When I was sick, you used to make me tomato rice soup.

[shyriann]

Title: When I was sick, you used to make me tomato rice soup
Prompt: From a prompt by callistosh65 : S5 Sam is out of his head with fever for whatever reason. Thinks Dean is Ruby and that his brother is still in Hell. Original prompt can be found here.
Spoilers: General for Season 4+.
Word Count: 4,587
Warnings: references to Hell, dead supporting character, use of alcohol, not-quite wincestuous overtones.
Disclaimer: We all know we don't own shit, no matter how many letter we write to Santa.
A/N:  This one got long on me quickly, so I put it in my own journal with this link.  Hope I did it justice, this is only my fourth fanficattempt ever.


The cut hadn’t really been that bad. By other people’s standards, he supposed it was pretty ugly, but if they’d had time to stitch it immediately it probably would have been fine. They’d both had wounds worse than the gouge in Sam’s left shoulder and had barely even slowed down. But they had been deep in the woods, in twelve inches of snow, chasing a witch that had turned into a bear, of all fucking things. After blowing a hole in her, wiping off all the body fluids that witches always seemed to spew everywhere, and trudging back to the Impala, it had been bleeding steadily for about two hours.   Sam had gritted his chattering teeth while Dean stitched him up, but by morning it had already started seeping ugly yellow pus, and by noon Sam had a raging fever.

Sam spent the afternoon in the motel bed alternately curling into a giant shivering ball and then kicking the covers to the floor, sweating and panting. By dark, Dean was strung tight with worry. He had cleaned and re-bandaged Sam’s shoulder, and gotten him to take the last of the antibiotics from their last trip to the hospital.  He carefully salted the windows and door before making a quick trip to the nearest convenience store, ignoring the questioning looks that he was sure came from the frantic look in his eyes. When he got back, Sam was standing in the middle of the room, yelling at no one. Dean vaguely heard the bag from the store hit the floor behind him as he rushed to grab his baby brother, who was swaying unsteadily on his feet. When Sam looked through him instead of at him with red-rimmed glassy eyes, his heart nearly stopped. He managed to wrestle Sam back to the bed, murmuring words he wasn’t really aware of saying.

“C’mon Sammy, I gotcha. Get back in bed, man. You need rest, you’re gonna be fine, you just need to rest. C’mon, Sasquatch, just lay back. Yeah, that’s it. I gotcha.”

“It’s my fault, Ruby,” Sam whispers, almost too quiet to hear.

What the hell? Ruby’s dead, Sammy. I slid her own knife between her ribs and into her black, conniving heart. I killed her for you. She’ll never put her lying lips on you again.

“What’s your fault, Sam?”

But Sam was already unconscious, and Dean just brushed his hair away from his sweaty brow and tucked the covers up under his chin.

Dean went back and picked up the bag of stuff from the store. He sorted it all out on the rickety table. Aspirin, a thermometer, a can of soup, a small box of instant rice, a big jug of orange juice, and a bottle of whiskey. He spun the cap off the whiskey with his thumb and took a long swallow. Then he walked over to his gargantuan brother, too big for the tiny motel bed, and sat next to him. As he slipped the thermometer into the hollow under Sam’s arm, Sam sighed and rolled towards him. He wrapped his long arms around Dean and curled around him like he was a giant teddy bear. Dean sighed and ran his fingers through Sam’s sweat damp hair and waited.

Sam’s freezing. He remembers the snow, remembers the bear, remembers… nothing else. He’s all alone again, lost and frantic and trying not to give in. Trying not to give in to despair, not to give in to the urge to put a gun in his mouth so he can be with Dean again, because suicide is a Sin, and surely that’ll get him sent to Hell. He’s trying not to give in to the bone-deep cold that has his teeth chattering, or the pain in his shoulder that makes him want to cut his damn arm off, because he’s sure that an amputation would hurt less. He’s in another nameless motel, on another tiny bed, and he’s fucking tired. He’s tired of being sick, tired of being in pain, tired of putting on a stone face to hide the tears that linger just behind his eyes every minute of every day. He’s tired of fighting, tired of knowing that he couldn’t save his brother, tired of hunting for the demon bitch who took away the only thing in his whole fucking life that he could count on. He’s tired of being lost and lonely and afraid without Dean.

Someone sits on the bed next to him, and he knows it has to be Ruby, she’s the only one who knows he’s here. She came back. And he thinks with a sigh that she’s a far cry from Dean, but she’s all he has now and she’s here. She’s warm, and he so fucking cold. He rolls over and wraps his arms around her and he’s a little surprised that she lets him. Snuggling is not in Ruby’s repertoire, and he’s surprised again when she runs her fingers through his hair. For a moment, it even feels like she cares.

