Pour a Little Salt, Sam Was Never Here (PART 2)
Title: Pour a Little Salt, Sam Was Never Here (PART 2)
Summary: Immediately post "Born Under a Bad Sign." Dean is that hurt and Sam is that sick, and it's...more than enough.
Warnings/Spoilers: Through Season 2, really. Language.
Wordcount: 7,876
Author's Note: It's Sammyverse--Sam has asthma, the boys are best friends forever, you know the drill by now. Again, this works as a standalone, but together it and Part 1 are (hopefully) more than their simple sum. Link to Part 1 is HERE, and title is still butchered from Bon Iver's "Skinny Love."
---
Sammy's leaning over him, but it's not Sam, it's NotSam, thumb in his gunshot wound and mother of Christ it hurts and he's graying out and Sam.
NotSam twists his (her) thumb and Dean bucks, groans.
“Poor Sammy in here,” NotSam says. “Begging me to stop. Or he would be, if he could breathe.”
And then everything stops, everything is NotSam's black eyes and NotSam's chest rising and falling because what the fuck do demons care how their vessels are doing, he's seen demons ride dead men, Sam's chest is rising and falling and it doesn't mean a fucking thing, she's playing Sam's body like a fucking accordion, it doesn't mean he's okay, it doesn't mean he's really breathing.
“Ten days of those cigarettes,” NotSam says. “He loved them. Ten days of flushing his meds down the toilet when I said fucking when. Poor baby. Remember what happened to the last Meg? She was healthy as a horse compared to your Sammy. Think he's going to live if you exorcise me?”
And then Bobby's there, a poker to Sam's arm, and Dean's gasping no don't but then she's gone and it's just Sam, just Sam not okay, on his hands and knees on the floor coughing and choking and blue blue blue.
**
Dean listens to the doctors because what the fuck else is he going to do. They put him in a sling and redo his stitches and give him antibiotics and painkillers. They talk about how lucky he is that the bullet wasn't a hair this way or a hair that way and Dean just wants to believe that that was intentional, that Sam, locked the fuck inside his body, was in control enough to jerk the gun to one side just e-fucking-nough, but it's probably just the allotted one-bit-of-good-luck-per-year the Winchesters get. They give him an IV of some saline and some blood and tell him he's a fucking idiot for walking around with a wound like this, because he had a choice, right? He nods and looks sorry. His vitals are fine. His vitals are always fucking fine, and what can they possibly tell him when's he's had the thing for six hours and hasn't fucking dropped dead yet?
They tell him to rest the shoulder and not to get shot anymore.
Dean asks about his fucking brother and asks about his fucking brother and asks about his fucking brother but they keep shushing him and giving him more morphine and finally he signs the papers and asks about his fucking brother and they tell him room 319, upstairs, and that he's lucky he's not in intensive care, and what's Dean supposed to say, thank you? Because what he wants to say is why the fuck aren't you intensively caring for my brother?
And the reason is that Sam is fucking fighting tooth and nail to stay fucking alive and doing a damn fine job and Dean's standing at the window feeling proud until he hears enough of Sam's pleading, hideous half-breathing half-dying conversation with Bobby to figure out that the only reason the kid's fighting is so nobody knocks him out and puts a fucking tube down his throat, Sam wants to be able to talk, Sam doesn't want to be knocked out.
Dean leans his forehead against the window and looks in, because he has a fucking fever-low fever, bitch fever, you-gave-me-antibiotics-so-it's-going-the-fuck-away fever-and Sam's doctor came to Dean's room hours ago and told him to stay the fuck back because Sam's lungs are looking for any excuse to shut down, and Dean feels so many fucking things about that but one of them is relief and he hates that.
Doctors keep going in and touching his kid and can't they fucking tell that Sam doesn't want to be touched? He and Dean don't touch much anymore to begin with (not since Dad died, not since there's been no one around to tell them when to stop, because what if they don't stop, they don't talk about it and they don't touch) but now...now Sam is barely situated inside his body, barely fucking stretching to fill his toes and fingers and his poor fucking brain and you don't even fucking know him (you don't even know that that's Sam and you don't understand the fucking magnitude of that, that it's Sam Sam is back) and you're putting hands on him?
Sam's shaking like he's being electrocuted because he's on so many fucking meds and Bobby comes out and says, “How's the shoulder?”
“'s fine, I'm drugged.” He keeps looking through the window.
“Fever down?”
“Getting there.” He runs his hand down his face. “Should fucking be in there.”
“He's keeping calm right now. I didn't...” Bobby chews his cheek for a minute like he's searching for words. “Didn't have any idea it was this bad. I held him on my lap for attacks when he was a shrimp-”
“He's allergic to shrimp,” Dead murmurs.
“--but I didn't know it stuck around. That it settled in like this.”
“That's because nobody's supposed to know.”
Bobby doesn't say why, but it's all over his face, and then Dean's head is flashing pictures of he and Sam, tied up, Meg's ear to Sam's mouth and hearing fucking everything, her hands in his pockets feeling the inhaler and a pill bottle, Meg at the bar, watching Sam wheeze on the smoke, Meg when Sam tried to run off to California, getting him to talk about his life, how the fuck is Sam supposed to talk about his life without mentioning he choked his way through half of it--
“So nobody can fucking use it against us,” Dean says.
“Dean.”
“They find something. They always fucking find something. They're not supposed to find this.” This is Sam's.
What Dean wants, more than anything in the world, is a cigarette, and just thinking that makes him throw up. Bobby holds him up.
**
Dean's out in the waiting room because he just couldn't stand there anymore (feeling useless, feeling dizzy, feeling NotSam's thumb in his bullet wound) when a doctor comes out of Sam's room and sits next to him and tells him they had to give him a bunch of fucking shots because this whole time what they'd assumed was just asthma was asthma on top of a fucking allergic reaction, whoops, their mistake, except she's really apologetic and gentle and understanding and all this good crap but Dean needs someone to be angry at right now, all right, so fuck the doctor.
He stares down at the floor. “Is he okay?”
“We think so. He has a few food allergies?”
Dean closes his eyes.
Bitch fucking ate in his kid's body, bitch didn't read the fucking labels, bitch read the fucking labels and ate it anyway, bitch ate it because she read the fucking labels, Sam must have been so scared, Sam must have been screaming and sick that day they were together and Dean fucking...
Bitch ate in his kid's body.
Christ.
Kid hasn't had a bad reaction since Stanford.
Dean's shoulder was hurt then, too.
That's kind of funny.
(Nothing is fucking funny, nothing has been fucking funny in so long.)
**
Dean's fever's down to just a bit above a hundred, and Sam had a nightmare, so yeah, one guess where he is.
He hasn't had a nightmare like this since the night he got him home after the crazy psychos had him in that cage (the last time he went a night without the maintenance meds, and at least then he had a fucking inhaler on him and one guess whether Meg let him use that-didn't touch it the whole day NotSam was with Dean and Dean thought well he's breathing well maybe he doesn't need it and Dean should be fucking fired) and it's not like Dean was sleeping great that night either (shoot him in the cage, Jesus, Dean could forget his own name and never forget those fucking words) and they sat together and didn't talk and just let their shoulders lean against each other, and before that it was after Jess died, and now there are vision nightmares every once in a while but those are different. Those aren't this.
He just lies so still after and breathes hard, hands clamped around his pillow, eyes squeezed shut even though he's awake.
“I can smell the blood,” he says. First fucking words he's spoken to Dean. “I killed him. God, the smell.”
“You didn't kill him, all right?”
“I feel it, though. Sticky. On my fucking hands. Your shoulder...”
“Breathe. Just breathe, okay? The rest will come. We can do the rest.” This part Dean can't do for him, he wants to say, except it's starting to look like Dean can't really do any of this fucking for him. Dean just fucking watches.
Sam gives this groan of pain and rolls onto his back, pulls his knees up. Bobby's supposed to be getting him something for the pain but it's taking forever and they're always such assholes about painkillers and asthma attacks. Dean would just share a few of his, but Sam's allergic to codeine now.
“Show me where,” Dean says, but he doesn't know why, because Sam grabs a spot on his ribcage and holds on tight and Dean isn't going to touch, Sam doesn't want him to touch. He's never fucking liked hands on his chest.
But then Dean's saying, “I want to, can I...” because there are tubes and Sam is hurting and the wheeze sounds like he's crying, and he's not, but Dean swears he has some kind of brain chemical that's only fucking released when he hears his kid crying and his brain must be stupid because now he's getting fucking flooded with it and he wants to curl up on the floor and hide from the whole fucking world and he wants Sam to come with him, fucking brain chemicals.
Sam nods but with all the shit Dean can barely touch him, not really, so he just puts one hand on top of Sam's head and he shouldn't be breathing on the kid anyway, not until the fever's gone, so he just keeps his hand there like a fucking priest and Sam coughs and coughs and coughs.
There's a tap on the window. Sam jumps and Dean says, “Whoa whoa whoa, shhhh.” He looks up at the window, decodes Bobby's thumbs-up. “You're getting pain meds, Sammy. It's all going to be okay.”
Once Sam's drugged, he goes to get him some ice chips and just lets himself stop for a minute, leans against the wall next to Bobby and catch his breath.
Bobby says, “I hate to bring this up, Dean.”
“Oh, Jesus, then don't.”
Bobby doesn't fidget. Bobby doesn't fidget when he's nervous. “The FBI is breathing down your neck, and they've got to know that one of you's a six-foot-six asthmatic, no matter what name he's under.”
“Fuck. Fuck.”
That's fucking low. It's just fucking inexcusable.
Bobby says, “As soon as he's stable...”
