Sammy on Cough Medicine
Title: Sammy on Cough Medicine
Summary: Exactly as straightforward as it sounds. Sometimes there are still good days. For classiczeppelin.
Warnings/Spoilers: Post-Hell and everything that implies.
Wordcount: 1,505
Author's Note: Sammyverse, you know the drill. These are what most days are like for them after a few months in. They're okay, guys.
Sam has a cough, which Dean thinks he deserves a fucking award for noticing, thank you very much, considering coughing is one of his kid's favorite activities, up there with watching cooking shows and breaking Dean's heart with his smile and jumping at loud noises, but he notices right the hell away that it's bad today, tiring him out, hurting his throat. He feels fucking triumphant when Sam starts running a low fever because hell if the kid would have noticed on his own, and the fact that the cough is dry and hacking and endless means he can dose him up on cough medicine without worrying it's going to make him drown in his own shitty lungs. He's been having trouble sleeping lately, and Dean's not going to let some nothing cold and a useless cough keep him awake.
He leaves Sam at home to go to the store because he doesn't usually keep the stuff around, and he reads labels and chooses something with an antihistamine because why the hell not, even though stoned and sneezy Sam is kind of really adorable. He grabs a humidifier and some popsicles and soup and a bunch of other shit--it's not that he doesn't have a fucking pharmacy at home for Sam, it's that it only has stuff to keep his kid alive, not comfortable, and how depressing is that, really--and feels like a superhero until he gets home and Sam's all curled up on his bed crying quietly because he's lonely and upset, so way to go, Dean, the correct choice was to bring him and let him trail behind you, feverish and wheezy, while you did the shopping, how have you not figured this shit out yet?
"You're about to feel way better, m'dear."
Sam burrows under the covers and coughs like he's going for a record.
He pours Sam a double dose of cough medicine and props him up against pillows and sets him up with the nebulizer. Sam's still clingy and a little weepy, so Dean hugs him into his chest and imitates his wheezing because it always make Sam smile. It works today, too, but he's still quiet, just coughing softly between pulls on the nebulizer and pawing at his eyes as the cough medicine starts to wear him out.
"Why were you crying?" Dean says, when he can sense him starting to calm down.
"Coughing makes my chest feel raw. I hate coughing. Would rather wheeze forever."
"I know."
"It just felt hot. Like I was breathing smoke. I'm sorry."
"Why are you apologizing?"
"Did you know," Sam says, "That there were all these people in China and Panama and stuff who died because they substituted some cheap cough medicine ingredient for the real stuff? Except the cheap stuff causes multiple organ failure. Oops."
"All these people?"
"Okay, like eight."
"I think you already have multiple organ failure."
"Just lungs."
"That's two."
"True."
"Give me a point, come on."
Sam sighs and licks his finger and draws a line in the air. "I bet you earned tons of points while I was in Hell."
"Like twenty fucking billion. You're so behind."
"Fuuuuck."
"Yeah, it's hopeless at this point." He holds him through the next round of coughing, rubbing steady circles on his back. "Easy, kiddo."
"Easy."
"Mmmhmm. Repeating helps, huh?"
Sam nods and tucks his nose between Dean's ribs. "That way I know I can hear you. It reverberates."
"Can't tell if you're stoned or just crazy."
"Booooth."
"I need to pay our fucking electric bill, shit."
Sam whines. "Pay attention to me."
"You're six and a half feet of wheezing in my arms here, you think I'm not paying attention?"
"Boring."
"Nah."
"Wheezing, what else is new."
"Crazy Sam is still new and exciting, how about that one?"
"No. Five months old."
"It has not been that long. Shit."
Sam nods, pushing in even closer, how the fuck are you doing this, Sam, there is negative fucking space between them. "Not quite five months. Almost."
"Feels like no time at all."
"Time flies when you're with Sam!"
"You're so fucking weird."
Sam giggles. "Jess used to say that."
"That you're weird? Girl always was perceptive."
Sam shakes his head, shaking Dean with him because he has apparently successfully fused him into one body. "The time flies thing."
"Cheesy."
"Hey."
"You're stoned, you're allowed to be cheesy."
"She said it sarcastically." Sam stops and coughs for a while. "When I kept her up all night and it stretched on forever."
