Fic: Nothing to Kill or Die For
Title: Nothing to Kill or Die For
Summary: Sam is back from Hell and is one giant mess of sensory issues and hallucinations. The common cold is just not something he can easily deal with. Dean tries his best to help, because it’s Sam.
Characters: Sam, Dean
Rating: PG (couple of swear words, post-Hell-trauma Sam, gratuitous hurt/comfort)
Wordcount: 6605
Beta read by the lovely tarotgal. Thank you, tg!
Dean can already tell it’s going to be a bad day - maybe a bad week - when he comes into Sam’s room in the morning to find his brother sitting cross-legged on the side of the bed, elbows propped up on his knees and his forehead resting against his palms. He’s breathing slowly in and out, like he’s trying to prepare himself for the day ahead, and Dean knows it means he’s not feeling good. On these days, staying in bed is usually a much better option, but Sam is stubborn. When he’s lucid enough to know what’s going on, he still has this stupid sense of responsibility, like he should be up and doing things, researching something, hunting evil. So it’s Dean’s job to force him back into bed and make him rest like a normal human being.
Of course, “not feeling good” can mean all kinds of things these days when it comes to Sam. Sometimes it doesn’t even have to do with the fact that his brain is quite literally scrambled all to hell. Sometimes it just means that Sam is plain old feeling-like-crap sick. Ever since he’s gotten back, he gets sick so easily, like his body just refuses to deal with anything. There’s no fighting it off anymore. If Sam starts coming down with a cold, Dean is pretty much guaranteed to have a one hundred percent full-blown miserable stuffy Sam for the next few days. Which was difficult enough when his brother wasn’t crazy. Now, it’s just one more thing to add to the list of things Dean has to worry about when it comes to taking care of Sammy.
“Hey, man,” he says softly as he enters the room, trying not to startle his brother, because Sam is skittish about pretty much everything.
Sam looks up and yep, Dean’s right. He looks pale and sweaty, is breathing just a little too hard, eyes just a little too glassy-looking. “Hi,” Sam answers, the word almost lost in his sleepy mumbling voice, already thick with congestion.
“Why are you up? Go back to bed,” Dean says, all matter-of-fact.
“M’fine,” Sam continues, kneading two fingers against his temple with a small grimace of pain and unfolding his legs as if to get out of bed.
“Nuh-uh,” Dean says quickly, striding across the room and pushing his brother firmly back down into the pillows. “You’re sick. Don’t even try to deny it. Just get back in bed and rest.”
Sam sighs in his stuffed-up voice and sniffles a little.
“You stay right here, okay?” Dean tells him. “I’m gonna go make us some breakfast, get you some juice. I’ll just be right around the corner in the kitchen.”
Sam shakes his head. “…I’ll think too much,” he murmurs.
Dean hears the slight edge of fear in his voice and pauses in the doorway, rubbing a hand against the back of his neck as he rethinks his plan. “Alright. You wanna hang out with me?”
Sam nods, his eyes darting over to an empty space near the window. Dean wonders who or what he’s seeing.
“We can do that,” he says quickly, breaking Sam’s focus and drawing his attention back to the present. If this cold is anything like the last one, Sam’s going to be clingy, which means making him comfortable in the living room so Dean can still get things done. He would do anything for his brother, but there are only so many hours he can spend lying in bed before he starts to go a little stir-crazy. Fortunately, they’ve made the apartment pretty Sam-friendly, so Dean hopes it won’t be too hard to keep him happy. “C’mon.” He beckons with one hand, waiting for his brother.
Sam nods again and climbs slowly off the bed, pulling the ends of his sleeves over his hands and clenching them tightly into fists. He rubs at his forehead with one cotton-covered hand, wincing. Then he shuffles across the room after Dean, but pauses in the doorway, shifting his weight from one foot to the other and looking anxiously at Dean. “Can you… can you talk?” he whispers.
Dean nods, falling into the routine. “Okay, here’s one I like. I read this yesterday. Did you know that about a third of all Taiwanese funeral processions include strippers?” he says with a grin.