Stable. What the fuck does that mean? Sam's still mumbling about blood on his hands and zooming in on Dean's bullet wound whenever Dean is in his field of vision and oh yeah, he can't fucking breathe without the meds they're pumping into him every hour and they still don't know the extent of what Meg did to him, how many ways she found to screw with Sam's body, and fuck turning Sam into some delicate little flower, fuck all of this.
“...as soon as he's stable,” Bobby's saying. “We get him out of here. How's the shoulder?”
“It's fucking fine, this isn't exactly the first time I've been shot.”
“Watch your tone, boy.” But he says it gently.
Dean looks in the window. Sam's coughing again.
“All right,” Dean says. “As soon as he's stable.”
He goes in and feeds Sam some ice chips and then it's time to go.
**
Bobby's driving and Dean puts Sam in the front seat so he can keep an eye on him and not fucking kill his shoulder twisting around all the damn time. But Sam's not doing anything but wheezing softly and staring out the window.
Until he looks at Bobby and says, “Bobby, could I...” and gestures towards the wheel.
“What? You're not driving.”
“No, just...” Sam reaches over and puts his hand on the wheel. He doesn't try to steer (doesn't touch Bobby's hand) just holds the wheel, lets it slide through his fingers when Bobby moves it. He's not driving. Just pretending. Just holding on to something.
**
Bobby cleans up the fucking mess NotSam left all over the living room (they won't talk about RealSam's mess-two used EpiPens lying around waiting to stab someone, vomit, blood, whatever the fuck foamy shit Sam was coughing-yeah, let's not talk about that) while Sam sits Dean down at the kitchen table and changes the dressing on his shoulder. It's fucking stupid, Dean can do this himself, and Sam's trying to muffle the wheezing behind his hand because he thinks Dean is going to make him stop, but he's not going to, because Sam needs this. He gets that Sam needs this.
He pretends Sam isn't brushing his hand on Dean's arm more than he has to. Sam needs this.
Dean doesn't wince when Sam so fucking cautiously dabs at the stitches with some alcohol. Sam starts shaking as soon as it's done, and Dean reaches across the table and laces his fingers through Sam's. It's too easy.
They look at each other, and when Dean finally looks up he sees that Bobby's watching them, and fuck, isn't that exactly what they need.
**
Bobby says that Sam needs to eat something and offers to make some stew, and Dean looks at Sam pouring over books and coughing at the coffee table and says, “That's not going to work.”
“What?”
“He's not going to eat from anyone but me. And it's got to be new stuff. Just follow my lead on this one, okay?”
Bobby looks so fucking confused, but he nods.
Sam's reading with his finger trailing under the words, like he did when he was a kid and does now when he's too jumpy on caffeine and Albuterol to focus. But he doesn't seem jumpy now, just tired. He's cuddling that scarf like it's his only friend.
“Hey, Sam.”
Sam looks up.
“Making a shopping list.” Dean kneels down at the table next to Sam and rips a piece of paper out of his notebook, starts jotting stuff down. Simple things (unscary things), things that have never give Sam a hive in his life, girly fucking things that won't make Sam whine about cholesterol or sodium. Fruits and vegetables. Bread. Sugar. Easy things.
Sam watches.
“Anything for you?” Dean says, like all this fucking stuff isn't for Sam.
Sam clears his throat a few times before he can talk. “Eggs. Stuff for pancakes. For tomorrow.”
“Sounds awesome.”
Bobby's gone to the store and Dean's cleaning the fuck out of the kitchen when he realizes this doesn't mean anything if Sam doesn't see it. He's about to call him when hears the click of a switchblade in the living room, and he feels his heartbeat in his fucking throat, but he turns around and Sam's just fiddling with it, cutting tiny fucking notches in the beat up table, sticking the tip of it into the book he's reading and pulling it back out again. Twirling it. Just nervous stuff. Talking about food made him antsy. Dean gets it.
“You should learn to juggle,” Dean says, and Sam looks up with a weak smile.
“You want to come in here?” Dean says. “I'll boil some water, you can breathe in the steam. Feel better.”
Sam nods and pulls himself up, slowly. The walk to the kitchen's rough on him, but Dean doesn't help because Sam doesn't fucking want him to. He lowers himself to the table with an arm around his ribs. “How's...shoulder?” Great, breathing between words and leaving out half of them, Dean's fucking favorite.
He puts the kettle on. “Drugged the fuck out, no problem.”
“Fever?”
“Low.”
He makes a show out of wiping down the counters, and Sam's being subtle but Dean can tell he's watching. Good.
Sam's wheezing is getting worse, he thinks, and he also thinks Sam notices, which is a hopeful sign for where his head's at, but still fucking sucks. He plays with his inhaler but doesn't use it, and Dean saw him take a hit all of five minutes ago, so what's he supposed to do, harass the kid?
“You ever gone without meds this long?” Dean asks him, because maybe the kid fucked up at Stanford or when he was in that six-month emo asthma phase when he was a teenager, Dean doesn't know for sure (except he does, because Sam never fucking died).
Sam shakes his head. “Longest time was when I was...fifteen? When we were...hunting that Lady in White. Got trapped in that fucking house, remember? When it collapsed?”
“Jesus. Yeah.”
“That was two days.” He coughs into his elbow.
“This was...”
“Ten. Yeah. God.” He pushes his palm into his forehead. “Fucking killed someone, Dean. Fucking...shot you.”
“Don't think about that, okay? There's breathing to do.”
Sam starts to talk but wheezes instead and falls into another coughing fit. Dean needs two fucking hands, okay, he needs to hold Sam still with one hand and press the heel of his other between Sam's shoulder blades but he doesn't fucking have two hands. So he just cleans.
“That's what I'm supposed...thinking about,” Sam gets out eventually. “Fucking asthma's just...I'm supposed to be thinking about you.”
“Hey. I'm fine. I've been shot before. And you kind of think about me on your own, Sammy. You don't need to concentrate on that. “
“Killed someone...”
“Sam. Stop.”
“Supposed to be...getting my fucking head back on straight, and I just...I wish...fucking asthma, I wish it would leave me alone for one fucking minute.”
“I know.”
“When things are really shitty otherwise, you know? I just wish it would fuck off.”
Dean swallows. “Water's ready, sit up, okay?” But he pours it into the bowl before he brings it to Sam rather than after because he's a fucking idiot, and now he can't get it to him. He doesn't have two hands. He needs two fucking hands.
“Oh, hey, I got it.” Sam stands up and grabs the bowl and is wincing a little by the time he gets back to the table, either because he burned his hands or because his chest just fucking aches. He leans over the bowl and coughs at the steam, but it'll help. It'll loosen everything.
Dean puts his hand on the back of Sam's neck and scratches gently at his hairline, like Sam's a fucking cat or something. Sammy starts.
“Sorry,” Dean says.
“No, it's okay.” He coughs a little. “Feels nice, actually. Just wasn't expecting it.”
**
Where the fuck did Sam find his gun? Dean turns his back for one fucking second, to help Bobby get the bags in, and when he gets back Sam doesn't look like he's moved but he has his goddamn gun.
He's not doing anything, not even cleaning it, not even fucking holding it, just looking at it, resting one hand on top of it while he spins his inhaler like a top with the other one.
Dean walks over and says “Uh uh uh,” like Dad used to when they were kids, really really little, and smiles so Sam knows he's playing when he takes the gun away.
Because he's not going to take it any more seriously than that.
**
He makes a sandwich in front of Sam and tries to tell Bobby in the nicest way possible to fuck off, but Bobby lingers in the living room because this is my fucking house, damn it but Dean knows it's because he's fucking worried and he can't exactly blame him (though he has a feeling Bobby's equally worried about Dean and isn't that the fucking whipped cream on top of this sundae of what-the-fuck that this month is turning out to be).
Dean sits himself down in front of Sam with the plate and a glass of water and he's prepared for this to take a fucking while and Sam doesn't let him down. He takes one half and slowly pulls it the fuck apart, and Dean's patient. He needs to do this. After a bad reaction, he needs to do this, and after he was force-fed stuff that made him feel like dying (couldn't die, she was life support; didn't die, Sam is fucking unbelievable) yeah, he gets to fucking do this.
Dean knows his part. He picks up the half Sam hasn't destroyed and takes a bite, lets Sam watch him as he chews slowly (he does this sometimes, like he's ready for Dean to react, like he's scared out of his fucking mind) and takes a sip from the water glass, then he spins the glass around and nudges it towards Sam.
“It's okay,” he says. “Tastes good.”
Sam nods.
“Take as long as you need,” Dean says. “I mean it.”
Sam hardly moves for the next ten minutes, and when he does it's just to make a fist and tap it against the table. It's all the anger of a punch but small. Controlled.
“I know,” Dean says. “Don't beat yourself up about it. It's fine to be scared.”
“I'm being fucking ridiculous. It's not fine.”
“I'm telling you it's fine, and you should fucking listen to me.”
Wrong response. Sam's mouth snaps closed like he's going to glue it shut, but then he says, “I get to choose if it's fine. It's my fucking choice, okay?”
“Yeah.”
Five minutes later, Sam takes a sip from the water glass, and two minutes after that picks up the sandwich and takes a big bite and chews fucking ferociously, his jaw pumping up and down like he's a machine, his hand pressed against his head and his eyes squeezed shut.
“It's okay.” As soon as Sam's swallowed, Dean reaches across the table and puts his hands on either side of Sam's head and just fucking holds it for him for a minute, and he rests his forehead against the top of Sam's head and Sam grips Dean's hands, and they stay like that, and Bobby passes them to go to the bathroom and doesn't fucking say anything but his face is so disapproving, so John fucking Winchester that Dean could fucking scream except his kid's sick, he's not doing any fucking screaming.
