You May Tire of Me
Title: You May Tire of Me
Summary: Dean and Sam have a lot in common. One is that they get better but they don't get well.
Wordcount: 4,623
Author's Note: Jess Lives-verse! (This verse needs a title, does anyone have ideas? Hit me!) This one sort of took on a life of its own. Also I have no naming convention for these yet. I'm flying blind, people. But I beat up Dean some, too!
It's their first birthday together as their weird little family, Jess turning twenty-one and Dean turning twenty-seven and they're all supposed to go out to the Russian bar a few blocks away and drink vodka and shout Yiddish words loudly and quickly enough that they sound Russian kind of and they'll pretend like they fit in and they're going to ask the Russians where they can find one of those big fuzzy hats for Jess and they're going to be so fucking Russian for a night, guys, so fucking Russian, and one guess whose idea all of this was, fucking Sam, why are you so excited about birthdays and why is your idea of a good time always so fucking bizarre (and why does it sound so awesome?)
January 24th is still two days off and here's Sam poring over restaurant reviews (“we should eat before we drink!” he decided a few hours ago-full ride to a top notch school, ladies and gentlemen) like he's researching a fucking hunt and Dean's slugging back snorts of Jack and kicking his feet off the edge of the couch dreaming about a cigarette and Jess is making soup because Sam is sniffling and Sam has a cough (it's a fucking counterintuitive thing to say, Sam has a cough, Sam fucking is a cough, except you look at this thing with his blue scarf and his quiet stuffed-up wheeze coughing his way through every other breath and you try telling yourself Sam doesn't have a cough, okay, Dean can fucking tell when his kid is sick, Sam is sad, damn it) and now is not the time to be fucking sick, Sam, have some soup.
“This one has steak,” Sam says.
Dean brings one leg up and bends his knee and straightens it back out, slowly. He's still trying to grasp this world where his body doesn't hurt all the fucking time. (It's all these little damn things, legs that don't hurt, your favorite beer always in the fridge, your jacket right where you left it, a brass key with 'D' sharpied on it so goddamn Sam will stop taking yours accidentally, it's these little fucking things that are the one Dean had never thought about when he thought about home, always thought Mom Dad Sammy like Sammy was just some fucking fantasy when get the fuck real this kid is fucking profane he's so real.)
Sam says, “But this one has lobster.”
“You're allergic to lobster.”
“Were it my birthday, that would be relevant.”
“Were it you I'm going to be sloppy drunk Russian kissing...” Jess calls from the kitchen, and then she stops and says, “What the fuck kind of sentence construction is this? The fuck comes next?”
Sam coughs. “Just say the Russian kissing part again.”
“Sloppy. Drunk. Russian.”
“Guuuuuys.”
Sam keeps coughing. “We're traumatizing Dean.”
“I walked in on Dean in the shower this morning. I'm the one who's traumatized.”
Dean grabs his shoe off his foot-and it doesn't fucking hurt--and flings it into the kitchen at Jess.
“You knocked a ladle off the rack!” she yells.
“I'll ladle you!”
Sam says, “So the steak place, then?”
“Who the fuck's paying for this?”
“Hey. Hey.” Sam snaps his guidebook shut-yeah, he has a fucking restaurant guidebook, it has an allergy section, fuck you, little brothers get this, now if only he would fucking use allergy section-and looks at Dean all fucking seriously. “I think you are forgetting that one of us and I'm not going to name names or anything-”
“Sam Miranda Winchester,” Jess supplies from the kitchen .
“--one of us has recently received a promotion and has now gone from making five-eighty an hour to DRUMROLLPLEASE...yes, that's right, that's right, kids, SIX-TEN an hour, we can assume that that certain one of us-”
“Sam Dominique Winchester!”
“--will be treating the two birthday girls to their birthday dinner. Thank you and good night.”
Dean raises an eyebrow. “Dominique?”
“At least it's a sexy one. Last week I was Sam Gertrude.”
“Miranda?”
“Shakespearean, no complaints here.”
“She fucking played chess with a hot guy in her tent,” Jess says. “If I left you in a tent with a hot guy and all you did was play chess-”
Sam looks down at his closed book. “Did we decide on steak?”
