spn fic: Be The One I'll Always Know (PG, Gen)
Summary: It takes Dean five days to wake up but Sam still can’t stop worrying about his big brother. Set three days after Look After You.
Written as part of the timestamp meme for
legoline *presents as a belated birthday present*
Un-beta'd. Mistakes are all mine.
When I'm losing my control, the city spins around
You're the only one who knows, you slow it down…
*-*-*
120 hours and probably around twenty minutes. That’s how long. Give or take the endless seconds where Sam lost time making sure his older brother was still breathing...he wonders sometimes if they were hours.
That’s how long. Five days of worrying, wringing his hands and fists. That’s how long.
Five days of hell and back before Dean decides to wake up. Eyes roaming back and forth beneath the lids before fluttering open and fixing a confused but far less glazed stare on his brother. The third time he’d opened his eyes but the first time he’d been at all lucid.
Sam saw the hazel focus and felt his heart beat faster.
“Dude, personal s-space.” Dean had croaked and Sam had let out a relieved laugh before sinking to the floor and leaning back against the wall next to the dresser.
That was yesterday morning and despite the increasing claustrophobia of having stayed in the same room for over five days, Sam can’t stand the thought of leaving.
Because even though Dean’s awake and his skin actually looks alive instead of the sickly ghost like pallor of recent days, Sam can’t get the image out of his head. Dean lying there, curled into a ball and muttering, mumbling, whispering, and having such strange moments of what can only be a twisted lucidness-for a lucid Dean wouldn’t say anything-as he told Sammy too much.
Sam can remember it pretty clearly too, and considering he’s been up all night ensuring his brother doesn’t relapse into whatever the hell he was lapsed into, remembering anything is a feat.
Only, for all intentions and purposes...Dean looks fine. He even says he’s fine, and yes, okay, granted coming from Dean that doesn’t mean a hellova lot. Considering back in Wisconsin he was haemorrhaging and he only complained to Sam when the interior seats were suffering and the pot holes were unforgiving on his torn and ripped flesh.
But Dean’s talking. His voice is a little scratchy but it’s nowhere near as weak as the small whispers that should never have been heard of the last few days.
Dean’s talking, but he’s not talking.
Sam’s tempted to drug his brother up to the eyeballs with pain relief just to get a god damn answer. It’s infuriating and relieving at the same time. This is Dean; this fucked up bravado is Dean. His brother thinks silence is golden, feelings stay in not out.
But stripped away as he was, left broken and sniffling beneath the scratchy covers of a motel bed and asking if he could have done more, if he still can...Silence isn’t golden. Silence won’t quell the insecurities his lowered inhibitions voice out in the open.
Four-year-old legs running fast into the front lawn. Taking care of his little brother, holding his father together. Hunting, fighting, living.
He asks if it’s enough-is it, Sammy? Is it?-in delirium and Sam can only guess that his older brother is hallucinating. Suffering from visions of their less than perfect childhood.
Worst of all, even worse than a childish mumbling of Mom? is the voice that seems so resigned in its morbid melancholy. What if we don’t find him? What if there’s nothing to be found? What if he’s gone Sammy? He left me.
So did you.
And maybe, what’s worse again, is the feeling in Sam’s stomach that he took advantage of his brother’s state to get answers he’s longed to hear.
“Are you scared?”
“Always.”
But none of them comforted him as much as he thought they might.
*-*-*
Sam expected the silence.
Sam expected it, hell, he’s known his brother since forever. He knows him better than anyone, better than their father, or an hunter they’ve ever come across. He can’t remember a time when Dean wasn’t there growing up-and California doesn’t count, he thinks to himself. It can’t, not now.
Sam’s not an idiot.
He expected the silence and he embraces it with less-than-open arms.
*-*-*
When the television turns to static and the weather stops the picture from getting through. When Sam’s laptop is away in his bag and he isn’t in the mood for music. When he’s sitting on the edge of his own bed that he’s barely slept in and looks over to Dean he sees a far-off look in his brother’s usually attentive gaze.
“You couldn’t have done anything, Dean.” Sam says without thinking. Without clarifying, because really he could mean anything. Everything.
