Not Fine Enough (part 4/?)
Part four....
Twenty minutes later, Dean re-emerged from the bathroom, showered and dressed....and so congested, Sam could barely even make out what he was saying anymore. And attempting to translate Dean's garbled speech was already beginning to give Sam a headache of his own.
Dean hacked several times into his fist as he grabbed his keys off the nightstand. "I'b goig t'grab breakfadst. Be back id ted binutes."
Sam looked up from his computer screen and blinked. "Come again?"
"Breakfadst, Sab." Dean suddenly jerked his head to the side, directed two harsh, rapid sneezes into his shoulder, then continued his train of thought with practiced fluidity. "Ady place aroud here with doudnuts?"
"Doud...doughnuts?" Sam shrugged. "Uh, yeah. The gas station I went to last night had some. Grab me a couple glazed. And a coffee too, if it's fresh." Sam hesitated for a moment. "Do you want me to go, instead? You're really starting to sound like crap, dude."
Dean waved his hand dismissively. "I'll be fide. S'jus' the weather...You know how id is." And with that, Dean trudged out the door.
After Dean left, Sam returned to his Dr. Google-ing, thankful that Dean hadn't glanced over his shoulder earlier to see what Sam had been looking at. Sam never did a lot of meddling into Dean's private business, but whenever he did, Dean sure as hell never took very well to it. Sam rolled his eyes. It was going to be like pulling teeth to even get Dean to talk about any of this stuff at all.
Sam browsed through various articles and advice columns, mentally checking off boxes in his head as he read through the various recommendations.
Apply cold compresses to the eyes...Already tried that, didn't go over so well. Might try again later.
Stay indoors, and avoid allergy triggers...Definitely sounds like our best bet right now. Easier said than done, because Dean is a stubborn idiot. Will have to work on that one.
Eye drops...hmm. Sam knew that Dean already used eye drops for his allergies; he'd done so for as long as Sam could remember. Sam had no idea what kind they were, but they sure didn't seem to be helping him very much anymore. Dean probably needed something different that would work better for him, but how on earth was Sam going to get him to do that? Dean definitely wouldn't respond well to Sam trying to make changes to his medications. And really, why should he? Sam thought to himself, with a pang of guilt in his chest. What the hell did Sam know about it, anyway? Twenty minutes of browsing around on the Internet sure as hell didn't make Sam qualified to offer him any sort of medical advice.
Feeling frustrated and momentarily defeated, Sam closed up his computer as Dean came bursting through the door, fresh from his breakfast run. Sam watched as his big brother marched straight through the room, hastily setting the doughnuts and coffee on the table in front of Sam's laptop, then continuing on into the bathroom. Several seconds later, a thunderous sneeze filled the room. Sam cringed in disgust as he listened to the sound of Dean blowing what sounded to be copious amounts of snot out of his head, for what seemed to go on forever. This was followed by a short, silent pause, then two more harsh-sounding sneezes. Which was followed by even more nose blowing...which was followed by yet another loud sneeze. Sam had already polished off his first doughnut when his brother finally emerged from the bathroom, then collapsed into the chair across from Sam, looking completely spent.
Sam raised his eyebrows at Dean, then pushed the doughnut box in front of him. "You gonna live?"
Dean rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands, then scrubbed through his hair with his hands, clearing his throat. "Uhmm. Maybe." Sam could tell that Dean was averting Sam's appraising gaze, as he snatched a doughnut from the box and angled his chair towards the window, away from Sam's line of sight.
Sam decided not to bother Dean about anything at the moment. He knew he was already treading thin ice with his brother to begin with- a sentiment which was still very mutual, Sam couldn't help but admit. The last thing they needed right now was to get into another fight. It was getting harder and harder for Sam to harbor hard feelings towards his brother at this point, though. Dean looked miserable, exhausted and...unwell. It was the unwell-ness of his appearance that was bothering Sam the most. Even on most of his worst days, "unwell" was not a word that Sam would normally use to describe his brother's appearance. It just...wasn't.
