It's our 6-month anniversary!
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Can you believe that it's been six months already? 282 members, 347 people watching! And it's all thanks to YOU! You fabulous people, you!
You know what that means, right?
Comment-fic!
Hurting Sam is a necessary part of celebrating our six-month anniversary. So have at it!
( Read more... )
Can you believe that it's been six months already? 282 members, 347 people watching! And it's all thanks to YOU! You fabulous people, you!
You know what that means, right?
Comment-fic!
Hurting Sam is a necessary part of celebrating our six-month anniversary. So have at it!
( Read more... )
After that, things got worse, because that’s how it works when your last name is Winchester. Keeping this in mind, Dean was, understandably, unsurprised in the least.
Sam lost weight because his appetite was shot, or, Dean wondered, maybe he got sick of missing his stupid mouth every time he tried to feed himself. So now, Sam’s diet was mostly coffee or Red Bull and toast if Dean nagged him enough.
One night, in Alabama, Dean dragged Sam to a bar with the intention of getting him so drunk he would pass out. Sam stuck to Pepsi and tried to hustle a game of pool, sucked so bad he ended up losing money, and it was Dean who drank until he passed out. Sam handed him a cup of coffee with shaky hands in the morning.
Another night, Dean crushed a bunch of Unisom tablets into a cup of decaf from the 7-11 across the street. This was after watching Sam struggle for twenty minutes to find a pair of socks that were practically sitting in his lap.
“This is decaf.” Sam said without looking up from the obits he was perusing, circling potential cases with a red pen. Dean glanced over his shoulder to see if it was anything good, but it didn’t look like anything at all, didn’t look like Sam was even aware of what he was circling or why: an eighty-seven year old grandma died of cancer, was known for her doll collection.
“What’s with the dolls? You circled that like, eight times. You think the puppetmaster gave grandma cancer or something?”
“What dolls?” Sam took another sip. “This is totally decaf.”
“It’s not decaf, you crackhead.”
“Yes it is.”
“Just drink the damn coffee, Sam!”
He wasn’t even done with the coffee before he started listing. Dean caught him before he fell out of the chair and Sam whispered as Dean pulled the covers over them both, “You’re an asshole.”
“That, and an awesome big brother.” Dean retorted.
Yeah. Well, Sam’s nightmares laughed in the face of Unisom and Sam didn’t speak to Dean for three days after that particular incident.
In Los Angeles, Dean saw a sign for a hypnotist and pointed it out to Sam.
Even with the bloodshot eyes, Sam could have frozen lava with his glare.
Outside of Aberdeen, Washington, Dean broke down and decided to ask Sam about his girly feelings.
“No.” Sam said, fumbling with the cap of a fresh new jumbo bottle of No-Doz.
“Oh come on, I told you about my time.”
“I made you tell me.” Sam popped too many tablets and tried to keep his hands steady in front of Dean.
“Well now I’m making you. So fess up.”
Sam huffed, but he did, in fact, “fess up” (after a lot more dutiful nagging on Dean’s part). And after the obligatory hug and Dean's single manly tear, when Sam finally allowed himself to fall asleep, Dean actually thought he would make it through the night.
Sam didn’t bother apologizing for the bloody nose his wayward elbow blessed Dean with in the wee hours of morning. He just handed Dean a fistful of tissues and dumped a bag of complementary coffee into the machine on the dresser.
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A week later, Sam forgot the second half of an incantation for banishing poltergeists, the very same incantation he had been spouting from memory since he was eleven years old. He took a letter opener to the abdomen for that one and later, when Dean stitched him up on a hotel bed, sans pills or whiskey at Sam’s demand, Dean declared, “No more hunts until you take a fucking nap.”
Dean tugged a little too hard when he knotted off the stitches, didn’t like how Sam’s wince came like an afterthought, two seconds too late.
And of course, months of barely eating and barely sleeping and popping No-Doz like TicTacs meant that Sam’s body was not operating in prime condition, or even moderately favorable condition and when he spiked a fever, Dean guiltily hoped he would pass out. When Sam didn’t, when he just lay in bed, propped up on pillows and more out of it than in, but still refusing to consent to the much needed rest, Dean wiped a wet cloth over his face and said, “I’m calling Cas.”
“Don’t.”
Dean trailed lower, over Sam’s neck and his chest, where his ribs strained painfully against pale skin. “Then I’m taking you to the hospital and letting them drug you into submission.” He tossed the washcloth back into the ice bucket, slid his arms behind Sam’s back, and wrapped the blankets around his too-skinny form. Sam struggled weakly as Dean hoisted him up; trembling with fever and terror and effort. Dean eased him into the passenger seat, slammed the door as he slid behind the wheel.
