At first it’s just a few; he’s one of those people that always sneeze like, six times in a row anyways. He doesn’t think much of it. Motels are dusty and this one isn’t exactly a shining example of a roadside stop. He’s watching Vacation with Dean, squashed together on the tiny, threadbare couch, Dean ignoring the glares Sam’s shooting him for laughing while his mouth’s full of peanuts.
Sam can’t hold back anymore. He opens his mouth to make some snarky remark about Dean’s inability to act like a civil human being when he sneezes so hard his jaw snaps together. Dean loses it at that, spraying bits of chewed peanut everywhere. Sam wipes his running eyes with the back of his hand and would bitch at Dean for being an absolute pig. If his throat hadn’t totally closed.
Sam chokes and splutters, grabbing his throat with one hand and trying desperately to catch his breath. His heart hammers in his chest and it’s the oddest thing, drowning without the water. He heaves and his eyes are streaming and Dean’s suddenly not laughing anymore, holding him by the elbow with wide eyes and yelling, “Dad! DAD!” over and over. Sam’s vision narrows to Dean’s panicked face. He’s really losing it, he thinks fuzzily.
Suddenly he’s swept off the couch, cradled like a child in Dean’s arms and being rushed outside. He makes out the word “hospital” and sucks in the tiniest breath, just enough to keep his head from swimming. Sam’s eyes are burning and too wet all at once.
He’s being lowered into the backseat of the Impala and John and Dean are yelling at each other. If he had enough air he’d tell them both to shut the hell up, but his head is throbbing and his arms are starting to burn, too. They’re prickling and itchy and his skin feels too tight, like someone’s been dragging steel wool over them. His vision is shrinking too, and the skin around his eyes feels stretched taught. He can barely focus on Dean’s hand locked around his wrist or the way he’s leaning into Sam in the backseat while John runs two red lights in a row. He keeps talking, though, and that helps him. Sam manages to pick out something about “allergic.” By the time John gets them on the highway, the pressure in Sam’s head has eased slightly and he doesn’t have to struggle to breathe quite so much.
“D-Dean?” “Sammy,” Dean’s hand squeezes his wrist again.
“’M okay. Don’t need hospital,” he wheezes.
John glances in the rearview mirror and it’s the constant debate of money versus need all over again. Sam can see the calculation in his father’s dark eyes. He’s been worse off than this after hunts, and that’s sometimes without so much as Ibuprofen.
“You sure, Sam?”
“Dad, he should go,” Dean cuts in. “I’m okay,” Sam rasps again. “Seriously.” Dean glances down at him, his expression almost hurt. You need help. Want to help you. No.
Sam manages to sit up straight without Dean and puts his seatbelt on. His throat is still really painful and he can’t see much, but at least he can breathe without gasping through what feels like a Capri-Sun straw. Dean bitches at him some, but in the end, Sam wins.
John turns the car around and the drive back to the motel is quiet. Dean glares out the window with his arms crossed and John doesn’t say anything, either. He’s like that after one of his kids get hurt. He doesn’t know what to say. But Sam can feel his silent gratitude.
When they get back to the room, Dean makes Sam wait outside until they figure out what trigged his attack. It doesn’t take long to figure out that the only thing in their room that’s new is the Christmas tree.
“We’ll just take the damn thing out back,” Dean says, starting forward and already flicking his lighter open. “No!” Sam cries. John rolls his eyes. “Sammy, you’re gonna swell up like a balloon.” “I don’t care. It’s fine. I’ll get medicine.” Sam turns puffy eyes on Dean. He doesn’t have to say a word out loud. Please? Dean sighs and glances at John. With both of his sons’ eyes on him, John caves and throws his hands up. “If you end up worse, we’re chucking the thing. Can’t afford any doctor bills this year, Sammy.” “Okay,” Sam nods.
He pays for his stubbornness every morning when he wakes up with his eyes swollen shut and his throat so raw it feels like he’s swallowed a cup of thumbtacks. As long as he doesn’t touch the tree, his sore throat is manageable. He doesn’t talk much, but it’s worth it to wake up to that smell. On the morning when he wakes up, he even has some red bumps on his arms. He turns over in bed, miserable, and finds Dean already awake and watching him with sleepy green eyes. You okay, Sammy? Dean’s eyes flick down to his arms and back to meet his gaze.