The way Dean kept putting his fist to his chest and taking deep, deliberate breaths was starting to be unnerving to Sam as well. Sam swallowed his last bite of his second doughnut, and cleared his throat. "Are your ribs still bothering you from that rock salt blast?"
Dean looked up at Sam. "Huh? Oh...nah." Dean puffed out his chest and rolled his shoulders, as if testing for pain in his upper torso area. "Nope. Feels pretty good now."
Sam frowned, as he pulled an apple out of his duffel, then tossed the bag on the bed behind him. "Then why do you keep rubbing your chest like that?"
Dean coughed once into the bend of his arm and cleared his throat. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"You've been doing it for days, Dean. And you've been doing it all morning, even more than usual."
Dean shrugged disinterestedly, then tossed Sam one of the local newspapers he'd brought back with him from the gas station. "I guess I could still be a little sore...I dunno. See if you can find any new information about those drownings in there."
Sam rolled his eyes at the obvious change of subject, but complied anyway, munching on his apple as he browsed through the paper. There was no mention of anything at all pertaining to the drowning victims.
Dean sat across the table, sipping at his coffee, and glanced up at his brother. "What the hell is that?"
Sam looked over at Dean, crinkling his brow. "What's what?"
"Where the hell'd that apple come from?"
Sam rolled his eyes. "We just smoked a pagan god in the middle of a freaking apple orchard, Dean. Where do you think it came from?" Sam took another loud bite, and gestured towards his duffel bag. "Want one? I've got a few more."
Dean scrunched his nose. "Nah, I'm good. Hand me over another long john, would you?"
Sam shook his head and pushed the doughnut box towards his brother, scattering tiny bits of glaze and dried chocolate across the table. "You know Dean, it wouldn't kill you to eat some fruit every so often. Or, God forbid, maybe even a vegetable?"
Dean smirked at his brother as he procured his doughnut from the box. "You never know, it could. Better to be safe than sorry." Dean took a huge bite out of his doughnut and grinned, mouth partially open, chocolate frosting caking his lips.
Sam grimaced in disgust. "Yeah, you're right. Your body probably forgot how to process foods with any semblance of nutrition in it." Sam shook his head as he took another generous bite. "You might go into shock if you actually attempted to put something as healthy as an apple into it."
An odd silence filled the room as Dean held Sam's gaze, with an unreadable expression behind his eyes. Finally Dean leaned back in his chair, and shrugged. "Ah, well. There's always apple pie. That counts."
"No. It really doesn't." Sam tossed the apple core across the room, where it banked off the wall and plopped into the wastebasket. "And before you even go there, French fries still do not count as a vegetable."
"Are we really going to have that argument again? Agree to disagree Sammy, 'cuz I'm not backing down on that one. Huh-nnggnt...h'nggt!" Dean smothered a sudden pair of sneezes into the side of his wrist. He pitched forward violently forward a third time, this time carrying his momentum upward, rising from the table with one hand clasped over his nose, as he made a beeline for the bathroom. Sam sat and sipped at his coffee, as he waited out an encore production of the cacophony of sneezing and noseblowing from earlier. Sam eyed the bathroom door in concern and shook his head, sighing. This was really starting to get ridiculous.
Dean finally emerged from the bathroom with a roll of toilet paper in hand, as he bypassed the table and trudged over to his bed on the other side of the room. He flung himself onto the mattress, clunked his head on the headboard, and closed his swollen eyes with a weary sigh.
Sam sat in the silence for a moment, rubbing his chin, then frowned. "Hey Dean....Don't you think maybe we should-"
Eyes still closed, Dean held a finger in the air towards Sam, sniffling quietly. He sucked in a deep, unsteady breath as he held his tissue in front of his face, eyebrows scrunched in anticipation. Several seconds later, the threatening sneeze apparently left him, and Dean lowered his tissue with a sigh and an experimental nose twitch. He then turned watery eyes towards Sam, gave a quick nod and smiled proudly, as if he'd just figured out the secret to achieving World Peace.
