Memories
Title: Memories
Author: 27_jaredjensen
Characters/pairing: Dean/Lisa, Ben
Summary: Ben and Dean get sick, Lisa takes care of them both.
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The last time Dean was inside a middle school was the time he and Sam worked a case a couple of years back. Ben’s school is exactly the same as that one had been- crowed, bratty little kids all over the place. It’s Ben’s first year here, and now Dean knows why he dislikes it so much.
He makes his way to the front office, where he tells the receptionist his name and waits while she goes back to the nurses office. She comes out with Ben, who looks pale, his eyes glued to the floor.
“Hey bud. How are you feeling?”
Ben shrugs, and the receptionist relays what the nurse told her, which is that Ben has a fever and should get straight to bed.
“Where’s Mom?” Ben asks softly as Dean gathers his backpack and jacket from behind the front desk.
“Your mom’s at work.”
Ben’s expression is a disheartening mixture of miserable and disappointed. Dean signs him out, leads him out to the Impala, and finds himself trying to remember how he used to cheer Sam up when he was sick as a kid. As soon as the thought enters his mind, he forces it out.
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The rest of the afternoon passes by uneventfully. Dean sends Ben up to bed, where he falls asleep almost immediately. Lisa has a whole cabinet dedicated to first aid supplies in the bathroom, so he digs through until he finds various medicines and a thermometer. He’s not exactly sure what he’d give Ben, so he sets them out on the counter and decides he’ll wait until Lisa gets home.
He goes into the kitchen a little before Lisa is due home from work to make dinner. It’s the one area in their- his- house that he doesn’t feel like a complete screw-up in. He makes tomato-rice soup- he always fed it to Sam when he was sick- and is just ladling it into three bowls when Lisa comes through the door.
She greets him with a kiss before going upstairs to get Ben, and Dean finishes setting the table.
Ben falls asleep partway through dinner, soup half-finished.
“Thanks for dinner,” Lisa says quietly, standing and running a hand through Ben’s hair before she starts to gather the dishes from the table.
“I’ll carry him to bed,” Dean offers. “Leave this, I’ll clean up the kitchen later.”
Lisa smiles, kisses the top of his head and goes to get a thermometer.
Dean carefully lifts Ben from the chair and carries him upstairs, and as he reaches the top Ben stirs, turning his face to Dean’s chest to cough.
“Not a baby,” he murmurs as Dean settles him into his bed. He curls into a ball around a cough, and Lisa appears in the doorway, medicine and a glass of juice in hand.
“Hey baby, how are you feeling?” She asks, moving to sit on the edge of the bed. Ben gives a half-hearted glare, and Dean chuckles, backing out of the room. He leans against the doorframe with his arms crossed and watches Lisa take Ben’s temperature. She smoothes his hair back and kisses his forehead and tucks him into bed, and Dean feels something in his chest he can’t quite identify.
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When Dean wakes up the next morning, he feels disgusting. His head is pounding, his nose is stuffed-up, even his eyes feel sore.
Lisa’s already up, and Dean tries to push himself out of bed, but he’s dizzy and his stomach churns. He’s contemplating falling asleep and never waking up when he feels a cool hand on his forehead, someone tucking the comforter around his shoulders.
He goes back asleep and dreams that it’s Sam.
::: ::: :::
He has a fever, there’s no other way he’d feel like this, skin hot and cold at the same time. There are shivers wracking his body. The whole house feels like it’s shaking. He stumbles to the bathroom, tries to blow his nose, gets a drink of water.
In Ben’s room, Lisa is telling Ben a story and wiping his forehead with a wet cloth and smoothing out the quilt with her hand.
Dean backs away and shuffles downstairs and into the kitchen. He shivers and searches the cabinets for what feels like hours before he finds what he’s looking for, a bottle behind the cooking spray. He medicates with whiskey and hallucinates Sam outside Lisa’s house, looking through the windows, and he falls asleep on the couch and dreams of his brother jumping into hell.
::: ::: :::
“How are you feeling?”
Lisa’s leaning in close, her eyes full of concern. She presses a kiss to his forehead and he tries to answer her, but he has to clear his throat several times before he can get any words out.
“I’m fine. How’s Ben?”
He hears a cough, looks over and sees that Ben’s curled up in the armchair watching TV. There’s an empty bowl on the table next to him.
“I made soup. Chicken noodle. You feel like eating?”
He nods, but eating is the last thing he wants. Lisa brings him tea and soup and checks his temperature. Dean remembers that Sam used to be obsessed with taking temperatures when either one of them was sick, and he’s too tired to push the thought away. It fills his mind until he feels like he can’t breathe, Sam’s face and Sam’s hands on his forehead and Sam Sam Sam. He doesn’t realize he’s coughing until Lisa starts rubbing his back and whispering “shhh”, and she hands him a tissue so he can spit into it.
“Gross,” he gasps, giving her an apologetic look.
“I’m a mom. It’s part of the job,” Lisa answers. Her hands are soothing on his face.
Dean shivers, coughs again, and Lisa pulls the quilt to his chin.
“Get some sleep,” she tells him. And he does.
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