If Sam Loses Everything In The Fire
Title: If Sam Loses Everything In The Fire
Summary: About time I did the pilot, huh?
Warnings/Spoilers: Pilot. This will make waaay more sense if you've read We Sing Our Sam to Sleep.
Wordcount: 5,712
Author's Note: In the next few days, something will be going up. It is not a fic. It is vastly more important than a fic. I am REALLY excited about it and I hope you will be too. I had to wait until this was posted until I could do it. You'll understand soon. Keep your eyes open
This is something he has to tell Sam in person, and the most important part of that sentence is he has to tell Sam,because John's been missing for two and a half weeks and one creepy voice mail too many and John's drilled into him for the past three years that if something happens to him, if something goes wrong, if he dies, Dean is to get the fuck to Sam.
(Dean tells himself it's because John worries Sam will stop breathing when he finds out, not because he thinks Dean will fall apart, uh-uh, no way, John thinks he's his special strong little soldier et cetera et cetera.)
So he's driven his ass out of South Dakota (where Bobby hadn't heard fucking anything) and crossed the west coast in all of 31 hours, no sleep, and he's parked outside Sam's apartment building when he realizes that Sam's the only who doesn't know that he didn't exactly leave here on the best of terms (that the hug Jess gave him was too stiff, that Sam was way too happy).
Also it's the middle of the fucking night.
But Dean's supposed to be here. He's supposed to have quit hunting and found a place around Palo Alto weeks ago (Dean: I'll tell him the second the time is right, I swear; Sam: I'm going to wheeze into the phone every night until you do; Dean: Is this supposed to be a new thing? How is this night different from all other nights? Sam: Jewish Jess loves you so much) so it's not as if him showing up here is going to be some kind of nasty surprise, all right? All right?
He uses his key so he doesn't wake up Sam's neighbors pounding out the door until either he or Jess gets the fuck to answer it (does one of them work Tuesday nights? Sam's cut back on his hours at the bookstore because of the LSATs, and Jess changed her hours around because Sam has really not been doing well and weekends have been rough on him lately with drunk assholes outside keeping him awake and smoking cigarettes all the fuck everywhere, leave Sam alone, universe) and goes inside. He's not exactly going to go into the bedroom and scare the shit out of them (and after his last conversation with Jess, that's probably not the best place to pop up, Jesus) so the plan is to make enough noise in the kitchen to get Sam out of bed. He switches on the light and grabs a beer and figures he might as well make his sick kid some coffee if he's going to be keeping him awake to talk shop.
Sam comes out in full hunter mode and makes Dean laugh.
Which in turn gets him a huge fucking smile. "Hey."
"Hey. I freak you out?"
"Please, you can't freak me out. I'm indestructible." He grasps Dean's hand and pulls him in for a quick hug.
"You sound good."
"Ugh, it's an illusion, I'm just drugged to the gills. Make coffee."
"What does it look like I'm doing?"
Sam sits on the table and flips through the mail. "Cuddling the shit out of your little brother, actually."
"We need to talk."
Sam looks up with big eyes and says, "Are you breaking up with me?" and immediately laughs (at his own fucking joke, fuck this kid) and ducks his head and is all floppy hair and dimples.
"Dad's missing."
Laughing stops. "What?"
Jess comes out of the bedroom in Sam's t-shirt, rubbing her eyes. "Hey Dean," she says, and she doesn't sound antagonistic or surprised, so all the points to Jess, pretty much. She yawns and says, "Coffee?"
"Yeah, yeah, sorry." Dean turns the coffee maker and gets it started, because it's so much easier than looking at this baffled goddamn kid sitting here looking like Dean just hit him.
"How long?" Sam says.
"Three weeks."
Jess pauses in the middle of grabbing mugs. "What's wrong?"
Dean says, "Our dad's missing."
She puts a hand on Sam's shoulder and massages it without taking her eyes off Dean. "Shit. For three weeks?”
"Yeah."
She gives Sam's shoulder one more squeeze and then takes a step back. "You guys want to talk alone?"
Dean says, "Jess, you're part of this."
Sam drops his head to his hands and shakes it, just a little, enough for Dean to see.
Fine. Dean takes a deep breath and looks back up with Jess. "He has a habit of going on these drunk benders, and Sam doesn't want to talk about it with you because he doesn't want you to hate him."
"I've never even fucking talked to him. You think he could call once or twice when his son's--"
Sam says, "Stop. This is...kind of the point, Jess."
She exhales. "Fuck."
Sam rubs at his throat. "You guys keep breathing all loud."
Dean says, "Look, Dad has it rough. Since Mom died--"
Sam looks up quickly, and then Dean remembers. Fuck.
"My mom died five years ago." And she's not even mad. She's not flinching. She's just fucking talking about it, one hand presses to Sam's cheek. "And it was so goddamn hard. But my dad was there for me, and he grieved, and now he's doing okay, because it's been five years. Twenty-two years later? You can't use that excuse. I'm sorry."
Sam says, "Jess. Stop. Please."
She looks at him and closes her mouth, Sam didn't say Dean, stop so, well.
"Our mom was murdered okay? That fire that killed her wasn't a goddamn accident, and Dad's been running around for, yeah, twenty-two years trying to find the bastard that did this. That broke him. That set a fire in his asthmatic six-month-old's nursery, and if you'd seen how shattered he was, if either of you--"
"You're making him wheeze. Shut up."
It's like she threw the fucking coffee in his face, and Dean shuts up.
Yeah, he's definitely fucking wheezing, eyes down, palm pushed into his forehead.
And then he looks up and chokes out this laugh and says, "I have one fucking picture, you know?"
Just...fuck.
He pulls Jess in and kisses her cheek and talks to Dean. "I haven't seen Dad in two years. I've barely even spoken to him."
"I know."
Jess nudges Sam's shoulder. "Go set the neb up. Let me talk to Dean."
"I..."
"It'll be just like talking to you except he can breathe. We'll fill you in. Go get set up, sweetie."
He rubs his chest the whole way to the bedroom, and Jess says, "Don't feel bad, he's had a rough few days. I just said that to shut you up."
Dean feels bad, obviously.
Jess sits where Sam was. "Your dad...I mean, fuck."
"Yeah."
"So he coddles his need for revenge like you coddle Sam."
"Pretty much. You get it now, right?"
She doesn't answer, but she says, "Stay, Dean."
"I'm going to, as soon as--"
"No. Stay. Don't go looking for him. He'll turn up. You're not his parent, you know? You're not anybody's parent."
"I know."
She laughs a little and pulls her hair back. "It makes so much fucking sense now. Why Sam always worries about you. You're off tracing murderers."
It's close enough to the truth.
"Settle down," Jess says. "Settle in. He'll breathe better."
Dean nods a little.
"He'll stop scaring me," she says, softly, and there's more weight in there than he'll stop shaking me awake begging for air at 4 AM he'll stop hyperventilating when the phone rings in the middle of the night, he won't break down at the dead brothers in Saving Private Ryan, he won't cling so fucking hard to you and push his face into your chest and dig his fingers into your sides and and and.
"I want to." Dean pushes his fist into the counter. "I will. But I have to find Dad. I have to know he's okay.”
Jess sighs and nods a little.
"He loves Sam so fucking much. You'll see when you meet him. He fucking lights up around Sam."
"Yeah. Hopefully I'll meet him before the fucking wedding.”
Dean smiles.
"You're bringing Sam with you?" she says.
"Yeah, I have to, he'll panic if he's just sitting here worrying. I had to tell him, you know? I couldn't keep this shit to myself."