Sam chuckled softly as he came over to sit at the end of Dean's bed. "Nice save."
"Thangks." Dean enveloped his crimson nose into a cloud of tissues, and started blowing for all he was worth. "So, you were sayig?"
"Oh, uh. I've just...I've been doing some thinking about this case you found. And the thing is, I really don't think that there's any reason to...Oh, for Pete's sake," Sam mumbled to himself, as Dean's face started to screw up yet again. Sam sighed loudly, unable to hide his growing frustration. Attempting to converse with Dean through fractured thoughts and interrupted sentences was starting to grate on his nerves. Sam shifted on the bed impatiently, as Dean laid there with his eyes narrowed, and a blank expression on his face. "Another false alarm?"
Dean frowned, and touched lightly at his nose. "G'not sure yet..." Dean suddenly sat himself straight up in bed. "No, it's...fuck...huh'EYEESHH-huh!" Dean barely had time to catch the sudden sneeze in the crook of his elbow. Dean's breath began to hitch again, and he curled in on himself, as a violent fit of five consecutive sneezes proceeded to burst out of him. When he was finally finished, Dean let out a shaky sigh as he lowered himself back in the bed, his hand cradling his head over his right eye.
Sam couldn't stay quiet about this any longer. "Jesus, Dean. What the hell is wrong with you, man?"
Dean appeared genuinely confused as he looked up at Sam with those goddamn swollen, puffy eyes. "What?"
"What do you mean 'what'?" Sam flung his arms in the air towards his brother. "I mean....come on man, look at yourself! You're practically non-functional like this."
Dean shot Sam a look as if he'd just been bitch-slapped in the face. An angry glare flashed across his eyes, as he pulled himself out of bed. "You know what? Screw you, Sam." Dean strode past Sam, intentionally knocking him hard in the shoulder as he huffed past him. "Non-functional, my ass," he mumbled, as he started throwing several odds-and-ends into his bag. "Bullshit. I can do my fucking job, Sam."
Sam was momentarily taken aback by his brother's vehement reaction. "I didn't say you couldn't do your job, Dean." Sam felt his face growing red with frustration, as he crumpled up the empty doughnut box, and threw it away with unnecessary zeal, nearly knocking the trashcan over. "I wasn't trying to take a dig at you, you dumbass. I'm just....I'm worried about you, man. If you're feeling this crappy, you shouldn't feel bad about-"
"-Oh come on. Will you stop being so freakin' over-dramatic about this? It's allergies, Sam. Allergies. It's not like I have the fucking plague or something. It's nothing." Dean suddenly stopped what he was doing and rubbed a hand over his chest, as all of his energy appeared to suddenly drain out of him. Then, Dean coughed into his shoulder a few times, and took in a long, deep breath. He then glanced up at Sam with an almost-apologetic look behind his eyes. "Look dude, I appreciate the concern. I do. But I'll be alright. I took some stuff earlier that'll be kicking in soon. Then I'll be golden, I promise." Dean gave Sam a rough pat on the shoulder, then sat down and threw his legs up onto the table.
"So, come on now. Finish telling me everything you've found out about this case. Don't leave anything out, dude. Then we'll lay out our game plan on this, alright?"
Sam was at a complete loss at this point. He almost believed Dean's little speech about how Sam was overreacting to all of this, almost. But Sam knew that he wasn't. He wanted to call Dean out on his bullshit, tell him that the only 'game plan' they should be working on was how to get Dean feeling healthy again. Oh, and while he was at it, he wanted to tell Dean that working on this 'case' was a monumental waste of time and brainpower, and there was no reason at all to believe that anything supernatural was going on in this stupid town.
But instead, he sat down, and told Dean everything that he'd been able to find out about the drowning victims so far. And he didn't leave anything out.