Sam, staring at the floor, smiles.
“Betcha didn’t know that one, huh?”
Sam shakes his head. “No.”
“So, what do you think? Am I me?” Dean holds his arms out, palms up, and raises his eyebrows, waiting for his brother’s answer.
Sam sniffles and nods, taking a slow step into the living room.
“Good. I like being me. I want to continue being me,” Dean answers. He’ll do this a hundred times a day if he has to. If proving he’s not a figment of his brother’s fucked up mind is what he has to do every day for the rest of his life, then that’s what he’ll do. It’s the reason he’s got a dozen trivia books locked in a box where Sam can’t get to them, just so he can fill his brain with useless facts and prove that he knows things that Sam doesn’t.
He steps aside to let Sam into the room. “Where do you want to go?”
Normally, they’d eat breakfast at the dining table, but Sam usually gravitates toward comfortable spaces when he’s not feeling well. So he wordlessly stumbles over to the crash pad in the corner and collapses down into it. Dean likes to call it the world’s largest bean bag chair, and the description fits. When Sam feels like he’s falling, like nothing is connected, all he has to do is lie down on it, and the comforting feeling of the plush fabric and foam filling molding to the shape of his body makes him feel safe and secure. Dean spreads a blanket over him and Sam burrows in, curling up on his side. He starts twisting one hand through his hair, fingers moving in small, repetitive motions. Since he’s gotten back, he’s developed a hundred different coping mechanisms, like he’s always trying to ground himself in reality.
Satisfied that Sam’s settled for the moment, Dean cleans up the debris from their movie marathon last night, picking up the nearly empty popcorn bowls, his beer cans, Sam’s plastic water bottles. He dumps them on the kitchen counter and pops a couple of waffles into the toaster. Easy breakfast is good breakfast.
“Nngh…” Sam moans from across the room, and Dean looks up to find him with the heels of his hands pressed against his eyes.
“Too bright?” he asks, and Sam nods.
He should have known. Sunlight - any kind of bright light, really - is just not compatible with Sam’s sensory system on bad days. He draws the blackout curtains over the windows and turns on the two lights in the corners of the room, the paper lantern ones that cast a soft, golden glow over everything. Then he turns off the fluorescent lights in the kitchen and grabs extra boxes of tissues out of the closet by the front door, making sure they’re the good kind with the lotion.
He sets those on the coffee table, adjusting it so it sits directly in front of the futon, which is still folded down and piled with plenty of blankets and pillows. When they first moved into the apartment, Dean had practically cleared out the bedding section of every department store in the area, looking for the softest, warmest blankets and the biggest, most comfortable pillows. Hell was iron and chains and bone and blood, and Dean is determined to make this place as safe as it can possibly be.
He hears the metal spring! of the toaster and goes back into the kitchen, grabbing plates and two glasses of orange juice.
When he heads back into the living room with breakfast balanced carefully in his arms, Sam has shifted positions on the crash pad, lying on his stomach with his long legs hanging off the edge, bare toes tensing when he sneezes. He must have reached over and pulled a pillow off of the futon, because he’s now hugging it tightly, cheek pressed against the soft fabric as he watches Dean. At least he still seems fairly aware of things, which is a good sign.
“Hey, Sammy?” he says as he sets the plates down on the coffee table.
“ihh… huh’KSHHH!” Sam sniffles and makes a face. Dean hands him a tissue, which he takes with a nod.
“Want some breakfast, bud?” Dean continues, trying to sound cheerful and keep Sam focused.
Sam nods again and climbs off the crash pad, moving over to sit carefully on the edge of the futon, legs sticking out under the coffee table. It’s really kind of funny-looking, like Sam is an overgrown kid, but you won’t catch Dean saying anything about it. He just sits down next to his brother while Sam surveys the table. There are two waffles for each of them - Dean’s waffles slathered in syrup and butter, and Sam’s plain. Dean is usually lucky to get him to eat anything, especially on the days when he’s sick, so simpler tends to be better.
