FICLET COLLECTION - "A Tree and Some Boston Market" - All of the Lights (Ch. 12)
Title: "A Tree and Some Boston Market" - A Supernatural Holiday Advent Calendar
Author: earzwideopen
Rating: PG-13 (unless otherwise noted before a specific chapter)
Pairing: Gen, possible hints of Destiel pre-slash (This chapter is totally gen)
Warnings: None, except for a little "hunter language"
Genres: Mostly fluff or humor, occasional h/c [THIS CHAPTER'S A HURT!DEAN FIC]
Summary: Yuletide can be an interesting time, especially if you're a Winchester. A daily-updated collection of holiday ficlets and fics, one for every day of December up to and including the 25th. Because I couldn't think of a better way to count down to Christmas!
Chapter Summary: Concussed!Dean tries to push through a Christmastime case. Sam is there to catch him when he falls - quite literally.
Note: This chapter is a fill for the lovely and inspiring spitsparks, who prompted this truly quality plotbunny over at the hoodie_time Dean-centric h/c wish list party. I hope it's everything you wanted! :)
Archived: at AO3
LiveJournal: Read it after the cut!
Additional Parts on LJ: Part 1/25 | Part 2/25 | Part 3/25 | Part 4/25 | Part 5/25 | Part 6/25 | Part 7/25 | Part 8/25 | Part 9/25 | Parts 10 & 11/25
December 12th - All of the Lights
Somebody was shouting his name over and over like a freaking personalized alarm clock, so Dean Winchester decided to crack his eyes open. Just a little, though, only a speck. A speckle. Hurt to be awake, damn flashy lights messing with his head. And that little pissy voice over and over again, Dean hey Dean hey hey Dean. Had to get back to sleep. Sleep was important... and good, yeah. He couldn't stay awake, nope, not now, that would just... be ridiculous...
Shut-eye. Z's. Mm. Yes. His face felt a little off but he just breathed through everything like, what were those, yoga breaths? Like a damn chick in yoga class... He liked chicks. He liked sleep. Where was Sammy though. Also there were blankets around him but it wasn't really nighttime, couldn't be with the damn flashy lights everywhere...
Dean, man, you gotta wake up for me, said the God Damn Voice. Jesus Christ, he thought, what could be so freaking important. He'd just had one too many brewskies, whiskey shooters, whatever it was he was drinking nowadays. Sleepin' it off, man, I'm sleeping it off, can't you see that.
His face didn't feel off, he realized, it felt cold. It was the middle of the bright yellow summer though, and he was coming in from playing in the sandbox and trying to get all the stupid leaves out of it with his dump truck, so how could his face be cold? And he was coming in from the sandbox, sand stuck in his hair and all down his shirt, and Mom was standing at the back door with a... well, he couldn't really tell but it kinda looked like a pie... and her yellow hair and her yellow dress and she was saying Dean Dean Dean, hey Dean, hey, Dean, Dean you gotta wake up okay, Dean come on, if you don't wake up I'm hauling your ass to the hospital I swear to god-
The word "hospital" shot Dean back into the land of the living like a rubber band snapping in his brain.
And oh holy fuck, his head...
"No h'spitals..." he grunted like a stroke victim. The way his head felt, though, he honestly started to think about taking that back. This was pushing the bounds of previous experience with painful returns to consciousness. He was one giant slow swollen pulsating achy skull. He tried to lift himself in the direction he thought might be 'up' and groaned, "P'rk th'damn car, S'mmy..."
"Heyheyhey, woah," cautioned Sam, and there was the typical restraining moose hand (but moose didn't have hands... or was it meese...) on his shoulder. Who in the hell was driving the car, then...
"You're in bed at the motel, okay?" Sam said, his voice all garbled. Well that answered that. Son of a bitch, these spins were somethin' else. Coulda sworn he was in the Impala.
"What's your name?" Sam asked.
"Aw c'mon, you s'rious...?"
"As the grave - which is where you might end up if you can't answer me, so please just tell me what your name is."
"Dean Winch'ster." Sam had only yelled it in his face like fifty times trying to wake him up. Jesus.
"Good, Dean, good," said Sam. Sam's hand was on his forehead now. It was cool. Kinda felt nice. "When's your birthday?"
