Somehow We Still End Up Here - Part 1

[evelyncarver]

It's dark outside. Sam blinks slowly, opening and closing his eyes to glance out the window. He sees the church behind them and they pull out, the tires squealing in Dean's haste to get back on the road. The car is cold and Sam shivers in his shirts and jacket.

"You cold?" Dean asks and he puts his hand on Sam's forehead, the way he's been doing since the Trials started. His hand is warm and Sam wonders if he's actually cold, if he no longer has the fever he's been bearing for ages. He's shivering the same way he did when his temperature soared and he couldn't get warm, even as Dean dropped him in an ice bath and rubbed the sweat off of his skin.

"A bit." Sam doesn't pull away. He sits still in the car as Dean steers with his knees, reaching into the backseat and coming up with the blanket they started to keep in the car. It's soft and warm and it lands in a heap on top of Sam. He struggles to pull it down around himself and curls up as best as he can inside it. It doesn't cover him, no blanket has since he was a little kid.

The blanket's big enough to suit his needs though. He folds it to rest between his head and the window and leans his head against it. The fabric protects him from the icy cold of the glass.

The countryside flashes as Dean floors the gas pedal and every time Sam opens his eyes, blinking them tiredly in between yawns, they've travelled further than he expects. It isn't until the car grinds to a stop in a service station that he realises he's been sleeping on and off.

His door opens and he starts to shiver anew at the influx of cold air. Dean's warm hand presses to his forehead and Sam tries to stop his teeth from chattering. The only light visible now comes from the lone light post in the centre of the gas station. There's a little building and Sam hopes it isn't as cold inside there.

"How you feeling?" Dean asks and when Sam opens his mouth to answer, the contents of his stomach come rushing up.

There wasn't much in him to begin with. Between the trial sickness and spending the last eight plus hours around Crowley, he hadn't had much of an appetite in days. Still, there was bile and stringy saliva dangling from his lips.

"That bad?" Dean asks, and Sam nods, closing his eyes to stop the tears from falling. He's so done with this, with all of it. "Do you need anything?" He motions to the store and Sam shakes his head.

"All right, just hang in there." Dean pats him on the head and closes the door. The influx of freezing cold air stops and Sam shivers under his blanket in the cold car.

It's a struggle to keep his eyes open and Sam watches as Dean heads inside the small store. He watches the shadow of his brother through the window and imagines the conversation in his head. He's heard it enough times. "Full tank, whatever pump they're at. And this fake credit card will pay for all of it." It's been the same for as long as he could remember, Dad used the same short sentences.

More cold air rushes into the car when Dean opens the door and Sam pulls the blanket over his head. He coughs into the fabric and hopes it was muffled enough for Dean to not hear it.

"Still coughing?" Dean asks and the blanket is tugged down until Dean can look at his face. "We'll be home soon."

Sam sighs and coughs again. He really doesn't want to go back to the bunker. He wants to go somewhere warm and sunny. . . maybe a beach. He rests his head on the window again and watches, imagining the dark fields are water and there's a warm drink sitting under a beach umbrella for him somewhere.

He sleeps on and off for the rest of the journey. Dean stops one more time and Sam groans and holds his door shut when his brother tries to pull it open. It's gotten  colder outside and he's coughing more now. His chest hurts, aches deep inside and it feels like something is ripping him apart every time he coughs.

"Wake up Sammy." Dean touches his shoulder and Sam opens his eyes. He wasn't actually sleeping, just floating in the sort of half-asleep place between awake and being dead to the world. The car slowing down at the sound of Dean opening and unloading the trunk hadn't really stirred him, but he knew what was going on.

"Come on, careful." Dean opens the door and Sam leans on his brother and holds the blanket tight to his body as he gets out of the car. He shivers in the cold early morning air. The sun is just starting to peek over the horizon and he stumbles along the short walk to the hidden door of the bunker.

Dean bangs on the door and the sound of his fist pounding on metal echoes through Sam's head and down into his bones. He shivers and it's not all from the cold. The door opens slowly, creaking in its ancient hinges. Dean has to haul him through, his legs are ready to give out and he's not moving under his own steam anymore.

"Kevin." Sam tries to smile at the kid, but it comes out as more of a grimace. His voice is weak as shit and sounds like he was gargling with gravel.

Kevin glares at him and stomps down the stairs. Sam sighs and it turns into a coughing fit.

"I hear ya, buddy. Let's get you into bed." Dean rearranges his blanket and slides his arm around Sam's waist. "Careful down the stairs now."