And then he realizes he's using both arms and it hurts like hell.
So yeah, Bobby disapproves of that, and shit, why does Dean's mind always have to go there?
**
The pain flares the fuck up not long after that, and Jesus Christ, just fuck all of this, Dean's on the couch on his back and he's being a fucking baby, he knows, but Christ, and he's hot, he's so fucking hot, and it's all he can do to grunt out Sam's name every once in a while and fuck, fuck all of this.
Bobby's counting out more pills but Sam is just there with him, dabbing Dean's forehead with his sleeve and whispering nice things to him (Dean can't hear them, Dean thinks they are probably nice, anything Sam says with that look on his face is nice).
Sam doesn't take his eyes off Dean, but he says, “Bobby, hurry up, okay?”
“Fever,” Dean finally says, he's been trying to talk for ten fucking minutes and he's just fucking groaning.
“I know. We're getting it down. You'll be fine.”
“No. You. Fever.”
Sam looks all confused and says, “I don't have a fever,” and damn it Sam, it's like he's never dealt with his fucking immune system before, how is his kid so stupid, so fucking stupid, and then fuck it's like being shot all over again, he's arching his back and Sam's hand is on his forehead, just staying there, Sam soothing him and one of his hands is hovering over Dean's chest and Dean nods yes, yes you can touch, and Sam lays his other palm there and rubs in slow circles and says, “You're safe, Dean. No one's going to hurt you.”
**
He wakes up in a drugged-out haze to what he at first thinks is fucking silence, but then hears whispered, urgent conversation, then he hears wheezing.
“No, just...measure it...'s a dropper-”
“Which one? Which bottle?”
“Just...”
Dean opens his eyes and pushes himself up. Sam is near him, sitting by the coffee table, scrunched up funny and still, and Bobby's over by his desk with the nebulizer in fucking pieces around him, squinting at the bottles and trying to figure out what the fuck he's doing.
Sam has a death grip on the bridge of his nose. “Just...hurry please?”
Dean's off the couch in a fucking second. He trails one hand over Sam's shoulders on his way to Bobby. “It's not that hard,” he says, and yeah, maybe he's an asshole, but Sam fucking needs it, and when Sam fucking needs something Dean really does not give a shit how hard it is (and this is not that hard).
He fills the cup with medicine and snaps the pieces together and lugs it over to Sam. “Here.”
Sam's panicking a little. Yeah, going-on-eleven days no air will do that to a kid.
“It's all right,” Dean says. “It'll help. Just sit through it.”
Sam stares down at his feet the whole treatment, every once in a while running a shaky hand through his hair, and Bobby clears his throat and mumbles something a hunt and that he should probably get going.
“Seriously?” Dean says.
“The sooner we get back to normal, the better,” he says. “People are already asking where the fuck the Winchesters are. I need to pick up the slack while you two are out.”
“Oh.”
“You'll be all right here?”
“Of course.”
Sam takes the mouthpiece out. “Thanks, Bobby. For letting us stay.”
Bobby looks at him like he's speaking another language and mumbles “Idjit” on his way out the door.
**
The treatment doesn't help and Sammy is miserable. He's miserable quietly and obviously and it's just the worst thing Dean's ever fucking seen, his kid on the floor with a nebulizer Dean keeps refilling and a cough that's shaking him down to his toes.
Dean's setting up the nebulizer for the hundredth time and Sam's doing well enough to talk a little and of course what he wants to say is, “You were supposed to kill me. I was killing people.”
“Yeah, and good thing I didn't, because it wasn't fucking you.”
“Y'promised.”
“It wasn't you.”
“Might have been.”
“Sam.”
“You promised Dad.”
“If I couldn't save you. I have to kill you if I can't save you.”
And then Sam's really quiet, just pressing his hand to his chest and scaring the shit out of Dean.
“They're going to keep using this,” Sam says. “The demons, they know now. Meg will tell them.” He swallows. “Yellow-Eyed demon knows now.”
“Don't think about that, okay?” Because Dean's already thought about it, Dean's already been over it a million times and pictured all the ways fucking Yellow-Eyes could fuck with his brother's lungs and he's determined that he's just fucking not going to think about it anymore, okay? (And he's going to keep Sam so close no one can ever fucking touch him.)
Sam says, “I told Dad, remember? Told him this would kill me.”
“Sammy. Please?”
Sam doesn't look up. “Maybe this is what Dad meant when he told you...Maybe this. Not my fucking...destiny. Maybe this is my destiny.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
Sam gestures weakly towards his chest.
“Sam, stop. Here.” Dean hands him the mouthpiece for the nebulizer but Sam just stares at it and watches the mist leak out.
“I told him this would kill me,” he says, softly. “Maybe you're...maybe you're not supposed to let it.”
“Oh, Jesus, Sam, shut up. Please.”
Sam looks up at him. “I can't do this again.”
“I...I know.”
“I can't lose this control again, I can't. I...”
What happened to Dean's happy little sick kid?
“I can't curl up in the bottom of my stomach again and watch some demon ruin my lungs. I can't fight for air for this long. It's making me crazy. I just can't. And I'm going to get you killed. I'll go down on a hunt and get you hurt, or I'll fucking suffocate until we have to take me to a fucking hospital and then what do you think happens, fucking feds will grab us, grab you...”
“That's just...just don't worry about that, okay?”
“I worry. It's what I do. I worry and I wheeze.”
Dena reaches over and puts a hand on the back of Sam's neck. It feels like a long time since he's been alone with his kid (it's been a long time since he was alone with his kid).
“We made a pact, once, remember?”
Sam shakes his head.
“Yeah. I won't let you lose control, and you won't...remember?”
“Oh. God. Die in your arms.”
“So I'm not going to fucking kill you, because do you think I wouldn't catch you, Sammy?”
**
Of course then two shitty things happen, the first when Dean goes to the bathroom and comes out to Sam and his fucking gun again and this time he takes it away hard and swats Sammy on the cheek, because fuck this, okay? The second is when he fucking swats Sammy's cheek and he's warm, fuck.
Fever's almost 101, half a degree higher than Dean's, and isn't that fucking spectacular. All the fucking meds for Sam, a nest on the couch, a hand on his back for coughing fits after coughing fits that leave him limp and lifeless (not lifeless).
And God, the wheezing, with this desperate tone like he's trying to talk, and the fucking fever, and the fucking ER not even that far away and the fucking FBI and fucking goddamn Meg and fucking shit goddamn fucking asthma fuck fuck fuck fucking asthma.
He takes a deep breath, quietly, and rubs his mouth.
Finally the fucking timer goes off on Sam's watch and that means pills, boatloads of them, and Dean gathers them up with some antibiotics he digs out of the first aid kit and Sam's allergy-skittish about them but Dean begs and he nods a little. (Dean doesn't have to force him.)
Then he leans over and clings to his shirt with one hand and Dean's shirt with the other and Dean says, “I know, kid, I know,” and the truth is that he fucking does. He just does, as much as anyone who isn't Sam ever fucking could, and his chest hurts too, Sam, and he's about an inch away from crying, too, and he wants you to be in control too, Sammy, he wants you fucking in control.
So when Sam reaches up and presses his forehead into Dean's and just stays there and breathes the same air as him and grips the fuck out of Dean's hair, Dean's not exactly pulling away, no.
Half an hour later, the fever's hanging out but Sam's feeling better, getting some more air in. He slides off the couch and back to the floor by the coffee table, and Dean lies back on the cushions that Sam got all fucking warm. Sam's back on the nebulizer and it's probably going to become permanently fused to his body but he's doing okay. He looks the same when he reads, always has.
Then Dean's phone rings.
**
He should have seen this coming. He should have seen this whole fucking thing coming because they've done it all before.
I mean, it's fucking centaurs. Bobby's hunt was fucking centaurs.
Unbelievable.
And now Bobby's calling them from a ditch.
Sam stares at Dean while he's on the phone like he's thinking the exact same thing (oh God really, oh shit, oh shit shit shit.)
Bobby's hurt. The hunt's over, but he's hurt--foot under a boulder, concussed, panicked hurt--and he's only twenty miles away and every other hunter in his phone book is four hours out so what the fuck, what the fucking fuck.
And Dean looks at his brother and the way his shoulders are heaving and the sweat on his forehead and Bobby's fucking knife drawer and every single demon out there in the whole world and sorry, no, this just...fuck.
Dean hangs up and says. “Roadtrip,” and Sam sinks his head onto the table.
**
“Hey, Sammyboy, sit up for a second?”
Sam moves away from his door long enough for Dean to wedge a pillow between Sam and the window. “Thanks,” he says.
“Sure.” Dean knocks Sam's head back against his pillow.
He drives fast but not too fast, and Sam twists his hands and asks Dean if he thinks Bobby's okay and goes over maps, but it's not that complicated a route, so after a while he stops and starts doodling on the edge of the map, and then the doodling turns serious and he's drawing precise, straight lines, his tongue pinched between his teeth.
“What are you doing?” Dean asks.
“Nothing, just...” he shrugs. “It helps. To do something.”
“I get it. What are you drawing?”
“I'm not sure. I'll look it up later.” He stops and slides his hand's underneath his thighs, looks out the window. “Hunt's over, you said?”
“Yeah. You sound better.”
Sam nods. “I want to fucking hunt something.”
And Jesus, Dean remembers that. After Dad died and he was supposed to be fucking dead, Jesus, he remembers just wanting to kill every single bit of supernatural bullshit in the world, every single thing that made this a world where his dad could die instead of him and possessed people could t-bone their car in the first place and still nobody could fix his fucking little brother, he'd wanted to rid the world of fucking all of it and yeah, Dean can understand Sam right now wishing monsters were just in kid's books and he sure as fuck understands wanting to bash something's head in, but Sammythekiller is a little close to fucking home right now, a little close to Dean's fucking sore as hell arm, so just...Sam, you can't even breathe, buddy.