“You’ve got a nasty fever there, Sammy.”

What the hell are you talking about? I’m hypothermic. From the snow. I must’ve gotten chilled in the snow. Not that I’d expect a demon to remember what it takes to take care of her meat-suit.

“Just get me another blanket, I’ll be fine,” he grumbles.

“Sure thing, Sammy. One blankie, comin’ right up.”

“Bitch.”

Dean stood up, thermometer in hand, to get Sam another blanket. If the room hadn’t been so quiet he might not have heard Sam’s parting jab. If he hadn’t been terrified by the reading on the thermometer, he might have thought to throw a “Jerk” back at Sam. He walked back to the tiny table and popped two aspirin out of the bottle. He unwrapped one of the little plastic cups on the dresser and poured orange juice into it. He grabbed another gulp of whiskey before unwrapping another cup and dumping the contents of the soup can into it. He ripped open the box of rice, poured enough in to bring the liquid to the top of the cup and popped it into the tiny microwave. He carried the aspirin and juice back to the bed to find Sam mumbling to himself again.

“What’s that, Sam?” He wrestled Sam into a more or less sitting position, shoving one shoulder under his brother to keep him upright.

“It should have been me,” Sam said a little louder. His eyes opened, searched the room, settled on things that didn’t exist, then finally rolled back and closed again.

No, Sammy. Never you. You were the one who wanted to be normal. You were smart enough to try to get out. I was the one who thought all this shit was awesome, like some fucked up cowboy superhero movie. This was never your choice. You should’ve been strapping giant Winchester babies into the back of a mini-van in California instead of having a psychic showdown in the middle of South Dakota.

“How do you figure that?”

“I’m the one who’s tainted. Fucking demon blood in me before I could walk. Dean, he… he was a saint. He took care of me, of everybody. He was there when Dad was too busy or too drunk to care. He was the one who packed my lunch and dragged Dad to bed when he came in dead drunk. He gave everything we ever needed without asking anything in return. I can’t even take care of myself, now. I never had to learn how.”

“Sam, I…”

“Just shut up, Ruby. You don’t understand, and I’m gonna make you understand. He deserves that. He deserves for someone besides me to know how amazing he is.” Sam was almost shouting, eyes wild.

Not so amazing, Sam. I wasn’t the one who had the balls to stand up to Dad. I just did what I was told because I wasn’t brave enough to do anything else. I spent my life trying to earn his approval instead of being my own man.   You were the one who was brave enough to have a dream and follow it. Hell, I can’t even talk to people unless I’m wearing a con face. You just smile, and people want to bring you home to meet their daughters.

“I tell you what. You take these without a fuss, and I’ll sit here all night and listen whatever’s in that oversized head of yours.” He pressed the aspirin to Sam’s lips, silently grateful when Sam opened up without a fuss. A minute later, half the juice was gone, and Dean felt the tension in his gut uncoil just a little. He went back for the soup, and after getting Sam to drink half of that too, he felt a lot less panicked. He settled back down next to Sam, leaned against the headboard, ready to roll his eyes as Sam recounted the days of Dean the Superhero. “Ok, Princess, knock yourself out.”

Sam takes the pills that Ruby sticks to his lips, too numb to care what they are. Maybe they’ll make him feel better, maybe they’ll kill him. He swallows them down with orange juice, instantly reminded of Dean. Dean always gave him orange juice when he was sick. He hates any other kind. All he needs now to complete the illusion is some of Dean’s famous tomato rice soup. It’s vile, and he had always hated it, but he always drank it, because Dean made it. Underneath the chunky disgust of lukewarm tomato juice it always held the warm flavor of real love. When she comes back with another cup and tips it to his lips, the smell of tomatoes nearly draws a sob from his throat. Ruby’s soup tastes like love, too. Imagine that. She settles next to him, a warm and comforting presence, and he starts to relax into her. But then she crosses the line. Princess Samantha was Dean’s name for him when he was at his lowest, when he was hurt and sick and whiny and helpless, and he never minded it from Dean as much as he pretended he did. It always made him feel safe and warm when Dean teased him with that name, no matter how awful his body felt. It meant that he was going to be alright, because Dean was taking care of him. She has no right to that name, none. If he had control of his limbs, he would choke the demon out of her with his bare hands. All he can manage, though, is a weak shove. He gives up and wraps his arms back around her, grateful for the warmth that’s slowly thawing his bones even while rage and disgust make him want to beat her senseless .