Twenty minutes later, Dean re-emerged from the bathroom, showered and dressed....and so congested, Sam could barely even make out what he was saying anymore. And attempting to translate Dean's garbled speech was already beginning to give Sam a headache of his own.
Dean hacked several times into his fist as he grabbed his keys off the nightstand. "I'b goig t'grab breakfadst. Be back id ted binutes."
Sam looked up from his computer screen and blinked. "Come again?"
"Breakfadst, Sab." Dean suddenly jerked his head to the side, directed two harsh, rapid sneezes into his shoulder, then continued his train of thought with practiced fluidity. "Ady place aroud here with doudnuts?"
"Doud...doughnuts?" Sam shrugged. "Uh, yeah. The gas station I went to last night had some. Grab me a couple glazed. And a coffee too, if it's fresh." Sam hesitated for a moment. "Do you want me to go, instead? You're really starting to sound like crap, dude."
Dean waved his hand dismissively. "I'll be fide. S'jus' the weather...You know how id is." And with that, Dean trudged out the door.
After Dean left, Sam returned to his Dr. Google-ing, thankful that Dean hadn't glanced over his shoulder earlier to see what Sam had been looking at. Sam never did a lot of meddling into Dean's private business, but whenever he did, Dean sure as hell never took very well to it. Sam rolled his eyes. It was going to be like pulling teeth to even get Dean to talk about any of this stuff at all.
Sam browsed through various articles and advice columns, mentally checking off boxes in his head as he read through the various recommendations.
Apply cold compresses to the eyes...Already tried that, didn't go over so well. Might try again later.
Stay indoors, and avoid allergy triggers...Definitely sounds like our best bet right now. Easier said than done, because Dean is a stubborn idiot. Will have to work on that one.
Eye drops...hmm. Sam knew that Dean already used eye drops for his allergies; he'd done so for as long as Sam could remember. Sam had no idea what kind they were, but they sure didn't seem to be helping him very much anymore. Dean probably needed something different that would work better for him, but how on earth was Sam going to get him to do that? Dean definitely wouldn't respond well to Sam trying to make changes to his medications. And really, why should he? Sam thought to himself, with a pang of guilt in his chest. What the hell did Sam know about it, anyway? Twenty minutes of browsing around on the Internet sure as hell didn't make Sam qualified to offer him any sort of medical advice.
Feeling frustrated and momentarily defeated, Sam closed up his computer as Dean came bursting through the door, fresh from his breakfast run. Sam watched as his big brother marched straight through the room, hastily setting the doughnuts and coffee on the table in front of Sam's laptop, then continuing on into the bathroom. Several seconds later, a thunderous sneeze filled the room. Sam cringed in disgust as he listened to the sound of Dean blowing what sounded to be copious amounts of snot out of his head, for what seemed to go on forever. This was followed by a short, silent pause, then two more harsh-sounding sneezes. Which was followed by even more nose blowing...which was followed by yet another loud sneeze. Sam had already polished off his first doughnut when his brother finally emerged from the bathroom, then collapsed into the chair across from Sam, looking completely spent.
Sam raised his eyebrows at Dean, then pushed the doughnut box in front of him. "You gonna live?"
Dean rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands, then scrubbed through his hair with his hands, clearing his throat. "Uhmm. Maybe." Sam could tell that Dean was averting Sam's appraising gaze, as he snatched a doughnut from the box and angled his chair towards the window, away from Sam's line of sight.
Sam decided not to bother Dean about anything at the moment. He knew he was already treading thin ice with his brother to begin with- a sentiment which was still very mutual, Sam couldn't help but admit. The last thing they needed right now was to get into another fight. It was getting harder and harder for Sam to harbor hard feelings towards his brother at this point, though. Dean looked miserable, exhausted and...unwell. It was the unwell-ness of his appearance that was bothering Sam the most. Even on most of his worst days, "unwell" was not a word that Sam would normally use to describe his brother's appearance. It just...wasn't.
