SPN FIC - I Wish I'd Never Learned
Here you go, you slave-driving bunch of people. Sick!Sam. But you know...it's mostly still about Dean.
Hell, it's ALL about Dean.
The RCA dog Nipper, the ship on top of the old D&H railroad building, and the U-Haul truck are all real. If you Google "Nipper Albany," you can see a picture of him. Ditto with "D&H building ship Albany." Unfortunately, there's no picture online of the truck. As for the flu -- had it myself over the Millennium. All by myself. Barely got up off the couch for two solid weeks, but managed to survive. You can do it alone...but that doesn't mean you really want to.
And if you're counting? I'm up to 12,731 words. 47 hours left.
Characters: Dean and Sam
Pairings: none
Length: 2937 words
Rating: PG for language
Kleenex: but of course
Spoilers: none
Disclaimer: Dean and Sam are mine only inside my head. Either way, I get paid only in comments.
I Wish I’d Never Learned
By Carol Davis
Dean played his trump card.
Did everything but lick canary feathers off his whiskers.
“Albany,” he announced.
Sam turned his head. Groaned, because it strip-mined what little energy he had left. “Georgia?” he mumbled.
“Dude. New York. Where are we right now?”
“Purgatory?”
“Funny.”
“What…I had some jones for state capitals or something?”
State Capitals was totally the wrong game. Wrong for passing time in a motel room in Wilkes-Barre while Sam fought his way through the flu. Wrong for passing time pretty much anywhere else, for any reason. And definitely wrong for the reason Sam always brought it up: poking around in the file of Stuff Dean Thought It Was a Waste of Time to Memorize. Dean’s lip curled in annoyance as he reached for the box of off-brand Kleenex and plucked a couple out so he could blow his nose. “You pitched a hairy-ass fit, man. I thought Dad was gonna chuck you out of the car.”
“You make this stuff up.”
“Do not.”
“Do so.”
“God’s honest truth, Sammy. You wanted to go see the dog again, and when Dad said no, you went ballistic.”
Sam whimpered softly. “Dog?”
“Yeah.”
Sam lay there silently, his head half-buried in his pillow. The back of his neck was flushed, but whether that was from fever, or frustration, or some of both, was hard to tell from where Dean was sitting.
So, all right, Sammy was sick.
Dean could be merciful.
A little.
“The RCA dog. Sniffer? Whatever. They had a big-ass statue of him on top of some building. You decided you wanted it, and Dad couldn’t make you believe it was like sixty feet tall. And made of cement or some shit. The fit-o-rama started when he wouldn’t take you up on the roof of whatever building it was so you could see it up close.” Basking in the warmth of his stroll down Memory Lane, Dean cleaned the last of the applesauce out of its plastic cup with his index finger and licked his finger clean. “Then there was the other stuff. Big sailing ship on that building down by the river. And a full-sized U-Haul truck on top of a warehouse. Every time you spotted one of those, you’d start shrieking like some loony.”
“You know what?” Sam muttered. “I think you feel perfectly free to make these things up, knowing nobody’s going to contradict you.”
“When we find Dad, you can ask him.”
“If he said he didn’t remember, you’d claim his mind was on other things at the time.”
That said, Sam burrowed deeper under the covers, until the only thing visible was the top half of his head. They didn’t do much to camouflage the way he shivered. That was definitely from fever, and it made Dean wince.
“Nipper,” Dean said.
Nothing from Sam.
“Dog’s name was Nipper. I remember.” He lifted his hand, intending to lob the empty plastic cup into the wastebasket, then thought better of it. Trying not to scrape his chair against the linoleum, he got up, leaned over the wastebasket and placed the cup on top of the collection of trash. “Sammy? You want another blanket?”
“Nuhh.”
That could be a yes or a no. Dean went with “no” for the moment. “You were like three, maybe? Pretty little. Man, you really liked all that crap that didn’t belong up on top of buildings. Started screaming, ‘Look! Look! Daddy, look! Dean, look!’ It was kinda cool, I guess. You don’t see a lot of trucks up on the roof.”
