Sacredness in Tears - Sam/Dean R (light)
Title - Sacredness in Tears
Author - queerly_it_is
Pairing - Sam/Dean
Rating - R (light)
Word Count - 3k
Warnings - Illness (fever), crying!broken!Dean, schmoop, hurt/comfort, spoilers for seasons 4 & 5
Disclaimer - I own nothing and I make no profit. It’s a sad life, really.
Summary - Fill for an old prompt on hoodie-time, posted by maypoles:
Dean temporarily loses the ability to control his emotions, which is kind of a big deal for him!
I don’t care what the cause is - some examples could be a concussion or mild traumatic brain injury, a curse/other supernatural cause, (physical de-aging? /o\) or a fever. I just want some uncharacteristically emotional Dean, and comfort.
Authors Notes - Title from Washington Irving (quote at end).
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Sam feels like shit for not noticing it sooner.
In his defence, Dean pretty much never gets sick, ever. If one of them is gonna be laid out with the flu or any other random, disgusting, non-supernatural thing; it’s usually Sam. Which is totally unfair, but not the point right now.
Because Dean is sick. Like, really sick.
Sam probably should’ve picked up on it last night; when Dean had shoved half his burger and most of his fries across the table like they’d offended him, and didn’t even bother to flirt with the waitress when she’d asked “Can I get you anything else?” with so much hope and poorly-covered innuendo that even Sam had noticed it. He should’ve realised that Dean was feeling like crap soon as he’d tossed Sam the keys and told him to drive, while Sam just kinda stood there; eyes going from the keys in his hand to Dean and back, like the punch line was about to sneak-attack him. He definitely should’ve noticed when Dean had spent twenty minutes in the room trying to get his boots off, before he’d tugged them off with the laces still tied and thrown them halfway across the room with a grunt of childish frustration.
But they’d just spent three exhausting days interviewing totally useless people, and then a whole night digging up a grave before they’d found out the damn thing had been moved and they’d have to do it all again. The coffin was some modern biodegradable, eco-friendly thing, and when the shovel had cracked it, it hit Dean right in the face with a disgusting puff of what Sam is now realising was something pretty fucking toxic.
Now he’s awake at four in the morning - after going to bed at one - there’s a tiny amount of grey light filtering through the papery motel curtains, and the only sound he can here is Dean groaning and whimpering in his sleep in the next bed over.
Sam tries to quash the now-familiar bitter twist in his guts at that last part.
Normal protocol for a Winchester having a nightmare is a semi-gentle nudge, from a safe distance (they’re both as likely to come up swinging as to just wake up) and a cautious “You OK?” that usually goes unanswered. With the kind of shit they’ve both got in their heads, it’s a miracle they ever sleep at all.
“Dean?” Soft as he can make it when he’s barely conscious, sees the way the sheets are knotted and tangled around Dean’s legs, sweat literally soaking him; sheen of it on his face and neck, shirt dark and clinging to him, dampness around his body on the mattress.
“Dean.” A little more forceful; adrenaline-surge of worry waking him the rest of the way, tries a nudge on Dean’s nearest shoulder, and shit he’s burning up. Taking the risk of a whack to the head, he puts the back of his fingers to Dean’s forehead, and then nearly yanks his hand back at what feels like fire raging under Dean’s skin.
“Dean.” Louder again, shaking his brother a little. Gets him nothing more than a pathetic, weak noise, like a groan without any of the air included. He grabs the first-aid kit out of his duffle, presses the thermometer strip to Dean’s forehead, and watches the coloured line go higher. And higher. And higher.
It stops at 102.6 degrees.
Shit.
“Sam?” Such a weak and scraped-raw noise that it really doesn’t like Sam’s name anymore.
“Hey, you okay?” Stupid question, even when Dean isn’t sick, really.
“No. I feel like crap.” All said with a sandpaper-rough tone that ends in another whimper, and Sam fights the urge to do something stupidly girly that’ll get him mocked forever. Or maybe shot.