They shuffle and stumble their way down the hall to Sam's room. Sam would have been happy to collapse on the bed as he was and try to get some sleep. But Dean won't let him. He's all soft words and hard hands as he pulls Sam's sweater and shirts off and leaves him shivering on the bed.

"Is Kevin mad at me?" Sam asks and his voice sounds small and weak. He hates it.

"Don't worry about it. Where do you keep your clothes?" Dean opens the closet, but it's empty, same with the chest of drawers. "Sam?"

"Hm?" Sam looks up, his chest is covered in goose bumps and he's shivering again. The bunker's freezing.

"Clothes? You know, the things you wear to keep warm?"

Sam nods and tilts his head towards a duffel bag on the floor.

"Really?" Dean grabs the bag and dumps on the contents on Sam's bed. "Are these all your clothes?"

"Brought some with us." Sam whispers and it isn't harsh enough to make him start coughing again. His second duffel is in the trunk of the Impala, but everything in there is dirty, covered in blood and sweat.

"We'll have to get you some more." Dean says quietly and he feeds Sam's arms into a Henley, the same way he used to dress his baby brother when he was actually a baby. Sam tries to help now, even though every movement hurts. His shoulders ache and his arms cramp up as Dean manoeuvres them around.

Dean undoes the button on his jeans and Sam ends things there.

"I can take it from here." He pushes his big brother away.

"Are you sure?" Dean steadies him as he wavers on the bed.

Sam nods and waves in the direction of the door. "I'll shout if I need you." He knows that Dean will leave the door open a crack and will probably spend the next twenty minutes standing just out of sight, in case Sam needs him. As soon as he's alone, he flops back on the bed and closes his eyes. His jeans are comfortable enough and he can feel the joints in his knees daring him to move. He's not going to challenge them to a contest he already knows he's going to lose.

He fusses around with the blankets and worms his body under them. The mattress isn't quite long enough for his feet, but it's a thousand times better than the front seat of the Impala. The blankets are heavy over his body and they weigh him down. He's not moving out from underneath them until he's feeling better. The way he always wanted to do when he was a teenager and was repeatedly shut down by his father.

"Sammy?"

Sam had been mostly asleep. Dean's light knock on the door made him groan.

"Sam?" Dean opens the door and steps in, frowning when he sees his brother. "You didn't change. Those jeans are gross."

"No they're not." Sam says stubbornly and even though he clings to his blankets, Dean pulls them down. "It's too cold."

"Well you'll feel warmer once you change." Dean sorts through the duffel bag and comes up with a pair of sweatpants Sam doesn't ever remember wearing, let alone buying. "Come on. Or I'll do it myself."

Sam sighs. "You have to leave." He mumbles, the sweatpants clutches in his hands.

"Nu-uh." Dean crosses his arms over his chest. "We tried that last time." He turns around, but that's all. Sam waits, hoping his brother is going to walk out of the room, no such luck. "I don't hear any changing." Dean announces.

It hurts. Bending his legs and reaching down to slide his feet out causes incredible pain. Sam doesn't remember feeling like this before, even when his father had made him run and run until he thought his legs were going to fall off, it had never felt like this.

He must have been groaning and moaning because Dean almost turned around. "Are you doing okay?"

"Yeah." Sam was out of breath, his heart pounding in his chest. He collapses backwards on the bed and lifts his hips to pull the pants up the rest of the way. "I'm good."

Dean turned around and was at his side a second later. "Is it that bad?" He asks and his warm hands touch Sam's knees. The heat is nice, the pressure not so much.

"I'll survive." Sam tries to manage a smile but it's not really all that successful.

"I'll be right back." Dean pulls the blankets up and Sam hears his footsteps as he jogs down the hall. He left the door open and cool air is rushing in from the rest of the bunker. Sam huffs out a breath, it feels cold enough that he should be able to see it in the air, but it's clearly not that cold yet. Just feels like it.

He doesn't even try to fall asleep. He closes his eyes, because they're heavy, and listens for Dean's returning footsteps. Sam hears them and props himself up with a pillow. He doesn't need Dean to worry, he's going to be fine.

"Okay." Dean kicks the door open, a heavily laden tray in his arms. It's the same hideous tray Sam found in the kitchen when they first moved in. There are angels on it, but they're the naked baby cupid versions. The fluorescent colours really add to its appearance. The tray fits, barely, on Sam's bedside table and Dean sits on the bed next to him.