His voice had grown soft. Indulgent.
“Sammy?” he said, barely more than a whisper.
Sam didn’t answer.
* * * * *
“Pastor Jim?”
He didn’t like the way his voice wobbled. It didn’t make him sound grown-up, responsible.
“Dean?”
His guts all felt wobbly. Maybe he shouldn’t have called. Dad had left him in charge, and it was up to him to take care of Sammy. Not involve a bunch of other people. Dad did always say that if something went wrong, call Pastor Jim. But not for little stuff. For little stuff, he should work the problem out in his head and find an answer.
“Dean, what’s wrong?”
“Sammy’s sick.”
Pastor Jim didn’t say anything, and for a second Dean wondered if he was still there, at the other end of the phone, way up in Minnesota. Too far away for Pastor Jim to come get them, or just come to be here for a while. Like until Dad got back.
“What kind of sick?” Pastor Jim said finally.
“He’s coughing and sneezing. Really bad. He says his head hurts.”
“Is that all that hurts? Did he throw up?”
“No.”
There was more silence at the other end. Maybe only for a second or two, but it seemed like a long time. “Where’s your Dad?”
“Hunting.”
Dean provided the rest of what little he knew: Dad had been gone since early in the morning of yesterday. He wasn’t very far away, but he hadn’t said exactly where “not very far” was. He might be home tonight, but maybe not.
“He won’t stop crying, Pastor Jim.”
“Well…that’s understandable. You know how it feels when you’re sick. You feel lousy all over. Do you have a thermometer?”
“Yeah.”
“Take his temperature. If it’s below a hundred and one, then keep him in bed and keep him warm. See if he’ll drink some water, or some juice. Do you have juice?”
“Think so.”
“Give me the phone number where you are.”
Dean did that. He would have done the rest of it, too, while Pastor Jim was on the phone, but the cord wouldn’t reach far enough. He thought about putting the phone down, then running for the thermometer, but letting go of the phone scared him.
“Dean?” Pastor Jim asked. “Was Sam not feeling well when your dad left?”
“No, sir. He was okay yesterday.”
“You go take care of Sam, then. I’ll call you back in half an hour. It’s better that way, so you don’t run up a bill on your phone.”
“We don’t pay it anyway,” Dean said absently.
“Go take care of Sammy. It’ll be all right.”
Please come here, Dean thought. Please send my dad back. “Pastor Jim?”
“What is it, son?”
“I don’t like it when he cries.”
“I know you don’t. None of us does. But everything’s going to be fine. Go on, now, and take his temperature. I’ll call you back in a few minutes.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Dean?”
“I’m okay, sir. I can do it.”
I can…
* * * * *
Sam had started a wet sort of snoring that sounded like his head was stuck in a bucket of gravy.
Yeah, this was fun.
With a soft sigh Dean swiveled the TV on its bracket so it faced as far away from Sam’s bed and toward his own as the hinge would allow. Leaving the volume almost all the way off was no problem; years of keeping things quiet during the day so Dad could sleep had made him pretty adept at lip-reading - or at least his own version of lip-reading, which probably had nothing to do with what the people on the screen were actually saying. Remote in hand, he surfed up and down the channels a couple of times. Accidentally pushing the wrong button - all the labeling on the stupid thing had worn off - switched on the closed captioning, which made for some enjoyable viewing of All My Children, Women Who Kill, and Judge Judy.
He could wash and wax the Impala, he supposed, but that would involve locating a bucket. And actually washing the car.
There was a lot to be said for recuperating quietly from being sick for four days.
Except that Sam’s snoring pretty much killed the “quiet” part.
* * * * *
“People die from weird stuff. Don’t they.”
Dad looked up from his book and frowned. He’d been frowning for a while, which meant that what he was reading was either bad news, or confusing; this was a different kind of a frown. The “What the hell are you talking about?” kind.