“You’ve got a really high fever, Dean. You think you could sit up? Take some Tylenol?” He’s trying not to coddle Dean here, but the way his brother’s eyes are glassy and he’s looking at Sam like a lost little boy really isn’t making it easy.
“I. Yeah. Yeah, okay.” He sounds awful, and everything in Sam twitches toward him; some kind of ingrained, instinctual response. He grabs the Tylenol from the kit and fills one of the plastic cups from the bathroom with water, and by the time he gets back; Dean is standing - pretty impressive, considering he’s practically melting - in the space between their beds (there’s that twist again) looking like he has no idea how he got there.
“S’only one bed.” Sam almost asks him to say it again, before the slurred, mumbled, fever-confused words sink in. The twist is really more of a lurch, this time.
“Uh. Yeah, Dean, there is.” God he cannot have this conversation, not with so little sleep and while Dean is out of his head like this. Maybe not ever. They haven’t touched each other outside of brotherly pats on the back, and standard wound-care ever since Sam popped Lucifer outta the cage. He gets why, he does, it just doesn’t help.
Dean is just staring between the beds like they’ve somehow divided in two while he was sleeping, before he suddenly seems to notice Sam standing there.
“S’cos you went’n fuck’d a demon Sam.” Oh fuck no. No way is this happening right now, he’s having his own nightmare, that’s what this is, has to be.
Except he isn’t. He knows the difference between nightmare and nightmarish reality; he’d had it hammered into him through his whole damn childhood; then watching Jess burn on the ceiling, then that endless fucking Tuesday, then watching invisible claws rip Dean apart. So many other moments that he remembers and wishes to God that he didn’t.
Reality, Sam knows, is always so much worse.
He can’t let Dean do this, it’ll break whatever already-fragile thing they’ve got going here.
“Dean. C’mon man, just. Just take these, and we’ll get you back into bed, alright?” Taking a hesitant step forward, pleading tone, eyes as full of begging as he can make them. Dean just gives up this half-hysterical snort that chokes and hitches in his chest, and as he looks away his eyes are so bright it looks like he’s. Shit, is he. Is he crying?
“That what you said to her Sam? Bitch you were fuckin’ round with while I was. While they were.” Choked noise again, and Sam’s honestly too frozen with shock and downright fear to move. “How long’d you last, anyway? ‘Fore you just had to stick your dick in somethin’?” Eyes locked back to Sam now, and Christ this is insane, Dean doesn’t get what this’ll do to them.
“Dean, it wasn’t. I was. I’m sorry.” Not a good road to start them down, but fuck it’s just spilling out. “I was messed up, and I couldn‘t-I couldn’t get you back.” Stinging in his own eyes now, high-pitched crack in the words, and he can see the line of wetness running from Dean’s eye, down his face; shining like a neon sign pointing to just how bad Sam’s fucked them up.
“You were the one fucking thing I. And you just. You couldn’t eve-.” Cracked, splintered words that he can’t even finish, and he’s teetering as he paces and Sam can’t watch this. He steps forward again, nearly to the spot that Dean’s wearing into the carpet, still holding the stupid pills and water.
“Dean, c’mon, you’re sick, okay? You need t-”
Far as he gets before he’s punched - hard - in the mouth.
He’s stumbling back, water spilling out and spreading across the ratty, non-absorbent carpet, pills scattering and rolling under his bed. Dean’s still moving toward him, unfocused, almost-absent expression so full of anger and misdirected disgust.
“Fuck you, Sam!” Most coherent he’s sounded since he woke up. “Think I don’t know that, think I don’t get it.” Right in front of Sam now, eyes bright and scared and angry. “Fuckin’ torn apart for thirty years and I just packed it in. Miserable fuckin’ excuse for a holdout that was.” Shoving words through the break in his voice and the hitch in his breath, tears on both cheeks, face burning, eyes so fucking haunted Sam can hardly look at him.
His brain is so glued up with surprise that he doesn’t get what Dean’s talking about at first, ‘till suddenly he does.