"January twen'y-f'rth, sev'nty nine..." He swore his goddamn hair was throbbing. The bed underneath him felt like a tilt-a-whirl cart. "God, please jus' l'mme sleep now..."
"I'm sorry, man, it's either stay awake for a little bit or hospital," said Sam. Dean felt a low moan ooze out of his throat. "I know," said Sam, keeping the one hand steady on his shoulder, "I know it sucks, but you were out cold for a good ten minutes back at that Christmas festival - and I mean cold, I tried slapping, pinching, everything. I was pretty close to bringing you in then and there."
"Well, 'm awake now," Dean slurred, "y'happy?"
"Not really," said Sam. "Your pupils are the size of Jupiter." Dean could see through the sore slits of his eyes that all three of Sam's faces looked pretty damn worried.
Dean ground his teeth against a sudden electrical surge of agony. Oh Jesus fuck ow. "So concussion, then," he panted, like it wasn't completely obvious. The beginnings of sweat beaded on his upper lip. He felt hot and cold and dizzy and strung out and wrong.
"Yeah," Sam confirmed, "one of the worst I've ever seen on you if I'm being completely honest." Sam was medically multitasking, one hand adjusting the ice pack on Dean's head (the cold made sense now), the other probing the jittery pulse in his wrist.
"Occupational haz'rd..." murmured Dean, feeling pretty miffed that he'd been reduced to "murmuring" things. Felt a little melancholy, too, which was weird for him. Then again, he was also seeing triple; the amount he'd banged himself up, it made sense for his brain to think it belonged to a chocolate-deprived PMS victim.
"I guess you're right," Sam replied. "You should probably stop letting ghosts throw you into stables at live nativity scenes, though."
So that really was how it happened. Jeez. Dean thought he might've dreamt it during the bizarro peyote trip of unconsciousness: getting thrown into a scale replica of baby Jesus's Christmas Eve dojo at one of those damn German outdoor Christmas markets. What a screwy way to get your ass beat by a ghost. The last thing he'd remembered was his head smacking hard against the wooden planks of the stable, his limp body landing on what he thought might've been a sheep, and the woman who was playing reenactment-Virgin-Mary screaming bloody murder.
"Well," Dean said, "now at least we know for sure we have a case... th'market's pretty haunted, huh."
"You could say that again," said Sam. "But - don't actually say it again, you gotta rest." He gently put Dean's arm back under the blankets. Dean knew the drill - everything got covered up to keep body heat in. If his head weren't a messy lump of aches right now he'd be able to follow along with Sam's first aid thought process no problem. He'd meant what he'd said about concussions being an occupational hazard; any hunter who went more than four cases without a head injury was either indestructible or effing up the job. He and Sammy were head wound aficionados. Even with his skull screaming at him Dean could visualize the Winchester checklist: consciousness, airway, pulse, pupils, ice... Ah, screw it, he thought as another pitchfork drove itself into his brainpan. Visualizing hurt too much.
"Think you could drink some water for me?" asked Sam.
"Hell no."
"Dean," said Sam, eyebrows creased in concern, "I don't want to take you to the hospital. I really don't. I know how much you hate it. But I'm not gonna get on the merry-go-round of trying to get you to take care of yourself. You know you need fluids, even if you're tired or whatever."
"If you try t'put anything in my stomach you'll have t'clean up the result," groaned Dean. Not an ounce of fiction in that statement, either: his eyes were mixing up Sam's three heads like the numbers in a bingo cage.
"Okay," Sam replied, "but if you're not ready to drink anything in an hour I'm gonna have to take my chances."
"Tough love, Sammy."
Sam gave his brother a tight smile. "Comes with the job description," he said.
"Which job?" said Dean weakly, dragging a corner of his mouth up. "Hunter or nurse?"
"Brother," Sam replied. He scrunched the covers up around Dean's chin. "Hang in there," he said.
Eventually, when Sam was sure he wasn't gonna tap out again, he helped Dean sit up, got some water and meds in him, and let him go to sleep.
The sleep was better than the best double bacon cheeseburger on Earth.
Much to Sam's disapproval, Dean put himself back on the case in a day and a half.