"You take care of him, all right?"
"Hey. Besides you, no one takes better care of Sam than me."
She smiles and hits him with the dishtowel on the way back to the bedroom. "You're damn right."
**
Jess fusses with Sam's coat on the steps outside their building, and Dean sits on the car and pretends not to listen.
"You act like I'm going away forever," Sam says, laughing while she zips his coat up and gives his chest a little pat through the fabric (through that thick a layer, it's usually okay, though Dean can tell Sam doesn't love it).
"Yeah, well, you're breathing like shit."
"Mmm." He leans downs and rests his forehead on top of her head. "I'll be fine."
"You better be. Don't you dare miss that interview on Monday, you understand? I'll kill you."
"I won't."
"Good." She wraps her arms around him and squeezes. "Love you."
"You," he says, so quietly Dean sees it more than he hears it, and he tilts her chin up and kisses her, just a little.
Sam starts towards the car, but Jess says, "Hey hey hey wait," and runs a few steps to catch with him. "Almost forgot." She pulls Sam's scarf out of her jacket pocket and wraps it around his neck. "Stay warm," he says.
"You too."
She waves as they go. Dean holds up a hand, and she winks at him.
**
"I hate your music," Sam says, sing song, while he flips through Dean's cassettes.
"God, I am freaking out, Sam."
He doesn't look up. "I know. That's why I'm teasing you about music." But he taps his hand against Dean's. "I'm sure he's fine."
"Yeah."
"You guys have your sixth-Sam sense, right?"
"Sammy-sense."
"Yeah, I don't say Sammy."
"Just did, ha ha ha."
Sam licks his finger and draws a line in the air, over to his left. A point for Dean. "Don't we have a Dad-sense?"
"I don't think so."
"Oh. That's sad."
"Do you have a Dean-sense?"
"How is that even a question?"
"I don't know, do you?"
Sam glances at him and then leans his head against the window and closes his eyes. "This question makes me sad."
"Hey. I'm not sick nearly as often as you are."
"You get hurt."
"Not as often as you get sick."
i
Eyes still closed, Sam says, "You have one hand at ten o'clock and the other scratching your cheek. Now you're looking at the speedometer. Now you're looking at me. Now you're checking your mirror. Now you're looking at me again."
"All right, all right, point taken. Damn, kid, you're like psychic or something."
Sam opens his eyes and doesn't say anything.
**
It's fucking incredible is what it is, settling into a motel room with Sammy, watching him sling his bag over the bed closest to the window then settle at the table and clean his gun.
He glances up at Dean. "Whaaat?"
"You. Here. Hunting."
"Uh-uh-uh. Not hunting."
"Then I should call the police about you and your unlicensed gun in a family-friendly motel."
Sam picks a condom wrapper off the floor. "This is not family-friendly."
"Ew, wash your hands."
"Yeah, seriously." He throws the wrapper away and heads to the bathroom.
"You're probably allergic to semen."
"Ha. I'm not hunting."
"Mmmhmm."
"I'm not. I'm your assistant."
"Like a magician's assistant?"
"Exactly." Sam comes out of the bathroom, wiping his hands on a towel. "I'm the sexy blonde girl you make disappear." He stops, frowns, gives his head a shake.
"What?"
"Nothing." He twists and sneezes into his elbow. "Didn't we have a deal about how I wouldn't have to hunt anymore?"
"Uh, yeah, it's called Stanford."
"Mmm. No. Two years ago. Remember?"
"That wasn't specifically if you have to hunt anymore."
"Uh, yeah, I think it was. So I get to die in your arms now."
"Yeah, like you weren't going to anyway."
"True."
"Twenty billion years from now."
"Obviously."
"And the rule was that you get to do that if you feel trapped. You feel trapped, kiddo?" And then he has to tackle Sam into a headlock, obviously. And then obviously Sam sneezes on him, because Sam's a douchebag.
“Let me gooo.”
“Give me another point.”
Sam sneezes again and licks his finger, swipes it through the air to give Dean a point.
"Good boy." Dean lets him go and watches him sneeze again. "Bless you. I told you, allergic to semen."
"Or allergic to moldy motel rooms."
Oh.
Dean had kind of forgotten about that aspect of hunting.
**
He's reminded, very acutely, a few hours later, when the usual whine of his brother's breathing gets deeper around 3 AM. The truth is, Dean's been awake and listening for a while. He visits Sam a lot, but it's been a long time since they've slept in the same room (it's maybe been two years). He's gotten used to hearing Sam's usual hideous nighttime wheeze through a wall while Jess rubs his back and gives him meds.
He'd kind of forgotten about this aspect of Sam.
But he knows Sam's asthma like he knows nothing the hell else, and that's a bad wheeze. He yawns his way to his brother's bed and gives the kid's arm a little shake, just enough to wake him a little so he won't be startled. Sam rubs his face in his pillow and coughs. It's dark and wet, the end of each one trailing into a wheeze. Sounds bad.
It's stupid, but Dean's a little scared.
"You okay?" he says softly, and Sam nods. "I need to get you up."
Sam's pliant and sleepy and lets Dean get him up and leaned against the headboard. He wraps his arms around his waist and lets out a load of hoarse coughs, leaning back against Dean.
Dean works a knot in Sam's shoulder, helps him breathe. "It hasn't been twenty billion years, okay? No dying on me."
Sam rolls his eyes and takes slow, concentrated breaths.
"You want me to call Jess, have her talk to you some?"
Sam pauses, then shakes his head and rubs his chest some. "She works tomorrow."
"All right. You packed the nebulizer, yeah?"
"Yeah, the--" he breaks off and takes a few breaths "--the little one. Don't need it, inhaler's fine."
"Yeah?"
Sam nods. "This isn't too bad."
"Oh."
Oh.
Sam goes back to sleep pretty quickly, but Dean stays up because just...just shit, you know? If Dad's...look, if something happened to Dad, there's just Sam, and Sam is really, really bad at breathing.
**
Six hours of sleep and two-and-a-half lungs worth of oxygen between them mean they're both off their game in the morning. Sam takes a shower so hot it steams up the fucking bedroom and crawls straight into his scarf and uglyass gray sweatshirt he wears when he doesn't fucking feel good, but quick touches of his forehead and lymph nodes confirm this is just asthma all on its own, and that kind of makes it worse.
But he needs Sam today. That's why he's here.
Sam's too breathless to interrogate the waitress so Dean asks about nuts and she's pretty useless but there's really only so many ways they could kill his kid with scrambled eggs, especially considering he barely touches them. It takes Dean a few minutes to realize that his silence and anxiety isn't just the asthma. He's kind of freaked out.
He jabs Sam's hand with his fork.
"If I'm allergic to those pancakes, you just killed me."
"Yeah, like I broke your delicate skin. You okay over there?"
Sam plays with the loose threads on his scarf. Dean's wondering where the fuck he learns to braid before he thinks of Jess's head full of hair, and usually shit like that would make Dean roll his eyes, but the image of Sam doing her hair in the morning while she brushes her teeth or something is just too fucking sweet for him to really handle.
But still. "Hey, Simba, asked you a question."
"Too old for that nickname," Sam says, smiling at him.
"Yeah, I can tell you really hate it."
"Nightmare has me freaked out. Stupid."
Yeah, except if it's freaking Sam out, it's not stupid. Things revoke their right to be stupid when they hurt Dean's kid, okay?
But still, their options are kind of limited. "Let's figure out the hunt to get your mind off it."