The way Dean kept putting his fist to his chest and taking deep, deliberate breaths was starting to be unnerving to Sam as well. Sam swallowed his last bite of his second doughnut, and cleared his throat. "Are your ribs still bothering you from that rock salt blast?"
Dean looked up at Sam. "Huh? Oh...nah." Dean puffed out his chest and rolled his shoulders, as if testing for pain in his upper torso area. "Nope. Feels pretty good now."
Sam frowned, as he pulled an apple out of his duffel, then tossed the bag on the bed behind him. "Then why do you keep rubbing your chest like that?"
Dean coughed once into the bend of his arm and cleared his throat. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"You've been doing it for days, Dean. And you've been doing it all morning, even more than usual."
Dean shrugged disinterestedly, then tossed Sam one of the local newspapers he'd brought back with him from the gas station. "I guess I could still be a little sore...I dunno. See if you can find any new information about those drownings in there."
Sam rolled his eyes at the obvious change of subject, but complied anyway, munching on his apple as he browsed through the paper. There was no mention of anything at all pertaining to the drowning victims.
Dean sat across the table, sipping at his coffee, and glanced up at his brother. "What the hell is that?"
Sam looked over at Dean, crinkling his brow. "What's what?"
"Where the hell'd that apple come from?"
Sam rolled his eyes. "We just smoked a pagan god in the middle of a freaking apple orchard, Dean. Where do you think it came from?" Sam took another loud bite, and gestured towards his duffel bag. "Want one? I've got a few more."
Dean scrunched his nose. "Nah, I'm good. Hand me over another long john, would you?"
Sam shook his head and pushed the doughnut box towards his brother, scattering tiny bits of glaze and dried chocolate across the table. "You know Dean, it wouldn't kill you to eat some fruit every so often. Or, God forbid, maybe even a vegetable?"
Dean smirked at his brother as he procured his doughnut from the box. "You never know, it could. Better to be safe than sorry." Dean took a huge bite out of his doughnut and grinned, mouth partially open, chocolate frosting caking his lips.
Sam grimaced in disgust. "Yeah, you're right. Your body probably forgot how to process foods with any semblance of nutrition in it." Sam shook his head as he took another generous bite. "You might go into shock if you actually attempted to put something as healthy as an apple into it."
An odd silence filled the room as Dean held Sam's gaze, with an unreadable expression behind his eyes. Finally Dean leaned back in his chair, and shrugged. "Ah, well. There's always apple pie. That counts."
"No. It really doesn't." Sam tossed the apple core across the room, where it banked off the wall and plopped into the wastebasket. "And before you even go there, French fries still do not count as a vegetable."
"Are we really going to have that argument again? Agree to disagree Sammy, 'cuz I'm not backing down on that one. Huh-nnggnt...h'nggt!" Dean smothered a sudden pair of sneezes into the side of his wrist. He pitched forward violently forward a third time, this time carrying his momentum upward, rising from the table with one hand clasped over his nose, as he made a beeline for the bathroom. Sam sat and sipped at his coffee, as he waited out an encore production of the cacophony of sneezing and noseblowing from earlier. Sam eyed the bathroom door in concern and shook his head, sighing. This was really starting to get ridiculous.
Dean finally emerged from the bathroom with a roll of toilet paper in hand, as he bypassed the table and trudged over to his bed on the other side of the room. He flung himself onto the mattress, clunked his head on the headboard, and closed his swollen eyes with a weary sigh.
Sam sat in the silence for a moment, rubbing his chin, then frowned. "Hey Dean....Don't you think maybe we should-"
Eyes still closed, Dean held a finger in the air towards Sam, sniffling quietly. He sucked in a deep, unsteady breath as he held his tissue in front of his face, eyebrows scrunched in anticipation. Several seconds later, the threatening sneeze apparently left him, and Dean lowered his tissue with a sigh and an experimental nose twitch. He then turned watery eyes towards Sam, gave a quick nod and smiled proudly, as if he'd just figured out the secret to achieving World Peace.