The first twenty-four hours after the injury Dean had done nothing but sleep, the tips of his twiggy hair poking out of the top of the motel comforter. Sam would wake him up from time to time to get him to drink water or Gatorade or a protein shake - all of them room temperature to prevent brain freeze on top of the concussion, a tip they'd both learned the hard way. Dean was spacey and oddly crestfallen every time he opened his eyes, like someone who'd just died and was waking up to find out the afterlife wasn't all that great. Sam knew it was just the concussion, and the weird emotions would wear off in a few days - still, he hated seeing Dean being so thoroughly un-Dean. Part of Sam wished (probably selfishly) that his brother would whip the covers off, start in on a hammy rendition of "Heat of the Moment," and stride out to the Impala, guns blazing.
The next morning, Sam really wished he hadn't wished what he'd wished - all redundancies aside.
He came out of the bathroom from his shower and shave and there was Dean, perched on the edge of the bed, lacing up his boots and humming feebly to himself. It didn't take a genius to see that Dean still wasn't all there; his face was a weird color, hair wild, eyes red-rimmed and heavy-lidded, voice crackling, overcompensating cheerful demeanor, shirt buttons done up the wrong way, slight tremor in his fingers as they clung to the bootlaces.
"Phew!" Dean puffed, putting his newly-laced boot on the floor and slapping his palms to his knees. "Man, that was rough. It was like 'Brain Stew' by Green Day. Good thing it's over..."
Sam watched Dean's grip on his own knees get tighter and tighter, his smile getting thinner, the gears turning in Dean's eyes like he was trying to get up but didn't know whether he'd be able to yet. Sam sighed inwardly. Whenever Dean was sick or injured in the middle of a case, there was always a point past which his stir-craziness outweighed how crappy he felt - and even if he wasn't ready, he'd just throw himself back into the job and wind up couch-ridden at Bobby's for a few weeks afterwards. Sam knew it was happening now; and for all he'd done in the past to try and stop it, it was better to just let things run their course so they could finish the case and get Dean some real rest as soon as possible.
"What's on the menu for today, Sammy?" said Dean. Sam watched the back of his brother's jaw twitch. If this was how Dean wanted it to be, this was how it was gonna be.
Sam made himself shrug through the heartache. "I'm thinking we go back to that Christmas market. More weird stuff's been happening since the day before yesterday; high time we figured out what's up, I guess."
"Couldn't agree more," chirped Dean, forcing alertness into his voice like jamming a square peg into a round hole.
"Fine," said Sam, tensing his jaw. He shoved his hands in his pockets and threw Dean what he hoped was an "I-can-see-right-through-you-but-I'm-also-concerned-and-you're-scaring-me-a-little-like-you-always-do-and-why-are-you-so-damn-stubborn" look.
Either Dean didn't get the gist of Sam's stare or he chose to ignore it, because he stood straight up, listed to the side for a fraction of a second, rubbed his hands together, grabbed his duffle, and marched a little unsteadily out the door.
Dean drove to the Christmas market. Sam couldn't believe they'd made it there in one piece.
"Uh, Dean," he'd said on the way, "kinda drifting a little there... Like, into the wrong lane, maybe... completely..."
"Hey, no distracting the driver," Dean had said absentmindedly. Sam had gnashed his teeth and tried to keep from grabbing the wheel.
At the pace Dean had driven ("What? Sam, I'm goin' at least sixty."), it was a marvel they'd gotten there with any daylight left at all. The market was abuzz with the strange energy of the dusk, a fine layer of snow powdering the ground, little kids sipping hot chocolate and adults sipping hot spiced rum. Strings of bright white lights formed a canopy stretching overhead from aisle to aisle, booth to booth. The little booths were all neatly assembled, each with its old-world charm, selling different Christmas crafts and little weird kitschy odds and ends. Sam wondered which of them might be haunted.
He didn't have much time to wonder, though, because a few seconds later Dean got out of the car, stood up straight, and subsequently toppled sideways. Dean's face turned white faster than a chameleon in a snowdrift; he fell completely unchecked, but managed at the last second to make it look like he'd been intending to lean "casually" against the Impala like the Fonz leaning against a jukebox - one elbow resting on the car, the other hand on his hip, one foot stuck jauntily behind the other. Sam didn't have the heart to tell his brother that the pose looked forced and his eyes were watering to boot.