Sam nods and leafs through the newspaper. Dean pushes cup after cup of coffee on him and then coaxes him through a few bits of egg. Sam is agreeable.
"Okay," Sam says, "Take a look at this," and he shows Dean an article. Dean reads with him and plays with Sam's poor dusky fingernails and worries.
**
Except then they're in the car, heading towards the crime scene, and Sam's singing along to the radio and reading maps and breathing better.
"I should call Dad," he says.
"Oh, good! I didn't think of that."
"He answers when I call. Almost always. He likes me more than you."
"I don't think that was ever really a question, but I think here it's that when you call him you're probably dying. Wait, was that that he likes me more than I like you?"
"No. It was an indirect object."
"Uh, blue triangle." They went to a school for a while that made them diagram sentences with colored pencils.
"Good boy."
Dean pants like a dog, which makes Sam sneeze, which is kind of fantastic.
"Your immune system is insane."
"Shhh, it'll hear you. And then attack you."
"Accurate."
"Pretty much."
"Someday we'll probably find something you can breathe that you're not allergic to. It'll be a party."
"Yeah, a party of that thing. I hope it's helium. Squeaky voices the whole time."
"Your lungs could not handle that."
"My lungs can't handle soup and soap operas, it's a foregone conclusion."
"Soap operas?"
"Oh, totally, I cry during them and I'm wheezy all day. I don't think I've cried for anything on TV--"
"Dead brother stuff excepted."
"Obviously. Except for soap operas. I bawl for soap operas, which is sad because I watch them when I'm home sick."
"With soup."
"You know how I feel about alliteration."
"You're such a girl, seriously."
"It's bizarre. They kill people off, like, all the time, and then someone comes back who they thought was dead and yeah, I'm a mess. No, no, you know when else I cry?"
"When you have PMS?"
"You know Survivor?"
"The show with the hot girls?"
"You don't have to prove your masculinity right now, you know? I'm talking about crying, here. That thing about foregone conclusions. Pause to remind you that I'm regularly fucking the hottest girl in the he world. Now back to what I was saying."
"You're breeeathing."
"I know, right? Survivor, man, any episode where the family members get to come visit them on the island? I'm a fucking mess.They cry, I cry, Jess laughs at me, I wheeze. Circle of Survivor."
"You are so fucking cute."
Sam smiles even bigger. "I know, right?"
**
Sam's drifting off on the way to the bridge of doom, and he doesn't have the breath control to be sleeping right now, sorry kid. "Saaaammy."
Sam blinks and rubs his eyes. "You need a nickname. Deanie."
"Ugh, that's a Judy Blume book."
Sam stares at him. "I just...what."
"What?"
"How do you know Judy Blume books? Oh, God, there's enough estrogen in this car to choke a horse."
"I can't believe you don't remember this."
"What are you talking about?"
"When you are a kid, and you went through this phase where you had to read every book about sick kids ever? Because there was all of like two books we could find with asthmatic kids and there always, like, fat and dorky, so we settled for cancer and scoliosis and cystic fibrosis who half the time breathed better than you do. Seriously, you don't remember? Dad would let us go to used bookstores whenever we had time. We must have gone through thirty Lurlene McDaniel books."
"Ohhh my God."
"Remember?"
"Yeah." He laughs. "Oh my God."
"And Deenie was the scoliosis one, seriously, you should remember that one."
"Why?"
"It was like full of shit about chick masturbation. I was reading it to you in the backseat and Dad was like what the fuck?"
"I don't believe this. I think maybe this is some weird sexual fantasy of yours."
Dean flicks him in the cheek. “You are out of order.”
“This whole coutroom's out of order!” Sam grabs his fingers and twists them around.
"Ow."
"Yessss. A point for me!”
Dean does dog-panting some more to get back at him and grins when Sam sneezes a few times.
"That really isn't fair."
"Pooooor sick kid. Pooooooor sick Sammy. I'll write a book about you."
"He lived and died cold and breathless."
"Not cold." He ruffles Sam's hair and ignores the bitchy look Sam gives him. "Never cold."
"Sappy motherfucker."
"Cries at Survivor, just saying."
It gets him another finger-twist, but it's worth it.
**
So then they're investigating, fake IDs, fake names, and it's fucking amazing how good Sam still is at this, how quickly he's jumped into it. You tell Sammy he's a detective, and he is a detective, even in that dirty hoodie and those scuffed-up sneakers (seriously, Sam, you have a job, buy some shoes). You tell him he's the dead guy's girlfriend's uncle, and the kid looks like he could start spouting out stories about their last Thanksgiving. The truth is, Sam is really fucking good at hunting.
And yeah, it makes Dean think about things, okay? Yeah, all right, fine, but he's made his choice. He was all fucking set to tell John his choice, to say, hey, by the way, going corporate, working for the man, (oh and 'going corporate' means not near-death everyday and 'the man' is Sammy) and he was going to say it as soon as the time was right, except there hasn't been a fucking time to be right because Dean hasn't been able to get in touch with John since that freakyass phone call when he was in Sam's apartment and Sam was wheezing and highlighting and John was telling him this was a scary hunt and he needed him.
So yeah, he's thinking all the fucking thoughts right now, fucking sue him.
And one of them is that Sam's a really good hunter.
It doesn't mean anything, okay?
It doesn't change anything.
**
Except now Sam's coughing and wheezing like he thinks Dean's going to be impressed that he has asthma or something because they're in Dad's abandoned motel room and it's this gross moldy dusty mess of a place and yeah, it does kind of seem like John left this here as some kind of death trap for his youngest son.
"Sammy. Wait outside."
"Hold on." Sam rubs his scarf over his nose and mouth and approaches some newspaper clippings on the wall. "Look at this. Woman in White. You seeing this?"
Dean comes up besides him and reads, rubbing a few circles on Sam's back when he starts coughing again.
"Yeah, I'm seeing this."
**
They've got more research to do, but it's past Sammy's bedtime or whatever the fuck so back to the motel room they go, and they shower and turn on the TV and it takes Dean a while to notice that Sam's really, really quiet. His breathing is for shit but the rest of him is so quiet.
That's a really bad sign.
"Hey." He keeps his voice gentle. Not startling (not scared). "You okay over there?"
He gets this absent little nod.
"Sammy?"
Another nod, but this time he brings his knees up and ducks his forehead onto them and yeah, Sam, you're obviously feeling fantastic.
"Hey, it's okay. You're wheezy and you haven't been sleeping well. No one would be a hundred percent in your shoes, y'know?"
"I'm okay."
"I think you're in that delusional pre-attack thinking-you're-okay state."
He shakes his head.
"Yeah. I hope you're right."
**
He's not, of-fucking-course, because just fucking guess who's better at asthma, Sam or Dean, y'know? Except Sam's worse than Dean was anticipating, way worse, and he's freaked out from another nightmare and from the fact that he can't fucking breathe and he's trying to tell Dean something but see telling Dean something requires oxygen, Sam, so will you be fucking patient and try to catch your breath?
The nebulizer does nothing to help how shaky he is, so Dean grumbles just to put on a show before he does what he used to do when Sam was normal human-sized (kid-sized). He lies down behind him and slips one arm under Sam's, then reaches up and holds onto his shoulder and guides him back into Dean's chest.
Sam sucks down medicine and coughs and coughs.
"Fuck," Dean says, softly. "How did we used to hunt? How did this not kill you?"
"It kinda did."
"No." He presses his forehead against the back of Sam's neck. "Don't say that."