“Yeah. Hey. You've got to get some sleep. You look horrible.”
“Yeah?”
“Horror movie horrible.”
Jess brings soup in and says, “Yeah, horrible. I'd kick you out of bed.”
“Such a lovely, sensitive, concerned family I have.”
Jess kisses him longer than he has the air for and Dean says, “Come on, soup in bed,” and they corral Sam under his comforter and tease him and feed him soup like he's a kid and it's all good and fun until they realize Sam's running a fever.
So, you know, happy fucking birthday.
**
On any fucking normal human, there'd be hope, not even stupid hope, that give a fever two days and it'll clear up, but this is Sam fucking Winchester so by the time the clock strikes January 24th he's coasting around 103 and dozing on Jess's shoulder while Dean counts out antibiotics and Jess murmurs about his wheezing while she rubs circles on his back.
The good news is that it's a sinus infection, when means antibiotics, which means not fucking pneumonia, but the bad news is that it's a fucking sinus infection and Dean's stuffy-nosed kid is now clapping a palm underneath his eye in pain with each of these congested useless sneezes and that he can't sleep because he can't fucking pull air through his swollen mess of an upper respiratory system. Oh and in case you missed the memo the kid has asthma, which Dean only points out because apparently Sam's asthma is really fucking enthusiastic about making sure everyone knows it exists, and it's pretty much running around Sam's lungs hitting ribs with hammers and squeezing tubes shut and blocking him up some more, so yeah, just a sinus infection, no big deal, hey, fuck you!
Sam sneezes miserably and slumps into Jess. Dean tugs him up by the back of the neck so he can toss some pills in his mouth and press another hot washcloth into his sinuses. Sam sneezes all over him because Sam is nothing if not pathetic and adorable and disgusting and ugh God Sam you fucking sick kid.
“You guys should go out,” Sam says, his voice so congested that he sounds fucking underwater, and then he's coughing again.
“You're so full of shit,” Dean says.
Sam drags his head from side to side. “Don't feel that bad. Promise.”
“God, you really are full of shit,” Jess says, but Dean's actually not so sure, because a lifetime of training means that Sam does not bullshit being okay, bullshitting being okay is how brothers of asthmatics end up with shattered elbows because said asthmatic said he was feeling well enough to do backup when he clearly was not, Sam, but God, it's hard to believe right now that the kid could feel anything less than really fucking hideous considering his nose is still leaking like his body's trying to drain out every last bit of him and he's squinty-eyed from his headache and God, that fucking wheeze.
“I just need to sleep,” Sam says. “You guys don't have to be here.”
Dean says, “And then we come home and find you dead from suffocating in whatever the fuck you'd call this shit pouring out of you. Jess, give me a middle name.”
“Annabel.”
“Sam Annabel Winchester, first man to ever drown in his own face.”
Sam pinches a tissue over his nose. “You love me really.”
“Not relevant.”
“Go be Russian with Jess.”
“Is that a euphemism?” Dean says, and Sam gives him this weird look, and ugh, maybe that is not the kind of joke to make with your half-delirious little brother, Christ. “I'm gonna grab a drink.”
Sam says, “We're out,” all soft.
“We can't be out of everything,” Dean says, and then he's at the fucking fridge and they're fucking out of everything, the fuck? “What the hell?”
“I finished off the rum earlier this week,” Jess calls. “You had the last beer yesterday afternoon and drank the rest of the Jack this afternoon.”
“Vodka?”
“Didn't you finish that?”
“Must have...is there wine or something? Anything?”
“Don't think so. I'll hit the store tomorrow.”
Dean considers a bottle of cooking sherry. “I can go tonight...”
“Go out,” Sam croaks, and Dean goes back into his bedroom because fuck if he's making the kid shout on that voice. “C'mon, it's your birthday. Don't...go to the store. Mm. Go to the bar. Drink there. Have the alcohol...yes. Have it in the bar. And then come home. Yeah.”
Dean says, “Because that fever voice of yours is very convincing.”
Sam turns to Jess and does those fucking eyes, ugh, Sam. “Can you bring me home a fuzzy hat?” he says.