Sam chuckled softly as he came over to sit at the end of Dean's bed. "Nice save."
"Thangks." Dean enveloped his crimson nose into a cloud of tissues, and started blowing for all he was worth. "So, you were sayig?"
"Oh, uh. I've just...I've been doing some thinking about this case you found. And the thing is, I really don't think that there's any reason to...Oh, for Pete's sake," Sam mumbled to himself, as Dean's face started to screw up yet again. Sam sighed loudly, unable to hide his growing frustration. Attempting to converse with Dean through fractured thoughts and interrupted sentences was starting to grate on his nerves. Sam shifted on the bed impatiently, as Dean laid there with his eyes narrowed, and a blank expression on his face. "Another false alarm?"
Dean frowned, and touched lightly at his nose. "G'not sure yet..." Dean suddenly sat himself straight up in bed. "No, it's...fuck...huh'EYEESHH-huh!" Dean barely had time to catch the sudden sneeze in the crook of his elbow. Dean's breath began to hitch again, and he curled in on himself, as a violent fit of five consecutive sneezes proceeded to burst out of him. When he was finally finished, Dean let out a shaky sigh as he lowered himself back in the bed, his hand cradling his head over his right eye.
Sam couldn't stay quiet about this any longer. "Jesus, Dean. What the hell is wrong with you, man?"
Dean appeared genuinely confused as he looked up at Sam with those goddamn swollen, puffy eyes. "What?"
"What do you mean 'what'?" Sam flung his arms in the air towards his brother. "I mean....come on man, look at yourself! You're practically non-functional like this."
Dean shot Sam a look as if he'd just been bitch-slapped in the face. An angry glare flashed across his eyes, as he pulled himself out of bed. "You know what? Screw you, Sam." Dean strode past Sam, intentionally knocking him hard in the shoulder as he huffed past him. "Non-functional, my ass," he mumbled, as he started throwing several odds-and-ends into his bag. "Bullshit. I can do my fucking job, Sam."
Sam was momentarily taken aback by his brother's vehement reaction. "I didn't say you couldn't do your job, Dean." Sam felt his face growing red with frustration, as he crumpled up the empty doughnut box, and threw it away with unnecessary zeal, nearly knocking the trashcan over. "I wasn't trying to take a dig at you, you dumbass. I'm just....I'm worried about you, man. If you're feeling this crappy, you shouldn't feel bad about-"
"-Oh come on. Will you stop being so freakin' over-dramatic about this? It's allergies, Sam. Allergies. It's not like I have the fucking plague or something. It's nothing." Dean suddenly stopped what he was doing and rubbed a hand over his chest, as all of his energy appeared to suddenly drain out of him. Then, Dean coughed into his shoulder a few times, and took in a long, deep breath. He then glanced up at Sam with an almost-apologetic look behind his eyes. "Look dude, I appreciate the concern. I do. But I'll be alright. I took some stuff earlier that'll be kicking in soon. Then I'll be golden, I promise." Dean gave Sam a rough pat on the shoulder, then sat down and threw his legs up onto the table.
"So, come on now. Finish telling me everything you've found out about this case. Don't leave anything out, dude. Then we'll lay out our game plan on this, alright?"
Sam was at a complete loss at this point. He almost believed Dean's little speech about how Sam was overreacting to all of this, almost. But Sam knew that he wasn't. He wanted to call Dean out on his bullshit, tell him that the only 'game plan' they should be working on was how to get Dean feeling healthy again. Oh, and while he was at it, he wanted to tell Dean that working on this 'case' was a monumental waste of time and brainpower, and there was no reason at all to believe that anything supernatural was going on in this stupid town.
But instead, he sat down, and told Dean everything that he'd been able to find out about the drowning victims so far. And he didn't leave anything out.