"I'm not made for this."
"I know."
"I'm supposed to be doing something else." Is he crying? "I'm supposed to be really far away."
"But with me, right?"
Sam nods hard. "We need to get far away."
"We will." He gives Sam's shoulder a squeeze. "You and me and Jess and your asthma kid, remember?"
"Tell me more."
Dean tries to sound like he's making this up, like he never thinks about this, no way. "We'll get a house, something small. Maybe stay in California, maybe go to the East coast? North Carolina, maybe, that would be good for you, I think. On the beach. Good air." He rubs Sam's shoulder. "But that wouldn't be until after you guys graduate. And I guess it depends where you get into law school, huh, you genius kid?"
"Interview on Monday."
"What? No shit. Why didn't you tell me?"
"Forgot." He gives this small, breathless laugh. "No ulterior motive."
"At Stanford?"
"Uh-huh."
"Is that what you want?"
Sam nods. "Home."
"You're damn right. Okay. So we get a little house in Palo Alto. I still want beach air for you. Away from your fucking forest of a campus. Teach you not to be so fucking afraid of the ocean."
"Shellfish in there."
"You're shellfish always."
"Ha, ha."
"You're a fish."
"You're a seahorse. You're a seacaribou."
Dean swallows and tucks his chin on Sam's shoulder. He feels him breathing. He's doing a little better.
"Jess is going to cooking school, right?"
Sam nods.
"She'll be so happy. She'll make us tiny little desserts and shit."
Sam laughs. "Yeah."
"Nothing you're allergic to."
"She's going to have to. In school."
"I'll hose her off before she comes inside."
He giggles.
"Isn't that a fucking trip, though? We could live in a house that has a fucking hose. You could have a garden."
"I'd sneeze all the time."
"You sneeze all the time anyway. You're like a sneezecaribou."
"Seacaribou and sneezecaribou."
"Crime-fighting duo."
"We are, though."
"Not for long."
"We'll be happy forever, right?"
"Yeah. Keep breathing."
**
Sam's seriously lagging in the morning, and that means Dean has too much time to think.
And usually thinking is code for self-fucking-flagellation when it comes to Dean, but not today. Because today he's looking at his breathless little brother rub his scarf against his cheek while he puts his shoes on and thinking this is Sam's last time, this is the last time.
(Because Dean isn't really going to be out of the game. He knows that. He'll do all he damn well can, but bad guys are everywhere and fuck if Sam and Jess and their hypothetical baby are getting their breath sucked out by some shtriga because Dean isn't paying attention, you know? The world is fucking full of bad guys and a bunch of them must have a Winchester family photo in their fucking wallets for all the luck they have tracking them down, what the fuck ever, and Dean can't let his guard down. He fucking never will, and that means that Sam can (Jess teases him about keeping salt by the door, 'I don't think that's really good luck, Sam, how about a horseshoe?') and that means that Sam will breathe.)
But right now he isn't, really, and that's miserable, and Dean wants to help.
He walks to the bed and knocks Sam's head around a little. "Fucking wheezy kids."
"Right?"
"You need anything?"
Sam shakes his head a little, then says, "I do not feel good," and isn't that fucking depressing.
"I know." he gives Sam's hair a tug. "We're going to find the bones today, take care of this."
"Dad's not here, Dean."
Dean says, "Jesus, Sam, just...wheeze louder."
"What?"
"Give me something else to think about. Come on."
Sam nods and forces air harder in and out of his lungs.
Dean's kid is wheezing Dean's kid doesn't feel good okay okay okay.
He gives Sam some small scratches on the back of his neck and says, "You can sleep in the car if you want. Like when you were little."
"God, I was fucking useless on hunts."
"Unless we needed a baby face, yeah."
"Dad just...I mean, he'd let me just rest."
"When we could, yeah."
Sam laughs just a little. "I spent so much time being angry at him for making me hunt."
"Hey. There's a big difference between a healthy asthmatic environment and crashing in the backseat for a hunt because you're fifteen fucking years old and still bleeding from the last hunt and it's thirty below outside. You know that, right?"
"Yeah." He doesn't sound sure.
"Come on."
"It's not like I've been that much healthier since we stopped, you know? It's just me."
"Poor Sam. Should I write you a poem?"
"Fuck you."
"Sing you a ballad?"
"Please no."
"Play you a dirge? God, you're whiny lately. Blah blah blah I have asthma. It must not be that bad if you have enough air to whine about having asthma every five minutes, you ever think of that?"
"Why do I like you?"
"Because I put up with your wheezy ass. C'mon, Simba. You breathing?"
"Yeah."
"C'mon. I'll give you a piggy-back."
"That's why I like you."
**
Hunting with Sam is a blur that Dean had forgotten.
Something always goes wrong. Something always goes wrong for fucking Sammy, who's pinned under a ghost girl in the car, and Sam is scared and Sam is in trouble and thoughts seem to bypass Dean's mind when that happens. They go straight to his fingers and straight to his gun, and Dean moves so clearly and cleanly that it's like the rest of the world has slowed down except for him and except for his brother's panicked breathing.
Sam's not feeling well and he's sure as fuck out of practice so he needs help, and that's fine, but it's less help than Dean would have expected. Sam's up and at 'em and fighting the fuck out of the woman in white and then she's melting into some puddle on the floor and it's just him and Sam left here panting, one of them wheezing, both of them smiling.
"Fuck," Sam says, and he pauses for a minute to drive a few coughs into his elbow. "Fuck, that was awesome."
**
It's funny how things change.
Exactly a year ago, Dean would have killed to hear those words. Dean wanted more than fucking anything for Sam to leave school, to come back to hunting, to put his family back together. It had to be Sam's choice, and he had to really mean it, but fuck, what he wouldn't have given for Sam to want it (for Sam to miss them).
It's fucking ridiculous how things change.
(Now he wants Sam to stay in school, to come with Dean back to Stanford. To put his family back together.)
**
Time to head back to Palo Alto. The kid has an interview tomorrow, and he needs a good night's sleep away from the shitty motel if he doesn't want to wheeze his way through it.
"Are you sticking around, or are you gonna keep looking for Dad?"
Dean sighs. "I don't know. I guess keep looking."
"Yeah."
"Is that okay?"
Sam nods. "I understand. Just...when you find him, tell him?"
"Absolutely. Hey. Nothing's changed, kiddo, all right? This is a setback. I find Dad, I make sure he's okay, I chew him out for disappearing, and I tell him I'm throwing in the towel and going to hang out with Sammy long-term and if he has any, uh."
"Qualms."
"Thanks. If he has any qualms with that, he should scoot his ass on over to California and we'll make him pot roast and show him a fucking real life."
"We'll let him check the salt lines! He fucking loves salt lines."
Dean laughs. "Exactly."
"Just come back. Okay? Promise?"
"You're stuck with me."
"That's my boy."
"Ugh. Never say that. Never again."
Sam grins at him.
**
He pulls up outside his apartment and Sam says, "Coming up?"
"Nah, Jess is probably asleep. And I've got to get moving."
"Where are you going?"
"Check in with Caleb first, see if he knows anything. Check the drop boxes. Follow up on any hunts we couldn't figure out. I'll keep you posted."
"Do."
"I promise. Sleep well."
"Say it."
"Hmm?"
"Say iiit."
"Oh. Feel better, champ."
Sam smiles and walks a few steps backwards, away from the car. "Caribou."
"Yeah, you wish."
Sam gives him a laugh and then walks up the stairs to his apartment, bag slung over his shoulder.