“Hmm?”
“You were four.”
“Excuse me?” Dean asks, looking up, eyebrows half frowning and half quirked in clouded amusement.
“Nothing.” Sam falters, thinking it isn’t really fair to have the advantage of knowing so much more when he knows Dean’s already starting to sway on the bed.
“Riiiight,” Dean mutters before putting the pen in his mouth and turning the pages of the local newspaper.
Sam doesn’t point out that it’s nearly a week old. Dean will work it out soon enough. He’ll notice when he needs to.
*-*-*
“I’m starving.” Sam says, unable to ignore his rumbling stomach any longer. It’s way past lunchtime after all, but Dean seems unperturbed about how loose his jeans are. He makes this pinched face whenever he sips at his now-lukewarm water, and Sam knows it has nothing to do with the temperature.
Sam had ordered take-out once their food had run out, but he’d been a little preoccupied with his brother’s jutting cheekbones through skin stretched and translucent and oh god.
Stop it.
He’d been too distracted to even eat the now fairly old pizza.
*-*-*
Dean doesn’t look up when Sam leaves the room. He doesn’t watch his little brother place the pill bottle on the table but he hears it. Hears Sam’s little explanation, his nudge that says Dean should take one as soon as he feels a headache coming on.
“I won’t be long,” Sam tells him. I’m not a kid, Dean thinks and bites his lip against the retort.
He dreamt last night. A lot. Or maybe they were nightmares. He isn’t sure. He wasn’t stuck onboard a plane crashing to the ground and he wasn’t being chased by his mistakes and regrets, or demons for that matter.
He was just hot. Burning, tossing and turning and Sam’s voice so distant and unreachable and he panics, he panics he-
He wakes up then, blinking at his brother, slumped across the end of the bed, nearly falling completely out of the damn chair. Sam had been watching Dean again, checking his breathing, making sure he was even alive and Dean hates being treated like glass.
“I won’t be far or anything and I’ve got my cell-”
“Just go already, Sam.”
He wonders what he must have said, locked inside his own burning skin. He wonders what his feverish stupor let slip to make Sam so damn nervous.
He won’t ask. He won’t break the silence. Not when he’s clearly said enough.
*-*-*
Coming back from a particularly small store, Sam herds the simple groceries onto the table. Their father’s journal is open on the bed and Dean’s flicking through each page like he’s trying to make up for lost time. The pages are stiff and old beneath his fingers, but the book Dean revealed to Sam in his feverish stupor, is closed.
Sam ruffles the bag a few hundred times and Dean still hasn’t looked up. Dean, who’s barely eaten in days, Dean the eating machine, won’t take his eyes off the page.
“We’ll find him.” Sam says softly, finally, having heard Dean’s inner fears spoken three days ago. Spoken aloud for everyone to hear; and now with no memory of any such vulnerability as far as Sam can tell.
“I know, Sammy,” Dean replies, without looking up, but his fingers still for just a second and grip the leather a little tighter. “I know.”
*-*-*
“Did you know you were ill?” Sam can’t help but ask when the clouds outside are building up with rain and the outside chill isn’t worth braving to go check out the local library.
“Sort of.” Dean mutters, continuing with his practically monosyllabic replies.
“Sort of?” Sam sounds a little incredulous.
“I felt a little off, that’s all.”
Sam stops. He pushes the image of his writhing brother out his mind. He tries not to listen to the whimpering and begging. The change between hot and cold and burning and freezing. He tells himself to stow it, don’t start, just be glad the idiot’s okay now...but...
“A little off? Five days, Dean! Five days you were out of it, completely. That’s not a little off that’s a lot off.”
“Sam, come on-”
“You can barely stand now, three days later and-don’t eat that!” Sam growls, as Dean’s hand strays to the old-make that very old-take-out on the bedside table. “Eat the good stuff that isn’t growing its own stash of penicillin damn it.”
Surprised as he is by Sam’s outburst, Dean grins to reassure his little brother.
“I’m okay, Sam.” His words are quiet. They’re not said with an accompanying laugh, they’re simple but vital, only Sam isn’t convinced.