“God, fuck you.” Jess gathers him up and squeezes him, kisses his cheek so gently it doesn't hurt him. “Yeah, sneezey, I'll bring you a fucking hat.”
“Have fun,” Sam says, practically fucking crawling into his pillowcase. “Don't stay out too late? C-can you turn up the heat before you go? Take my credit card...”
They do not turn up the fucking heat-you're a hundred and three degrees, Simba-and they leave his phone on his nightstand and they very much do not take his credit card, come on, Sam, and they wash their fucking hands and step outside the apartment and Jess sighs a little and sinks under Dean's arm.
“Feel shitty about leaving him,” she says. “Are you sure?”
And the thing is, Dean is sure, and he doesn't fucking want to think about why (doesn't want to think about the fact that his hand is itching or a bottle, not a thermometer...not a little brother).
“Few drinks,” he says. “Three. Fuck dinner. Three drinks and we're home. He won't even miss us.”
He opens the passenger door for Jess and then stares at the road and smells Sam's sweat on his shirt and tastes shame (and then they're at the bar and Jess is chatting with some girl almost as tall as she is and they toast and yell things and Dean tastes no more shame just tastes vodka vodka vodka vodka...he said eight drinks, right?)
Jess hugs him hard and leans into his neck. She smells like Sam. Dean dances sitting down and feels like he is in love with someone.
**
“Here's the thing about Sam,” Jess slurs, and Dean sits up straighter because he is a big fan of things about Sam.
“All right, hit me.”
“The thing about Sam,” Jess says, “is that he is lovely.”
Dean sits there, waiting for the rest of it, and then he realizes she's done and fuck, his world is so full of color and loveliness. “Fucking yes, right? He's totally lovely!”
“He just exudes it,” Jess says. “He is just...he is LOVELY.”
“One time.” Dean drains his glass and leans over the table to her. “One time I was fishing with Sam and he fell in.” He isn't sure if this actually happened.
Jess squawks. “Seriously?”
“All the way in. Head. Feet. All the way in.”
“Where were you?”
“A bathtub. Oh. It was fake fishing. We were fishing in a bathtub.”
Jess kisses his forehead. “You. You, my Dean.”
“But the point is that he is lovely.”
“Your dad.” Jess touches her nose, then Dean's. “Your dad thinks you are screwing him.”
Dean nods at the bartender for a refill. “It's not that exactly so much as that my dad isn't screwing Sam and my dad does not like anyone doing anything to Sam that he has not pre-screened and he has not pre-screened screwing Sam.”
“Here's the thing about screwing Sam.”
“I think maybe there's something wrong with this conversation. Do you want to dance?”
And then Jess is leaning on his shoulder, laughing in his ear, tipping her head back and swaying with the music. “The thing about screwing Sam is that it is lovely,” she says, and Dean feels like he is in a washing machine.
**
“I am drunk.” Jess wobbles along a crack in the sidewalk, fuzzy hat making her eight feet tall. “I am quite drunk.”
“Tell me about it.”
“We should call Sam!” She spreads her arms out like a starfish. “We should call our Sam and find out how he is doing.”
“Uh, we're gonna have to call Sam anyway.”
“How come?”
“Because we need a ride home.”
“I am not drunk enough to think that you could drive, Dean.” She shivers and leans into him, chest to chest. He never realized how close they were to each other's height. So much closer than either of them is to Sam's.
“I'm not drunk enough to try to drive this drunk...wait.”
“You're cute when you're confused.”
“I think maybe there's something wrong with this conversation.”
Jess pushes away from him and shakes her head like a dog. “Yes.”
“It's okay. Just talking.”
“Just talking.”
“Just drunk.”
“We love Sam.”
Dean says, “We love Sam like there is some kind of problem in the world and it can only be fixed by loving Sam.”
“And now we have to drag him out of bed.”
“It's okay. Sam will understand. Sam is lovely.”
“They invented the word 'lovely' just for Sam.”
“Who invented it?”
“We did, Dean.”
“We invented Sam.” No. That isn't right. “Sam invented everything else.”
“I like Sam.”
“In the beginning, there was Sam.”
She kisses him, softly, friendly. It isn't anything and neither of them thinks it is. It's nothing they haven't done before.