Whistling.
Summary: About time I did the pilot, huh?
Warnings/Spoilers: Pilot. This will make waaay more sense if you've read We Sing Our Sam to Sleep.
Wordcount: 5,712
Author's Note: In the next few days, something will be going up. It is not a fic. It is vastly more important than a fic. I am REALLY excited about it and I hope you will be too. I had to wait until this was posted until I could do it. You'll understand soon. Keep your eyes open
This is something he has to tell Sam in person, and the most important part of that sentence is he has to tell Sam,because John's been missing for two and a half weeks and one creepy voice mail too many and John's drilled into him for the past three years that if something happens to him, if something goes wrong, if he dies, Dean is to get the fuck to Sam.
(Dean tells himself it's because John worries Sam will stop breathing when he finds out, not because he thinks Dean will fall apart, uh-uh, no way, John thinks he's his special strong little soldier et cetera et cetera.)
So he's driven his ass out of South Dakota (where Bobby hadn't heard fucking anything) and crossed the west coast in all of 31 hours, no sleep, and he's parked outside Sam's apartment building when he realizes that Sam's the only who doesn't know that he didn't exactly leave here on the best of terms (that the hug Jess gave him was too stiff, that Sam was way too happy).
Also it's the middle of the fucking night.
But Dean's supposed to be here. He's supposed to have quit hunting and found a place around Palo Alto weeks ago (Dean: I'll tell him the second the time is right, I swear; Sam: I'm going to wheeze into the phone every night until you do; Dean: Is this supposed to be a new thing? How is this night different from all other nights? Sam: Jewish Jess loves you so much) so it's not as if him showing up here is going to be some kind of nasty surprise, all right? All right?
He uses his key so he doesn't wake up Sam's neighbors pounding out the door until either he or Jess gets the fuck to answer it (does one of them work Tuesday nights? Sam's cut back on his hours at the bookstore because of the LSATs, and Jess changed her hours around because Sam has really not been doing well and weekends have been rough on him lately with drunk assholes outside keeping him awake and smoking cigarettes all the fuck everywhere, leave Sam alone, universe) and goes inside. He's not exactly going to go into the bedroom and scare the shit out of them (and after his last conversation with Jess, that's probably not the best place to pop up, Jesus) so the plan is to make enough noise in the kitchen to get Sam out of bed. He switches on the light and grabs a beer and figures he might as well make his sick kid some coffee if he's going to be keeping him awake to talk shop.
Sam comes out in full hunter mode and makes Dean laugh.
Which in turn gets him a huge fucking smile. "Hey."
"Hey. I freak you out?"
"Please, you can't freak me out. I'm indestructible." He grasps Dean's hand and pulls him in for a quick hug.
"You sound good."
"Ugh, it's an illusion, I'm just drugged to the gills. Make coffee."
"What does it look like I'm doing?"
Sam sits on the table and flips through the mail. "Cuddling the shit out of your little brother, actually."
"We need to talk."
Sam looks up with big eyes and says, "Are you breaking up with me?" and immediately laughs (at his own fucking joke, fuck this kid) and ducks his head and is all floppy hair and dimples.
"Dad's missing."
Laughing stops. "What?"
Jess comes out of the bedroom in Sam's t-shirt, rubbing her eyes. "Hey Dean," she says, and she doesn't sound antagonistic or surprised, so all the points to Jess, pretty much. She yawns and says, "Coffee?"
"Yeah, yeah, sorry." Dean turns the coffee maker and gets it started, because it's so much easier than looking at this baffled goddamn kid sitting here looking like Dean just hit him.
"How long?" Sam says.
"Three weeks."
Jess pauses in the middle of grabbing mugs. "What's wrong?"
Dean says, "Our dad's missing."
She puts a hand on Sam's shoulder and massages it without taking her eyes off Dean. "Shit. For three weeks?”
"Yeah."
She gives Sam's shoulder one more squeeze and then takes a step back. "You guys want to talk alone?"
Dean says, "Jess, you're part of this."
Sam drops his head to his hands and shakes it, just a little, enough for Dean to see.
Fine. Dean takes a deep breath and looks back up with Jess. "He has a habit of going on these drunk benders, and Sam doesn't want to talk about it with you because he doesn't want you to hate him."
"I've never even fucking talked to him. You think he could call once or twice when his son's--"
Sam says, "Stop. This is...kind of the point, Jess."
She exhales. "Fuck."
Sam rubs at his throat. "You guys keep breathing all loud."
Dean says, "Look, Dad has it rough. Since Mom died--"
Sam looks up quickly, and then Dean remembers. Fuck.
"My mom died five years ago." And she's not even mad. She's not flinching. She's just fucking talking about it, one hand presses to Sam's cheek. "And it was so goddamn hard. But my dad was there for me, and he grieved, and now he's doing okay, because it's been five years. Twenty-two years later? You can't use that excuse. I'm sorry."
Sam says, "Jess. Stop. Please."
She looks at him and closes her mouth, Sam didn't say Dean, stop so, well.
"Our mom was murdered okay? That fire that killed her wasn't a goddamn accident, and Dad's been running around for, yeah, twenty-two years trying to find the bastard that did this. That broke him. That set a fire in his asthmatic six-month-old's nursery, and if you'd seen how shattered he was, if either of you--"
"You're making him wheeze. Shut up."
It's like she threw the fucking coffee in his face, and Dean shuts up.
Yeah, he's definitely fucking wheezing, eyes down, palm pushed into his forehead.
And then he looks up and chokes out this laugh and says, "I have one fucking picture, you know?"
Just...fuck.
He pulls Jess in and kisses her cheek and talks to Dean. "I haven't seen Dad in two years. I've barely even spoken to him."
"I know."
Jess nudges Sam's shoulder. "Go set the neb up. Let me talk to Dean."
"I..."
"It'll be just like talking to you except he can breathe. We'll fill you in. Go get set up, sweetie."
He rubs his chest the whole way to the bedroom, and Jess says, "Don't feel bad, he's had a rough few days. I just said that to shut you up."
Dean feels bad, obviously.
Jess sits where Sam was. "Your dad...I mean, fuck."
"Yeah."
"So he coddles his need for revenge like you coddle Sam."
"Pretty much. You get it now, right?"
She doesn't answer, but she says, "Stay, Dean."
"I'm going to, as soon as--"
"No. Stay. Don't go looking for him. He'll turn up. You're not his parent, you know? You're not anybody's parent."
"I know."
She laughs a little and pulls her hair back. "It makes so much fucking sense now. Why Sam always worries about you. You're off tracing murderers."
It's close enough to the truth.
"Settle down," Jess says. "Settle in. He'll breathe better."
Dean nods a little.
"He'll stop scaring me," she says, softly, and there's more weight in there than he'll stop shaking me awake begging for air at 4 AM he'll stop hyperventilating when the phone rings in the middle of the night, he won't break down at the dead brothers in Saving Private Ryan, he won't cling so fucking hard to you and push his face into your chest and dig his fingers into your sides and and and.
"I want to." Dean pushes his fist into the counter. "I will. But I have to find Dad. I have to know he's okay.”
Jess sighs and nods a little.
"He loves Sam so fucking much. You'll see when you meet him. He fucking lights up around Sam."
"Yeah. Hopefully I'll meet him before the fucking wedding.”
Dean smiles.
"You're bringing Sam with you?" she says.
"Yeah, I have to, he'll panic if he's just sitting here worrying. I had to tell him, you know? I couldn't keep this shit to myself."