He picks up the waffle with one hand, ignoring the fork that Dean placed next to the plate. On some days, metal is a problem, and Sam can’t stand the taste of it in his mouth. Which is exactly why there’s a Ziploc bag of plastic silverware hanging out in Dean’s jacket pocket in the hall closet, on the off chance that they go somewhere else to eat, because plastic is usually okay. According to Sam, it tastes smooth.
Sam needs a lot of stuff these days, just to get by.
He takes a careful bite, chewing slowly and swallowing with a barely noticeable wince, which Dean of course notices. So there’s going to be a sore throat to deal with later, too. That’s just great… but at least Sam’s eating. He continues to take small bites of the waffle, staring off into space, and Dean just watches him for a while, quietly eating his own breakfast. If Sam were in the mood to talk while they were eating, he would start the conversation. So Dean waits.
After Sam finishes his first waffle, the glass of juice is still sitting untouched on the table. Because it’s probably the only thing of any nutritional value in the whole meal, Dean pushes it forward. “Here, Sammy,” he says. “You gotta stay hydrated.”
Sam stares at the glass for a moment, as if just now figuring out what it is, and then leans forward to pick it up and take a careful sip. He starts to swallow, then gags, making a horrified face, and spits the mouthful of orange juice out with a panicked groan. “No!” he cries, retching, and shoves the glass back, tipping it over and sending juice spilling all across the table. He twists away, pressing his face into the pillows on the futon, and Dean hears his muffled voice repeating, “No no no not again you can’t make me I won’t do that again please no…”
“Sammy,” Dean says, risking placing a hand on his shoulder. Sam is too freaked out to notice. “Buddy, calm down. It’s just orange juice. It’s okay.”
“No no no I can’t I’m not gonna do that…” Sam continues frantically, shaking his head back and forth.
“Hey,” Dean says, raising his voice a bit but trying to stay calm. “I’m not trying to make you do anything. It’s okay. You’re safe. It’s just juice. Sammy, listen to me.” But he can tell Sam’s already too far gone. So the only thing he can do is let his brother work it out on his own, and eventually he’ll calm himself down. He sits there, rubbing circles on Sam’s back and watching the orange juice drip slowly onto the carpet. “Okay,” he murmurs. “It’s okay. We’ll just stay here for a while. We’re good. We’re good…”
Sam continues to cry and mumble to himself for another ten minutes or so, but eventually the sobs transition to quiet, hiccuping breaths. He goes still, pulling a blanket over himself. Dean takes the opportunity to pad over to the kitchen and wet a towel, soaking the orange juice out of the carpet as much as he can. The remains of breakfast sit forgotten on the table. It’s okay. They’ll try again later. Because that’s just what they do now.
When he looks up, Sam’s eyes are closed, so he’s resting quietly if not actually sleeping. Dean decides to use the opportunity to try getting some work done. After all, with Sam the way he is now, a full-time, normal person job is pretty much impossible. So he takes work when he can get it, hoping he’ll make enough money to pay the bills and provide for Sam. These past few days he’s been working on typing up the text of a handwritten hunter’s journal that Bobby had given him to copy down. It’s mostly boring stuff he already knows, but Bobby’s paying him for it, so he doesn’t complain. Bobby helps out more than Dean would like to admit, so he tries to do as much as he can in return.
Sometimes he wishes he and Sam could still hunt. On some days, the idea of spending the rest of his life making food and cleaning up and making sure his brother isn’t panicking sounds so mind-numbing he can hardly stand it, but when he really thinks about it, he knows there’s nothing else he would ever do instead. If Sam needs him, then this is where he is. It’s just that simple.
Sam has always been priority number one.
For the next hour or so, it’s quiet. The only sounds are the soft click of keys and the rustle of turning pages as Dean works at the dining table across the room and Sam tossing and turning occasionally from his place on the futon. He’s sleeping lightly, waking up briefly with a sneeze or a harsh fit of coughing every once in a while, but he’s still getting some rest, so Dean is grateful. It could be worse.