Yeah, Dean knows that one, staying awake while the kid breathes like shit and stares up at the ceiling and you can just see his mind twisting around worse than his lungs, counting minutes, counting fucking seconds, wishing like hell he could go to sleep.
Sick kid.
"Why not a healthy kid, huh?" Dean says softly, hugging the kid closer (yeah, shut up).
"Fate! Big fucking plans for sick kid."
"Sometimes it's hilarious how much we screwed those up."
"Right? You liked me too much."
"That's honestly pretty much what happened."
"I don't want to be tied up."
"Whoooa. We okay in there?"
"Jess used to tie me up."
Ugh, Sam. "I'm trying to be all supportive and loving of you and your Hell-trauma and you have to go and mix in details of your sex life. That's ridiculously unfair." It's not like Dean didn't already know that Sam (used to, used to) like to be tied up. The kid has never been quiet about this stuff. The kid is a horrible human being.
"SorryDean."
"You're fucking adorable, you know?" Sam responds by sneezing on him. "Ew, stop that."
"No." He snuggles in closer. How is this possible.
"I just cleaned in here yesterday. You're not supposed to be sneezing. Ugh. Stop. Saaaaam. Stop."
Sam rubs his nose against Dean's side. "Nose itches."
"Yeah." He gives his kid gentle prods over his sinuses just to piss him off.
"Over three-hundred and sixty five, actually."
"Days? Yeah, I know."
"Nooooo. Dead people in Panama. I just remembered."
"From cough syrup?" And yeah, maybe Dean picks the bottle off the nightstand and studies it and then looks down at his kid, fucking sue him. Sam blinks up at him, all fever-bright and sleepy, before he buries his face in Dean's shirt to cough some more.
"Well, you don't appear to be dying, but you're still coughing. So."
"So."
"You need anything? You feel warm still."
"In fact one guy said death tolls must have been in the tens of thousands."
"Sam, what the fuck are you doing to me, here."
"A doctor guy."
"Maybe some tea. Or hey, I bought soup. You hungry?" He pokes Sam in the ribs.
"Heyyyy."
"Heyyy, stoned kid."
"Heyyyy." He wraps his arms around Dean's waist. "Do you think that animals go to Hell?"
"No I do not. What a depressing thought, even for you."
"How about hellhounds, then?"
Dean is really not one to shut Sam up when he tires to talk about Hell (he'll leave that one to Bobby, who tends to blanch like he has anything the fuck to blanch about) but he really, really wishes the kid would shut up about hellhounds, yeah. He swallows against the taste of metal in his mouth and concentrates on sleepy kid on his chest instead of teeth.
"You kinda liked them, didn't you?" he says.
Sam yawns. "Yeah, they were okay."
Then again, Sam kinda loved Lucifer and Michael, so his opinion is sort of invalid. (Pretty much all of Sam's opinions are invalid, though. You don't want to eat your vegetables? You are crazy and sick, you are eating your fucking vegetables.)
"Still feels like my ankles are nailed down," Sam says, with another yawn. "With the big spikes."
"Kick your feet a little."
"Nnn, tired." He pulls his knees up to his chest and coughs some more.
"See, you just moved your feet."
"Oh. What?"
"Never mind."
"It's not really organ failure. It's called Multiple Organ Dysfunction Syndrome. Or Multisystem Organ Failure."
"Uh, that last one sounds like organ failure."
"Yeah, but multisystem. So not lungs. They can just be, uh, dysfunctional."
"Or you could not be poisoned by cough syrup."
"That too." He giggles into Dean's side. "That too."
"Drunk."
"Mmmmmhmm. Feels good."
"Caribou."
"Caribou."
"You should get some sleep."
Sam stretches all the fuck across him like a fucking cat, and then he sneezes like he's allergic to Dean even thinking about cats, so yeah, that was pretty perfect.
"If I died of poison cough medicine, who do you think would tie me up forever? Jess or Michael?"
Dean breathes out and presses a kiss to the top of his head. "No one's going to tie you up, Sammy."
"No?"
"No. You lost that."
"What did you lose?"
"You. But just for a little while."
Sam tucks himself under Dean's chin. "Safe now."
"Sleep."
And Sam does.