“You're going to stay in the car, though, right?” Dean says, quietly. Making it sound like the decision is Sam's.
Sam breathes (wheezes) out. “Yeah.”
“Hey, Sam? You're getting there. You had a shit time. You're getting there.”
“Yeah.”
“You'll be a hundred percent again soon.”
Sam gives this look, because what the fuck, a hundred percent of what, who the fuck is Dean comparing him to? (Who the fuck could ever stand up to a comparison with Sam?)
He says, “Uh, you'll be...Sam-percent again.”
“Sam-percent,” Sam repeats.
“Mmm.”
“I hope so.”
He probably thinks Sam-percent is low, Dean realizes a minute later.
**
It's raining by the time they get to Bobby, of-fucking-course, and Sam's wheezing hard from the weather change. He wraps his arms around his chest and leans forwards and nods hard when Dean asks if he's okay.
“This might be a minute,” Dean says. “Freeing his foot. I don't know. You just stay warm, okay?”
“I'll be fine.” He coughs into his shoulder.
“If it gets bad...”
“I know. Stop worrying.” He grabs Dean's hand and twists it.
“Jesus, Jesus, uncle.”
Sam gives himself a point and squeezes Dean's hand before he lets go. “Go get Bobby. I'll get the backseat ready for him.”
Dean touches Sam's forehead. Still warm. Not hot.
“Dean. Go.”
“I'm going, Jesus.”
**
Bobby seems less confused than he was on the phone, but he's still a fucking idiot because he's trying to get this boulder off by himself when it's clearly not fucking budging. Dean drops to a crouch beside him. “Hey.”
“Thank God.”
“You're going to be fine, all right? How the fuck did this even happen?”
“Big fucking pile of them collapsed when I staked the son of a bitch. Fucking centaurs.”
“Did you get 'em both?”
“What?”
“They travel in pairs.”
“I only saw the one.”
Fucking perfect. “Let's get the fuck out of here.”
The problem is that Dean only has one arm that's in any way capable of lifting this fucking thing, and that combined with Bobby's just isn't enough. Not to mention it's dark as fucking balls and of course Dean forgot his fucking flashlight, so he can't see what he's doing and he keeps slamming his fingers between the boulder and Bobby's shattered foot and that feels fucking awesome for both of them, he's sure.
The rain's coming down harder and Dean throws his other arm into it and feels like his arm's about to fucking rip off and the fucking fever and his brother's probably freezing his ass off in the car and the mud's building up and fuck if Dean's going to be able to even get Bobby out of here on that foot even if he can get the fucking boulder up and the more mud's getting caked in here the less likely it is that he's ever going to get that fucking boulder up, and the fucking fever he's not even sure what direction the car's in, shit, shit shit shit shit and then he fucking hears it, fucking hooves, because centaurs travel in pairs, moron.
And then a voice yells “Get down!” and an arrow hisses through the air.
Dean puts a hand on Bobby's chest and stumbles to his feet and there he is, coming towards them, bow drawn, hoodie soaked, Sam Motherfucking Winchester, taking aim to Dean's right, and Dean looks and there it is, shit this is bigger than the one Dean took down, long hair and wild eyes and claws and teeth and and it's running straight at Sam.
And Sam Jesus you're fucking sick, why are you out of the fucking car, Dean didn't call how did you know, and Sam shoots another arrow that hits the centaur right in the gut. It slows him down, but that's not going to fucking do it, you have to get him the heart, and Sam's getting tired, Sam's shoulders are heaving, Sam can't exactly fucking breathe right now, but Bobby's bow is snapped and fuck if there's anything Dean can do, fuck if there's ever anything he can do, he makes promises to Sam he can't keep and refused to fucking kill the kid and Sam fucking kills himself trying to breathe and then they wake up and do the same fucking thing but worse, this is the same fucking thing as two years ago but worse and what happens two years from now, Sam, are you going to live another fucking two years of this, is Dean going to live through watching you do another fucking two years of this, is Dean going to make you live another fucking two years of this?
Sam fires off another arrow and nails the son of a bitch right in the heart.
He goes down hard, and Sam twists to the side to sneeze (Sam's allergic to centaurs, even with all of this bullshit Sam's fucking hilarious and Dean fucking adores him, all right) before huffing out a breath and stumbling over to Dean and Bobby.
“Hey, Bobby,” he says, his voice fucking wrecked. He leans against Dean's shoulder for a second while he shakes his inhaler.
“Jesus Christ, superhero,” Dean says.
“It's an adrenaline thing. I'm gonna crash in a minute.”
“ 's fine. What the hell are you doing here?”
Sam takes a hit off his inhaler and coughs out his next breath. “Hunting?”
“You're supposed to be in the car...”
“You took too long.” He sinks down and puts his hands on his knees, coughs for a while. “Okay, this fucking boulder...”
“I can do it if you help me,” Dean says.
Sam nods heavily and grabs the other side of the boulder. His strength isn't, uh, Sam-percent yet, but his grip is less shaky than Dean's, and after two tries they get the fucking thing off. Bobby squirms out from under, grimacing like fuck, and Sam swallows and says, “Can you get him to the car?”
Bobby grumbles that he's not a piece of meat. “Your foot's a fucking useless one,” Dean says, then says to Sam,“Yeah, I can. You okay?”
“Yeah.” He shivers. “I'm just gonna be slow.” He grabs Bobby's shit and his and slings it over his shoulder.
They slog out of the mud and Sam points Dean to the car and mumbles something about one of their fevers, Dean can't even tell, and Sam lags behind and hugs himself while they walk but keeps nodding to Dean every time he turns around, I'm okay, I'm okay, I'm okay.
Dean gets Bobby into the car while Sam puts the stuff in the trunk. He sees his shoulder's bleeding again, and Jesus, it hurts, and he comes out back into the rain because he thinks he's going to puke, but then he's a little distracted by Sam, gripping the roof of the car to hold himself up, coughing and coughing and coughing, hideous and wet and scraping against his throat, coughing so hard he's caved in at the waist, and it's just fucking endless, and he's red and then purple, and Dean gets behind Sam and hooks the arm he can move underneath his arm to hold him up and takes the one he can't move and wraps it around to Sam's stomach because he can fucking move when Sam fucking needs him to, and he holds Sam up for God knows how long and his kid coughs in the rain, coughs and coughs and coughs and fucking coughs.
“Into the car,” Dean says, when there's any fucking break. “We got to get you in, come on.”
“Get out of me,” Sam croaks. “Get out of me, get out of me.”
“S-Sam, she's not in you.”
“Not her.” Sam straightens up the best he can. “Fucking...get out of me! He hits his palm against his chest. “Out of me! You stupid fucking goddamn lungs!”
Dean pivots around to face Sam from the front, takes him by the shoulders (Jesus fucking Christ Ow) and looks up at him.
“Don't fuck with your lungs,” Dean says. “They try their hardest. All right?”
Sam looks down, nods.
“They're in control,” he says. “They're still fucking breathing, so guess who's winning, them or asthma? You're in control. You breathing?”
“Yeah.”
Dean presses the keys into his hand. “Good. You're driving. I fucking can't, man.”
**
Fucked-up shoulder or no fucked-up shoulder, Dean's a lot less obtrusive than a six-foot-six asthmatic, so he's the one who brings Bobby in and waits to make sure he's not fucking dying, then he promises he'll be right back and goes back out to the car where his fucking kid is hopefully not fucking dying.
He's not. He's sitting right in the middle of the front seat, wrapped in a dry sweatshirt and his wet scarf. His breathing's congested and shallow as all fuck and he's been sneezing, and he breathes through his mouth and watches Dean climb in through the driver's seat.
“How is he?”
“He'll be fine. Have to wear a boot on that foot. They don't think he needs surgery.”
“Bobby's invincible.”
“Yeah.”
Sam peels off Dean's jacket and checks on his shoulder. Dean looks. The stitches aren't torn, which is a fucking miracle, and Sam digs Dean's flask out of the glove compartment to clean them off. He's gentle.
When he's done, he chokes on a cough and sneezes into his elbow.
Dean says, “What can I do, Sammy? What do you need?”
They're parked facing the hospital, and Sam raises his head and looks up at it like a fucking Catholic looks at a church and...shit, just shit, and Dean says, “You're calling the shots, okay? You say you want to go in, we go in.”
Sam shakes his head and looks back down.
“You kicked ass today,” Dean says. “I'm not even talking about the fucking centaur, though...I mean, Jesus, Sam.”
Sam laughs without smiling.
“I just need to get a handle on this,” Sam says eventually. “Not even just...I know Dad wasn't talking about the asthma, you know? But it's all part of this shit I need to control. My body. My destiny. My fucking temper.”
“Only human, Sammy.”
“Yeah, let's hope.”
Dean tries not to sigh and just rubs Sam's back for a minute.
“Whatever you need, you know?” Dean says. “Just tell me.”
Sam reaches up and touches Dean's forehead. “Think your fever's down.”
“Think yours is too.”
“Can you just stay with me for a little while?”
“Yeah. Of course.” Bobby can deal.
They sit together without talking and listen to Sam wheezing, and then Sam lowers himself down and curls up on the seat, his head on Dean's knee.
Dean plays with his hair and Sam manages this wheeze of a sigh.
Jesus, Dean would give him anything.
**
Two weeks later, Sam finally shows Dean what he keeps fucking drawing, and they get their asses to a tattoo parlor, and while they're shoving needles into him Sam smiles, huge, calm, SamSamSam, he smiles for the first time in weeks, and sorry, but he takes Dean's fucking breath away.