Sam swallows, trying to hide how painful it is. But Dean isn’t fooled. He slips out of bed and makes his way to the kitchenette, naked save for his boxers. Dean’s lean and fit and everything Sam isn’t. For a second, Sam is stupidly, blindingly jealous of his older brother. Dean’s always been the stronger of the two of them. Not weak and sick and skinny and sneezy like Sam. Dean comes back to bed with a steaming mug of chamomile tea. He gestures for Sam to sit up and he does, grudgingly, while Dean arranges his pillows so Sam’s propped up against the headboard.
Sam sips his tea and Dean slips back into bed beside him. John’s still snoring away, dead to the world.
It’s just him and Dean and the tea feels good on his throat, and now that he’s able to breathe again he can actually smell the tree. He inhales and thinks, this is what Christmas smells like. And he gets it for the first time-this is what people mean when they talk about having Christmas trees in their living rooms. Dean’s shoulder knocks against his.
Later that day, Dean drives Sam to the local drugstore, a CVS off I-95. Of course, that’s after he makes Sam go back to his room and put on about three extra layers before he’s satisfied. “’M not sick, Dean. It’s just allergies.” “I don’t care, if you get sick on top of it you better believe I’m not sleeping next to you.” Sam sniffles and blows his nose the whole way to the store, though once they’re inside he can feel his lungs loosening and his eyes feel almost back to normal. It’s such a relief he almost considers giving Dean permission to burn the tree after all. It’s early enough that the store is empty. He and Dean peruse the countless rows of medicine and Sam acts like he doesn’t notice how close Dean is standing to him. Acts like he doesn’t notice when Dean’s hand slides into his back pocket. “What’re the ingredients in Benadryl?” “Should relieve some of your symptoms, I think,” Dean tells him, scanning the box. Sam leans back into him for a moment. “I don’t have any cash,” he mutters, embarrassed. “Gotcha covered, kid. Go wait in the car.” Sam thinks about protesting, but that’s before Dean’s hand shifts and some of Dean’s warmth seems to seep into him and settles in his gut. When Dean comes back to the Impala, he brings half the shelf of allergy symptom relief with him and there’s no receipt.
On Christmas morning, Sam sneezes hard. He can feel it scraping up his throat, scorching and leaving a trail of inflammation. He has to gasp to breathe and it’s like his windpipe is constricting with each one, but he doesn’t care. He puts Dean’s carefully newspaper-wrapped gift under the tree, careful not to make any noise.
He feels better today, thanks to Dean’s reminders to medicate himself every few hours. It takes a while before Dean starts stirring, and “Sammy, get the hell out from under that thing,” is the first thing he mumbles, his hair sticking up in all directions.
“Medicine helped. Merry Christmas,” he grins. His eyes are puffy and his nose and running and he’s probably never looked worse. Dean doesn’t seem to mind. He pushes the covers back and goes to the kitchen, makes Sam tea the same way he has every day since they got the tree.
Sam joins him at the table and he sneezes and coughs and sniffs and Dean just looks at him. Sam colors a little under his stare, but accepts it. There’s something in that look, he thinks, something just between them and their small room and their shabbily decorated tree. Somehow Dean managed to put a small pile of tiny packages at the base of it, probably while Sam was in the bathroom.
John’s still snoring and can’t know that Dean’s poured some of his whiskey into his morning cup of steaming coffee. John wakes up irritable anyways, but his expression softens slightly at the sight of his two sons at the foot of the tree: Sam and his runny nose, Dean in sweatpants and teasing Sam for his hives.
Dean’s ecstatic about the back issue Man of Steel Superman comics Sam managed to get his hands on, and Sam’s both annoyed and relieved when Dean produces gift-wrapped bottles of prescription drugs for Sam’s present. Later, the heater stops working and Sam can think of a pretty fail-safe way to keep them warm.
Dean and John strap the tree back to the hood of the Impala while Sam watches from a safe distance. John chooses to stay at home, since he’s got a lead on a spirit hunt in North Dakota they’ll probably be pursuing as early as that night.
Sam and Dean drive the tree to the empty basketball court behind an abandoned strip mall around the corner from the motel.