Sam groans at the thermometer. Dean doesn't say anything, just holds it out until Sam takes it and puts it in his mouth. Dean nods and he peels back the blankets and Sam feels warmer. It's all the hot water bottles they've ever collected. After years of injury pain, broken bones and sprains, there are more than enough to cover him.

"Yeah?" Dean smiles and when the thermometer beeps he takes it out of Sam's mouth before Sam can reach for it.

"What's it say?" Sam asks and he shivers again, despite the hot water bottles.

Dean shrugs. "It's fine."

That doesn't mean fine. It's Winchester for "don't worry about it." Sam huffs and rearranges the blanket Dean hauled back up, trying not to displace the hot water bottles.

"Take these." Dean offers a handful of pills. Some of them Sam recognizes,  there are fever reducing pills, the store brand kind from some other state, powerful muscle relaxants too, ones that either came from a hospital supply closet or an actual prescription. The rest of them don't really matter, Sam trusts his brother not to poison him and Dean's not in the mood to deal with questions right now. He's got a look on his face and Sam doesn't have a lot of time before Dean force feeds him whatever he thinks his little brother needs.

Sam takes them. Dean offers him a glass of water and he washs them down with a swallow. He didn't even bother to try and return the bottle, Dean has that look on his face, the 'you have a fever, you need fluids look'. Dean had a lot of different looks, and Sam had gotten to see, maybe even create a whole new host of them over the course of the Trials.

"Finish that and go to sleep." Dean orders and he crosses his arms over his chest, as if he intends to stand there until Sam had complied with his wishes.

The water starts off all right. Sam sips at the first edge of the glass and the water slid down his dry throat. But it only took a couple of swallows before his stomach felt full and the iciness of the water was gone and he was left with the warm backwash. He knew that wasn't true, the glass was cold in his hand but hot in his mouth, it was his body trying to make problems with Dean. Even when he knew it was easier to knuckle under and do as his brother wanted, he couldn't do it. It was too fucking hard to let one day pass without trying to start a fight.

Sam takes another swallow, his largest one yet, but even with that the glass was still well over half full, and that wasn't even an optimistic approximation. There was no way he can drink anymore of it. He is going to lose everything in his stomach if he tried to put anything else in, and he is looking forward to the effects of the pills.

"I can't." Sam puts the glass down next to his bed. "I'll drink it later, I promise. Just. . .not now."

Dean frowns but he didn't say anything, he walks to the door and Sam hopes, foolishly, that his brother was going to leave him alone for the night. But Dean just flips the light off and came back to Sam's bedside.

"Bedtime then."

Sam sighs, maybe little bit too loudly. "I don't need you here."

"Tough." Dean sits down at the end of the bed. "Close your eyes and fall asleep. Then you won't care whether I am here or not."

"Yes I will." Sam glares at his brother through the darkness. The door to the hall was open a crack and the light was just peaking through. "We can deal with this in the morning. I just want to sleep."

"Then sleep. I'm not stopping you, I agree with you." Dean's hand makes contact with his foot and Sam jumps, not expecting the touch.

Sam huffs, but he closes his eyes. Dean's hand is still on his foot and it's warm where his brother's touching him, it hurts less too. It's probably a combination of the drugs taking effect, the hot water bottles, and the heating pads working their magic, but the human contact does something for him too. Even if he didn't finish the Trials, even if the past year of work had been for nothing. The hand on his foot made all of that matter less, at least enough for Sam to fall asleep.

He doesn't remember falling asleep. But when Sam opens his eyes, Dean isn't there anymore and the hot water bottles pressed up against his body have gone cold. One of them had come open during the night and there was a wet spot on his mattress now. Sam sits up and his knees don't protest the movement as much as they had the night before.

It still hurt when he puts his feet on the ground. His joints creak, he could hear them, when he stands up and for a minute, he wavers on his feet. Sam can't really feel much below his ankles, it felt like he was standing on blocks of wood. He sits back down on his bed and picks up the glass of water he'd set there the night before.

The water was on the cooler side of room temperature, but the air in the bunker was cold and Sam still didn't know how long he'd been asleep. He looks over the mess of pills and bottles of medicine Dean had brought in and wondered what cocktail of drugs he actually needs to take. Whatever he'd taken the night before had worked, but it had worn off, probably long ago.

Sam drinks the rest of the water and left the glass in his bed. His entire body hurt and he stumbles out into the hallway in the pyjamas Dean had made him change into. The light in hallway seemed muted and he staggers down the hallway, somehow managing to make more noise than he did when wearing boots.