“Dean?” he hears Sam call softly, so he twists around in his seat, draping an arm over the back of the chair.
“Hey, Sam,” he responds. “How’re you doing?”
Sam shrugs, the blanket shifting on his shoulders as he moves. “I don’t know… don’t feel good.”
“I know, buddy.” Dean gets up, closing the laptop, and heads back over to the living room. “You need anything?”
Sam hesitates, looking uncertain.
He hates asking for things. A hundred years of conditioning by pissed-off archangels had taught him that asking for anything always ended in pain. If he wanted to sleep, he was beaten unconscious. If he asked for a drink of water, they’d hold his head underwater until he drowned. He still has trouble remembering that things don’t work that way anymore.
“C’mon, what is it?” Dean encourages him in a soft voice. “Anything you want, Sammy, and I’ll get it.”
“Can you… can you read?” Sam asks, almost a whisper. He’s staring down at the floor, not looking at Dean, submissive. He coughs roughly into a closed fist, the sound ripping through his chest. Dean always forgets how quickly Sam gets sick.
“Sure,” Dean says. “Of course.” This is a thing they’ve been doing lately. Before Sam got back, Dean hadn’t read a book aloud to someone in twenty years, not even to Ben when he’d lived at Lisa’s place for a couple of months. The last time he’d done any storytelling had been when Sam was six or seven years old, and the only way to get him to calm down and go to sleep at night was to read to him. It seems to work now, too. Reading calms Sam, keeps him focused on a story and not all the crap in his head.
Before he sits down, Dean grabs their copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone from the bookshelf. It’s a little bit battered and there’s tape holding the cover together, but it was cheap at the used book store, and Sam had decided they needed to work their way through the series, since Dean had never read the books. Sam had made it very clear that watching a couple of the movies on a crappy hotel TV didn’t count.
“Move over,” Dean says as he nears the futon, and Sam scoots over to one side, leaning back into the pillows that Dean piles up against the wall. Settling down on the bed, he makes sure that Sam is comfortable before flipping to the place where they last left off, bookmarked by a piece of junk mail. Sam curls up next to him, close enough to rest his head against Dean’s shoulder so he can see the words, too.
Dean begins to read as Harry Potter and Hagrid make their way through the crowded streets of London to The Leaky Cauldron. Dean doesn’t do the voices, because he’s not sure he can convincingly sound like an eleven-year-old British wizard, but his voice is soothing, and Sam listens, sniffling occasionally and playing with the hem of the blanket wrapped around his shoulders.
Harry has just finished reading over his Hogwarts supply list when Sam’s breathing changes, catching as he inhales. “Wait,” he says in a choked gasp, reaching one hand forward to blindly push the book away. He starts to cough wetly, pressing his forehead against Dean’s shoulder so that Dean can feel each shake of his brother’s body as his lungs fight for control. Dean rubs his back comfortingly with one hand, but pauses when the coughing fit doesn’t stop. Instead, it becomes more regular, a deliberate rhythm, like Sam is a record stuck on repeat.
“Hey. Hey, buddy, you hear me? That’s not helping, Sam. You need to breathe,” Dean coaches, trying to get through to him.
Sam keeps coughing, his face buried in the soft fabric of Dean’s t-shirt, fists clinging tightly to his sleeve.
“Sam…” Dean tries to sound serious but gentle, giving his brother a stern warning. The way Dad might have sounded if he had ever been a normal dad instead of a drill sergeant. “Sam, talk to me.”
“Drowning,” Sam gasps, pulling at Dean’s shirt.
“No, you’re not drowning,” Dean responds firmly. “You’re just sick, okay? It’s just a cold. Breathe, Sam. C’mon man, you can do this. Just breathe for me, okay?”
“Can’t-!”
“Yeah, you can,” Dean encourages him, rubbing a hand briskly up and down his back as he picks up the book again. “Hey, Sam, do you remember what happens next in the book?”