Except this time she tastes like vodka and maybe that makes Dean a little in love.
That's the first fucking moment that he realizes he might have a problem and that the problem is not how he feels about Sam or how he feels about Jess, the problem is that his hand is around her wrist and he's pulling her into another bar and it is 3 AM and Jess is telling him to slow down and he doesn't know how to explain that Sam is supposed to be done playing backup.
An hour later, Dean's on his phone, teary and hysterical with laughter, telling Sam an address.
“I thought you were already home,” Sam says, stuffed-up, confused, breathless, and his fever hits Dean right in the stomach.
“Oh, God, Sam. We're coming home.”
“I'm coming to get you.”
“I...yeah. Okay.”
He's so sorry.
Just not as sorry as he should be.
**
Sam has put on jeans but he's still wearing his ratty AC/DC sweatshirt. He steps into the bar and sneezes, and from across the room Dean sees him opening his mouth to try to breathe.
He nudges Jess's shoulder and nods towards him. “Sick kid. We gotta go.”
He closes the tab and Jess goes from drunk off her ass to borderline-sober in the walk to the door, and when they get to Sam she's bundling him up in her coat and kissing him gently and suddenly all careful and concerned. “That fever's up, huh?”
Sam nods, heavy.
“Come on. Let's get you home.”
Sam drives slowly, like his congestion extends to his hands. From the backseat (the fucking backseat, Jesus, but it's Jess's car, poor fucking Impala stuck in the parking lot overnight) he sees his little brother's shoulders heaving up and down with each breath.
Jess has a hand behind him, rubbing between his shoulder blades. “You can pull over if you need your inhaler. It's okay.”
Sam shakes his head. He hasn't actually spoken a word since he got to the bar, just choked out these wet, scary coughs.
“Baby,” Jess says, gently.
“I just want to sleep,” Sam says.
**
He gets under Dean's arm to haul him inside. Dean's honestly astounded by how drunk he is, and that's a fucking new one. (Except he has this sinking feeling that he thinks that once a week.)
“We got you a hat, Sammy!”
“Yeah, I can see that. C'mon, big brother. Almost there.” He takes the bag-Dean was holding a bag?--out of Dean's hand. “When did you go to a liquor store?”
“I feel like my whole night was a liquor store, Sammy.”
“C'mon. Small steps.”
“Best brother.”
“Yeah, you are.”
Dean's stomach feels hot. “I meant you...”
Jess follows behind singing a song about how she's going to make Sam all better.
“All right, here we go.” Sam sits Dean down on the edge of his bed and crouches down to take his shoes off. He stops, halfway through, and coughs long and hard into his elbow.
“That's not a sinus infection.”
Sam shrugs and keeps his shoulders up by his ears for his next breath.
“Hey. What's that fever. Hey.”
“We'll talk about this tomorrow.”
“Kay. No, wait.”
“Dean.” He's soft. “It's okay. Let me get you some water.”
Dean buries his head in his pillow. So nice. “Okay.” Best brother.
Jess is there, then, wrapping Sam up in her arms while he shakes out aspirin-Sammy, you can't have aspirin, why is there aspirin, Sammy-for Dean. He starts sneezing, hard, and she guides his head to her shoulder. “It's okay,” she says. “Hey hey hey, it's okay,” and yeah, Jess, it's just sneezing, he's fine.
Sam straightens up and wipes his eyes. “Yeah.”
Dean takes the aspirin and sips some water and thinks he might die from how it sloshes in his stomach. “Allergic, Simba?”
“Fine.”
“Your eyes, though.”
“I'm fine.”
“Come on, honey.” Jess is back around him again. “Let's go to bed.”
“Don't fuck him,” Dean says. “He's too tired.”
Sam turns around faster than a sick kid should be able to, so what do you make of that, Sammy. “Shut up, Dean.”
Oh. He does.
Sam shuts off the light. “Get some sleep.”
“G'night Jess. G'night asshole.”
“Goodnight, Dean,” they say together. What a cute fucking pair, and Dean doesn't even know if he's being sarcastic except he's thinking about when John was asleep and Dean was so drunk and Sam would crawl into his bed and hold his head a little and now he's here the fuck alone while Sam and Jess go back to their room and--
oh. He's crying. Sam's crying.