He doesn't even make it past Dean's room before his brother was there. Sam isn't actually all that sure that Dean had come out of his bedroom, he sort of just appeared there and Sam slumps against the wall, letting Dean keep him from falling over.

"How you feelin'? Dean asks and his hand presses against Sam's forehead.

Sam shakes his head. "What time is it?"

"I don't know, a couple of hours after you went to sleep." Dean shakes him by the shoulders. "Hey, did you just wake up?"

Sam nods sluggishly. "I think so."

"C'mon. Back to bed." Dean grabs him by the elbows and turns him around, giving him a little push to get started back down the hall to his bedroom.

"I'm not tired anymore." Sam complains, letting Dean push and pull him along.

"Tough." Dean kicks the door open with his foot, the distance down the hall was a lot shorter than Sam remembered it being. The light is flicked on and Sam walks the few feet to the bed to collapse down onto his mattress, right in the wet spot.

Sam stands up and started pulling at his sheets.

"What are you doing?" Dean asks, his hands heavy on Sam's shoulders. "Sit down."

Sam sits and points to the spot before lifting the leaky hot water bottle to his brother. "It came open."

"Okay." Dean takes the broken bottle. "I'll set you up somewhere else for the night then."

Sam nods. "My knees hurt."

"I know, I know. I'm working on it." Dean backs away. "What else hurts Sammy? You cold? Hot?"

Sam shrugs. He was cold sort of, but it was mostly around his feet, he could feel them now, numbish, pins and needles and cold. "I guess."

"You guess what?" Dean asks, pills rattling around in his hands.

"I don't know." Sam's brain feels foggy again. He can't remember what he had been saying, Dean had asked him a question. If it was important, Dean would ask him again. He takes the thermometer he is offered and puts it in his mouth when Dean frowns at him.

Dean finishes with a pills and produces a water bottle from somewhere, probably his pocket. Sam hasn't seen one in his room before. He takes the thermometer when it beeps and Sam doesn't bother to ask what it reads this time. He takes his pills and sits still, waiting for Dean to figure out what they need to do next.

"Dean?" Sam asks once his brother had been silent for what seemed like several minutes.

"Hmm?" Dean looks up at him. "You want to take a shower, Sammy?"

Sam shakes his head. "Is Kevin here?"

"Yeah."

"I should talk to him."

"No dude, come on. Shower." Dean pulls him to his feet and pushed him towards the door. "Go on." He urges when Sam turns back to look at him.

The hallway still seems cold and the pills couldn't possibly have already kicked in, but Sam feels stronger on his feet and the hallway is staying where it was supposed to. He makes it all the way down to the bathroom, not the closest one, but the one with multiple jet shower, the one that had Dean taking five showers a day when he first found it.

There are damp towels by the sink and a plain bar of Dove soap on the shelf in the shower. Sam wrinkles his nose at the dark hairs on the soap and resolves to ignore them, he wasn't walking all the way back to his room for towels and getting his own body wash, wash cloth, and shampoo out of the bathroom in the other direction.

He waits until the water was good and hot, steaming up the mirrors in the next room, before getting in. The powerful water borders on painful on his back and the lower jets pound his knees to the point that they can't feel anything but hot and warm. The hot water spills down his body bringing his feet to the point where he could feel them again.

Shower over and done with, Sam dries off with the damp towels, hoping they were Kevin's clearer ones, and not Dean's. Years of growing up in motels, Dean hadn't developed good cleaning habits, he tended to use his towels until Sam washed them or they got so crusty they stopped wrapping around his body. Although Sam didn't know if Kevin could find the laundry in the bunker, the kid had a hard time leaving the more populated and travelled areas of the house.

The heat had soothed his body and Sam makes it back down the hall without much difficulty. His strength is mostly sapped and he is ready to crawl back into bed when he stumbles into his bedroom, breathing heavily. He is chilly again, but it was a surface cold, goosebumps on his arms and legs from only wearing towels on his walk through the hall. The cold, bone chilling iciness had been washed away with the hot water.

Someone, Dean, has turned the light off and the bed had been stripped and sat there bare with a giant wet spot on the mattress. The water glass was gone, along with the bottles of pills and heating pads. Sam, his legs wavering under his weight, sits on the edge of the bed anyway. He rearranges his towel, with only a few feet of him covered, and his hair dripping wet down his shoulders and back, he isn't very happy.

"Sammy?"

"It's cold." Sam looks up as Dean come into the room, his arms lacking the sheets and blankets Sam is hoping to see.

"Yeah. You should put some clothes on."