“Nnh… D-Diagon…” Sam whimpers. The coughing hasn’t stopped, still there in that compulsive rhythm, punctuated by gasps as Sam chokes out his response.
“That’s right. And if you want to hear it, you have to stop coughing. This is real, okay? You, me, the book. None of that stuff in your head. Focus on this.” Dean flips through the pages, scanning for where they left off, and begins to read again, his voice carrying over the sound of Sam’s desperate coughing that has taken on a near-hysterical edge. “Harry had never been to London before.” Dean’s voice is strong and sure, breaking through his brother’s panic. “Although Hagrid seemed to know where he was going, he was obviously not used to getting there in an ordinary way.”
The coughing eases slightly and Dean feels the tension in Sam’s muscles start to drain away. Sam sucks in one deep breath after another.
“There you go, kiddo, that’s it… ‘He got stuck in the ticket barrier on the Underground, and complained loudly that the seats were too small and the trains too slow.”
Sam’s breathing gradually quiets down into a wheezy pattern of inhale, exhale, without the panicky edge to it. He sighs, sounding frustrated, and Dean pats his shoulder comfortingly.
“I know it sucks, man, but you’ll get better,” he says. “Want me to finish this chapter?”
Sam nods quietly and snuggles deeper under his blankets.
By the time they make it through the next twenty pages, Sam has started to fall asleep again, his head dropping against Dean’s shoulder and then jerking back up as he opens his eyes with a startled look. The third time Sam falls asleep, he stays asleep, so Dean quietly sets the book down on the coffee table and maneuvers his brother so he’s lying down on the futon, positioned comfortably amongst the pillows. Dean slides off the edge of the futon, watching Sam to see if he wakes up. He doesn’t, so Dean turns around and resumes his place at the dining table, typing a little more slowly so that the keys don’t make too much noise.
Every once in a while, he turns around to check on Sam. Just to make sure he’s alright. Each time he finds that Sam is fine, all things considered, and sleeping comfortably, snoring slightly with his mouth open. No nightmares, no tossing and turning, just dozing on the futon, wrapped snugly in warm blankets.
Dean works for a while longer, but eventually gives up, restlessness taking over. He stands up and stretches, then gazes around the room, tapping his fingers against his leg. There’s not a lot you can do when your sick brother is asleep in the middle of the room. He meanders quietly around the apartment, trying to fight off the cabin fever feeling. He checks the fridge, taking stock of how much food they have. He folds all of the clean laundry and puts it away. He reorganizes their DVD collection by each movie’s level of awesomeness, because alphabetically is just too boring.
Eventually, when he’s completely run out of things to do, he makes himself a sandwich. Dragging one of the dining chairs over to the living room, he sits there and eats while watching TV on mute, glancing over at Sam every couple of minutes just out of habit.
By mid-afternoon, the most exciting thing Dean has done is check the mail in the tiny lobby downstairs. By the time he gets back, flipping slowly through the small stack of bills, coupons, and junk mail, Sam has started to wake up, turning over restlessly.
The front door creaks as Dean shuts it behind him, and Sam quickly looks up, startled, his hair sticking out at odd angles. He’s sprawled on his stomach across the futon, blankets bunched around his waist. There’s a fine sheen of sweat on the bare skin of his back where his t-shirt is scrunched up against the blankets.
“Hey, Sammy. You been awake long?” Dean asks.
“No,” he answers, and god, it’s like he’s been screaming for a week, his voice is so wrecked. “I don’t-” he swallows, grimacing in pain, the coughs into the pillow. “I don’t feel good…”
He keeps saying that, like it’s not glaringly obvious in every sneeze and cough and groan of pain, and Dean wishes there was more he could do to help his brother stop feeling so miserable. “Yeah, you don’t sound good, either,” he sympathizes, reaching out a hand to lay it on Sam’s fever-warm back as he sits down on the edge of the futon. They have a thermometer, one of those in-the-ear deals, but Sam doesn’t like it, so Dean only uses it when things get really bad. This is just a normal, low-grade, bad cold fever, the kind that makes just enough of a difference to make Sam uncomfortable and fidgety, like there’s something wrong with his skin.