“No. No, Dean, it wasn’t. There was nothing you could’ve done, s’not your fault.” Taste of copper in his mouth, feel of blood running from one corner of his lower lip, numb-sensitive feeling of it swelling up.
“Whole fuckin’ life tryin’a be li-. Christ he’d be so fuckin’ ashamed. Bastard angel should’a just left m-” And that is. Just. Enough.
“Dean!” Moving forward to grab Dean‘s arms; can’t let him hurt himself, rather he just beat the shit out of Sam instead. But even feverish; Dean’s reflexes are still fast, body still pure muscle and instinctive training. He gets a hard shove to his chest and another punch that skims his jaw, nearly spinning him in place.
“The fuck away from me Sam! S’nothing wrong that wasn’t fucked up to start with!” Sam’s not backing off though, walks right up to Dean again, hands reaching for his forearms. Another swing, weaker, and Sam traps the arm down with one of his own, longer reach and bigger bulk coming in useful.
“There is nothing wrong with you!” Instinct taking over, cold panic in his gut seeing Dean like this; more broken and out of control than Sam’s ever known him. Dean fights him, but Sam holds on, doesn’t know where Dean’s getting the strength for this much from anyway, like all the bottled-up trauma and hurt and loss is powering him like a battery.
“Right.” Scoff that sounds like it’s ripped out of him, turns into a ragged sob that sticks in Sam worse than a knife to the spine ever could’ve. “Touched you. Dragged you into my twisted fucking mess. Should’a left you alone, let you be happy.” Sam doesn’t know if the next sob comes from him or Dean, maybe both.
“Dean, don’t. Please, just stop, okay?” His grip on Dean’s arms has turned to a weak pull, like his body’s trying to draw Dean in but can’t make itself.
“S’the fuckin’ point Sam?! Tell me! Dad’s dead, world’s ending, you won’t even tou-” Another harsh sob that racks through him and into Sam where he’s pressed to Dean’s side and half of his chest.
He’s finally winding down a little, Sam thinks; deflating slowly like each harsh, painful sob is letting the air out of him. He takes a risk and moves a little closer, Dean too busy scrubbing at his eyes and nose with the back of a hand to notice.
“I won’t what? Dean, I’d do anything for you, c’mon you know that.” Doing his best to provide comfort for a hurt Dean hasn’t named. From the ragged, helpless noise that comes out of Dean’s mouth, it was the wrong thing to say.
“Yeah. All ‘cos of me, I know. Whatever I needed right?” More self-hatred than Sam has ever heard from anyone, more even than the time he’d been fourteen and dad had actually gotten drunk enough to talk about mom.
He puts a hand on Dean’s shoulder, and it stays for a second before Dean suddenly jerks and tries to pull away again.
“No, Sam! Don’t you fuckin’ dare. Don’t want your goddamn pity, alright?!” Uncoordinated swing at Sam’s arm now that it’s dropped away from Dean, making him step back a little.
He doesn’t know what the fuck to say. How to fix this - doesn’t even know if he can fix it. Dean has always, always kept stuff in, same as their dad, same as Sam to a certain extent. He tends to let it out in moments of total grief and overwhelming pain that last all of two minutes, before it shuts off again, like a pressure valve closing.
Sam knows there’s nothing he can say that’s gonna get through; Dean is too damn pig-headed when he doesn’t have a dangerously high fever and chronic sleep loss. So he does the only - desperate - thing he can think of; he moves into Dean’s space and wraps around him, breaking the Winchester rule of ‘one-hug-per-resurrection’ and just pulling Dean to him hard enough to knock some air out of both of them.
Dean struggles, ‘course he does, but he’s sick and even more exhausted than Sam, and Sam is still four inches taller and a good few pounds of muscle heavier, so he grips Dean tighter, until his brother’s head is pressed into his neck above the collar of the sleep-shirt he’s wearing.
“Lemme go, Sam.” Weak and tired and just so, so sad, words muffled against his skin, hot breath juddering onto his adam's apple.