The second time Dean started falling was in front of the hot pretzel booth.
"Hot damn," he'd said, his enthusiasm half-feigned, his breath frosting the air in front of him. "One a' those with some cheese dipping sauce would be heaven right about now..."
And then his eyes glazed over and his knees folded like someone had pulled his plug.
Sam's arms were under his brother's shoulders in a heartbeat.
"Woahwoahwoah," Sam said, "you're okay, you're okay..." He waited, heart thudding like a jackhammer, to see if Dean would be able to support himself at all. After a few hour-long seconds, Sam felt Dean shift his weight up, forward, and back onto his own feet. Sam took Dean's shoulders and turned him around to get a better look at him. The older hunter was ashen and sweaty, dragging the heel of a trembling hand across his wince-wrinkled brow.
"S'okay..." Dean hissed through clenched teeth. "Just all the damn freakin' Christmas lights... Y'know how it gets with lights 'n' headaches..."
"Yeah," said Sam with a rueful smile, pretty sure his hands on Dean's shoulders were about the only thing keeping his brother from collapsing. "Yeah, I know how it is with Christmas lights and unhealed concussions."
Dean started to nod, but then seemed to realize that Sam was wise to the macho shrugging-off of his serious head injury. And with that realization, Dean shook his head, grimaced because shaking his head was incredibly painful, let his spine slacken... and fell forward onto Sam's shoulders.
Sam drove the Impala back to motel. Dean got the whole back seat to himself.
Later that evening, Sam went back out to the Christmas market and bought Dean a styrofoam cup of hot cocoa. At first, Dean tried to shrug it away, ashamed to be sweaty and sickly and bedridden again, embarrassed that his younger brother had seen straight through his bravado. But when Sam produced the hot pretzel with cheese dip he'd bought as well, Dean let go of his grudge.
"Let me know if you're gonna fall down on your way to the can at any point in time," Sam quipped, unable to resist.
Because Dean couldn't talk around his massive mouthful of cheesy pretzel, he settled for the finger.
"Tough love, Dean," said Sam.
Dean shrugged, smiled, and replied: "Comes with the job description."
Author: earzwideopen
Rating: PG-13 (unless otherwise noted before a specific chapter)
Pairing: Gen, possible hints of Destiel pre-slash (This chapter is totally gen)
Warnings: None, except for a little "hunter language"
Genres: Mostly fluff or humor, occasional h/c [THIS CHAPTER'S A HURT!DEAN FIC]
Summary: Yuletide can be an interesting time, especially if you're a Winchester. A daily-updated collection of holiday ficlets and fics, one for every day of December up to and including the 25th. Because I couldn't think of a better way to count down to Christmas!
Chapter Summary: Concussed!Dean tries to push through a Christmastime case. Sam is there to catch him when he falls - quite literally.
Note: This chapter is a fill for the lovely and inspiring spitsparks, who prompted this truly quality plotbunny over at the hoodie_time Dean-centric h/c wish list party. I hope it's everything you wanted! :)
Archived: at AO3
LiveJournal: Read it after the cut!
Additional Parts on LJ: Part 1/25 | Part 2/25 | Part 3/25 | Part 4/25 | Part 5/25 | Part 6/25 | Part 7/25 | Part 8/25 | Part 9/25 | Parts 10 & 11/25
December 12th - All of the Lights
Somebody was shouting his name over and over like a freaking personalized alarm clock, so Dean Winchester decided to crack his eyes open. Just a little, though, only a speck. A speckle. Hurt to be awake, damn flashy lights messing with his head. And that little pissy voice over and over again, Dean hey Dean hey hey Dean. Had to get back to sleep. Sleep was important... and good, yeah. He couldn't stay awake, nope, not now, that would just... be ridiculous...
Shut-eye. Z's. Mm. Yes. His face felt a little off but he just breathed through everything like, what were those, yoga breaths? Like a damn chick in yoga class... He liked chicks. He liked sleep. Where was Sammy though. Also there were blankets around him but it wasn't really nighttime, couldn't be with the damn flashy lights everywhere...
Dean, man, you gotta wake up for me, said the God Damn Voice. Jesus Christ, he thought, what could be so freaking important. He'd just had one too many brewskies, whiskey shooters, whatever it was he was drinking nowadays. Sleepin' it off, man, I'm sleeping it off, can't you see that.
His face didn't feel off, he realized, it felt cold. It was the middle of the bright yellow summer though, and he was coming in from playing in the sandbox and trying to get all the stupid leaves out of it with his dump truck, so how could his face be cold? And he was coming in from the sandbox, sand stuck in his hair and all down his shirt, and Mom was standing at the back door with a... well, he couldn't really tell but it kinda looked like a pie... and her yellow hair and her yellow dress and she was saying Dean Dean Dean, hey Dean, hey, Dean, Dean you gotta wake up okay, Dean come on, if you don't wake up I'm hauling your ass to the hospital I swear to god-
The word "hospital" shot Dean back into the land of the living like a rubber band snapping in his brain.
And oh holy fuck, his head...
"No h'spitals..." he grunted like a stroke victim. The way his head felt, though, he honestly started to think about taking that back. This was pushing the bounds of previous experience with painful returns to consciousness. He was one giant slow swollen pulsating achy skull. He tried to lift himself in the direction he thought might be 'up' and groaned, "P'rk th'damn car, S'mmy..."
"Heyheyhey, woah," cautioned Sam, and there was the typical restraining moose hand (but moose didn't have hands... or was it meese...) on his shoulder. Who in the hell was driving the car, then...
"You're in bed at the motel, okay?" Sam said, his voice all garbled. Well that answered that. Son of a bitch, these spins were somethin' else. Coulda sworn he was in the Impala.
"What's your name?" Sam asked.
"Aw c'mon, you s'rious...?"
"As the grave - which is where you might end up if you can't answer me, so please just tell me what your name is."
"Dean Winch'ster." Sam had only yelled it in his face like fifty times trying to wake him up. Jesus.
"Good, Dean, good," said Sam. Sam's hand was on his forehead now. It was cool. Kinda felt nice. "When's your birthday?"
"January twen'y-f'rth, sev'nty nine..." He swore his goddamn hair was throbbing. The bed underneath him felt like a tilt-a-whirl cart. "God, please jus' l'mme sleep now..."
"I'm sorry, man, it's either stay awake for a little bit or hospital," said Sam. Dean felt a low moan ooze out of his throat. "I know," said Sam, keeping the one hand steady on his shoulder, "I know it sucks, but you were out cold for a good ten minutes back at that Christmas festival - and I mean cold, I tried slapping, pinching, everything. I was pretty close to bringing you in then and there."
"Well, 'm awake now," Dean slurred, "y'happy?"
"Not really," said Sam. "Your pupils are the size of Jupiter." Dean could see through the sore slits of his eyes that all three of Sam's faces looked pretty damn worried.
Dean ground his teeth against a sudden electrical surge of agony. Oh Jesus fuck ow. "So concussion, then," he panted, like it wasn't completely obvious. The beginnings of sweat beaded on his upper lip. He felt hot and cold and dizzy and strung out and wrong.
"Yeah," Sam confirmed, "one of the worst I've ever seen on you if I'm being completely honest." Sam was medically multitasking, one hand adjusting the ice pack on Dean's head (the cold made sense now), the other probing the jittery pulse in his wrist.
"Occupational haz'rd..." murmured Dean, feeling pretty miffed that he'd been reduced to "murmuring" things. Felt a little melancholy, too, which was weird for him. Then again, he was also seeing triple; the amount he'd banged himself up, it made sense for his brain to think it belonged to a chocolate-deprived PMS victim.
"I guess you're right," Sam replied. "You should probably stop letting ghosts throw you into stables at live nativity scenes, though."
So that really was how it happened. Jeez. Dean thought he might've dreamt it during the bizarro peyote trip of unconsciousness: getting thrown into a scale replica of baby Jesus's Christmas Eve dojo at one of those damn German outdoor Christmas markets. What a screwy way to get your ass beat by a ghost. The last thing he'd remembered was his head smacking hard against the wooden planks of the stable, his limp body landing on what he thought might've been a sheep, and the woman who was playing reenactment-Virgin-Mary screaming bloody murder.
"Well," Dean said, "now at least we know for sure we have a case... th'market's pretty haunted, huh."
"You could say that again," said Sam. "But - don't actually say it again, you gotta rest." He gently put Dean's arm back under the blankets. Dean knew the drill - everything got covered up to keep body heat in. If his head weren't a messy lump of aches right now he'd be able to follow along with Sam's first aid thought process no problem. He'd meant what he'd said about concussions being an occupational hazard; any hunter who went more than four cases without a head injury was either indestructible or effing up the job. He and Sammy were head wound aficionados. Even with his skull screaming at him Dean could visualize the Winchester checklist: consciousness, airway, pulse, pupils, ice... Ah, screw it, he thought as another pitchfork drove itself into his brainpan. Visualizing hurt too much.
"Think you could drink some water for me?" asked Sam.
"Hell no."
"Dean," said Sam, eyebrows creased in concern, "I don't want to take you to the hospital. I really don't. I know how much you hate it. But I'm not gonna get on the merry-go-round of trying to get you to take care of yourself. You know you need fluids, even if you're tired or whatever."
"If you try t'put anything in my stomach you'll have t'clean up the result," groaned Dean. Not an ounce of fiction in that statement, either: his eyes were mixing up Sam's three heads like the numbers in a bingo cage.
"Okay," Sam replied, "but if you're not ready to drink anything in an hour I'm gonna have to take my chances."
"Tough love, Sammy."
Sam gave his brother a tight smile. "Comes with the job description," he said.
"Which job?" said Dean weakly, dragging a corner of his mouth up. "Hunter or nurse?"
"Brother," Sam replied. He scrunched the covers up around Dean's chin. "Hang in there," he said.
Eventually, when Sam was sure he wasn't gonna tap out again, he helped Dean sit up, got some water and meds in him, and let him go to sleep.
The sleep was better than the best double bacon cheeseburger on Earth.
Much to Sam's disapproval, Dean put himself back on the case in a day and a half.
The first twenty-four hours after the injury Dean had done nothing but sleep, the tips of his twiggy hair poking out of the top of the motel comforter. Sam would wake him up from time to time to get him to drink water or Gatorade or a protein shake - all of them room temperature to prevent brain freeze on top of the concussion, a tip they'd both learned the hard way. Dean was spacey and oddly crestfallen every time he opened his eyes, like someone who'd just died and was waking up to find out the afterlife wasn't all that great. Sam knew it was just the concussion, and the weird emotions would wear off in a few days - still, he hated seeing Dean being so thoroughly un-Dean. Part of Sam wished (probably selfishly) that his brother would whip the covers off, start in on a hammy rendition of "Heat of the Moment," and stride out to the Impala, guns blazing.
The next morning, Sam really wished he hadn't wished what he'd wished - all redundancies aside.
He came out of the bathroom from his shower and shave and there was Dean, perched on the edge of the bed, lacing up his boots and humming feebly to himself. It didn't take a genius to see that Dean still wasn't all there; his face was a weird color, hair wild, eyes red-rimmed and heavy-lidded, voice crackling, overcompensating cheerful demeanor, shirt buttons done up the wrong way, slight tremor in his fingers as they clung to the bootlaces.
"Phew!" Dean puffed, putting his newly-laced boot on the floor and slapping his palms to his knees. "Man, that was rough. It was like 'Brain Stew' by Green Day. Good thing it's over..."
Sam watched Dean's grip on his own knees get tighter and tighter, his smile getting thinner, the gears turning in Dean's eyes like he was trying to get up but didn't know whether he'd be able to yet. Sam sighed inwardly. Whenever Dean was sick or injured in the middle of a case, there was always a point past which his stir-craziness outweighed how crappy he felt - and even if he wasn't ready, he'd just throw himself back into the job and wind up couch-ridden at Bobby's for a few weeks afterwards. Sam knew it was happening now; and for all he'd done in the past to try and stop it, it was better to just let things run their course so they could finish the case and get Dean some real rest as soon as possible.
"What's on the menu for today, Sammy?" said Dean. Sam watched the back of his brother's jaw twitch. If this was how Dean wanted it to be, this was how it was gonna be.