Sam pours the gasoline and Dean supplies the lighter and the smoke irritates the hell out of Sam’s throat. But it’s hot, and it’s sort of pretty and Dean seems to be enjoying himself and his hand is back in Sam’s pocket. It’s not perfect. Sam feels like shit and Dean’s too young to have had that whiskey, and John doesn’t know what’s going on right in front of his eyes between his two sons.
But it’s a Winchester Christmas, and things could be a hell of a lot worse.
1. THIS IS WONDERFUL. ALL OF IT. SO WONDERFUL. I LOVE IT TO PIECES. 2. poor poor sam is so unlucky.. he wanted a tree so badly :( 3. the part about sam always sneezing so many times in a row yes yes yes loved that 4. dean is cradling sam in his arms omg 5. dean wanting sam to go to the hospital and being outnumbered aww 6. SAM WANTS TO KEEP THE TREE EVEN THOUGH IT IS MAKING HIM SICK 7. puffy pleading eyes aww 8. "weak and sick and skinny and sneezy" i think i love you 9. I-95! i live really close to I-95! awesome. awesome. 10. aww dean making sam wear all of those extra layers 11. sam's immediate relief which proves how terribly allergic he is to that tree 12. dean stealing allergy medicine for sam YES i love them i love them 13. dean taking care of sam and making him tea and reminding him to take the medicine 14. poor sammy cannot breathe and he's so swollen and sneezing and aw aw oh my god aawww 15. "Sam and his runny nose, Dean in sweatpants and teasing Sam for his hives." i adore this line so much 16. GIFT-WRAPPED BOTTLES OF PRESCRIPTION DRUGS just when i thought i couldn't love you any more 17. their lovely imperfect christmas god this is all just so THEM
i realize that i probably summarized this entire story but it is so perfect and sweet and lovely and i couldn't not tell you how much i loved all of it and you are the best.
OH LAWD you are the loveliest!!!!!!!!! Thank you SO much- this comment makes feeling totally dead in my linguistics class worth it. I thought I should get the whole story out in one go since I'm away this weekend and when I looked at my clock, OOPS 3 AM.
At first it’s just a few; he’s one of those people that always sneeze like, six times in a row anyways.
He doesn’t think much of it. Motels are dusty and this one isn’t exactly a shining example of a roadside stop.
He’s watching Vacation with Dean, squashed together on the tiny, threadbare couch, Dean ignoring the glares Sam’s shooting him for laughing while his mouth’s full of peanuts.
Sam can’t hold back anymore. He opens his mouth to make some snarky remark about Dean’s inability to act like a civil human being when he sneezes so hard his jaw snaps together.
Dean loses it at that, spraying bits of chewed peanut everywhere. Sam wipes his running eyes with the back of his hand and would bitch at Dean for being an absolute pig.
If his throat hadn’t totally closed.
Sam chokes and splutters, grabbing his throat with one hand and trying desperately to catch his breath. His heart hammers in his chest and it’s the oddest thing, drowning without the water. He heaves and his eyes are streaming and Dean’s suddenly not laughing anymore, holding him by the elbow with wide eyes and yelling, “Dad! DAD!” over and over.
Sam’s vision narrows to Dean’s panicked face. He’s really losing it, he thinks fuzzily.
Suddenly he’s swept off the couch, cradled like a child in Dean’s arms and being rushed outside.
He makes out the word “hospital” and sucks in the tiniest breath, just enough to keep his head from swimming.
Sam’s eyes are burning and too wet all at once.
He’s being lowered into the backseat of the Impala and John and Dean are yelling at each other. If he had enough air he’d tell them both to shut the hell up, but his head is throbbing and his arms are starting to burn, too. They’re prickling and itchy and his skin feels too tight, like someone’s been dragging steel wool over them.
His vision is shrinking too, and the skin around his eyes feels stretched taught. He can barely focus on Dean’s hand locked around his wrist or the way he’s leaning into Sam in the backseat while John runs two red lights in a row.
He keeps talking, though, and that helps him. Sam manages to pick out something about “allergic.”
By the time John gets them on the highway, the pressure in Sam’s head has eased slightly and he doesn’t have to struggle to breathe quite so much.