Sam nods, still gasping for breath after his walk down the hall.

"You okay?" Dean asks as Sam feels something rising up inside him. Dean manages to get in front of Sam just in time to get a face full of freshly coughed up blood. "Shit!"

"Sorry, sorry." Sam gasps through his coughs, he wipes his mouth on his arm, avoiding looking at the blood he knew was there. He can taste it in his mouth.

"Relax, just breathe through it." Dean orders and his hand is warm as it starts rubbing circles on Sam's back. Somehow the order actually helps and Sam finds himself taking deeper and deeper breathes, coughing less and less as the seconds ticked past.

When the only sound in the room was Sam's decreasingly rapid breathing,  Dean thumps him on the back, maybe a little too hard. "What do you say, clean clothes?"

Sam nods, looking around for his duffel bag.

"Nah, I've got everything set up down the hall, c'mon." Dean helps him up and guides him down the hall. Sam pretends he was just leaning on his brother for warmth, but Dean was holding up most of his weight.

They walked past Dean's room, two different bathrooms and stopped at off at a door close to the kitchen.

"I don't think I've ever been in here." Sam mumbles as Dean turned the knob and let them in.

The room was warm, hot air was puffing in from a vent that came in from the kitchen. The bed was only a small single, but when Sam sinks down onto it, he feels the mattress topper give away beneath him and he sighs at the warm puffy blankets and flannel sheets Dean had dug up from somewhere.

"Here. I'll get you something to drink." Dean puts a pile of soft cloth on his lap and Sam squeezes it when his brother leaves.

The sweatpants and long sleeved tee don't quite fit him, but they smell clean and are soft against his skin. It didn't matter if his wrists and ankles are exposed. Sam snuggles under the blankets, drawing his knees up to his chest so that he can fit on the bed.

He is almost asleep when Dean comes in with a water bottle and a bowl. "In case you need to cough again." Dean whispers, putting the bowl on the floor. "Need this?" He offers Sam a heating pad, but the room was warm enough and Sam shakes his head before closing his eyes again, yawning and hoping that Dean went to his own room to sleep.

"Wake up!"

Sam can't breathe. His mouth was full and his throat was on fire. He splutters and coughs as he is pulled up and then he was coughing and spitting onto his lap, the bowl caught it just in time.

"Shit, Sammy."

Sam opens his eyes, they feel wet and he didn't bother to think about that. Dean is kneeling on the bed in front of him, supporting a pool full of blood and white chunks of something that Sam can still remember the feeling of coming up his throat. He coughs again, blood bubbling out of his mouth and he leaned forward, letting it spill into the pool.

"Dean. . ."

"I'm here." Dean's hand finds his shoulder and Sam shivers. The room didn't feel warm anymore.

"Make it stop."

Dean doesn't say anything. He rearranges things on the bed until he was sitting beside Sam, enough for his little brother to lean on him.

"It'll stop." Dean wipes some of the sweat and tears off of his face and Sam sniffles into the arm of his previously decent shirt.

"What's happening?" The door opens and Sam looks up, his stomach climbing part way up his throat with the movement of his head.

"We're good Kevin." Dean says, with more force than Sam was expecting.

"Are you sure?" Kevin asks and Sam closes his eyes as Dean waves the prophet out. The hand movement is too much for him, it make the pounding behind his eyes that much worse.

"It's all good." Sam whispers, the words coming hard up his raw throat.

"If you say so." Kevin says, but his tone doesn't agree with his words.

Dean's hand settles back on Sam's shoulder. "I'll talk to him. Stop worrying about it."

Sam can't though, he had so much to apologize for, and so much to answer for. He's failed Kevin, again and again. He can't keep putting it off and letting Dean answer for his crimes. He wants to take responsibility for his mistakes.

"Let it go." Dean strokes across his shoulders and the repetitive movement drains some of Sam's stress. "C'mon, how are you feeling?"

Sam takes a deep breath. His chest hurts and his throat burns, like he'd tried to drink battery acid. "Raw." He whispers and wipes his mouth, the side of his shirt sleeve comes away damp and he avoids looking at it. He knew what colour would be marking the cloth.

Dean rearranges them, sliding Sam back down to the mattress and pulling the blankets up. His hand stays on Sam, sliding up to his younger brother's head and carding through his hair. "You need anything?"

Sam gives his head a tiny little shake.

"Okay." Dean's fingers stroke gently, working on the knots and tangles in Sam's hair. Sam closes his eyes and imagines waking up without pain.