Sam made himself shrug through the heartache. "I'm thinking we go back to that Christmas market. More weird stuff's been happening since the day before yesterday; high time we figured out what's up, I guess."
"Couldn't agree more," chirped Dean, forcing alertness into his voice like jamming a square peg into a round hole.
"Fine," said Sam, tensing his jaw. He shoved his hands in his pockets and threw Dean what he hoped was an "I-can-see-right-through-you-but-I'm-also-concerned-and-you're-scaring-me-a-little-like-you-always-do-and-why-are-you-so-damn-stubborn" look.
Either Dean didn't get the gist of Sam's stare or he chose to ignore it, because he stood straight up, listed to the side for a fraction of a second, rubbed his hands together, grabbed his duffle, and marched a little unsteadily out the door.
Dean drove to the Christmas market. Sam couldn't believe they'd made it there in one piece.
"Uh, Dean," he'd said on the way, "kinda drifting a little there... Like, into the wrong lane, maybe... completely..."
"Hey, no distracting the driver," Dean had said absentmindedly. Sam had gnashed his teeth and tried to keep from grabbing the wheel.
At the pace Dean had driven ("What? Sam, I'm goin' at least sixty."), it was a marvel they'd gotten there with any daylight left at all. The market was abuzz with the strange energy of the dusk, a fine layer of snow powdering the ground, little kids sipping hot chocolate and adults sipping hot spiced rum. Strings of bright white lights formed a canopy stretching overhead from aisle to aisle, booth to booth. The little booths were all neatly assembled, each with its old-world charm, selling different Christmas crafts and little weird kitschy odds and ends. Sam wondered which of them might be haunted.
He didn't have much time to wonder, though, because a few seconds later Dean got out of the car, stood up straight, and subsequently toppled sideways. Dean's face turned white faster than a chameleon in a snowdrift; he fell completely unchecked, but managed at the last second to make it look like he'd been intending to lean "casually" against the Impala like the Fonz leaning against a jukebox - one elbow resting on the car, the other hand on his hip, one foot stuck jauntily behind the other. Sam didn't have the heart to tell his brother that the pose looked forced and his eyes were watering to boot.
The second time Dean started falling was in front of the hot pretzel booth.
"Hot damn," he'd said, his enthusiasm half-feigned, his breath frosting the air in front of him. "One a' those with some cheese dipping sauce would be heaven right about now..."
And then his eyes glazed over and his knees folded like someone had pulled his plug.
Sam's arms were under his brother's shoulders in a heartbeat.
"Woahwoahwoah," Sam said, "you're okay, you're okay..." He waited, heart thudding like a jackhammer, to see if Dean would be able to support himself at all. After a few hour-long seconds, Sam felt Dean shift his weight up, forward, and back onto his own feet. Sam took Dean's shoulders and turned him around to get a better look at him. The older hunter was ashen and sweaty, dragging the heel of a trembling hand across his wince-wrinkled brow.
"S'okay..." Dean hissed through clenched teeth. "Just all the damn freakin' Christmas lights... Y'know how it gets with lights 'n' headaches..."
"Yeah," said Sam with a rueful smile, pretty sure his hands on Dean's shoulders were about the only thing keeping his brother from collapsing. "Yeah, I know how it is with Christmas lights and unhealed concussions."
Dean started to nod, but then seemed to realize that Sam was wise to the macho shrugging-off of his serious head injury. And with that realization, Dean shook his head, grimaced because shaking his head was incredibly painful, let his spine slacken... and fell forward onto Sam's shoulders.
Sam drove the Impala back to motel. Dean got the whole back seat to himself.
Later that evening, Sam went back out to the Christmas market and bought Dean a styrofoam cup of hot cocoa. At first, Dean tried to shrug it away, ashamed to be sweaty and sickly and bedridden again, embarrassed that his younger brother had seen straight through his bravado. But when Sam produced the hot pretzel with cheese dip he'd bought as well, Dean let go of his grudge.
"Let me know if you're gonna fall down on your way to the can at any point in time," Sam quipped, unable to resist.
Because Dean couldn't talk around his massive mouthful of cheesy pretzel, he settled for the finger.
"Tough love, Dean," said Sam.
Dean shrugged, smiled, and replied: "Comes with the job description."