Dean chuckled to himself as Sam shoved at him with the strength of a three year old. He wiggled around a bit till he got comfortable, and Sam did the same, finally wrapping his ridiculously long arms back around Dean’s waist. He’d almost forgotten how snuggly his baby brother was when he was feeling pitiful and sick. The heat radiating off his Sam’s skin was nauseating, and Dean manually checked his temperature again under the guise of smoothing his hair back from his brow. Either the aspirin would bring his fever down soon, or they’d be taking a trip to the emergency room. 102.8 was no laughing matter. He found himself rubbing soothing circles across Sam’s back, and was silently glad there was no one here to see him wrapped in six and a half feet of Sam. He looked down as he realized Sam was mumbling into his chest again.

“It’s my fault. It should have been me. She should have taken me,” Sam whispered. “Ruby, what are they going to do to him?”

Dean stiffened. He sat stone still, praying that his little brother would just fall asleep.

Sam squeezed, shaking him a little. “Tell me.”

Please, Sammy. Don’t make me do this.

“You don’t want to know, Sam.”

“I do. I need to know. I can’t just keep wondering, letting my imagination come up with a thousand scenarios. I need to know, Ruby. Tell me.”

I can’t, Sam. I don’t want to remember it, please don’t make me talk about it. Your imagination can’t even come close.

“It’s not so bad, Sam.”

“Ruby, it’s HELL. Just tell me about it, I can take it.”

I can’t.

Dean sighed. Maybe he could talk Sam to sleep, skip the fun parts. “It’s huge. Bigger than you can wrap your head around. Every damned soul since the beginning of time is there, and they’re mostly all just thrown together. They fight, all the time, for dominance, for space. For a moment’s peace. It’s a big endless bar fight.”

Sam snorted. “Bet they didn’t know what they were getting into when they threw my brother in there. He’d be top dog in no time.”

Ninety three days. It took me ninety-three days to fight my way to the top of the food chain against a billion souls. Nothing but animal instinct and fear, just how they fucking wanted me.

“Yeah.  You’re probably right. I’m sure he’s fine. You should sleep, Sammy.”

“Is there really a lake of fire?”

It’s a lake of blood, actually. And sometimes it’s on fire, so…yeah.

“Nah, that’s just a myth the Christians came up with to scare people.”

“They’ll torture him. They’ll torture him for all the demons we sent back, won’t they?” Sam’s voice was small and frightened.   Dean pulled him closer, rubbed circles on his back. Tried to keep his hands busier than his mind.

Every single fucking one took a turn.   Some of them even did favors for Alastair to get more than one turn. Ten thousand, nine hundred, fifty-four turns in all.

“Jesus, Sam. Just let it go, will you?” Dean buried his face in his brother’s hair. He was sweaty and sick, but underneath was the scent that’s just Sam. It’s safety, and trust…it’s home. He couldn’t choke Sam no matter how much he wanted to at that moment. He didn’t mean it, he didn’t even know where he was, didn’t even know who he was talking to. Damnit if the kid didn’t still have the knack for cutting right through his stone face and poking him in the sore spot. Their whole lives Sam’s always been one big raw emotion drawing out all the shit Dean tried to swallow and forget.

Sam can’t let it go. Dean is down there. His brother is down there, being tortured in hell. He can imagine it, but then he can’t. Not really. He can imagine all the things he would do if he were a demon with Dean fucking Winchester under his thumb. But he can’t imagine past that. He has no reference to work with. He’s never seen his brother scream in abject terror, never heard his brother beg for his life. The pained shout of popping a dislocated shoulder back in place is the closest he can come. Ruby can’t understand, she’s seen hell with her own eyes. Maybe she has dreams about it, maybe she has nightmares about going back, but she can’t know what it’s like to be the one left behind. Dean went to hell, Dean fucking left him behind and he’s still here, and he has to keep moving. He has to keep fighting, because it’s what Dean would want, but he doesn’t want to fight anymore. He’s no good at being on his own. He never gave a shit about this life. He hunted because it was the family business, then for revenge for Jess, and then… because it was what Dean wanted. Dean might have hated the attention, hated the praise, hated the long hours and broken bones and sleepless nights, but he fucking glowed when he saved a life. Sam couldn’t take that away from him. He hunted because he loved Dean, and Dean loved hunting, and maybe if he stayed close enough to that glow… maybe it would light up the dark in himself. But there’s no light anymore.  He feels like a robot, just a shell on auto-pilot, fueled with anger. He’s lost and hopeless without Dean’s stoic righteousness to balance out all the darkness and rage that’s always been in him. He’s the one left behind, and dammit… Dean should have just let him die. Anything would be better than wandering alone with a gaping hole in his chest where his brother used to be. Dean was gone. Gone was forever. Forever was another day like this one, over and over again. There was no end to this pain. He wants to kill Ruby for being there for him. He wants her to pay for making him live.