Summary: Immediately post "Born Under a Bad Sign." Dean is that hurt and Sam is that sick, and it's...more than enough.
Warnings/Spoilers: Through Season 2, really. Language.
Wordcount: 7,876
Author's Note: It's Sammyverse--Sam has asthma, the boys are best friends forever, you know the drill by now. Again, this works as a standalone, but together it and Part 1 are (hopefully) more than their simple sum. Link to Part 1 is HERE, and title is still butchered from Bon Iver's "Skinny Love."
---
Sammy's leaning over him, but it's not Sam, it's NotSam, thumb in his gunshot wound and mother of Christ it hurts and he's graying out and Sam.
NotSam twists his (her) thumb and Dean bucks, groans.
“Poor Sammy in here,” NotSam says. “Begging me to stop. Or he would be, if he could breathe.”
And then everything stops, everything is NotSam's black eyes and NotSam's chest rising and falling because what the fuck do demons care how their vessels are doing, he's seen demons ride dead men, Sam's chest is rising and falling and it doesn't mean a fucking thing, she's playing Sam's body like a fucking accordion, it doesn't mean he's okay, it doesn't mean he's really breathing.
“Ten days of those cigarettes,” NotSam says. “He loved them. Ten days of flushing his meds down the toilet when I said fucking when. Poor baby. Remember what happened to the last Meg? She was healthy as a horse compared to your Sammy. Think he's going to live if you exorcise me?”
And then Bobby's there, a poker to Sam's arm, and Dean's gasping no don't but then she's gone and it's just Sam, just Sam not okay, on his hands and knees on the floor coughing and choking and blue blue blue.
**
Dean listens to the doctors because what the fuck else is he going to do. They put him in a sling and redo his stitches and give him antibiotics and painkillers. They talk about how lucky he is that the bullet wasn't a hair this way or a hair that way and Dean just wants to believe that that was intentional, that Sam, locked the fuck inside his body, was in control enough to jerk the gun to one side just e-fucking-nough, but it's probably just the allotted one-bit-of-good-luck-per-year the Winchesters get. They give him an IV of some saline and some blood and tell him he's a fucking idiot for walking around with a wound like this, because he had a choice, right? He nods and looks sorry. His vitals are fine. His vitals are always fucking fine, and what can they possibly tell him when's he's had the thing for six hours and hasn't fucking dropped dead yet?
They tell him to rest the shoulder and not to get shot anymore.
Dean asks about his fucking brother and asks about his fucking brother and asks about his fucking brother but they keep shushing him and giving him more morphine and finally he signs the papers and asks about his fucking brother and they tell him room 319, upstairs, and that he's lucky he's not in intensive care, and what's Dean supposed to say, thank you? Because what he wants to say is why the fuck aren't you intensively caring for my brother?
And the reason is that Sam is fucking fighting tooth and nail to stay fucking alive and doing a damn fine job and Dean's standing at the window feeling proud until he hears enough of Sam's pleading, hideous half-breathing half-dying conversation with Bobby to figure out that the only reason the kid's fighting is so nobody knocks him out and puts a fucking tube down his throat, Sam wants to be able to talk, Sam doesn't want to be knocked out.
Dean leans his forehead against the window and looks in, because he has a fucking fever-low fever, bitch fever, you-gave-me-antibiotics-so-it's-going-the-fuck-away fever-and Sam's doctor came to Dean's room hours ago and told him to stay the fuck back because Sam's lungs are looking for any excuse to shut down, and Dean feels so many fucking things about that but one of them is relief and he hates that.
Doctors keep going in and touching his kid and can't they fucking tell that Sam doesn't want to be touched? He and Dean don't touch much anymore to begin with (not since Dad died, not since there's been no one around to tell them when to stop, because what if they don't stop, they don't talk about it and they don't touch) but now...now Sam is barely situated inside his body, barely fucking stretching to fill his toes and fingers and his poor fucking brain and you don't even fucking know him (you don't even know that that's Sam and you don't understand the fucking magnitude of that, that it's Sam Sam is back) and you're putting hands on him?
Sam's shaking like he's being electrocuted because he's on so many fucking meds and Bobby comes out and says, “How's the shoulder?”
“'s fine, I'm drugged.” He keeps looking through the window.
“Fever down?”
“Getting there.” He runs his hand down his face. “Should fucking be in there.”
“He's keeping calm right now. I didn't...” Bobby chews his cheek for a minute like he's searching for words. “Didn't have any idea it was this bad. I held him on my lap for attacks when he was a shrimp-”
“He's allergic to shrimp,” Dead murmurs.
“--but I didn't know it stuck around. That it settled in like this.”
“That's because nobody's supposed to know.”
Bobby doesn't say why, but it's all over his face, and then Dean's head is flashing pictures of he and Sam, tied up, Meg's ear to Sam's mouth and hearing fucking everything, her hands in his pockets feeling the inhaler and a pill bottle, Meg at the bar, watching Sam wheeze on the smoke, Meg when Sam tried to run off to California, getting him to talk about his life, how the fuck is Sam supposed to talk about his life without mentioning he choked his way through half of it--
“So nobody can fucking use it against us,” Dean says.
“Dean.”
“They find something. They always fucking find something. They're not supposed to find this.” This is Sam's.
What Dean wants, more than anything in the world, is a cigarette, and just thinking that makes him throw up. Bobby holds him up.
**
Dean's out in the waiting room because he just couldn't stand there anymore (feeling useless, feeling dizzy, feeling NotSam's thumb in his bullet wound) when a doctor comes out of Sam's room and sits next to him and tells him they had to give him a bunch of fucking shots because this whole time what they'd assumed was just asthma was asthma on top of a fucking allergic reaction, whoops, their mistake, except she's really apologetic and gentle and understanding and all this good crap but Dean needs someone to be angry at right now, all right, so fuck the doctor.
He stares down at the floor. “Is he okay?”
“We think so. He has a few food allergies?”
Dean closes his eyes.
Bitch fucking ate in his kid's body, bitch didn't read the fucking labels, bitch read the fucking labels and ate it anyway, bitch ate it because she read the fucking labels, Sam must have been so scared, Sam must have been screaming and sick that day they were together and Dean fucking...
Bitch ate in his kid's body.
Christ.
Kid hasn't had a bad reaction since Stanford.
Dean's shoulder was hurt then, too.
That's kind of funny.
(Nothing is fucking funny, nothing has been fucking funny in so long.)
**
Dean's fever's down to just a bit above a hundred, and Sam had a nightmare, so yeah, one guess where he is.
He hasn't had a nightmare like this since the night he got him home after the crazy psychos had him in that cage (the last time he went a night without the maintenance meds, and at least then he had a fucking inhaler on him and one guess whether Meg let him use that-didn't touch it the whole day NotSam was with Dean and Dean thought well he's breathing well maybe he doesn't need it and Dean should be fucking fired) and it's not like Dean was sleeping great that night either (shoot him in the cage, Jesus, Dean could forget his own name and never forget those fucking words) and they sat together and didn't talk and just let their shoulders lean against each other, and before that it was after Jess died, and now there are vision nightmares every once in a while but those are different. Those aren't this.
He just lies so still after and breathes hard, hands clamped around his pillow, eyes squeezed shut even though he's awake.
“I can smell the blood,” he says. First fucking words he's spoken to Dean. “I killed him. God, the smell.”
“You didn't kill him, all right?”
“I feel it, though. Sticky. On my fucking hands. Your shoulder...”
“Breathe. Just breathe, okay? The rest will come. We can do the rest.” This part Dean can't do for him, he wants to say, except it's starting to look like Dean can't really do any of this fucking for him. Dean just fucking watches.
Sam gives this groan of pain and rolls onto his back, pulls his knees up. Bobby's supposed to be getting him something for the pain but it's taking forever and they're always such assholes about painkillers and asthma attacks. Dean would just share a few of his, but Sam's allergic to codeine now.
“Show me where,” Dean says, but he doesn't know why, because Sam grabs a spot on his ribcage and holds on tight and Dean isn't going to touch, Sam doesn't want him to touch. He's never fucking liked hands on his chest.
But then Dean's saying, “I want to, can I...” because there are tubes and Sam is hurting and the wheeze sounds like he's crying, and he's not, but Dean swears he has some kind of brain chemical that's only fucking released when he hears his kid crying and his brain must be stupid because now he's getting fucking flooded with it and he wants to curl up on the floor and hide from the whole fucking world and he wants Sam to come with him, fucking brain chemicals.
Sam nods but with all the shit Dean can barely touch him, not really, so he just puts one hand on top of Sam's head and he shouldn't be breathing on the kid anyway, not until the fever's gone, so he just keeps his hand there like a fucking priest and Sam coughs and coughs and coughs.
There's a tap on the window. Sam jumps and Dean says, “Whoa whoa whoa, shhhh.” He looks up at the window, decodes Bobby's thumbs-up. “You're getting pain meds, Sammy. It's all going to be okay.”
Once Sam's drugged, he goes to get him some ice chips and just lets himself stop for a minute, leans against the wall next to Bobby and catch his breath.
Bobby says, “I hate to bring this up, Dean.”
“Oh, Jesus, then don't.”
Bobby doesn't fidget. Bobby doesn't fidget when he's nervous. “The FBI is breathing down your neck, and they've got to know that one of you's a six-foot-six asthmatic, no matter what name he's under.”
“Fuck. Fuck.”
That's fucking low. It's just fucking inexcusable.
Bobby says, “As soon as he's stable...”
Stable. What the fuck does that mean? Sam's still mumbling about blood on his hands and zooming in on Dean's bullet wound whenever Dean is in his field of vision and oh yeah, he can't fucking breathe without the meds they're pumping into him every hour and they still don't know the extent of what Meg did to him, how many ways she found to screw with Sam's body, and fuck turning Sam into some delicate little flower, fuck all of this.
“...as soon as he's stable,” Bobby's saying. “We get him out of here. How's the shoulder?”
“It's fucking fine, this isn't exactly the first time I've been shot.”
“Watch your tone, boy.” But he says it gently.
Dean looks in the window. Sam's coughing again.
“All right,” Dean says. “As soon as he's stable.”
He goes in and feeds Sam some ice chips and then it's time to go.
**
Bobby's driving and Dean puts Sam in the front seat so he can keep an eye on him and not fucking kill his shoulder twisting around all the damn time. But Sam's not doing anything but wheezing softly and staring out the window.
Until he looks at Bobby and says, “Bobby, could I...” and gestures towards the wheel.
“What? You're not driving.”
“No, just...” Sam reaches over and puts his hand on the wheel. He doesn't try to steer (doesn't touch Bobby's hand) just holds the wheel, lets it slide through his fingers when Bobby moves it. He's not driving. Just pretending. Just holding on to something.
**
Bobby cleans up the fucking mess NotSam left all over the living room (they won't talk about RealSam's mess-two used EpiPens lying around waiting to stab someone, vomit, blood, whatever the fuck foamy shit Sam was coughing-yeah, let's not talk about that) while Sam sits Dean down at the kitchen table and changes the dressing on his shoulder. It's fucking stupid, Dean can do this himself, and Sam's trying to muffle the wheezing behind his hand because he thinks Dean is going to make him stop, but he's not going to, because Sam needs this. He gets that Sam needs this.
He pretends Sam isn't brushing his hand on Dean's arm more than he has to. Sam needs this.
Dean doesn't wince when Sam so fucking cautiously dabs at the stitches with some alcohol. Sam starts shaking as soon as it's done, and Dean reaches across the table and laces his fingers through Sam's. It's too easy.
They look at each other, and when Dean finally looks up he sees that Bobby's watching them, and fuck, isn't that exactly what they need.
**
Bobby says that Sam needs to eat something and offers to make some stew, and Dean looks at Sam pouring over books and coughing at the coffee table and says, “That's not going to work.”
“What?”
“He's not going to eat from anyone but me. And it's got to be new stuff. Just follow my lead on this one, okay?”
Bobby looks so fucking confused, but he nods.
Sam's reading with his finger trailing under the words, like he did when he was a kid and does now when he's too jumpy on caffeine and Albuterol to focus. But he doesn't seem jumpy now, just tired. He's cuddling that scarf like it's his only friend.
“Hey, Sam.”
Sam looks up.
“Making a shopping list.” Dean kneels down at the table next to Sam and rips a piece of paper out of his notebook, starts jotting stuff down. Simple things (unscary things), things that have never give Sam a hive in his life, girly fucking things that won't make Sam whine about cholesterol or sodium. Fruits and vegetables. Bread. Sugar. Easy things.
Sam watches.
“Anything for you?” Dean says, like all this fucking stuff isn't for Sam.
Sam clears his throat a few times before he can talk. “Eggs. Stuff for pancakes. For tomorrow.”
“Sounds awesome.”
Bobby's gone to the store and Dean's cleaning the fuck out of the kitchen when he realizes this doesn't mean anything if Sam doesn't see it. He's about to call him when hears the click of a switchblade in the living room, and he feels his heartbeat in his fucking throat, but he turns around and Sam's just fiddling with it, cutting tiny fucking notches in the beat up table, sticking the tip of it into the book he's reading and pulling it back out again. Twirling it. Just nervous stuff. Talking about food made him antsy. Dean gets it.
“You should learn to juggle,” Dean says, and Sam looks up with a weak smile.
“You want to come in here?” Dean says. “I'll boil some water, you can breathe in the steam. Feel better.”
Sam nods and pulls himself up, slowly. The walk to the kitchen's rough on him, but Dean doesn't help because Sam doesn't fucking want him to. He lowers himself to the table with an arm around his ribs. “How's...shoulder?” Great, breathing between words and leaving out half of them, Dean's fucking favorite.
He puts the kettle on. “Drugged the fuck out, no problem.”
“Fever?”
“Low.”
He makes a show out of wiping down the counters, and Sam's being subtle but Dean can tell he's watching. Good.
Sam's wheezing is getting worse, he thinks, and he also thinks Sam notices, which is a hopeful sign for where his head's at, but still fucking sucks. He plays with his inhaler but doesn't use it, and Dean saw him take a hit all of five minutes ago, so what's he supposed to do, harass the kid?
“You ever gone without meds this long?” Dean asks him, because maybe the kid fucked up at Stanford or when he was in that six-month emo asthma phase when he was a teenager, Dean doesn't know for sure (except he does, because Sam never fucking died).
Sam shakes his head. “Longest time was when I was...fifteen? When we were...hunting that Lady in White. Got trapped in that fucking house, remember? When it collapsed?”
“Jesus. Yeah.”
“That was two days.” He coughs into his elbow.
“This was...”
“Ten. Yeah. God.” He pushes his palm into his forehead. “Fucking killed someone, Dean. Fucking...shot you.”
“Don't think about that, okay? There's breathing to do.”
Sam starts to talk but wheezes instead and falls into another coughing fit. Dean needs two fucking hands, okay, he needs to hold Sam still with one hand and press the heel of his other between Sam's shoulder blades but he doesn't fucking have two hands. So he just cleans.
“That's what I'm supposed...thinking about,” Sam gets out eventually. “Fucking asthma's just...I'm supposed to be thinking about you.”
“Hey. I'm fine. I've been shot before. And you kind of think about me on your own, Sammy. You don't need to concentrate on that. “
“Killed someone...”
“Sam. Stop.”
“Supposed to be...getting my fucking head back on straight, and I just...I wish...fucking asthma, I wish it would leave me alone for one fucking minute.”
“I know.”
“When things are really shitty otherwise, you know? I just wish it would fuck off.”
Dean swallows. “Water's ready, sit up, okay?” But he pours it into the bowl before he brings it to Sam rather than after because he's a fucking idiot, and now he can't get it to him. He doesn't have two hands. He needs two fucking hands.
“Oh, hey, I got it.” Sam stands up and grabs the bowl and is wincing a little by the time he gets back to the table, either because he burned his hands or because his chest just fucking aches. He leans over the bowl and coughs at the steam, but it'll help. It'll loosen everything.
Dean puts his hand on the back of Sam's neck and scratches gently at his hairline, like Sam's a fucking cat or something. Sammy starts.
“Sorry,” Dean says.
“No, it's okay.” He coughs a little. “Feels nice, actually. Just wasn't expecting it.”
**
Where the fuck did Sam find his gun? Dean turns his back for one fucking second, to help Bobby get the bags in, and when he gets back Sam doesn't look like he's moved but he has his goddamn gun.
He's not doing anything, not even cleaning it, not even fucking holding it, just looking at it, resting one hand on top of it while he spins his inhaler like a top with the other one.
Dean walks over and says “Uh uh uh,” like Dad used to when they were kids, really really little, and smiles so Sam knows he's playing when he takes the gun away.
Because he's not going to take it any more seriously than that.
**
He makes a sandwich in front of Sam and tries to tell Bobby in the nicest way possible to fuck off, but Bobby lingers in the living room because this is my fucking house, damn it but Dean knows it's because he's fucking worried and he can't exactly blame him (though he has a feeling Bobby's equally worried about Dean and isn't that the fucking whipped cream on top of this sundae of what-the-fuck that this month is turning out to be).
Dean sits himself down in front of Sam with the plate and a glass of water and he's prepared for this to take a fucking while and Sam doesn't let him down. He takes one half and slowly pulls it the fuck apart, and Dean's patient. He needs to do this. After a bad reaction, he needs to do this, and after he was force-fed stuff that made him feel like dying (couldn't die, she was life support; didn't die, Sam is fucking unbelievable) yeah, he gets to fucking do this.
Dean knows his part. He picks up the half Sam hasn't destroyed and takes a bite, lets Sam watch him as he chews slowly (he does this sometimes, like he's ready for Dean to react, like he's scared out of his fucking mind) and takes a sip from the water glass, then he spins the glass around and nudges it towards Sam.
“It's okay,” he says. “Tastes good.”
Sam nods.
“Take as long as you need,” Dean says. “I mean it.”
Sam hardly moves for the next ten minutes, and when he does it's just to make a fist and tap it against the table. It's all the anger of a punch but small. Controlled.
“I know,” Dean says. “Don't beat yourself up about it. It's fine to be scared.”
“I'm being fucking ridiculous. It's not fine.”
“I'm telling you it's fine, and you should fucking listen to me.”
Wrong response. Sam's mouth snaps closed like he's going to glue it shut, but then he says, “I get to choose if it's fine. It's my fucking choice, okay?”
“Yeah.”
Five minutes later, Sam takes a sip from the water glass, and two minutes after that picks up the sandwich and takes a big bite and chews fucking ferociously, his jaw pumping up and down like he's a machine, his hand pressed against his head and his eyes squeezed shut.
“It's okay.” As soon as Sam's swallowed, Dean reaches across the table and puts his hands on either side of Sam's head and just fucking holds it for him for a minute, and he rests his forehead against the top of Sam's head and Sam grips Dean's hands, and they stay like that, and Bobby passes them to go to the bathroom and doesn't fucking say anything but his face is so disapproving, so John fucking Winchester that Dean could fucking scream except his kid's sick, he's not doing any fucking screaming.
And then he realizes he's using both arms and it hurts like hell.