"You take care of him, all right?"
"Hey. Besides you, no one takes better care of Sam than me."
She smiles and hits him with the dishtowel on the way back to the bedroom. "You're damn right."
**
Jess fusses with Sam's coat on the steps outside their building, and Dean sits on the car and pretends not to listen.
"You act like I'm going away forever," Sam says, laughing while she zips his coat up and gives his chest a little pat through the fabric (through that thick a layer, it's usually okay, though Dean can tell Sam doesn't love it).
"Yeah, well, you're breathing like shit."
"Mmm." He leans downs and rests his forehead on top of her head. "I'll be fine."
"You better be. Don't you dare miss that interview on Monday, you understand? I'll kill you."
"I won't."
"Good." She wraps her arms around him and squeezes. "Love you."
"You," he says, so quietly Dean sees it more than he hears it, and he tilts her chin up and kisses her, just a little.
Sam starts towards the car, but Jess says, "Hey hey hey wait," and runs a few steps to catch with him. "Almost forgot." She pulls Sam's scarf out of her jacket pocket and wraps it around his neck. "Stay warm," he says.
"You too."
She waves as they go. Dean holds up a hand, and she winks at him.
**
"I hate your music," Sam says, sing song, while he flips through Dean's cassettes.
"God, I am freaking out, Sam."
He doesn't look up. "I know. That's why I'm teasing you about music." But he taps his hand against Dean's. "I'm sure he's fine."
"Yeah."
"You guys have your sixth-Sam sense, right?"
"Sammy-sense."
"Yeah, I don't say Sammy."
"Just did, ha ha ha."
Sam licks his finger and draws a line in the air, over to his left. A point for Dean. "Don't we have a Dad-sense?"
"I don't think so."
"Oh. That's sad."
"Do you have a Dean-sense?"
"How is that even a question?"
"I don't know, do you?"
Sam glances at him and then leans his head against the window and closes his eyes. "This question makes me sad."
"Hey. I'm not sick nearly as often as you are."
"You get hurt."
"Not as often as you get sick."
i
Eyes still closed, Sam says, "You have one hand at ten o'clock and the other scratching your cheek. Now you're looking at the speedometer. Now you're looking at me. Now you're checking your mirror. Now you're looking at me again."
"All right, all right, point taken. Damn, kid, you're like psychic or something."
Sam opens his eyes and doesn't say anything.
**
It's fucking incredible is what it is, settling into a motel room with Sammy, watching him sling his bag over the bed closest to the window then settle at the table and clean his gun.
He glances up at Dean. "Whaaat?"
"You. Here. Hunting."
"Uh-uh-uh. Not hunting."
"Then I should call the police about you and your unlicensed gun in a family-friendly motel."
Sam picks a condom wrapper off the floor. "This is not family-friendly."
"Ew, wash your hands."
"Yeah, seriously." He throws the wrapper away and heads to the bathroom.
"You're probably allergic to semen."
"Ha. I'm not hunting."
"Mmmhmm."
"I'm not. I'm your assistant."
"Like a magician's assistant?"
"Exactly." Sam comes out of the bathroom, wiping his hands on a towel. "I'm the sexy blonde girl you make disappear." He stops, frowns, gives his head a shake.
"What?"
"Nothing." He twists and sneezes into his elbow. "Didn't we have a deal about how I wouldn't have to hunt anymore?"
"Uh, yeah, it's called Stanford."
"Mmm. No. Two years ago. Remember?"
"That wasn't specifically if you have to hunt anymore."
"Uh, yeah, I think it was. So I get to die in your arms now."
"Yeah, like you weren't going to anyway."
"True."
"Twenty billion years from now."
"Obviously."
"And the rule was that you get to do that if you feel trapped. You feel trapped, kiddo?" And then he has to tackle Sam into a headlock, obviously. And then obviously Sam sneezes on him, because Sam's a douchebag.
“Let me gooo.”
“Give me another point.”
Sam sneezes again and licks his finger, swipes it through the air to give Dean a point.
"Good boy." Dean lets him go and watches him sneeze again. "Bless you. I told you, allergic to semen."
"Or allergic to moldy motel rooms."
Oh.
Dean had kind of forgotten about that aspect of hunting.
**
He's reminded, very acutely, a few hours later, when the usual whine of his brother's breathing gets deeper around 3 AM. The truth is, Dean's been awake and listening for a while. He visits Sam a lot, but it's been a long time since they've slept in the same room (it's maybe been two years). He's gotten used to hearing Sam's usual hideous nighttime wheeze through a wall while Jess rubs his back and gives him meds.
He'd kind of forgotten about this aspect of Sam.
But he knows Sam's asthma like he knows nothing the hell else, and that's a bad wheeze. He yawns his way to his brother's bed and gives the kid's arm a little shake, just enough to wake him a little so he won't be startled. Sam rubs his face in his pillow and coughs. It's dark and wet, the end of each one trailing into a wheeze. Sounds bad.
It's stupid, but Dean's a little scared.
"You okay?" he says softly, and Sam nods. "I need to get you up."
Sam's pliant and sleepy and lets Dean get him up and leaned against the headboard. He wraps his arms around his waist and lets out a load of hoarse coughs, leaning back against Dean.
Dean works a knot in Sam's shoulder, helps him breathe. "It hasn't been twenty billion years, okay? No dying on me."
Sam rolls his eyes and takes slow, concentrated breaths.
"You want me to call Jess, have her talk to you some?"
Sam pauses, then shakes his head and rubs his chest some. "She works tomorrow."
"All right. You packed the nebulizer, yeah?"
"Yeah, the--" he breaks off and takes a few breaths "--the little one. Don't need it, inhaler's fine."
"Yeah?"
Sam nods. "This isn't too bad."
"Oh."
Oh.
Sam goes back to sleep pretty quickly, but Dean stays up because just...just shit, you know? If Dad's...look, if something happened to Dad, there's just Sam, and Sam is really, really bad at breathing.
**
Six hours of sleep and two-and-a-half lungs worth of oxygen between them mean they're both off their game in the morning. Sam takes a shower so hot it steams up the fucking bedroom and crawls straight into his scarf and uglyass gray sweatshirt he wears when he doesn't fucking feel good, but quick touches of his forehead and lymph nodes confirm this is just asthma all on its own, and that kind of makes it worse.
But he needs Sam today. That's why he's here.
Sam's too breathless to interrogate the waitress so Dean asks about nuts and she's pretty useless but there's really only so many ways they could kill his kid with scrambled eggs, especially considering he barely touches them. It takes Dean a few minutes to realize that his silence and anxiety isn't just the asthma. He's kind of freaked out.
He jabs Sam's hand with his fork.
"If I'm allergic to those pancakes, you just killed me."
"Yeah, like I broke your delicate skin. You okay over there?"
Sam plays with the loose threads on his scarf. Dean's wondering where the fuck he learns to braid before he thinks of Jess's head full of hair, and usually shit like that would make Dean roll his eyes, but the image of Sam doing her hair in the morning while she brushes her teeth or something is just too fucking sweet for him to really handle.
But still. "Hey, Simba, asked you a question."
"Too old for that nickname," Sam says, smiling at him.
"Yeah, I can tell you really hate it."
"Nightmare has me freaked out. Stupid."
Yeah, except if it's freaking Sam out, it's not stupid. Things revoke their right to be stupid when they hurt Dean's kid, okay?
But still, their options are kind of limited. "Let's figure out the hunt to get your mind off it."
