “I don’t want any coffee.”
It was that same obstinate look Sam always gave him. Dean closed his eyes against a wave of nausea, came that close to puking right there on the fucking floor.
“Fuck this,” he said. “Do what you want.”
Luckily there was a bar right across the street. Dean made sure to slam the motel door nice and loud behind him.
***
He was halfway through his third double shot when his phone rang. SAM, it announced, along with a picture of his little brother all disheveled and nursing a hangover in some nowhere diner, if only, if only.
He bitch-buttoned the Sambot, rested his forehead on the rim of his shot glass, and missed Sam so bad he could barely breathe.
His phone rang again. He came close to throwing it across the room. Then he got up and walked home.
***
The Sambot was sitting backwards in a chair, heaving. He’d discarded his shirt. Dean paused in the doorway, fucking horrified by how many new scars lay across Sam’s back.
“What the hell have you been doing with his body?”
Sambot looked at him. “Saving... people.”
“Why? What do you give a fuck?”
Sambot pressed his forehead into the back of the chair and coughed. “I’m having... an asthma... attack. Do we have to... talk...”
“I guess not. Where’s your inhaler.”
“Fucking... useless.”
Dean threw up his arms. “I fucking told you.”
“Didn’t know...”
Dean knelt down in front of the chair. “Stop freaking out.”
“Can’t breathe.”
“No shit. But half of it is panic, so slow down. Slow... down.” Dean demonstrated with slow, deep breaths. Now he was probably just being cruel. “Exhale.”
“Can’t.”
“I guess you’ll have to suffocate then.” Dean stood. His intent was to get the keys, drive the fuck away somewhere and let the Sambot call himself a goddamn ambulance. But the Sambot grabbed him by the wrist.
They met eyes. The Sambot looked so much like Sam in that moment that Dean’s heart began to pound, to flood his body with relief but it wasn’t real, it wasn’t real, because Sam’s body was here and his asthma was here but Sam was gone, maybe forever, probably forever--
“Dean,” The Sambot said, still staring up a him, squeezing him hard around the wrist. He draws a feeble breath, as if getting ready to say a mouthful. “When I was six.”
“You were never six.”
“I was. You used to make fun of me for watching Jem and the Holograms. You would sing the theme song until I cried.”
“So you have Sam’s brain. So what.”
“So I’m a piece of your brother damn it. Help me.”
That shut Dean right up. Because he liked things simple, clean, black and white, so there was Sam and there was not Sam. His brother, not his brother.
But he didn’t know what Sam was. He didn’t know the nuances of brain and soul, consciousness or... whatever the fuck made the Sambot tick. He had no idea what Sam was made of. But if there was an inkling, a fucking blink, a fucking drop of anything in there that was still his little brother...
Dean squatted down on his haunches. “You wanna go back to the hospital?”
The Sambot opened his mouth to answer but coughed instead. The cough drug on and on, stealing his breath. Sambot lifted his chin, arched his back. Gulped for air. He used his voice to gasp, making hideous, stuttering moans. He fought keep his eyes from rolling in his head.
Okay,” Dean said, “Back to the ER, okay? Goddamn it.”
***
Dean pushed him into the passenger seat, knelt outside the door. “You have to fuckin calm down. Just... you need to try to breathe slowly.”
“Can’t.”
“Yes you fuckin’ can. Listen to me, okay, because you’re not gonna make it to the fucking hospital if you don’t calm down, do you understand me? You’re going to fucking die.”
It was a complete and total lie, but it shut the Sambot up. His mouth closed. He made tiny breathes through his nose. But it only lasted a second before he was panicking again, wanting to flail his arms.
“HEY,” Dean caught his wrists, pinned them to either side of Sambot’s lap. “Put it on pause for just a few seconds, okay? Just try.”
The Sambot complied. He watched Dean, waiting for permission to breathe. There was trust in his expression, blind fucking trust.
Dean wasn’t going to make it through this night.
“Okay. A long, slow breath in.”
The best Sambot could manage was a pathetic, strangled noise.