Sam shakes his head in agreement with Dean’s observation, although in his current position it looks more like he’s trying to press his face deeper into the blankets, sink right in and disappear.
Dean glances at the clock on the wall, realizing how many hours it’s been since the breakfast that Sam only partially ate. He sets the mail on the counter and reaches into the refrigerator, grabbing a cup of applesauce. “Hey,” he says. “I got an idea. You think you can try to eat something for me now?”
“…try,” Sam responds quietly. Then he takes one deep breath and holds it, steeling himself. Very hesitantly, he raises his head, as if he’s afraid of what he’ll see.
He just sees Dean. “Are you… Dean, are you…?”
Dean nods, because he gets it, even if Sam can’t say the words. “Hey, did you know that it would take you roughly 165 days to drive to the moon if you were going 60 miles per hour?”
“Long way…” Sam answers, twisting around to sit up with his legs stretched out in front of him.
“You seeing anybody else right now, Sam?” Dean asks.
Sam shakes his head, briefly pressing a hand to his forehead. “Just you. I just… I had to be sure. I think it’s… it’s a good day, but I don’t feel good. And I don’t know…” Dean hates it that this is Sam’s idea of a good day - he’s miserably sick, but at least he’s not being tortured by hallucinations of archangels and a younger brother he abandoned, not reliving a hundred years of constant pain and fear, not so afraid of the world that he spends hours immobile on the bed, staring at the wall and unreachable even to Dean.
Sam sneezes wetly, rubbing his nose against his sleeve. Dean looks around for a box of tissues, trying not to think too much about the bad days.
“Hey, Sammy?” he asks again, because they’re already getting off-topic.
“ihhKSHH!” Sam sneezes again. He breathes in, sounding even more congested than earlier, and looks back up at Dean, taking the proffered tissue. “Huh?” He scrubs at his nose with an irritated look on his face while he grabs a blanket from behind him and wraps it tightly around himself, clinging to the fabric.
“You need to eat something, dude.” Dean holds up the little plastic cup, shaking it slightly back and forth. “It’s just applesauce. You like it. Think you can try some?”
Sam hesitates, then nods. But even as he nods, his eyes start to become a little unfocused, and Dean can tell he doesn’t have much time before Sam checks out completely. So he quickly pulls the lid back on the applesauce with the sound of ripping aluminum.
“Alright,” Dean says. He keeps up a litany of comforting words, just because sometimes it helps keep Sam aware. If he’s got something to focus on, he’s less likely to get lost in all of the crap inside his head. A hundred plus years of Hell doesn’t leave much room for real life sometimes. “Here you go,” Dean says, holding a spoonful of applesauce up to Sam’s lips.
Normally, Sam probably wouldn’t let himself be fed like this, but he’s tired and despite Dean’s best efforts, sometimes he just… stops. It’s like things just build to a breaking point and Sam tries so, so hard to fight it, but eventually, the world catches up with him and he has to shut down for a while. The little things add up, one tiny shock to his system after another.
Right now, though, the only thing that matters to Dean is getting Sam fed, dignity be damned. “Long day, huh?” he murmurs, not expecting an answer as he lifts another spoonful to Sam’s lips.
They continue like that for a couple of minutes, Dean feeding Sam slow bites of applesauce, pausing in-between to let his brother breathe. Sam is staring at some point past Dean, and Dean has no idea what’s going on in his head. It’s times like these, when all is quiet, that are almost more scary. At least when Sam is hallucinating and yelling at invisible people, Dean can sometimes figure out who he’s talking to or what’s going on. Then he’s got some hope of offering comfort, but this - this is what he can’t fix.
He notices that Sam’s nose has started to run, but Sam is oblivious, staring straight ahead at the wall. Dean understands, because he’s tried so many times to imagine what it must be like. It’s just too much for Sam to process. The air from the vents against his skin, the faint noise of traffic outside, the sweet taste of applesauce against his tongue. They’re all little things, inconsequential to most people, but there’s only so much that Sam’s frayed nervous system can handle at once. So Dean grabs a tissue from the box on the futon and takes care of Sam’s nose for him with the gentlest of touches.