“It said in the paper that this kid got his head stuck in the stairs. You know, those things that stick straight up, to hold up the railing? He got his head stuck in between those and he got scared and he…you know. Couldn’t breathe. Suffo…suffocated.”
“That’s a freak accident, Dean.”
“That’s what I mean. Dying from weird stuff.”
“Yes. It happens.”
“And they get infections and stuff, or they get some weird disease. This one guy, he was stopped at a stop light, and a truck pulled up next to him. It was all full of pipes or something and it was tied down wrong, and it fell on the guy’s car and killed him.”
Dad pulled in a long breath and rested a hand on his book like he was trying to cover it up. “What’s your point, son?”
“That you…never know what’s gonna happen.”
“To who?”
“Anybody.”
Another big breath. Dad closed his eyes for a second, then squeezed the bridge of his nose between his thumb and his first finger. “No one’s going to die, kiddo,” he said when he put his hand down. “Sam has the chicken pox. They’re very seldom fatal.”
“I know, but -“
“No buts. He’ll be fine in a few days.”
“Will you stay here? Till he gets better?”
“I have to go out tomorrow for a little while. I’ll be back before supper.”
Dean bit down on his lower lip and nodded solemnly. “Okay,” he murmured.
“Just for a few hours.”
“Yes, sir.”
Dad’s expression changed then. He moved the book from his lap to the coffee table and beckoned to Dean. “Come here, son.” When Dean was standing in front of him, he offered a smile that almost made him look like Daddy-then, from way back, before the fire. Tired, but mostly happy. Happy to be with his family. He tugged Dean into a seat beside him on the couch and ruffled Dean’s hair with his fingers.
“Sammy’s all right, sport. I promise.”
“Then why does he cry?”
“He’s overtired. And he feels like crap. Looks like crap, too.”
Dean blinked at that.
“Why don’t you make sure his blankets are all straight? He keeps kicking ‘em off. Then we can see if there’s a movie or something on TV.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. This stuff” - Dad nodded at the book - “can wait a while.”
Sam’s blankets were mostly on the floor. Dean straightened them out and laid them carefully over his sleeping brother, frowning when Sam grunted and whimpered and opened his eyes. He paid no attention to Dean’s attempts to shush him; in fact, he started whimpering louder and a fat tear rolled down his cheek.
“Go back to sleep,” Dean told him.
“I want Daaaaaad.”
“Dad’s reading. I’m here. Go back to sleep.”
To Dean’s dismay, Sam stuck out his arms. He was pretty gross-looking, even in the dark. With a small sigh Dean climbed up onto the bed and let Sam burrow his hot little bowling ball of a head into his chest.
“I want Mommmmm,” Sam wailed.
Me too, Dean thought.
* * * * *
The Dukes of Hazzard was half over when Sam woke up, struggled out of bed and shambled into the bathroom. He pissed what sounded like about six gallons, then shuffled back to bed, groaned loudly, and burrowed under the covers.
“When you go back to kick Rodney’s ass?” he rasped. “I’ll help.”
“You want something?” Dean asked.
“Huh?”
“Water, or juice, or something?”
“No, man.”
“Applesauce? You hungry?”
“Leave me alone, man.”
Ten minutes later Sam was asleep again.
* * * * *
“Mommy? Why does he cry?”
“Lots of reasons. He’s hungry, or his tummy hurts, or his diaper’s dirty. Or he wants some attention. He can’t tell us what he wants, so he cries.” She smiled a little, like when she was going to help Dean play a joke on Daddy. “And that’s his way of getting attention really fast, because we want him to stop that terrible noise.”
“I don’t like it when he cries.”
“I don’t either, sweetie.”
“It makes me sad.”
“Does it?”
He reached between the bars of the crib and rested his hand on baby Sammy’s cheek. “He’s all hot. Is he sick?”
“No. Babies are warm like that.”
“If he’s all hot, and he cries, is he sick?”
“Maybe.”
“I don’t know how you figure it out,” Dean sighed.