“D-Dean?”
“Sammy,” Dean’s hand squeezes his wrist again.
“’M okay. Don’t need hospital,” he wheezes.
John glances in the rearview mirror and it’s the constant debate of money versus need all over again. Sam can see the calculation in his father’s dark eyes. He’s been worse off than this after hunts, and that’s sometimes without so much as Ibuprofen.
“You sure, Sam?”
“Dad, he should go,” Dean cuts in.
“I’m okay,” Sam rasps again. “Seriously.”
Dean glances down at him, his expression almost hurt. You need help. Want to help you.
No.
Sam manages to sit up straight without Dean and puts his seatbelt on. His throat is still really painful and he can’t see much, but at least he can breathe without gasping through what feels like a Capri-Sun straw.
Dean bitches at him some, but in the end, Sam wins.
John turns the car around and the drive back to the motel is quiet. Dean glares out the window with his arms crossed and John doesn’t say anything, either. He’s like that after one of his kids get hurt. He doesn’t know what to say. But Sam can feel his silent gratitude.
Things could’ve been a lot worse.
Reply
When they get back to the room, Dean makes Sam wait outside until they figure out what trigged his attack.
It doesn’t take long to figure out that the only thing in their room that’s new is the Christmas tree.
“We’ll just take the damn thing out back,” Dean says, starting forward and already flicking his lighter open.
“No!” Sam cries.
John rolls his eyes. “Sammy, you’re gonna swell up like a balloon.”
“I don’t care. It’s fine. I’ll get medicine.”
Sam turns puffy eyes on Dean. He doesn’t have to say a word out loud. Please?
Dean sighs and glances at John.
With both of his sons’ eyes on him, John caves and throws his hands up.
“If you end up worse, we’re chucking the thing. Can’t afford any doctor bills this year, Sammy.”
“Okay,” Sam nods.
He pays for his stubbornness every morning when he wakes up with his eyes swollen shut and his throat so raw it feels like he’s swallowed a cup of thumbtacks. As long as he doesn’t touch the tree, his sore throat is manageable. He doesn’t talk much, but it’s worth it to wake up to that smell.
On the morning when he wakes up, he even has some red bumps on his arms. He turns over in bed, miserable, and finds Dean already awake and watching him with sleepy green eyes.
You okay, Sammy? Dean’s eyes flick down to his arms and back to meet his gaze.
Sam swallows, trying to hide how painful it is. But Dean isn’t fooled. He slips out of bed and makes his way to the kitchenette, naked save for his boxers. Dean’s lean and fit and everything Sam isn’t.
For a second, Sam is stupidly, blindingly jealous of his older brother.
Dean’s always been the stronger of the two of them. Not weak and sick and skinny and sneezy like Sam.
Dean comes back to bed with a steaming mug of chamomile tea. He gestures for Sam to sit up and he does, grudgingly, while Dean arranges his pillows so Sam’s propped up against the headboard.
Sam sips his tea and Dean slips back into bed beside him.
John’s still snoring away, dead to the world.
It’s just him and Dean and the tea feels good on his throat, and now that he’s able to breathe again he can actually smell the tree. He inhales and thinks, this is what Christmas smells like. And he gets it for the first time-this is what people mean when they talk about having Christmas trees in their living rooms.
Dean’s shoulder knocks against his.
Later that day, Dean drives Sam to the local drugstore, a CVS off I-95. Of course, that’s after he makes Sam go back to his room and put on about three extra layers before he’s satisfied.
“’M not sick, Dean. It’s just allergies.”
“I don’t care, if you get sick on top of it you better believe I’m not sleeping next to you.”
Sam sniffles and blows his nose the whole way to the store, though once they’re inside he can feel his lungs loosening and his eyes feel almost back to normal.
It’s such a relief he almost considers giving Dean permission to burn the tree after all.
It’s early enough that the store is empty. He and Dean peruse the countless rows of medicine and Sam acts like he doesn’t notice how close Dean is standing to him. Acts like he doesn’t notice when Dean’s hand slides into his back pocket.
“What’re the ingredients in Benadryl?”
“Should relieve some of your symptoms, I think,” Dean tells him, scanning the box.
Sam leans back into him for a moment.
“I don’t have any cash,” he mutters, embarrassed.
“Gotcha covered, kid. Go wait in the car.”
Sam thinks about protesting, but that’s before Dean’s hand shifts and some of Dean’s warmth seems to seep into him and settles in his gut.
When Dean comes back to the Impala, he brings half the shelf of allergy symptom relief with him and there’s no receipt.
Reply
On Christmas morning, Sam sneezes hard. He can feel it scraping up his throat, scorching and leaving a trail of inflammation. He has to gasp to breathe and it’s like his windpipe is constricting with each one, but he doesn’t care.
He puts Dean’s carefully newspaper-wrapped gift under the tree, careful not to make any noise.
He feels better today, thanks to Dean’s reminders to medicate himself every few hours.
It takes a while before Dean starts stirring, and “Sammy, get the hell out from under that thing,” is the first thing he mumbles, his hair sticking up in all directions.
“Medicine helped. Merry Christmas,” he grins.
His eyes are puffy and his nose and running and he’s probably never looked worse.
Dean doesn’t seem to mind.
He pushes the covers back and goes to the kitchen, makes Sam tea the same way he has every day since they got the tree.
Sam joins him at the table and he sneezes and coughs and sniffs and Dean just looks at him. Sam colors a little under his stare, but accepts it. There’s something in that look, he thinks, something just between them and their small room and their shabbily decorated tree.
Somehow Dean managed to put a small pile of tiny packages at the base of it, probably while Sam was in the bathroom.
John’s still snoring and can’t know that Dean’s poured some of his whiskey into his morning cup of steaming coffee. John wakes up irritable anyways, but his expression softens slightly at the sight of his two sons at the foot of the tree: Sam and his runny nose, Dean in sweatpants and teasing Sam for his hives.
Dean’s ecstatic about the back issue Man of Steel Superman comics Sam managed to get his hands on, and Sam’s both annoyed and relieved when Dean produces gift-wrapped bottles of prescription drugs for Sam’s present.
Later, the heater stops working and Sam can think of a pretty fail-safe way to keep them warm.
Dean and John strap the tree back to the hood of the Impala while Sam watches from a safe distance. John chooses to stay at home, since he’s got a lead on a spirit hunt in North Dakota they’ll probably be pursuing as early as that night.
Sam and Dean drive the tree to the empty basketball court behind an abandoned strip mall around the corner from the motel.
Sam pours the gasoline and Dean supplies the lighter and the smoke irritates the hell out of Sam’s throat. But it’s hot, and it’s sort of pretty and Dean seems to be enjoying himself and his hand is back in Sam’s pocket.
It’s not perfect. Sam feels like shit and Dean’s too young to have had that whiskey, and John doesn’t know what’s going on right in front of his eyes between his two sons.
But it’s a Winchester Christmas, and things could be a hell of a lot worse.
Reply
Reply
2. poor poor sam is so unlucky.. he wanted a tree so badly :(
3. the part about sam always sneezing so many times in a row yes yes yes loved that
4. dean is cradling sam in his arms omg
5. dean wanting sam to go to the hospital and being outnumbered aww
6. SAM WANTS TO KEEP THE TREE EVEN THOUGH IT IS MAKING HIM SICK
7. puffy pleading eyes aww
8. "weak and sick and skinny and sneezy" i think i love you
9. I-95! i live really close to I-95! awesome. awesome.
10. aww dean making sam wear all of those extra layers
11. sam's immediate relief which proves how terribly allergic he is to that tree
12. dean stealing allergy medicine for sam YES i love them i love them
13. dean taking care of sam and making him tea and reminding him to take the medicine
14. poor sammy cannot breathe and he's so swollen and sneezing and aw aw oh my god aawww
15. "Sam and his runny nose, Dean in sweatpants and teasing Sam for his hives." i adore this line so much
16. GIFT-WRAPPED BOTTLES OF PRESCRIPTION DRUGS just when i thought i couldn't love you any more
17. their lovely imperfect christmas god this is all just so THEM
i realize that i probably summarized this entire story but it is so perfect and sweet and lovely and i couldn't not tell you how much i loved all of it and you are the best.
Reply
Reply
Reply
Reply
Reply
Reply
Leave a comment