“Bull, I’m not an idiot, Dean.”
“Dude, quit being such a-”
“No! Whatever you’re gonna say, just don’t, okay? If you hadn’t guilt tripped me out of taking you to the hospital you’d have been fine and awake and damn lucid days earlier. We don’t even know if it was the flu, what the hell is wrong with you? Ordering me to keep you here, hiding the damn insurance card, who the hell does that?”
“We stay here, we stay safe, okay? You know I prefer to ride stuff like this out, Sam.”
“Yeah, and usually you’re up in bed bitching and getting me to wait on you hand and foot, but you weren’t Dean. You could barely breathe, macho piece of crap-”
“Sam...”
Dean stands, wavers only slightly and smiles, eyebrow cocked, despite the insults his brother is muttering under his breath.
“And now you won’t even talk to me? I spent days wondering if you’ll even open your eyes and you get to pull this on me?”
“Sammy...”
“Don’t Sammy me, Dean.”
“Then quit treating me like glass!” Dean’s eyes narrow until they’re almost slits. His outburst is the loudest his voice has been in days and Sam stands back, stops a little.
“I’m fine, Sam. But you’re kinda grating on my nerves here.”
“I’m grating on your nerves?”
“Yes, Sam, the careful conversation and the oh-so-subtle-spoon-feeding meds. Grating on my nerves.”
“Well I’m sorry if I don’t want a repeat performance of the sniffling machine!”
“Hey, I don’t sniffle.”
His response is spoken so seriously that it comes out as nothing short of comical. Sam’s own anger dissipates fast and he grins at Dean, who returns the gesture.
“Really, man, I’m good.”
The youngest Winchester wonders if Dean can tell the truth when his fever’s gone and the only evidence of his nearly coughing up a lung is the sore throat that takes the edge of his sometimes angry tone.
He wonders about what he heard his brother sigh without really knowing. He wonders about the quiet conversations they had, and the ones he’s tried to have since.
He wonders and stares at Dean, less pale, less ill, less lifeless and shivering.
“Yeah well, you better be.”
-Fin.
.
Written as part of the timestamp meme for
legoline *presents as a belated birthday present*
Un-beta'd. Mistakes are all mine.
When I'm losing my control, the city spins around
You're the only one who knows, you slow it down…
*-*-*
120 hours and probably around twenty minutes. That’s how long. Give or take the endless seconds where Sam lost time making sure his older brother was still breathing...he wonders sometimes if they were hours.
That’s how long. Five days of worrying, wringing his hands and fists. That’s how long.
Five days of hell and back before Dean decides to wake up. Eyes roaming back and forth beneath the lids before fluttering open and fixing a confused but far less glazed stare on his brother. The third time he’d opened his eyes but the first time he’d been at all lucid.
Sam saw the hazel focus and felt his heart beat faster.
“Dude, personal s-space.” Dean had croaked and Sam had let out a relieved laugh before sinking to the floor and leaning back against the wall next to the dresser.
That was yesterday morning and despite the increasing claustrophobia of having stayed in the same room for over five days, Sam can’t stand the thought of leaving.
Because even though Dean’s awake and his skin actually looks alive instead of the sickly ghost like pallor of recent days, Sam can’t get the image out of his head. Dean lying there, curled into a ball and muttering, mumbling, whispering, and having such strange moments of what can only be a twisted lucidness-for a lucid Dean wouldn’t say anything-as he told Sammy too much.
Sam can remember it pretty clearly too, and considering he’s been up all night ensuring his brother doesn’t relapse into whatever the hell he was lapsed into, remembering anything is a feat.
Only, for all intentions and purposes...Dean looks fine. He even says he’s fine, and yes, okay, granted coming from Dean that doesn’t mean a hellova lot. Considering back in Wisconsin he was haemorrhaging and he only complained to Sam when the interior seats were suffering and the pot holes were unforgiving on his torn and ripped flesh.
But Dean’s talking. His voice is a little scratchy but it’s nowhere near as weak as the small whispers that should never have been heard of the last few days.
Dean’s talking, but he’s not talking.
Sam’s tempted to drug his brother up to the eyeballs with pain relief just to get a god damn answer. It’s infuriating and relieving at the same time. This is Dean; this fucked up bravado is Dean. His brother thinks silence is golden, feelings stay in not out.
But stripped away as he was, left broken and sniffling beneath the scratchy covers of a motel bed and asking if he could have done more, if he still can...Silence isn’t golden. Silence won’t quell the insecurities his lowered inhibitions voice out in the open.
Four-year-old legs running fast into the front lawn. Taking care of his little brother, holding his father together. Hunting, fighting, living.
He asks if it’s enough-is it, Sammy? Is it?-in delirium and Sam can only guess that his older brother is hallucinating. Suffering from visions of their less than perfect childhood.
Worst of all, even worse than a childish mumbling of Mom? is the voice that seems so resigned in its morbid melancholy. What if we don’t find him? What if there’s nothing to be found? What if he’s gone Sammy? He left me.
So did you.
And maybe, what’s worse again, is the feeling in Sam’s stomach that he took advantage of his brother’s state to get answers he’s longed to hear.
“Are you scared?”
“Always.”
But none of them comforted him as much as he thought they might.
*-*-*
Sam expected the silence.
Sam expected it, hell, he’s known his brother since forever. He knows him better than anyone, better than their father, or an hunter they’ve ever come across. He can’t remember a time when Dean wasn’t there growing up-and California doesn’t count, he thinks to himself. It can’t, not now.
Sam’s not an idiot.
He expected the silence and he embraces it with less-than-open arms.
*-*-*
When the television turns to static and the weather stops the picture from getting through. When Sam’s laptop is away in his bag and he isn’t in the mood for music. When he’s sitting on the edge of his own bed that he’s barely slept in and looks over to Dean he sees a far-off look in his brother’s usually attentive gaze.
“You couldn’t have done anything, Dean.” Sam says without thinking. Without clarifying, because really he could mean anything. Everything.
“Hmm?”
“You were four.”
“Excuse me?” Dean asks, looking up, eyebrows half frowning and half quirked in clouded amusement.
“Nothing.” Sam falters, thinking it isn’t really fair to have the advantage of knowing so much more when he knows Dean’s already starting to sway on the bed.
“Riiiight,” Dean mutters before putting the pen in his mouth and turning the pages of the local newspaper.
Sam doesn’t point out that it’s nearly a week old. Dean will work it out soon enough. He’ll notice when he needs to.
*-*-*
“I’m starving.” Sam says, unable to ignore his rumbling stomach any longer. It’s way past lunchtime after all, but Dean seems unperturbed about how loose his jeans are. He makes this pinched face whenever he sips at his now-lukewarm water, and Sam knows it has nothing to do with the temperature.
Sam had ordered take-out once their food had run out, but he’d been a little preoccupied with his brother’s jutting cheekbones through skin stretched and translucent and oh god.
Stop it.
He’d been too distracted to even eat the now fairly old pizza.
*-*-*
Dean doesn’t look up when Sam leaves the room. He doesn’t watch his little brother place the pill bottle on the table but he hears it. Hears Sam’s little explanation, his nudge that says Dean should take one as soon as he feels a headache coming on.
“I won’t be long,” Sam tells him. I’m not a kid, Dean thinks and bites his lip against the retort.
He dreamt last night. A lot. Or maybe they were nightmares. He isn’t sure. He wasn’t stuck onboard a plane crashing to the ground and he wasn’t being chased by his mistakes and regrets, or demons for that matter.
He was just hot. Burning, tossing and turning and Sam’s voice so distant and unreachable and he panics, he panics he-
He wakes up then, blinking at his brother, slumped across the end of the bed, nearly falling completely out of the damn chair. Sam had been watching Dean again, checking his breathing, making sure he was even alive and Dean hates being treated like glass.
“I won’t be far or anything and I’ve got my cell-”
“Just go already, Sam.”
He wonders what he must have said, locked inside his own burning skin. He wonders what his feverish stupor let slip to make Sam so damn nervous.
He won’t ask. He won’t break the silence. Not when he’s clearly said enough.
*-*-*
Coming back from a particularly small store, Sam herds the simple groceries onto the table. Their father’s journal is open on the bed and Dean’s flicking through each page like he’s trying to make up for lost time. The pages are stiff and old beneath his fingers, but the book Dean revealed to Sam in his feverish stupor, is closed.
Sam ruffles the bag a few hundred times and Dean still hasn’t looked up. Dean, who’s barely eaten in days, Dean the eating machine, won’t take his eyes off the page.
“We’ll find him.” Sam says softly, finally, having heard Dean’s inner fears spoken three days ago. Spoken aloud for everyone to hear; and now with no memory of any such vulnerability as far as Sam can tell.
“I know, Sammy,” Dean replies, without looking up, but his fingers still for just a second and grip the leather a little tighter. “I know.”
*-*-*
“Did you know you were ill?” Sam can’t help but ask when the clouds outside are building up with rain and the outside chill isn’t worth braving to go check out the local library.
“Sort of.” Dean mutters, continuing with his practically monosyllabic replies.
“Sort of?” Sam sounds a little incredulous.
“I felt a little off, that’s all.”
Sam stops. He pushes the image of his writhing brother out his mind. He tries not to listen to the whimpering and begging. The change between hot and cold and burning and freezing. He tells himself to stow it, don’t start, just be glad the idiot’s okay now...but...
“A little off? Five days, Dean! Five days you were out of it, completely. That’s not a little off that’s a lot off.”
“Sam, come on-”
“You can barely stand now, three days later and-don’t eat that!” Sam growls, as Dean’s hand strays to the old-make that very old-take-out on the bedside table. “Eat the good stuff that isn’t growing its own stash of penicillin damn it.”
Surprised as he is by Sam’s outburst, Dean grins to reassure his little brother.
“I’m okay, Sam.” His words are quiet. They’re not said with an accompanying laugh, they’re simple but vital, only Sam isn’t convinced.
“Bull, I’m not an idiot, Dean.”
“Dude, quit being such a-”
“No! Whatever you’re gonna say, just don’t, okay? If you hadn’t guilt tripped me out of taking you to the hospital you’d have been fine and awake and damn lucid days earlier. We don’t even know if it was the flu, what the hell is wrong with you? Ordering me to keep you here, hiding the damn insurance card, who the hell does that?”
“We stay here, we stay safe, okay? You know I prefer to ride stuff like this out, Sam.”
“Yeah, and usually you’re up in bed bitching and getting me to wait on you hand and foot, but you weren’t Dean. You could barely breathe, macho piece of crap-”
“Sam...”
Dean stands, wavers only slightly and smiles, eyebrow cocked, despite the insults his brother is muttering under his breath.
“And now you won’t even talk to me? I spent days wondering if you’ll even open your eyes and you get to pull this on me?”
“Sammy...”
“Don’t Sammy me, Dean.”
“Then quit treating me like glass!” Dean’s eyes narrow until they’re almost slits. His outburst is the loudest his voice has been in days and Sam stands back, stops a little.
“I’m fine, Sam. But you’re kinda grating on my nerves here.”
“I’m grating on your nerves?”
“Yes, Sam, the careful conversation and the oh-so-subtle-spoon-feeding meds. Grating on my nerves.”
“Well I’m sorry if I don’t want a repeat performance of the sniffling machine!”
“Hey, I don’t sniffle.”
His response is spoken so seriously that it comes out as nothing short of comical. Sam’s own anger dissipates fast and he grins at Dean, who returns the gesture.
“Really, man, I’m good.”
The youngest Winchester wonders if Dean can tell the truth when his fever’s gone and the only evidence of his nearly coughing up a lung is the sore throat that takes the edge of his sometimes angry tone.
He wonders about what he heard his brother sigh without really knowing. He wonders about the quiet conversations they had, and the ones he’s tried to have since.
He wonders and stares at Dean, less pale, less ill, less lifeless and shivering.
“Yeah well, you better be.”
-Fin.
.