Dean sits up fast and his head spins and then he's out.
**
In the morning, Dean drags himself to the bathroom to throw up and sees someone's beaten him to the punch.
His stomach swirls and he swallows and swallows. "You okay?"
Sam takes a few minutes before he can speak. He coughs, heavy and low, and wipes his mouth. "Yeah."
"You're torching. We're going back to the doctor today. Is that bronchitis?”
Sam shivers. “I don't know.”
“Where's Jess?”
He sneezes. “Pharmacy.”
“Come on. Back to bed. God, I need a shower.”
He helps Sam back to bed and rests his palm on his forehead for a while. Definitely torching. He sighs a little before he lies down behind Sam and drapes one arm over him to rub his stomach. God, he feels like shit, but it's not like he's going to complain now.
“Poor boy,” Dean says into his hair. “Did you get any sleep?”
Sam nods a little. “Some. Jess was up sick. She's not used to drinking that much.”
“She shouldn't have woken you up.”
“She didn't. I was up.” He curls up around Dean's hand to cough some more. “Hard to breathe.”
“Let me make you a neb.” As soon as the room stops churning back and forth.
“Kay.”
Dean stays where he is for a little longer, waiting to stabilize, brushing sweaty hair off the back of Sam's neck. Kid is so damn sick, when the hell did this happen?
“You want to do hospital?” he says, quietly.
Sam barely hesitates before he nods. Sammy.
“Okay. Okay. Come on, get your shoes on. I'll call Jess on the way. God, that wheeze. Okay, Sammy.” He kneels on the floor in front of him and guides Sam into his arms. He's limp and so hot. “Okay.”
He goes to the living room to grab their coats and his keys and when he turns around Sam's there, arms around himself, shaking.
...no, that's Dean shaking. He looks down at his hands. Fuck. He can't drive like this.
Just one drink. Just one, to steady his hands. He opens the freezer but the Jack he bought last night is gone. And the Jim.
And there are the empty bottles in the recycling bin.
“Sam?”
Sam's eyes are wide, clear. “Yeah.”
“Did you drink all my liquor?”
“Poured it down the sink.”
“What?”
Sam stifles a few coughs into his elbow. “I poured it down the sink.” God, he really can't breathe.
“Why the fuck?”
“Why the fuck do you think, Dean,” and he doesn't sound angry, or even defensive, just tired.
Dean watches Sam pants his way through another sneeze. “We'll talk about this later.”
“Yeah. I'm sure we will.”
He opens the fridge. Even the beer is gone. He takes a deep breath. “We have to wait for Jess, then.”
Sam curls up small on the couch and coughs and coughs and Dean finally throws up.
**
Jess doesn't think they need to ER. She gives Sam new pills and some kind of syrup to help him cough and takes him into a steamed up bathroom and Dean does not, does not go out for more alcohol but instead sits in the armchair and feels like a man possessed.
He doesn't think he's hit bottom, but he does think that he almost hit his a hundred and four degree brother.
Jess gives up and takes Sam to the hospital.
Dean sits by Sam's bedside and listens to his brother struggle.
He looks up meetings.
**
That night, he toasts Sam's impending recovery with a double shot of whateverthefuck, and Sam sobs into his hospital pillow.
Jess goes home and pours everything down the sink.
It starts and stops again, over and over.
**
Sam is getting well. They bring him home and prop him up on pillows and perch his fuzzy hat on his head. He coughs and coughs and coughs.
“I'll leave, if you want,” Dean says. “Do you want me to leave?”
Sam shakes his head, hard, cheek against Dean's chest. “I want my big brother.”
It's Jess, actually, who puts her foot down. It's Jess who says what's so fucking obvious, what Dean's been screaming at himself for months, thank you very the fuck much, Jess, you're hurting your brother and NO FUCKING SHIT, THANK YOU, JESSICA.
It turns out Sam gets better but not well, and then Sam gets worse.
**
“I don't know how to talk about this.” Sam's under one of the thin, shitty hospital blankets, and Dean can't stop fussing at it and worrying about dust and mold and bacteria. “I don't know the fucking...vocabulary.”