They had to fucking go.
Dean sped down the road. He knew he needed to do what he did best during Sam’s attacks: babble.
But what the fuck would the Sambot want to hear?
“It wouldn’t be logical for you to die at this point,” he tried, rather desperately. “Um. We’re so fucking close to the hospital. Also, you have yet to, uh, pass on your genetic code. And, uh. There are still monsters in the world that need killing. So it would be stupid to die, am I right?”
Sambot’s head lolled on the headrest. His hand, a minute before clenched white at his chest, was open and limp. His eyelashes fluttered.
“Goddamn it wake up.” Dean punched him in the shoulder, punched harder when he didn’t respond. “Don’t give up so easily. Where’s your fucking will to live? Did you leave it in hell?”
The Sambot barely flinched, but his eyes opened a little, a wrinkle formed between his eyes. His bottom lip moved up and down.
“That’s it. You fucking talk to me. Say something.” Dean shoved him toward the dash so he was sitting up. “Get your elbows up on that dashboard.”
Sambot did nothing, so Dean reached over and did it himself. Sambot’s head fell onto his crossed arms.
“Almost there. Fuck. Sam. Almost there. You can’t fucking-- it doesn’t make any sense. What the fuck are you good for?”
A hiss of air came from Sambot’s mouth. Sounded almost like a voice.
“What did you say?”
“Aaa.” And then just a wheeze.
“Come on, goddamn it. Stay awake. Say something. Fucking spit it out.”
Sambot opened his mouth again. “Ass. Asshole.”
“Yes,” Dean laughed, relieved. “Yes.”
***
He drug a big blue almost-corpse into the ER. Everyone came running, they swept the Sambot away in a whirlwind.
Dean didn’t follow. He found the nearest corner, slid down the wall, put his head in his hands.
***
Eventually a nurse found him, drug him to his feet. “Your brother is asking for you,” she said, and it gave him this ridiculous hope that maybe she’d lead him into the hospital room and it would somehow be Sam in the room, like all he needed was one good asthma attack to bust him out of hell.
“He’s having a rough time,” she said.
They had the mask on him. He didn’t say anything, sort of nodded when Dean came in. His chest heaved, his breathing was loud.
Dean sat in a chair next to the bed because that’s where someone put the chair.
He maybe felt a little bad for the Sambot. It--- he looked exhausted, ready to give up, still actively suffering.
He wondered if the Sambot would want to be touched. Dean reached over and touched his arm, rubbed his thumb along the soft underside of his wrist.
The Sambot looked confused. “Dean,” he said.
“Yeah.”
“Is it... getting better?”
“I dunno, uh.” A pet name, one of Sam’s -- Buddy, Dude, Sammy-- is on his tongue but he bites it back. “What did the doctor say?”
“Fuck what the doctor says.” And there’s that look again. Blind trust.
Dean glanced at Sambot’s monitors. His numbers were pitiful. “You’re gonna be fine.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“Really.” He moved his hand up to Sambot’s shoulder and squeezed. Sambot didn’t seem to get it, the touching, but it made Dean feel better, so fuck it.
“I’ve never felt like sleeping before,” Sambot said. “I feel like sleeping.”
“Maybe you should.”
“I don’t think I can.”
They were quiet for a long moment, Sambot staring at the ceiling, Dean picking his nails.
“You’re gonna get him back,” Sambot said.
Dean laughed, though he felt like crying. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
“What the fuck do I care about making you feel better.”
“Then why’d you say it?”
“Because it’s true. You’ll get him back. Because this,” he gestured at himself, “Me. It’s not... natural. It breaks the rules.”
“So you admit you’re an abomination.”
Sambot shrugged. “But thanks for not letting me die.”
“Thanks for not killing my brother’s body.”
“You’re welcome.”
“This incident doesn’t make us friends.”
Sambot snorted. “What the fuck do I care about being friends with you?”
“Good, because we’re not,” Dean said.
“Good,” the Sambot said, and closed his eyes.
::::
The End.