Dean is, to put it crudely, in love.
Summary: Exactly as straightforward as it sounds. Sometimes there are still good days. For classiczeppelin.
Warnings/Spoilers: Post-Hell and everything that implies.
Wordcount: 1,505
Author's Note: Sammyverse, you know the drill. These are what most days are like for them after a few months in. They're okay, guys.
Sam has a cough, which Dean thinks he deserves a fucking award for noticing, thank you very much, considering coughing is one of his kid's favorite activities, up there with watching cooking shows and breaking Dean's heart with his smile and jumping at loud noises, but he notices right the hell away that it's bad today, tiring him out, hurting his throat. He feels fucking triumphant when Sam starts running a low fever because hell if the kid would have noticed on his own, and the fact that the cough is dry and hacking and endless means he can dose him up on cough medicine without worrying it's going to make him drown in his own shitty lungs. He's been having trouble sleeping lately, and Dean's not going to let some nothing cold and a useless cough keep him awake.
He leaves Sam at home to go to the store because he doesn't usually keep the stuff around, and he reads labels and chooses something with an antihistamine because why the hell not, even though stoned and sneezy Sam is kind of really adorable. He grabs a humidifier and some popsicles and soup and a bunch of other shit--it's not that he doesn't have a fucking pharmacy at home for Sam, it's that it only has stuff to keep his kid alive, not comfortable, and how depressing is that, really--and feels like a superhero until he gets home and Sam's all curled up on his bed crying quietly because he's lonely and upset, so way to go, Dean, the correct choice was to bring him and let him trail behind you, feverish and wheezy, while you did the shopping, how have you not figured this shit out yet?
"You're about to feel way better, m'dear."
Sam burrows under the covers and coughs like he's going for a record.
He pours Sam a double dose of cough medicine and props him up against pillows and sets him up with the nebulizer. Sam's still clingy and a little weepy, so Dean hugs him into his chest and imitates his wheezing because it always make Sam smile. It works today, too, but he's still quiet, just coughing softly between pulls on the nebulizer and pawing at his eyes as the cough medicine starts to wear him out.
"Why were you crying?" Dean says, when he can sense him starting to calm down.
"Coughing makes my chest feel raw. I hate coughing. Would rather wheeze forever."
"I know."
"It just felt hot. Like I was breathing smoke. I'm sorry."
"Why are you apologizing?"
"Did you know," Sam says, "That there were all these people in China and Panama and stuff who died because they substituted some cheap cough medicine ingredient for the real stuff? Except the cheap stuff causes multiple organ failure. Oops."
"All these people?"
"Okay, like eight."
"I think you already have multiple organ failure."
"Just lungs."
"That's two."
"True."
"Give me a point, come on."
Sam sighs and licks his finger and draws a line in the air. "I bet you earned tons of points while I was in Hell."
"Like twenty fucking billion. You're so behind."
"Fuuuuck."
"Yeah, it's hopeless at this point." He holds him through the next round of coughing, rubbing steady circles on his back. "Easy, kiddo."
"Easy."
"Mmmhmm. Repeating helps, huh?"
Sam nods and tucks his nose between Dean's ribs. "That way I know I can hear you. It reverberates."
"Can't tell if you're stoned or just crazy."
"Booooth."
"I need to pay our fucking electric bill, shit."
Sam whines. "Pay attention to me."
"You're six and a half feet of wheezing in my arms here, you think I'm not paying attention?"
"Boring."
"Nah."
"Wheezing, what else is new."
"Crazy Sam is still new and exciting, how about that one?"
"No. Five months old."
"It has not been that long. Shit."
Sam nods, pushing in even closer, how the fuck are you doing this, Sam, there is negative fucking space between them. "Not quite five months. Almost."
"Feels like no time at all."
"Time flies when you're with Sam!"
"You're so fucking weird."
Sam giggles. "Jess used to say that."
"That you're weird? Girl always was perceptive."
Sam shakes his head, shaking Dean with him because he has apparently successfully fused him into one body. "The time flies thing."
"Cheesy."
"Hey."
"You're stoned, you're allowed to be cheesy."
"She said it sarcastically." Sam stops and coughs for a while. "When I kept her up all night and it stretched on forever."