Jess is getting ice chips.
Sam's fucking fever. How did he get this sick?
Dean climbs up on the bed next to him and leans Sam back against him. They'd been playing checkers, but they stopped when Sam couldn't get off nebs anymore. Now he chews on the mouthpiece and pushes the pieces around.
“So sick.” Dean kisses his temple. “So fucking sick, my kid.”
“I'm so mad at you.”
“I know.”
“I'm so mad, Dean.”
“That wheeze is scaring the shit out of me. Come here.”
Sam turns around and latches on to Dean like some kind of primate, arms and legs locked around his torso. Fucking clingy sick kids. Dean wraps his arms around him and rests his forehead on top of Sam's head.
“Fix him,” he says, quietly. Then not so quietly, “Fix him.”
**
Sam gets better.
Dean gets better.
But Dean doesn't really think they're ever going to get well.
**
He comes home from the garage one day to Sam drunk off his ass, fever broken, screaming at an invisible John.
When he sees Dean, he laughs and laughs and laughs.
Dean puts him to bed and hides him from Jess. When the fuck did this become their life?
**
It's May 2nd. They take Sam out for ice cream sodas and go for a walk in the park. Sam smiles and sneezes his way through it and hops on Dean's back when they're halfway home.
“I love you,” Sam says in his ear, and it's his birthday, so Dean lets him, and he is dizzy from spinning Sam around and around and around.
“I want to get well,” he says.
Sam laughs. “Me too.”
“Tough shit.”
“Right?”
Jess walks beside them and squeezes Sam's hand.
“This girl's a saint,” Dean says.
“Tell me about it.”
They walk a little longer. Sam swings his feet, his heel kicking Dean's flask every so often.
“Dad said he'd visit soon,” Sam says.
They both stop and look at him, Dean craning his neck to the side. “What?”
“I called him. He said he'd visit.”
Dean, with his hundred and eighty pound kid on his back, feels lighter.
(John loves them.)
(John will bring scotch.)
“Happy birthday, Sammy.”
Sam leans back, hands locked on Dean's shoulders. “I should have brought my fuzzy hat.” He sneezes and almost falls off. Dean catches him.
**
John doesn't come. Sam is quiet and allergic and doesn't complain, just tucks into Jess on the couch every night and plays with her hair.
**
That night, instead of drinking, he researches asthma miracle cures. His hands shake to use the mouse, so he stares at the same three paragraphs of bullshit until Sam comes and leans over his shoulder.
"Whatcha doing?"
"Crying over your busted-ass."
Sam taps his head against Dean's and takes the mouse and scrolls down a little for him.
"Thanks," Dean says, softly.
"Hey, whatever helps."
"You help."
"I know." Sam goes to the fridge and tosses him a soda. "I just wish that was enough."
Dean looks at the can. "Yeah. Me too."
**
He's drunk as hell the next morning. He doesn't even know where he got it. He doesn't even care. Sam wakes him up and shows him something he's printed out, some clinical trial for severe asthmatics. He hands Dean a different page, a phone number, a support group. "I will if you will."
Dean's halfway through dialing, he really is, when he scans the details of Sam's trial and discovers his kid doesn't qualify because he's too fucking sick.
He throws his phone and finds a bottle of tequila (tequila? seriously?) under his mattress.
**
It's so fucking stupid. It's so, so fucking stupid that Dean's held his kid through two hospital trips and listened to him sob into his pillow and seen the words “you have to move out” sitting unspoken-so fucking far, at least-on his sister-in-law's lips-and that this, this slip of damn paper, is the thing to do it.
Sam's damn bank statement, shoved under a stack of pills on the table by the door.
Jesus fuck, Sam.
And he was so fucking excited about six-ten an hour.
(But it's damn hard to keep a job when you can't ever breathe and even fucking harder to keep a savings account when your brother drinks all your money away.)
Sam's asleep on the couch, wheezes pouring out of him like water. Tomorrow, he's going to the hospital to beg to get into that trial. He's determined.
He's Dean's little brother.
And this time Dean dumps the liquor down the sink.
Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker.