Title: Nobody Likes a Sneezy Casanova
Characters: Dean, Sam
Genre: Gen, brief mention of Dean/OFC
Rating: PG-13, for a bit of language and allusions to Adult Activities
Word-count: 1830
Spoilers: Set mid-S3, with references to the driving arc of that season.
Summary: Dean is determined to make every night count, even if that means going out with the beginnings of a monumental case of flu. Things go south. Sam manages not to say, “I told you so.”
Notes: Turns out, there were some benefits to having one of those unshakable colds during the last few weeks of term. One of them was this fic, which was written from the comfort of my bed while I avoided a formal dinner.
“Dude. You've gotta be kidding.”
The raw flush of color across Dean's cheekbones intensified.
“What?” he asked defensively, aiming an innocent and watery squint away from Sam's dumbfounded gaze, as though the hideous tan-and-periwinkle gardenias in the wallpaper had been the ones addressing him.
“You're not gonna go see that girl.”
“What girl?” The I-don't-have-a-clue-what-you're-talking-about smirk looked a lot less convincing in the crazy color palette Dean was rocking right now. He looked like a nine-year-old girl had attacked him with her makeup kit, gone nuts with the blush and a little overboard on the eye shadow. Against washed-out skin, the usually faint freckles scattered his face like tiny dark warning signs spelling out sick.
“The girl with the blue hair and the tongue piercing? The one with the phone number on a Kit-Kat wrapper? The one you were busy interrogating while I talked to Dr. Dearing about the ballad-of-death legends? Any of this ringing any bells?”
“She was a history student,” Dean protested, fumbling doggedly with his bootlaces. “We were discussin' the Battle of Hastings.”
“That why she gave you her number? So you could call her up and consult on the Normans' military strategy?” Dean shot him a bewildered and slightly glassy look. “Dean, you've been running a fever all afternoon. Girls don't want your germs.”
For a moment, Dean seemed offended at the suggestion that there could be anything about him that every woman didn't crave with all her being. Then, remembering that he wasn't sick anyway, he shrugged with careful nonchalance.
“Dude, relax. I'm goin' out for a walk, that's all. Wanna clear my head.”
“That why you're wearing your shirt?”
“Well, I'm not gonna go out naked, am I?”
“Your lucky shirt.”
“It's just a shirt, Sam. And if you wanna do laundry while I'm out, it won't be the last clean one left.”
“Dean, you told me last week that shirt is guaranteed to raise your chances of getting laid by twenty percent.”
“Thirty,” Dean objected before realizing his blunder. His flush deepened. Sam wondered if there was any blood left in Dean's face, because it all seemed to have gathered in the smears of fever on his cheeks.
“That's gonna be some walk you're taking,” was all he said.
“Shut up,” Dean grunted, and swung wearily up off the bed.
And that was Sam's brother: ever the hero. Braving rain, cold, and a hundred-degree temperature in his mission to score. No mere virus, it seemed, was going to get the better of the Winchester loins.
And for once, Sam couldn't quite blame the guy. Ten months to live - well, it gave every duty an extra urgency that made something as mundane as a cold seem a little irrelevant. When you only had two hundred and ninety-six nights left, the thought of spending one coughing in a motel room as ugly as this one became less appealing than ever.
Sam just hoped they left town before the turquoise-haired history fan had time to thank his brother for the case of sexually-transmitted-influenza he was about to bestow on her.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Sam was still working through the professor's local history articles - carefully avoiding the sections that listed the lyrics to the infamous ballad, because it couldn't hurt to be too careful - when he heard the guttering of a familiar engine outside the room. He glanced at his watch, confused. Only ten thirty. Still practically evening, and he hadn't even started getting ready for bed yet. Dean had been gone maybe two hours, tops - but the door squeaked morosely open, and sure enough, it was his brother who came inside and staggered directly towards the far bed. Dean toppled onto the coverlet, hauling his boots off and dragging the blankets silently over his head. Even from his position across the room, Sam could see his brother shivering. A cold worry stirred in his gut.
Succubus. Werewolf. Pneumonia, and I let him go out. Shapeshifter. Lilith.
“Dean?” No answer. The lump of bedspread pulled in tighter on itself. “C'mon, man, what's wrong? Something happen out there?”
“No.”
“You're sure?”
“Yep,” the huddle of blankets insisted hoarsely.
“Cause that was an awful short night on the town, and you look like shit.”
“”M fine.”
Of course. Fine. Just like everything was fine, these days. Because nothing fazed Dean Winchester, anymore. Because the rules of flu and exhaustion didn't apply to guys who only had ten months left on their cards. Because he and Dean had less than a year to cram in all the lies they still had to tell each other.
Well, that was crap.