When the applesauce container is empty, Dean gets up to throw it away, resting one hand against Sam’s leg before he leaves. Sam is still staring off into space, blinking slowly and not reacting to anything.
He’s only gone a minute or two, around the corner in the kitchen, but when he comes back, Sam is crying.
He’s curled into a ball on the futon, hands pressed against his ears, eyes squeezed shut. Tears are leaking from under his closed eyelids and he’s breathing in quiet, hitching gasps, which somehow manages to be more heartbreaking than the full-body sobs of other meltdowns.
Dean touches his bare ankle and Sam starts violently, shaking the futon with the sound of creaking metal. His eyes open wide, panicked for a second before they land on Dean. He’s breathing shallowly, like a hunted animal. He’s got that lost expression on his face, that slight tremor in his body, and Dean knows enough by now to understand that Sam is totally and completely overwhelmed with the world.
“Sammy, you want the closet?”
Sam nods desperately, scrubbing at the tears with the knuckles of one hand.
“Okay, come on.” He starts to guide Sam up and across the apartment to the walk-in closet in Sam’s room, which is the whole reason Dean rented this particular apartment in the first place.
Sam hesitates when Dean opens the door, taking a step backwards. “Talk first,” he whispers, sniffling.
“Did you know that there are more than five million puppies born in the US every year?”
Sam shakes his head and steps inside the closet, pulling Dean inside and closing the door before anything else can get in. It’s tight, but big enough that they both fit comfortably. They settle down on the pile of cushions on the floor, facing each other in the darkness, knees pulled up and toes touching. Dean reaches out and takes hold of Sam’s hands, rubbing gentle circles against the smooth skin with his thumbs.
“It’s okay, Sammy,” Dean whispers.
“heht’DSHHH!” Sam sneezes in response, and Dean hears him sniffle wetly, feet shifting in the narrow bar of light that shines under the door from the bedroom. But even though his breathing still sounds congested, it’s evened out now, which means Sam is calming down, which is one good thing.
It’s funny how much he appreciates the little things, like Sam breathing normally, but it’s because he remembers how it was when Sam first got back. Dean had learned the hard way how much things had changed for Sam, when he’d spent hours trying to stop Sam from clawing at his own skin, or watching him freaking out because of a blaring car alarm in the parking lot of that week’s motel. It had taken a lot of research, and more than a few experiences he didn’t ever want to relive, but eventually he’d figured out how to help Sam cope.
He’d started by finding the apartment. He wishes they could have afforded a house, someplace completely private, but this is the best he can do for now. In all his research, he’d figured out that one thing Sam really needed was a place to retreat to when he couldn’t handle it anymore, just one place where he felt completely safe. Of course, it should be a lot nicer. As far as Dean’s concerned, Sam deserves the fucking best of everything, but that’s not the way reality works. It’s what they can afford, but Dean’s made it nice enough, with a little help from Bobby.
Sam’s closet is the one place where he has complete control of everything. It has lights that change color and ones that stay still. It has things with different textures, for when Sam need something different to touch - smooth, rubbery, rough, bumpy, but mostly soft things because those are his favorites. It can be warm or cool, depending on what Sam needs it to be. He can play sounds from the speakers Dean mounted onto the walls - soft music or waves crashing on the shore or birds calling in the night. Dean even recorded the Impala’s engine, that familiar rumble, for the times when Sam needs to feel like he’s home, but it’s too big and too scary and too much to go out into the world. Sam even has a huggable pillow that vibrates, for when he’s not sure that his mind is attached to his body and he needs that constant physical stimulation to keep him grounded.
Dean knows he’s afraid of getting lost.