Yeah, Dean knows that one, staying awake while the kid breathes like shit and stares up at the ceiling and you can just see his mind twisting around worse than his lungs, counting minutes, counting fucking seconds, wishing like hell he could go to sleep.
Sick kid.
"Why not a healthy kid, huh?" Dean says softly, hugging the kid closer (yeah, shut up).
"Fate! Big fucking plans for sick kid."
"Sometimes it's hilarious how much we screwed those up."
"Right? You liked me too much."
"That's honestly pretty much what happened."
"I don't want to be tied up."
"Whoooa. We okay in there?"
"Jess used to tie me up."
Ugh, Sam. "I'm trying to be all supportive and loving of you and your Hell-trauma and you have to go and mix in details of your sex life. That's ridiculously unfair." It's not like Dean didn't already know that Sam (used to, used to) like to be tied up. The kid has never been quiet about this stuff. The kid is a horrible human being.
"SorryDean."
"You're fucking adorable, you know?" Sam responds by sneezing on him. "Ew, stop that."
"No." He snuggles in closer. How is this possible.
"I just cleaned in here yesterday. You're not supposed to be sneezing. Ugh. Stop. Saaaaam. Stop."
Sam rubs his nose against Dean's side. "Nose itches."
"Yeah." He gives his kid gentle prods over his sinuses just to piss him off.
"Over three-hundred and sixty five, actually."
"Days? Yeah, I know."
"Nooooo. Dead people in Panama. I just remembered."
"From cough syrup?" And yeah, maybe Dean picks the bottle off the nightstand and studies it and then looks down at his kid, fucking sue him. Sam blinks up at him, all fever-bright and sleepy, before he buries his face in Dean's shirt to cough some more.
"Well, you don't appear to be dying, but you're still coughing. So."
"So."
"You need anything? You feel warm still."
"In fact one guy said death tolls must have been in the tens of thousands."
"Sam, what the fuck are you doing to me, here."
"A doctor guy."
"Maybe some tea. Or hey, I bought soup. You hungry?" He pokes Sam in the ribs.
"Heyyyy."
"Heyyy, stoned kid."
"Heyyyy." He wraps his arms around Dean's waist. "Do you think that animals go to Hell?"
"No I do not. What a depressing thought, even for you."
"How about hellhounds, then?"
Dean is really not one to shut Sam up when he tires to talk about Hell (he'll leave that one to Bobby, who tends to blanch like he has anything the fuck to blanch about) but he really, really wishes the kid would shut up about hellhounds, yeah. He swallows against the taste of metal in his mouth and concentrates on sleepy kid on his chest instead of teeth.
"You kinda liked them, didn't you?" he says.
Sam yawns. "Yeah, they were okay."
Then again, Sam kinda loved Lucifer and Michael, so his opinion is sort of invalid. (Pretty much all of Sam's opinions are invalid, though. You don't want to eat your vegetables? You are crazy and sick, you are eating your fucking vegetables.)
"Still feels like my ankles are nailed down," Sam says, with another yawn. "With the big spikes."
"Kick your feet a little."
"Nnn, tired." He pulls his knees up to his chest and coughs some more.
"See, you just moved your feet."
"Oh. What?"
"Never mind."
"It's not really organ failure. It's called Multiple Organ Dysfunction Syndrome. Or Multisystem Organ Failure."
"Uh, that last one sounds like organ failure."
"Yeah, but multisystem. So not lungs. They can just be, uh, dysfunctional."
"Or you could not be poisoned by cough syrup."
"That too." He giggles into Dean's side. "That too."
"Drunk."
"Mmmmmhmm. Feels good."
"Caribou."
"Caribou."
"You should get some sleep."
Sam stretches all the fuck across him like a fucking cat, and then he sneezes like he's allergic to Dean even thinking about cats, so yeah, that was pretty perfect.
"If I died of poison cough medicine, who do you think would tie me up forever? Jess or Michael?"
Dean breathes out and presses a kiss to the top of his head. "No one's going to tie you up, Sammy."
"No?"
"No. You lost that."
"What did you lose?"
"You. But just for a little while."
Sam tucks himself under Dean's chin. "Safe now."
"Sleep."
And Sam does.
Dean is, to put it crudely, in love.