Dean listened to Sam’s fever-induced ramblings in utter shock, certain that the kid didn’t even realize he was thinking out loud. When Sam got to “Just let me die,” he was pretty sure the pain in his chest meant that his heart had actually broken.

“Sam. Sammy… I…he, he didn’t know. He didn’t know you’d miss him like that. You went to college, you were fine without him. You didn’t need Dad to yell at you to keep your feet moving. I… he thought you were stronger than him. God, Sammy. I’d take it all back if I could.”

I wouldn’t have lasted four months if you’d stayed dead.   I’d take it back, you bet your ass, Sammy. I’d have let you go, spared you all this hurt. I’d have followed you down, one bullet, nice and easy. Never meant to put you through any of this.

“Wasn’t strong enough,” Sam slurred. “Dean woulda been smart ‘nough to kill Jake while he had him down… first time. He woulda made sure… both walked outta that shithole town.”

I did.

Dean reached carefully to the tiny nightstand and groped for the thermometer. He was pretty close to willing to take Sam to the emergency room no matter what the damn thing read, if only so they’d sedate him and make him stop torturing himself over Dean’s mistakes. He slid the thermometer back under Sam’s arm and reached for the soup. It took a little arguing, but he finally got Sam to drink the rest. The juice took a lot less convincing. Sam loved his OJ, and he drank it down greedily. When Sam asked for more, he jumped up and went to fill the cup back up. Setting it on the bedside table, he reached for the thermometer. He glanced at the reading, dropped it to the floor, and ran for the bathroom.

Sam is thirsty. Ruby doesn’t bring more juice like she promised. Leave it to him to trust a fucking demon. That’s fine, he’ll go get it himself. Except the room is spinning, and he can’t see. He can see, but the pictures don’t make any sense. There’s the bed from the cabin he and Ruby trained in, the table from Bobby’s kitchen, Dad’s latest bottle of liquor abandoned on top of it. Jess’s favorite shirt is hanging over the back of the chair, Dean’s boots on the floor underneath. Just as he spies the jug of juice the room flips over itself. No, it’s him that’s flipped over. Ruby… Ruby’s carrying him? The thought of her five foot frame hauling him bodily across the room has him giggling. When she sets him on his feet and starts stripping his shirt off, he finds himself mildly annoyed. Body heat might be good for hypothermia, but she didn’t bring his juice, and he fully intends to stand on his soap-box of righteousness and refuse to have sex with a liar. Only now, she’s unbuttoning his pants, too. And when he bats her hands away, she reaches up and slides a warm hand behind his neck, pulls him down till his forehead rests against hers.

“Sam, I really need you to cooperate for a minute, okay? This is serious.”

Suddenly, cooperating sounds good. Fucking Ruby against a wall is guaranteed to get him warm. He grips her by the back of the neck, pulling her face even closer to his. He slides his other hand around her back, then down, down until he gets to the bottom of her shirt. He slips his hand under it, and then back up, and her skin is warm and he can feel the growl in the back of his throat as he remembers wanting to choke her. He slams her back against the wall and his mouth is on hers, biting at lips that are full and so soft.

Dean froze as Sam’s hand came up his bare back under his shirt. His first reaction was to punch his brother in the gut. What the fuck, Sammy? Lucky for Sam’s ribs, Dean remembered the hallucinations his brother had been having for the better part of two hours. His second reaction was to punch him in the jaw, for thinking he was Ruby. His third reaction was to punch him in the eye for screwing a demon in the first place. When Sam slammed him backwards and kissed him, all hands and teeth, he went with his fourth reaction. He picked his brother up and tossed him bodily into the bathtub.

Fighting with Sam in the tub was like fighting an angry octopus. He was wet, slippery, and shouting obscenities. He also had more arms than any one human should, and they were insanely long, freakishly strong, and flailing all over the place. Within seconds, Dean was drenched in lukewarm water, bruised in nine places, and ready to choke Sam for the second time in an hour.

“Dammit, Sam, would ya sit still? I have to get your fever down, before your brain fries in your head and you lose all your supergeek superpowers.” It sounded as stupid to Sam as it did to him, apparently, because Sam immediately stopped flailing and looked through him with glassy eyes.

“Wha?”