So yeah, Bobby disapproves of that, and shit, why does Dean's mind always have to go there?
**
The pain flares the fuck up not long after that, and Jesus Christ, just fuck all of this, Dean's on the couch on his back and he's being a fucking baby, he knows, but Christ, and he's hot, he's so fucking hot, and it's all he can do to grunt out Sam's name every once in a while and fuck, fuck all of this.
Bobby's counting out more pills but Sam is just there with him, dabbing Dean's forehead with his sleeve and whispering nice things to him (Dean can't hear them, Dean thinks they are probably nice, anything Sam says with that look on his face is nice).
Sam doesn't take his eyes off Dean, but he says, “Bobby, hurry up, okay?”
“Fever,” Dean finally says, he's been trying to talk for ten fucking minutes and he's just fucking groaning.
“I know. We're getting it down. You'll be fine.”
“No. You. Fever.”
Sam looks all confused and says, “I don't have a fever,” and damn it Sam, it's like he's never dealt with his fucking immune system before, how is his kid so stupid, so fucking stupid, and then fuck it's like being shot all over again, he's arching his back and Sam's hand is on his forehead, just staying there, Sam soothing him and one of his hands is hovering over Dean's chest and Dean nods yes, yes you can touch, and Sam lays his other palm there and rubs in slow circles and says, “You're safe, Dean. No one's going to hurt you.”
**
He wakes up in a drugged-out haze to what he at first thinks is fucking silence, but then hears whispered, urgent conversation, then he hears wheezing.
“No, just...measure it...'s a dropper-”
“Which one? Which bottle?”
“Just...”
Dean opens his eyes and pushes himself up. Sam is near him, sitting by the coffee table, scrunched up funny and still, and Bobby's over by his desk with the nebulizer in fucking pieces around him, squinting at the bottles and trying to figure out what the fuck he's doing.
Sam has a death grip on the bridge of his nose. “Just...hurry please?”
Dean's off the couch in a fucking second. He trails one hand over Sam's shoulders on his way to Bobby. “It's not that hard,” he says, and yeah, maybe he's an asshole, but Sam fucking needs it, and when Sam fucking needs something Dean really does not give a shit how hard it is (and this is not that hard).
He fills the cup with medicine and snaps the pieces together and lugs it over to Sam. “Here.”
Sam's panicking a little. Yeah, going-on-eleven days no air will do that to a kid.
“It's all right,” Dean says. “It'll help. Just sit through it.”
Sam stares down at his feet the whole treatment, every once in a while running a shaky hand through his hair, and Bobby clears his throat and mumbles something a hunt and that he should probably get going.
“Seriously?” Dean says.
“The sooner we get back to normal, the better,” he says. “People are already asking where the fuck the Winchesters are. I need to pick up the slack while you two are out.”
“Oh.”
“You'll be all right here?”
“Of course.”
Sam takes the mouthpiece out. “Thanks, Bobby. For letting us stay.”
Bobby looks at him like he's speaking another language and mumbles “Idjit” on his way out the door.
**
The treatment doesn't help and Sammy is miserable. He's miserable quietly and obviously and it's just the worst thing Dean's ever fucking seen, his kid on the floor with a nebulizer Dean keeps refilling and a cough that's shaking him down to his toes.
Dean's setting up the nebulizer for the hundredth time and Sam's doing well enough to talk a little and of course what he wants to say is, “You were supposed to kill me. I was killing people.”
“Yeah, and good thing I didn't, because it wasn't fucking you.”
“Y'promised.”
“It wasn't you.”
“Might have been.”
“Sam.”
“You promised Dad.”
“If I couldn't save you. I have to kill you if I can't save you.”
And then Sam's really quiet, just pressing his hand to his chest and scaring the shit out of Dean.
“They're going to keep using this,” Sam says. “The demons, they know now. Meg will tell them.” He swallows. “Yellow-Eyed demon knows now.”
“Don't think about that, okay?” Because Dean's already thought about it, Dean's already been over it a million times and pictured all the ways fucking Yellow-Eyes could fuck with his brother's lungs and he's determined that he's just fucking not going to think about it anymore, okay? (And he's going to keep Sam so close no one can ever fucking touch him.)
Sam says, “I told Dad, remember? Told him this would kill me.”
“Sammy. Please?”
Sam doesn't look up. “Maybe this is what Dad meant when he told you...Maybe this. Not my fucking...destiny. Maybe this is my destiny.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
Sam gestures weakly towards his chest.
“Sam, stop. Here.” Dean hands him the mouthpiece for the nebulizer but Sam just stares at it and watches the mist leak out.
“I told him this would kill me,” he says, softly. “Maybe you're...maybe you're not supposed to let it.”
“Oh, Jesus, Sam, shut up. Please.”
Sam looks up at him. “I can't do this again.”
“I...I know.”
“I can't lose this control again, I can't. I...”
What happened to Dean's happy little sick kid?
“I can't curl up in the bottom of my stomach again and watch some demon ruin my lungs. I can't fight for air for this long. It's making me crazy. I just can't. And I'm going to get you killed. I'll go down on a hunt and get you hurt, or I'll fucking suffocate until we have to take me to a fucking hospital and then what do you think happens, fucking feds will grab us, grab you...”
“That's just...just don't worry about that, okay?”
“I worry. It's what I do. I worry and I wheeze.”
Dena reaches over and puts a hand on the back of Sam's neck. It feels like a long time since he's been alone with his kid (it's been a long time since he was alone with his kid).
“We made a pact, once, remember?”
Sam shakes his head.
“Yeah. I won't let you lose control, and you won't...remember?”
“Oh. God. Die in your arms.”
“So I'm not going to fucking kill you, because do you think I wouldn't catch you, Sammy?”
**
Of course then two shitty things happen, the first when Dean goes to the bathroom and comes out to Sam and his fucking gun again and this time he takes it away hard and swats Sammy on the cheek, because fuck this, okay? The second is when he fucking swats Sammy's cheek and he's warm, fuck.
Fever's almost 101, half a degree higher than Dean's, and isn't that fucking spectacular. All the fucking meds for Sam, a nest on the couch, a hand on his back for coughing fits after coughing fits that leave him limp and lifeless (not lifeless).
And God, the wheezing, with this desperate tone like he's trying to talk, and the fucking fever, and the fucking ER not even that far away and the fucking FBI and fucking goddamn Meg and fucking shit goddamn fucking asthma fuck fuck fuck fucking asthma.
He takes a deep breath, quietly, and rubs his mouth.
Finally the fucking timer goes off on Sam's watch and that means pills, boatloads of them, and Dean gathers them up with some antibiotics he digs out of the first aid kit and Sam's allergy-skittish about them but Dean begs and he nods a little. (Dean doesn't have to force him.)
Then he leans over and clings to his shirt with one hand and Dean's shirt with the other and Dean says, “I know, kid, I know,” and the truth is that he fucking does. He just does, as much as anyone who isn't Sam ever fucking could, and his chest hurts too, Sam, and he's about an inch away from crying, too, and he wants you to be in control too, Sammy, he wants you fucking in control.
So when Sam reaches up and presses his forehead into Dean's and just stays there and breathes the same air as him and grips the fuck out of Dean's hair, Dean's not exactly pulling away, no.
Half an hour later, the fever's hanging out but Sam's feeling better, getting some more air in. He slides off the couch and back to the floor by the coffee table, and Dean lies back on the cushions that Sam got all fucking warm. Sam's back on the nebulizer and it's probably going to become permanently fused to his body but he's doing okay. He looks the same when he reads, always has.
Then Dean's phone rings.
**
He should have seen this coming. He should have seen this whole fucking thing coming because they've done it all before.
I mean, it's fucking centaurs. Bobby's hunt was fucking centaurs.
Unbelievable.
And now Bobby's calling them from a ditch.
Sam stares at Dean while he's on the phone like he's thinking the exact same thing (oh God really, oh shit, oh shit shit shit.)
Bobby's hurt. The hunt's over, but he's hurt--foot under a boulder, concussed, panicked hurt--and he's only twenty miles away and every other hunter in his phone book is four hours out so what the fuck, what the fucking fuck.
And Dean looks at his brother and the way his shoulders are heaving and the sweat on his forehead and Bobby's fucking knife drawer and every single demon out there in the whole world and sorry, no, this just...fuck.
Dean hangs up and says. “Roadtrip,” and Sam sinks his head onto the table.
**
“Hey, Sammyboy, sit up for a second?”
Sam moves away from his door long enough for Dean to wedge a pillow between Sam and the window. “Thanks,” he says.
“Sure.” Dean knocks Sam's head back against his pillow.
He drives fast but not too fast, and Sam twists his hands and asks Dean if he thinks Bobby's okay and goes over maps, but it's not that complicated a route, so after a while he stops and starts doodling on the edge of the map, and then the doodling turns serious and he's drawing precise, straight lines, his tongue pinched between his teeth.
“What are you doing?” Dean asks.
“Nothing, just...” he shrugs. “It helps. To do something.”
“I get it. What are you drawing?”
“I'm not sure. I'll look it up later.” He stops and slides his hand's underneath his thighs, looks out the window. “Hunt's over, you said?”
“Yeah. You sound better.”
Sam nods. “I want to fucking hunt something.”
And Jesus, Dean remembers that. After Dad died and he was supposed to be fucking dead, Jesus, he remembers just wanting to kill every single bit of supernatural bullshit in the world, every single thing that made this a world where his dad could die instead of him and possessed people could t-bone their car in the first place and still nobody could fix his fucking little brother, he'd wanted to rid the world of fucking all of it and yeah, Dean can understand Sam right now wishing monsters were just in kid's books and he sure as fuck understands wanting to bash something's head in, but Sammythekiller is a little close to fucking home right now, a little close to Dean's fucking sore as hell arm, so just...Sam, you can't even breathe, buddy.