“Castiel or the hospital. Those are your options, Sam.”
“I don’t-“
“Castiel or the hospital.”
It was quiet in the Impala, late enough that the parking lot of the San-Dee Motel in Alamogordo, New Mexico was empty of other people and the highway beyond that was dark and silent.
And then Sam lost it.
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“You’ll wake up Sam. I’ll wake you up.”
“-and Jess. Ellen and Jo. Everyone, Dean. Over and over again. Me and you and Bobby-“
“It isn’t real, Sam.”
“-and Dad and Mom and Adam and-“
“Sam.”
“-and you and Jess and you-“
Dean pulled Sam close against his chest, a sharp pile of heaving bone and scratchy blankets; tattered nerves, smoothing always stupid too-long hair back, fingers catching on greasy tangles. Sam’s eyes were wide, but unseeing, his mantra reduced to simply, “and you and you and you.”
Dean glanced out the window into the empty night, calling, softly, “Castiel.”
“And Castiel too.” Sam mumbled before reverting to his “and yous.”
“Yes, Dean?” No flash of light, no thunder, no trumpets; just one minute the backseat was empty and then it wasn’t.
Dean shot Castiel a glance, “Put him to sleep.”
Castiel’s head tilted to the side like he was debating the merits of such an action and Dean wanted to punch him because it didn’t take an angel of the lord to see that Sam was finally completely losing his shit because he hadn’t slept in three months and before that he was in Hell for who knew how long with two very pissed off archangels and seriously? What was there to debate?
“Are you thinking about it? Don’t think about it just do it! Look at him, Cas! Jesus Christ-“
“Sam does not wish to be forced to relive his time with Michael and Lucifer.”
“I get that, Cas. I really do. And I promise that I’ll be all ready to give Sammy here a big hug when he wakes up.”
“You do not understand.” Castiel shifted his gaze from the back of Sam’s head to Dean’s eyes, “If I put Sam under, he will sleep until he is healed. In his current state, that could be a considerable amount of time. He will be unable to wake up.”
“Need to wake up, Dean.” Sam mumbled against Dean’s chest, “Need to wake up. Need to wake up. Need to wake-“
“Then what do you suggest we do, Cas?”
Castiel tilted his head the other way. He reached out to smooth a piece of Sam’s hair behind his ear. He leaned over the seat and brought his lips close to Sam’s ear, “You must sleep, Sam.”
“No. No no no no no.”
“You will sleep, Sam.” Castiel glanced at the clear night sky, a small grin tugging his lips as the metallic ting of fat raindrops hitting the roof of the Impala filled the air.
“Is that rain?” Dean squinted at the streaks across the Impala’s windshield, blurring the pink and yellow neon of the hotel into colorful streaks.
“Yes.” Castiel said.
“We’re in the middle of a desert.” Dean turned towards the angel, a grin tugging at the corners of his lips.
“So you are.”
Dean’s face broke into a full-fledged smile, “Remember when you were a kid, Sammy? You always slept better when it was raining.”
“Not sleeping.” Sam muttered, but Dean could already feel him relaxing against him in the cramped front seat, “Not sleeping.”
Dean carefully adjusted Sam, mindful of the stitches in his abs, so that he was nestled in the V of Dean’s legs, his back pressed against Dean’s chest, Dean himself snug against the driver’s side door, both Winchester’s cocooned in the blankets from the hotel room. Dean watched as Sam’s breathing evened out and his body went limp. His forehead was still creased with tension because Sam was a bitch, but it was okay. It was fine.
Castiel and Dean watched Sam sleep for a few moments before Castiel spoke up, “I have to go. Would you like me to relocate you two back inside your hotel room before I leave?”
Dean shook his head and carefully wrapped an arm around Sam’s gently rising and falling chest, “Nah, we’re good, Cas. Thanks.”
And then the backseat was empty again, but the rain kept falling steadily and Dean rested his chin on the top of Sam’s head, tugging him closer. Sam snuffled in his sleep, but didn’t wake, one hand snaking out from beneath the blanket to wrap itself around the arm across his chest.
Dean listened to the rain ping against the Impala well into the night, ready to chase Sam's nightmares away if such services were needed.
They weren't.
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That was perfect.
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This fic is awesome, and I'm going to cuddle it now.
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I just want to cuddle this story - everything is lovely, but particularly Castiel performing just a small miracle to help Sam sleep.
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I had a brief thought of flash floods in the desert from too much rain, but then I realized Cas could've just narrowed the rainclouds to a 1 block radius. It'd just be another weird thing in their world.
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I'm glad you liked!
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*adores this*
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I've recently come to adore writing comment fic. People come up with amazing ideas and other people interpret those ideas in their own ways. It's like one big, beautiful collaboration.
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