* * * * *
His neck spasmed painfully when he woke up. Or maybe it was the cramp in his neck that woke him up. Either way, his head jerked backward and thumped against the headboard hard enough to make him wince. He’d slid sideways down the heap of pillows when he fell asleep so that his head was resting on his left shoulder.
It was going to stay resting on his left shoulder if the numbness of his neck muscles was any indication.
“Dude,” Sam muttered. “The hell are you doing?”
“I’m paralyzed.”
“What?”
“Seriously, man. I’m paralyzed. I can’t move my head.”
Grunting, Sam pushed himself out of bed, got hold of Dean, and yanked him upright, so his body parts were balanced the way they should have been. Pale and sweaty, Sam stood between the beds looking at Dean for a long minute, then sat down wearily and shut his eyes.
“Why is it,” he sighed, “that when you’re sick, you’re helpless, and when I’m sick, you’re helpless?”
“I was frickin’ paralyzed.”
“For God’s sake, Dean.”
Sam was back under the covers a minute later, snuffle-snorting but otherwise breathing regularly.
“Son of a bitch,” Dean muttered.
No one answered him, and of course it was stupid to think for half a second that anyone was going to; Sam was asleep, and the room wasn’t haunted.
Or maybe it was.
Frustrated, Dean got up off the bed, cranked his head back and forth until his neck felt something close to normal, then walked with what seemed like a reasonable amount of purpose out of the motel room and shut the door behind him. It was ridiculously hot and muggy out there, and the air had a chemical smell to it.
On the far side of the parking lot, a typical-looking family was unloading stuff from an SUV. A lot of stuff: they had enough with them to equip a small town. Moving in for the duration, it looked like. When they got down toward the tail end of the luggage and the toys and the tote bags, the mom leaned into the backseat and came back out holding a baby.
The kid didn’t like the hot, muggy air either. Or it didn’t like something, because it let out a screech like somebody had pinched it.
“Didn’t used to be helpless,” Dean said quietly. “Hell, Sammy.”
But that was wrong.
Always used to be paralyzed. Never knew what to do when you were sick. Never wanted you to be sick. Figured I’d fuck it up. Somehow.
The mom bounced the baby up and down a few times, enough to make it quiet down.
How do you do that? How do you know… I don’t know how you do this.
Not for someone that big. Sammy was no little kid any more; he was six-four, bigger than Dean any way you wanted to measure it.
So how do you…
How do you make…
How did she do it, he wondered. Jessica. There must’ve been a time when Sam had gotten sick back at Stanford. Did he let her take care of him? Make him soup?
Tell him things to make him laugh?
Or try to.
“Fuck,” he mumbled. “Fuck it to goddamn hell.”
He could get in the car right now, he figured, and go somewhere for three or four days, like Dad used to. Sam would get through the flu on his own. People did it all the time. People did all kinds of shit on their own, all the time.
I can’t do this alone, he thought.
Yes you can.
Yeah, but I don’t want to.
The dad came walking in Dean’s direction, looking at something in the palm of his hand. A bunch of quarters, Dean saw when the guy got close enough. He was headed for the soda machine, then. Dean moved closer to the wall so the guy could get past. The guy looked up, made eye contact, nodded. “Nice car,” he said, tipping his head at the Impala, parked in the slot directly in front of Dean’s door.
He was no older than Dean, and he had what, three kids?
A whole family. Wife, SUV, little kids, the whole nine yards.
He came out of the alcove where the soda machine was hidden a minute later, juggling three cans of soda and a lemonade. This time he cut straight across the parking lot, didn’t get close to Dean. When he opened the door of his room, Dean could hear the blare of the TV playing something that sounded like cartoons.
Dean stood there for a minute, watching the door close, still able to hear the muffled roar of the TV.
Then he went back inside his own room.
“Dog’s name was Nipper, Sammy,” he said quietly. “Didn’t make it up. Wanted to give you the damn dog, but it was sixty feet tall.”
Sam just went on sleeping.