“No.” As much vehemence as he can put into one tiny syllable without letting go of Dean in the least. “Never. Fuck everything else, you’re all I got left, okay? I need you. I. I love you, Dean.” Voice breaking and weakening as he forces the words out, and he doesn’t miss the way Dean stiffens-up in his arms, but fuck it, he’s so goddamned sick of this; two separate beds, no touching, barely making eye contact, no admitting they ever used to be more than this.
He can feel the cold wet of the tears Dean’s leaking onto his skin, the damp from his nose as he struggles almost imperceptibly in Sam’s grip.
“It’s okay, Dean. I promise. It’s okay.” Same random, soothing nonsense Dean’d breathed into his hair whenever Sam got sick as a kid; whole night spent curved around Sam like a shield as he heaved his guts out, no breath in him but crying all the same. It’s such an unfamiliar role-reversal, and Sam feels so out of his depth here; trying to keep this damaged, hurting, stubborn, amazing mess of a man - his brother, such a stupidly tiny word for all the meaning it has to convey - together. For all that’s he’s willing, he’s never actually had to do this before.
“M’not fuckin’ cryin’.” Petulant words, and yeah he fucking is, but no way will Sam mock him for it now, when he can barely form coherent words as it is. Shuddering sobs still going through Dean’s entire body as Sam just clings to him through all of it.
He has no idea how long they stand there; the light coming from outside is brighter, and there’s more noise of cars going past, but it could be hours or just minutes when Dean eventually pulls back - gentle and slow this time - and Sam’s heart damn-near breaks again looking at him; trails of tears and drool and snot on his face, eyes damp and red and the most insanely bright green Sam’s ever seen them, lashes matted down with moisture, blood on his lower lip where he‘d bitten almost clean through it. He looks like he’s in about a thousand tiny little pieces with no instructions on how to put them all together again.
Fuck it. That’s what Sam’s for.
He guides them down onto his bed - Dean’s looks pretty ripe right now - and gets Dean laying on his side, still pressed all along him like Sam’s body is a wall, the one thing holding him up, and why shouldn’t it run both ways? Dean is breathing a little more steadily now, still shuddery and wet and tired, but at least Sam doesn’t think he’s crying anymore.
Sam can count on one hand the number of times he’s seen Dean outright cry, and it’s never been this all-consuming, this devastating.
He lifts his head enough to look Dean in the face, and gives a sad little smile when he sees the dazed expression there, like he has no idea how he got here. He gives in a little to the impulse running through him; plants a kiss on Dean’s forehead, still burning hot; and he really needs to get water and pills into Dean, but he’s afraid that if he moves whatever calm lull they’ve fallen into here will break apart.
Another small tear runs from the corner of Dean’s left eye, and Sam catches it with his thumb as it trails down his cheek toward his neck.
“Not leavin’ Dean. Can’t give you up. Don’t know how.” Soft enough he can just tell himself Dean can’t hear him, or that he isn’t on the verge of crying himself, even with the way his brother’s eyes fall shut and a huge wracking breath goes right through him.
He wraps around Dean as much as he can with how small this bed is for two guys over six-foot, and Dean’s too tired to keep his head up as it presses face-first into Sam’s chest just below the collar of his shirt.
“No more separate beds, okay?” Tentatively asked, since this system clearly isn’t working for either of them anymore, probably never was; they’re both just too damn good at hiding it. “I need this. We both do.” He runs a hand down the length of Dean’s back for emphasis, shirt sticking and sliding through sweat and over curves of muscle.
“Y-Yeah, okay. If. If you’re sure.” Words so quiet and meekly spoken that they don’t sound like Dean in the least.
“I’m sure. Totally sure. Never been more sure. Couldn’t be more sure if I tried.” He overplays it just for the fractured, tiny huff of a laugh he feels in Dean’s chest as it knocks against his.
“Go to sleep, okay Dean? I’ll keep watch for a change.” Shifting a little onto his back, so Dean isn’t stuck under him and is now more leaning on his chest, green green eyes wearily falling closed already.
They’ll be fine.
They always are.
Sam’ll make sure of it.
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“There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are messengers of overwhelming grief...and unspeakable love.” - Washington Irving