“You're going to stay in the car, though, right?” Dean says, quietly. Making it sound like the decision is Sam's.
Sam breathes (wheezes) out. “Yeah.”
“Hey, Sam? You're getting there. You had a shit time. You're getting there.”
“Yeah.”
“You'll be a hundred percent again soon.”
Sam gives this look, because what the fuck, a hundred percent of what, who the fuck is Dean comparing him to? (Who the fuck could ever stand up to a comparison with Sam?)
He says, “Uh, you'll be...Sam-percent again.”
“Sam-percent,” Sam repeats.
“Mmm.”
“I hope so.”
He probably thinks Sam-percent is low, Dean realizes a minute later.
**
It's raining by the time they get to Bobby, of-fucking-course, and Sam's wheezing hard from the weather change. He wraps his arms around his chest and leans forwards and nods hard when Dean asks if he's okay.
“This might be a minute,” Dean says. “Freeing his foot. I don't know. You just stay warm, okay?”
“I'll be fine.” He coughs into his shoulder.
“If it gets bad...”
“I know. Stop worrying.” He grabs Dean's hand and twists it.
“Jesus, Jesus, uncle.”
Sam gives himself a point and squeezes Dean's hand before he lets go. “Go get Bobby. I'll get the backseat ready for him.”
Dean touches Sam's forehead. Still warm. Not hot.
“Dean. Go.”
“I'm going, Jesus.”
**
Bobby seems less confused than he was on the phone, but he's still a fucking idiot because he's trying to get this boulder off by himself when it's clearly not fucking budging. Dean drops to a crouch beside him. “Hey.”
“Thank God.”
“You're going to be fine, all right? How the fuck did this even happen?”
“Big fucking pile of them collapsed when I staked the son of a bitch. Fucking centaurs.”
“Did you get 'em both?”
“What?”
“They travel in pairs.”
“I only saw the one.”
Fucking perfect. “Let's get the fuck out of here.”
The problem is that Dean only has one arm that's in any way capable of lifting this fucking thing, and that combined with Bobby's just isn't enough. Not to mention it's dark as fucking balls and of course Dean forgot his fucking flashlight, so he can't see what he's doing and he keeps slamming his fingers between the boulder and Bobby's shattered foot and that feels fucking awesome for both of them, he's sure.
The rain's coming down harder and Dean throws his other arm into it and feels like his arm's about to fucking rip off and the fucking fever and his brother's probably freezing his ass off in the car and the mud's building up and fuck if Dean's going to be able to even get Bobby out of here on that foot even if he can get the fucking boulder up and the more mud's getting caked in here the less likely it is that he's ever going to get that fucking boulder up, and the fucking fever he's not even sure what direction the car's in, shit, shit shit shit shit and then he fucking hears it, fucking hooves, because centaurs travel in pairs, moron.
And then a voice yells “Get down!” and an arrow hisses through the air.
Dean puts a hand on Bobby's chest and stumbles to his feet and there he is, coming towards them, bow drawn, hoodie soaked, Sam Motherfucking Winchester, taking aim to Dean's right, and Dean looks and there it is, shit this is bigger than the one Dean took down, long hair and wild eyes and claws and teeth and and it's running straight at Sam.
And Sam Jesus you're fucking sick, why are you out of the fucking car, Dean didn't call how did you know, and Sam shoots another arrow that hits the centaur right in the gut. It slows him down, but that's not going to fucking do it, you have to get him the heart, and Sam's getting tired, Sam's shoulders are heaving, Sam can't exactly fucking breathe right now, but Bobby's bow is snapped and fuck if there's anything Dean can do, fuck if there's ever anything he can do, he makes promises to Sam he can't keep and refused to fucking kill the kid and Sam fucking kills himself trying to breathe and then they wake up and do the same fucking thing but worse, this is the same fucking thing as two years ago but worse and what happens two years from now, Sam, are you going to live another fucking two years of this, is Dean going to live through watching you do another fucking two years of this, is Dean going to make you live another fucking two years of this?
Sam fires off another arrow and nails the son of a bitch right in the heart.
He goes down hard, and Sam twists to the side to sneeze (Sam's allergic to centaurs, even with all of this bullshit Sam's fucking hilarious and Dean fucking adores him, all right) before huffing out a breath and stumbling over to Dean and Bobby.
“Hey, Bobby,” he says, his voice fucking wrecked. He leans against Dean's shoulder for a second while he shakes his inhaler.
“Jesus Christ, superhero,” Dean says.
“It's an adrenaline thing. I'm gonna crash in a minute.”
“ 's fine. What the hell are you doing here?”
Sam takes a hit off his inhaler and coughs out his next breath. “Hunting?”
“You're supposed to be in the car...”
“You took too long.” He sinks down and puts his hands on his knees, coughs for a while. “Okay, this fucking boulder...”
“I can do it if you help me,” Dean says.
Sam nods heavily and grabs the other side of the boulder. His strength isn't, uh, Sam-percent yet, but his grip is less shaky than Dean's, and after two tries they get the fucking thing off. Bobby squirms out from under, grimacing like fuck, and Sam swallows and says, “Can you get him to the car?”
Bobby grumbles that he's not a piece of meat. “Your foot's a fucking useless one,” Dean says, then says to Sam,“Yeah, I can. You okay?”
“Yeah.” He shivers. “I'm just gonna be slow.” He grabs Bobby's shit and his and slings it over his shoulder.
They slog out of the mud and Sam points Dean to the car and mumbles something about one of their fevers, Dean can't even tell, and Sam lags behind and hugs himself while they walk but keeps nodding to Dean every time he turns around, I'm okay, I'm okay, I'm okay.
Dean gets Bobby into the car while Sam puts the stuff in the trunk. He sees his shoulder's bleeding again, and Jesus, it hurts, and he comes out back into the rain because he thinks he's going to puke, but then he's a little distracted by Sam, gripping the roof of the car to hold himself up, coughing and coughing and coughing, hideous and wet and scraping against his throat, coughing so hard he's caved in at the waist, and it's just fucking endless, and he's red and then purple, and Dean gets behind Sam and hooks the arm he can move underneath his arm to hold him up and takes the one he can't move and wraps it around to Sam's stomach because he can fucking move when Sam fucking needs him to, and he holds Sam up for God knows how long and his kid coughs in the rain, coughs and coughs and coughs and fucking coughs.
“Into the car,” Dean says, when there's any fucking break. “We got to get you in, come on.”
“Get out of me,” Sam croaks. “Get out of me, get out of me.”
“S-Sam, she's not in you.”
“Not her.” Sam straightens up the best he can. “Fucking...get out of me! He hits his palm against his chest. “Out of me! You stupid fucking goddamn lungs!”
Dean pivots around to face Sam from the front, takes him by the shoulders (Jesus fucking Christ Ow) and looks up at him.
“Don't fuck with your lungs,” Dean says. “They try their hardest. All right?”
Sam looks down, nods.
“They're in control,” he says. “They're still fucking breathing, so guess who's winning, them or asthma? You're in control. You breathing?”
“Yeah.”
Dean presses the keys into his hand. “Good. You're driving. I fucking can't, man.”
**
Fucked-up shoulder or no fucked-up shoulder, Dean's a lot less obtrusive than a six-foot-six asthmatic, so he's the one who brings Bobby in and waits to make sure he's not fucking dying, then he promises he'll be right back and goes back out to the car where his fucking kid is hopefully not fucking dying.
He's not. He's sitting right in the middle of the front seat, wrapped in a dry sweatshirt and his wet scarf. His breathing's congested and shallow as all fuck and he's been sneezing, and he breathes through his mouth and watches Dean climb in through the driver's seat.
“How is he?”
“He'll be fine. Have to wear a boot on that foot. They don't think he needs surgery.”
“Bobby's invincible.”
“Yeah.”
Sam peels off Dean's jacket and checks on his shoulder. Dean looks. The stitches aren't torn, which is a fucking miracle, and Sam digs Dean's flask out of the glove compartment to clean them off. He's gentle.
When he's done, he chokes on a cough and sneezes into his elbow.
Dean says, “What can I do, Sammy? What do you need?”
They're parked facing the hospital, and Sam raises his head and looks up at it like a fucking Catholic looks at a church and...shit, just shit, and Dean says, “You're calling the shots, okay? You say you want to go in, we go in.”
Sam shakes his head and looks back down.
“You kicked ass today,” Dean says. “I'm not even talking about the fucking centaur, though...I mean, Jesus, Sam.”
Sam laughs without smiling.
“I just need to get a handle on this,” Sam says eventually. “Not even just...I know Dad wasn't talking about the asthma, you know? But it's all part of this shit I need to control. My body. My destiny. My fucking temper.”
“Only human, Sammy.”
“Yeah, let's hope.”
Dean tries not to sigh and just rubs Sam's back for a minute.
“Whatever you need, you know?” Dean says. “Just tell me.”
Sam reaches up and touches Dean's forehead. “Think your fever's down.”
“Think yours is too.”
“Can you just stay with me for a little while?”
“Yeah. Of course.” Bobby can deal.
They sit together without talking and listen to Sam wheezing, and then Sam lowers himself down and curls up on the seat, his head on Dean's knee.
Dean plays with his hair and Sam manages this wheeze of a sigh.
Jesus, Dean would give him anything.
**
Two weeks later, Sam finally shows Dean what he keeps fucking drawing, and they get their asses to a tattoo parlor, and while they're shoving needles into him Sam smiles, huge, calm, SamSamSam, he smiles for the first time in weeks, and sorry, but he takes Dean's fucking breath away.