Sam nods and leafs through the newspaper. Dean pushes cup after cup of coffee on him and then coaxes him through a few bits of egg. Sam is agreeable.
"Okay," Sam says, "Take a look at this," and he shows Dean an article. Dean reads with him and plays with Sam's poor dusky fingernails and worries.
**
Except then they're in the car, heading towards the crime scene, and Sam's singing along to the radio and reading maps and breathing better.
"I should call Dad," he says.
"Oh, good! I didn't think of that."
"He answers when I call. Almost always. He likes me more than you."
"I don't think that was ever really a question, but I think here it's that when you call him you're probably dying. Wait, was that that he likes me more than I like you?"
"No. It was an indirect object."
"Uh, blue triangle." They went to a school for a while that made them diagram sentences with colored pencils.
"Good boy."
Dean pants like a dog, which makes Sam sneeze, which is kind of fantastic.
"Your immune system is insane."
"Shhh, it'll hear you. And then attack you."
"Accurate."
"Pretty much."
"Someday we'll probably find something you can breathe that you're not allergic to. It'll be a party."
"Yeah, a party of that thing. I hope it's helium. Squeaky voices the whole time."
"Your lungs could not handle that."
"My lungs can't handle soup and soap operas, it's a foregone conclusion."
"Soap operas?"
"Oh, totally, I cry during them and I'm wheezy all day. I don't think I've cried for anything on TV--"
"Dead brother stuff excepted."
"Obviously. Except for soap operas. I bawl for soap operas, which is sad because I watch them when I'm home sick."
"With soup."
"You know how I feel about alliteration."
"You're such a girl, seriously."
"It's bizarre. They kill people off, like, all the time, and then someone comes back who they thought was dead and yeah, I'm a mess. No, no, you know when else I cry?"
"When you have PMS?"
"You know Survivor?"
"The show with the hot girls?"
"You don't have to prove your masculinity right now, you know? I'm talking about crying, here. That thing about foregone conclusions. Pause to remind you that I'm regularly fucking the hottest girl in the he world. Now back to what I was saying."
"You're breeeathing."
"I know, right? Survivor, man, any episode where the family members get to come visit them on the island? I'm a fucking mess.They cry, I cry, Jess laughs at me, I wheeze. Circle of Survivor."
"You are so fucking cute."
Sam smiles even bigger. "I know, right?"
**
Sam's drifting off on the way to the bridge of doom, and he doesn't have the breath control to be sleeping right now, sorry kid. "Saaaammy."
Sam blinks and rubs his eyes. "You need a nickname. Deanie."
"Ugh, that's a Judy Blume book."
Sam stares at him. "I just...what."
"What?"
"How do you know Judy Blume books? Oh, God, there's enough estrogen in this car to choke a horse."
"I can't believe you don't remember this."
"What are you talking about?"
"When you are a kid, and you went through this phase where you had to read every book about sick kids ever? Because there was all of like two books we could find with asthmatic kids and there always, like, fat and dorky, so we settled for cancer and scoliosis and cystic fibrosis who half the time breathed better than you do. Seriously, you don't remember? Dad would let us go to used bookstores whenever we had time. We must have gone through thirty Lurlene McDaniel books."
"Ohhh my God."
"Remember?"
"Yeah." He laughs. "Oh my God."
"And Deenie was the scoliosis one, seriously, you should remember that one."
"Why?"
"It was like full of shit about chick masturbation. I was reading it to you in the backseat and Dad was like what the fuck?"
"I don't believe this. I think maybe this is some weird sexual fantasy of yours."
Dean flicks him in the cheek. “You are out of order.”
“This whole coutroom's out of order!” Sam grabs his fingers and twists them around.
"Ow."
"Yessss. A point for me!”
Dean does dog-panting some more to get back at him and grins when Sam sneezes a few times.
"That really isn't fair."
"Pooooor sick kid. Pooooooor sick Sammy. I'll write a book about you."
"He lived and died cold and breathless."
"Not cold." He ruffles Sam's hair and ignores the bitchy look Sam gives him. "Never cold."
"Sappy motherfucker."
"Cries at Survivor, just saying."
It gets him another finger-twist, but it's worth it.
**
So then they're investigating, fake IDs, fake names, and it's fucking amazing how good Sam still is at this, how quickly he's jumped into it. You tell Sammy he's a detective, and he is a detective, even in that dirty hoodie and those scuffed-up sneakers (seriously, Sam, you have a job, buy some shoes). You tell him he's the dead guy's girlfriend's uncle, and the kid looks like he could start spouting out stories about their last Thanksgiving. The truth is, Sam is really fucking good at hunting.
And yeah, it makes Dean think about things, okay? Yeah, all right, fine, but he's made his choice. He was all fucking set to tell John his choice, to say, hey, by the way, going corporate, working for the man, (oh and 'going corporate' means not near-death everyday and 'the man' is Sammy) and he was going to say it as soon as the time was right, except there hasn't been a fucking time to be right because Dean hasn't been able to get in touch with John since that freakyass phone call when he was in Sam's apartment and Sam was wheezing and highlighting and John was telling him this was a scary hunt and he needed him.
So yeah, he's thinking all the fucking thoughts right now, fucking sue him.
And one of them is that Sam's a really good hunter.
It doesn't mean anything, okay?
It doesn't change anything.
**
Except now Sam's coughing and wheezing like he thinks Dean's going to be impressed that he has asthma or something because they're in Dad's abandoned motel room and it's this gross moldy dusty mess of a place and yeah, it does kind of seem like John left this here as some kind of death trap for his youngest son.
"Sammy. Wait outside."
"Hold on." Sam rubs his scarf over his nose and mouth and approaches some newspaper clippings on the wall. "Look at this. Woman in White. You seeing this?"
Dean comes up besides him and reads, rubbing a few circles on Sam's back when he starts coughing again.
"Yeah, I'm seeing this."
**
They've got more research to do, but it's past Sammy's bedtime or whatever the fuck so back to the motel room they go, and they shower and turn on the TV and it takes Dean a while to notice that Sam's really, really quiet. His breathing is for shit but the rest of him is so quiet.
That's a really bad sign.
"Hey." He keeps his voice gentle. Not startling (not scared). "You okay over there?"
He gets this absent little nod.
"Sammy?"
Another nod, but this time he brings his knees up and ducks his forehead onto them and yeah, Sam, you're obviously feeling fantastic.
"Hey, it's okay. You're wheezy and you haven't been sleeping well. No one would be a hundred percent in your shoes, y'know?"
"I'm okay."
"I think you're in that delusional pre-attack thinking-you're-okay state."
He shakes his head.
"Yeah. I hope you're right."
**
He's not, of-fucking-course, because just fucking guess who's better at asthma, Sam or Dean, y'know? Except Sam's worse than Dean was anticipating, way worse, and he's freaked out from another nightmare and from the fact that he can't fucking breathe and he's trying to tell Dean something but see telling Dean something requires oxygen, Sam, so will you be fucking patient and try to catch your breath?
The nebulizer does nothing to help how shaky he is, so Dean grumbles just to put on a show before he does what he used to do when Sam was normal human-sized (kid-sized). He lies down behind him and slips one arm under Sam's, then reaches up and holds onto his shoulder and guides him back into Dean's chest.
Sam sucks down medicine and coughs and coughs.
"Fuck," Dean says, softly. "How did we used to hunt? How did this not kill you?"
"It kinda did."
"No." He presses his forehead against the back of Sam's neck. "Don't say that."
"I'm not made for this."