Dean swore as Sam flung the bedcovers back, wincing at the sudden rush of cold air against his feverish skin. Sam thought he heard a “what the hell?” in the garble of inarticulate rage his brother began to stutter out between chattering teeth, but he couldn't be sure. He plopped himself cross-legged on the foot of the bed, and folded his arms, waiting for Dean to gather his shivering limbs and curl up against the headboard, scowling across at Sam with all the wrath his deadened eyes could summon.
“What? The hell,” he repeated distinctly when he was finally finished spluttering.
“Tell me what happened. Then you're gonna get out of those clothes and take some Advil, and you're gonna go to sleep like you should've done right after supper.”
Dean imitated a furious goldfish for a few seconds, but after a couple of false starts something in his outrage seemed to crumble. Slumping back into the pillows, he dragged a shaking hand under his nose and across his bloodshot eyes, wiping his snot absent-mindedly onto the pillows. Sam resisted the urge to inform his brother of just how gross that was, and waited patiently for his explanation.
“Went over to her place - some kinda apartment off campus, over top of a fish store. Man, why do people live over fish stores?” he asked plaintively, as though Sam might often have pondered the same question, but Sam didn't have an answer to that one. Dean went on, perking up slightly: “So we got in bed, and y'know, she was great, she had - ”
“Please.” Sam held up a hand. “No details, okay? Get to the part where it stopped being great, huh?”
“Well, after it was over, I kinda…”
“Kinda what?” Sam wasn't even sure he wanted to hear.
“Well, I started to feel like about a ton and a half of crap. Like somebody swapped my insides with jelly. Or shit. Or jelly made out of shit.” Dean crumpled a little more, his eyebrows drawing together into a pained frown. “I threw up on her floor,” he confessed, his voice shrinking into an uneven rasp.
“Oh.” Sam wasn't sure what to say to that. “I'm guessing she wasn't thrilled.” Dean shrugged, the tips of his ears so red Sam was pretty sure his blush was blushing.
“Naw, she was nice about it. Just stuck me in the bathroom and went downstairs for a mop. She gave me some ginger ale before I left,” he finished bleakly.
Funny how it was always the nice people who hurt you the most.
Sam leaned forward and pushed the dejected, sweaty spikes of hair away from Dean's forehead, ignoring his brother's perfunctorily rolled eyes, the muttered “Aww, come on, man.” For a guy who'd spent the evening in some undergraduate's drafty apartment, he sure felt an awful lot like he'd just come from about a week under a sunlamp. Motionless underneath Sam's palm, Dean avoided his gaze, flicking his eyes to the side to glare ferociously at the wallpaper as though trying to burn the unsightly blooms off its surface. Looking at the fixed intensity of his exhausted, fever-lidded eyes, Sam realized with an uncomfortable shock that Dean - the man who laughed at demons and shrugged off Hell like it was a party he couldn't be bothered to get excited about - was trying not to bawl.
Sam guessed this wasn't the night his brother had had planned for his Great Crossroads Bucket List - and even though he was still determined to tear Dean three or four new ones over that particular move of genius, this was about as far from the time and place as you could get. He was suddenly overwhelmed with a sense of the wrongness of the whole thing: the demons, the tense way Dean was breathing, the deal, Lilith, the goddamn tacky wallpaper. Every single piece of their lives was cracked down the middle and shoved in the wrong place, and there wasn't a damn thing either one of them could do about it.
“You feeling any better?” he asked finally, unable to think what else to say. Hunched miserably up against the headboard, his goose-bump-sprinkled arms wrapped across his chest, Dean shot him the grandmother of all dirty looks.
“I was until some goddamn freak of a twenty-foot pervert decided to rip the covers off me. Give 'em back, huh?” he whined, clumsily kicking Sam in the knee.
“Wait a minute. Jammies first. And Advil.” To his surprise, there was no argument, and Sam couldn't help a little bit of a satisfied smile as Dean heaved a dramatic sigh and rolled off the bed, griping under his breath as he went. He put out a tentative hand to steady his brother as he staggered to his feet, but Dean smacked it away irritably. “And you might wanna brush your teeth while you're in there,” Sam called as Dean disappeared into the bathroom, his bare feet slapping sharply against the tile.
“You might wanna brush your hair, Samson,” Dean's voice came through the racket of running water.
It was a lame joke at best, and told in a voice so scratchy it made Sam's throat ache. About as much assurance against oncoming ruin, Sam thought, as a pair of safety scissors against a grizzly. But it was a joke, and when Dean came back into the room his face had calmed, the angry flare of fever softening into pink smudges underneath each sleepy eye. When Sam handed him the pair of tablets and a motel cup made of probably the flimsiest foam known to man, he swallowed them without comment and stretched out gratefully under the now-freed covers of his bed. For a moment, Sam thought he was about to say something. Then he closed his mouth, snuggled his ass around into a more comfortable position, and fell - from the looks of it - instantly, deeply asleep.
One tiny piece, snapping into place.