Dean raised one eyebrow, waving a hand in front of his brother’s unseeing eyes. “You know, faster than a speeding locomotive, able to quote from the Encyclopedia of Wierdness in a single bound, able to pull flawless bitchface and cockblock your brother in a single sentence?”

“If you’re going to drown me, you need more water. If you’re trying to freeze me to death, a bullet would be faster and kinder. If you’re trying to confuse me into compliance with either of those options, just bring me my fucking juice, and I’ll go quietly.” Sam’s face was utterly serious.

“Jesus, Sammy. You’re gonna be fine. You’re just sick. If I go get your juice, will you sit here till I get back? Ten seconds, tops.”

Sam is too cold and tired to care anymore. His mouth feels like a desert has been born and died in it, his teeth won’t stop chattering and death by drowning, freezing, or shooting sounds like a lot less effort than climbing out of the glacial well Ruby has thrown him in. If she’ll just toss the jug of orange juice down here with him, he’ll shut up and die in peace. By the time she gets back with the cup, the well isn’t quite so cold. In fact, the water’s kinda nice, just a little chilly. The OJ washes away the desert in his mouth, and by the time she hauls him out of the well and wraps him in a fluffy blue towel, he’s feeling pretty toasty.

“I’m tired, Ruby. Can you just leave me alone now, so I can sleep?”

“You got it, Gigantor.”

Dean choked on tears he didn’t realize he was holding back when the thermometer finally read an agreeable 99.3. He popped two more aspirin into Sam’s mouth while he was rambling on about the germ content of well water, then hauled him out of the tub and dried him off with a fluffy blue hotel towel. He wrestled Sam back into the bed, tucked him firmly under all four of the hotel’s blankets, and breathed a sigh of relief as Sam immediately started snoring.

Jesus, Sam. You don’t do anything half-assed, do ya? You even do sick with an extra-large order of drama.

Sam swims back to consciousness a minute later. Ruby’s still there, he can feel her sitting on the bed next to him. He can smell her. She smells like gun oil and leather, engine grease and whiskey. She smells like Dean. He rolls toward her, wrapping himself in the smell of Home. He doesn’t care where it comes from, or why. Slowly, he realizes she’s singing. So quietly he can barely hear her, a little off-key.

“Don’t make it bad…”

Sam holds his breath. He doesn’t want her to know he can hear, doesn’t want her to stop.

“Take a sad song, and make it better…”

He can’t hold it in anymore. A strangled sob escapes, carrying all the pain of his whole life wrapped in his brother’s name.

“Dean…”

She strokes his hair, leans down and leaves a gentle kiss on his forehead, just like Dean used to when he was sick.

“Right here, Sammy.”

“Ruby… do you think we could bust him out?” She stiffens next to him, holds her breath. “If you helped me, if I trained really hard, do you think we’d have a chance to get him back?” He knows he sounds weak and pathetic, like he’s five years old and begging for Santa to be real, and he doesn’t care.

“Yeah, Sam. We can do that. You sleep, and I’ll go do some recon, call in some favors. I hadn’t thought of it before, but I bet he’ll be right here with you by morning.”

Sam nods and tries to sleep. Unconsciousness sneaks up and hits him like a ton of bricks.

It’s morning, and Sam’s arm hurts like a bitch. He feels weak, like he used to as a kid after he was really sick. He’s thirsty, too. He glances around, spies half a jug of orange juice, starts to slide out of bed. His eyes are drawn to the motion of Dean’s head turning toward him. He’d been sitting so still Sam hadn’t noticed him till he’d moved. Dean looks terrible, his face is pale and there are dark circles under his eyes.

Empty bottle of whiskey probably has a lot to do with that.

Dean doesn’t speak, just looks at him until he squirms uncomfortably under the scrutiny.

“Dean, you okay?”

Dean sighs, and Sam thinks for a moment that he looks fifty, not thirty.

“Yeah, Sammy, I’m good.” His smile is weak, but not forced. “How you feelin?”

“Like I got clawed by a bear.” He notices the light streaming in through the window. “Jesus, did I sleep all night?”

“Two, actually.”

“Two? I’ve been asleep for two days?”

“Yep. Had a pretty ugly fever. Hallucinations and everything. Had me pretty fucking worried.”

“Did I… did I talk? While I was hallucinating?”

“You mean did you spill any embarrassing secrets?” Dean’s smirk was tired around the edges. Sam nodded.

“Nah. You did try to sprinkle me with pixie dust, though. Always knew you secretly wanted to be a fairy princess when you grew up.”

“Dean!” Sam tosses a pillow across the room at Dean’s head.

He could almost swear there were tears in Dean’s eyes as he batted it away.