"I know."
"I'm supposed to be doing something else." Is he crying? "I'm supposed to be really far away."
"But with me, right?"
Sam nods hard. "We need to get far away."
"We will." He gives Sam's shoulder a squeeze. "You and me and Jess and your asthma kid, remember?"
"Tell me more."
Dean tries to sound like he's making this up, like he never thinks about this, no way. "We'll get a house, something small. Maybe stay in California, maybe go to the East coast? North Carolina, maybe, that would be good for you, I think. On the beach. Good air." He rubs Sam's shoulder. "But that wouldn't be until after you guys graduate. And I guess it depends where you get into law school, huh, you genius kid?"
"Interview on Monday."
"What? No shit. Why didn't you tell me?"
"Forgot." He gives this small, breathless laugh. "No ulterior motive."
"At Stanford?"
"Uh-huh."
"Is that what you want?"
Sam nods. "Home."
"You're damn right. Okay. So we get a little house in Palo Alto. I still want beach air for you. Away from your fucking forest of a campus. Teach you not to be so fucking afraid of the ocean."
"Shellfish in there."
"You're shellfish always."
"Ha, ha."
"You're a fish."
"You're a seahorse. You're a seacaribou."
Dean swallows and tucks his chin on Sam's shoulder. He feels him breathing. He's doing a little better.
"Jess is going to cooking school, right?"
Sam nods.
"She'll be so happy. She'll make us tiny little desserts and shit."
Sam laughs. "Yeah."
"Nothing you're allergic to."
"She's going to have to. In school."
"I'll hose her off before she comes inside."
He giggles.
"Isn't that a fucking trip, though? We could live in a house that has a fucking hose. You could have a garden."
"I'd sneeze all the time."
"You sneeze all the time anyway. You're like a sneezecaribou."
"Seacaribou and sneezecaribou."
"Crime-fighting duo."
"We are, though."
"Not for long."
"We'll be happy forever, right?"
"Yeah. Keep breathing."
**
Sam's seriously lagging in the morning, and that means Dean has too much time to think.
And usually thinking is code for self-fucking-flagellation when it comes to Dean, but not today. Because today he's looking at his breathless little brother rub his scarf against his cheek while he puts his shoes on and thinking this is Sam's last time, this is the last time.
(Because Dean isn't really going to be out of the game. He knows that. He'll do all he damn well can, but bad guys are everywhere and fuck if Sam and Jess and their hypothetical baby are getting their breath sucked out by some shtriga because Dean isn't paying attention, you know? The world is fucking full of bad guys and a bunch of them must have a Winchester family photo in their fucking wallets for all the luck they have tracking them down, what the fuck ever, and Dean can't let his guard down. He fucking never will, and that means that Sam can (Jess teases him about keeping salt by the door, 'I don't think that's really good luck, Sam, how about a horseshoe?') and that means that Sam will breathe.)
But right now he isn't, really, and that's miserable, and Dean wants to help.
He walks to the bed and knocks Sam's head around a little. "Fucking wheezy kids."
"Right?"
"You need anything?"
Sam shakes his head a little, then says, "I do not feel good," and isn't that fucking depressing.
"I know." he gives Sam's hair a tug. "We're going to find the bones today, take care of this."
"Dad's not here, Dean."
Dean says, "Jesus, Sam, just...wheeze louder."
"What?"
"Give me something else to think about. Come on."
Sam nods and forces air harder in and out of his lungs.
Dean's kid is wheezing Dean's kid doesn't feel good okay okay okay.
He gives Sam some small scratches on the back of his neck and says, "You can sleep in the car if you want. Like when you were little."
"God, I was fucking useless on hunts."
"Unless we needed a baby face, yeah."
"Dad just...I mean, he'd let me just rest."
"When we could, yeah."
Sam laughs just a little. "I spent so much time being angry at him for making me hunt."
"Hey. There's a big difference between a healthy asthmatic environment and crashing in the backseat for a hunt because you're fifteen fucking years old and still bleeding from the last hunt and it's thirty below outside. You know that, right?"
"Yeah." He doesn't sound sure.
"Come on."
"It's not like I've been that much healthier since we stopped, you know? It's just me."
"Poor Sam. Should I write you a poem?"
"Fuck you."
"Sing you a ballad?"
"Please no."
"Play you a dirge? God, you're whiny lately. Blah blah blah I have asthma. It must not be that bad if you have enough air to whine about having asthma every five minutes, you ever think of that?"
"Why do I like you?"
"Because I put up with your wheezy ass. C'mon, Simba. You breathing?"
"Yeah."
"C'mon. I'll give you a piggy-back."
"That's why I like you."
**
Hunting with Sam is a blur that Dean had forgotten.
Something always goes wrong. Something always goes wrong for fucking Sammy, who's pinned under a ghost girl in the car, and Sam is scared and Sam is in trouble and thoughts seem to bypass Dean's mind when that happens. They go straight to his fingers and straight to his gun, and Dean moves so clearly and cleanly that it's like the rest of the world has slowed down except for him and except for his brother's panicked breathing.
Sam's not feeling well and he's sure as fuck out of practice so he needs help, and that's fine, but it's less help than Dean would have expected. Sam's up and at 'em and fighting the fuck out of the woman in white and then she's melting into some puddle on the floor and it's just him and Sam left here panting, one of them wheezing, both of them smiling.
"Fuck," Sam says, and he pauses for a minute to drive a few coughs into his elbow. "Fuck, that was awesome."
**
It's funny how things change.
Exactly a year ago, Dean would have killed to hear those words. Dean wanted more than fucking anything for Sam to leave school, to come back to hunting, to put his family back together. It had to be Sam's choice, and he had to really mean it, but fuck, what he wouldn't have given for Sam to want it (for Sam to miss them).
It's fucking ridiculous how things change.
(Now he wants Sam to stay in school, to come with Dean back to Stanford. To put his family back together.)
**
Time to head back to Palo Alto. The kid has an interview tomorrow, and he needs a good night's sleep away from the shitty motel if he doesn't want to wheeze his way through it.
"Are you sticking around, or are you gonna keep looking for Dad?"
Dean sighs. "I don't know. I guess keep looking."
"Yeah."
"Is that okay?"
Sam nods. "I understand. Just...when you find him, tell him?"
"Absolutely. Hey. Nothing's changed, kiddo, all right? This is a setback. I find Dad, I make sure he's okay, I chew him out for disappearing, and I tell him I'm throwing in the towel and going to hang out with Sammy long-term and if he has any, uh."
"Qualms."
"Thanks. If he has any qualms with that, he should scoot his ass on over to California and we'll make him pot roast and show him a fucking real life."
"We'll let him check the salt lines! He fucking loves salt lines."
Dean laughs. "Exactly."
"Just come back. Okay? Promise?"
"You're stuck with me."
"That's my boy."
"Ugh. Never say that. Never again."
Sam grins at him.
**
He pulls up outside his apartment and Sam says, "Coming up?"
"Nah, Jess is probably asleep. And I've got to get moving."
"Where are you going?"
"Check in with Caleb first, see if he knows anything. Check the drop boxes. Follow up on any hunts we couldn't figure out. I'll keep you posted."
"Do."
"I promise. Sleep well."
"Say it."
"Hmm?"
"Say iiit."
"Oh. Feel better, champ."
Sam smiles and walks a few steps backwards, away from the car. "Caribou."
"Yeah, you wish."
Sam gives him a laugh and then walks up the stairs to his apartment, bag slung over his shoulder.
Whistling.