Taking care of Sam had always been his job, yeah, but he’d always known how to do it… before. This new Sam is one giant mess of frayed nerves and unpredictable reactions. The slightest thing could set him off, and just living in the world is usually too much for him. The Idiot’s Guide to Lucifer’s Cage had conveniently gone missing, so Dean worked with what he had, spending countless hours researching sensory processing disorders, autism therapy, anything that would help his brother feel safe in his own skin. He was in real credit card debt under his real name for the first time in his life, but there was nothing he would have done differently.
In his efforts to build a Sam-safe environment, he’d practically memorized the inventory of some online stores, buying weighted blankets and glowing lights and soft, squeezable things. He’d bought the crash pad to help Sam relax, and fidget toys to keep his hands occupied when he started to get twitchy. He’d found the kind of laundry detergent that wouldn’t give Sam headaches, the lights that didn’t hurt his eyes, and the foods that wouldn’t hurt his mouth when he was having a bad day.
Like the trained hunter that he was, Dean had quickly learned to experience the world through his brother’s eyes, gauging the sensory impact of everything he encountered. Would that be overwhelming, calming, just the right amount of stimulation? It had taken time, and a lot of trial and error, but they were starting to work out patterns and routines. And as screwed up as it might seem from the outside, it works for Sam, and that’s all that matters to Dean.
After they’ve been sitting there for ten minutes or so, listening in silence to the rhythm of each other’s breathing, Sam’s soft voice reaches out through the darkness. “Can you make it light?” he asks.
“Sure,” Dean responds, in the same soft tone, because everything is soft and quiet in here. And besides, this place is Sam’s room. Whatever he wants, he gets. Having spent so many years at the mercy of Michael and Lucifer and their endless ideas for different forms of torture, Sam needs to feel like he’s got a voice again. So Dean gives him choices and makes sure he knows that he has the right to ask for anything. He reaches for the color projector that’s positioned on the floor next to him, flipping a switch so the light comes on. “Do you want blue, green…?” Dean asks as he cycles through colors.
“Green,” Sam says, and Dean stops, illuminating Sam’s face in green light.
“It’s like trees,” Sam says with a smile and a sigh of contentment. “…we didn’t have any trees.”
Dean knows where he’s talking about.
“When I walked, I forgot about the trees.” Sam sounds far off, and Dean knows he’s flashing back to those first days out of Hell, when everything was scary and sharp and incredibly, painfully real. “And I was scared. I thought they were giants.”
“Only things bigger than you, huh?” Dean nudges Sam’s foot playfully with his own.
Sam smiles a bit, because he gets the joke, but says seriously, “Everything’s bigger than me.”
At his own expense, Dean says, “I distinctly remember being called ‘short’ on several occasions so A, you’re a liar, and B, you don’t worry about the stuff that’s bigger than you, okay? That’s why I’m here. We’ll work it out.”
“Yeah…” Sam says softly, leaning his head back against the wall for a moment.
Then he sneezes again, and Dean automatically responds with a quiet, “Bless you.”
“Don’t,” Sam says, voice raspy and congested. “Don’t do that. I shouldn’t be blessed.”
Dean snorts and shakes his head, casting shadows in the green light. “Now that’s a load of crap. You should be blessed more than any other person on this planet. You saved the world, Sam.” And then, almost to himself, he murmurs, “My Sammy saved the world…”
Sam looks up at him for just an instant, this fleeting smile flashing across his face before he lowers his eyes again, like he still doesn’t believe he did anything important. Like it was just another job. Sam is broken, but he’s also stronger than anyone else Dean has ever known. And he knows that even if given the chance to go back and change it, Sam would still have said ‘yes’. If it meant the difference between saving people or letting everything fall apart, Sam wouldn’t even think of it as a choice. It’s just the way he is.
So Dean is happy with the fact that he can at least give Sam this one thing, this one tiny thing to help him feel better. And - he will never admit this, but he suspects Sam already knows - Sam’s room even helps Dean. Sometimes when he’s tired, worn out exhausted bone-aching done tired, and Sam’s asleep, he sneaks into the closet, fills the room with amber light, and falls asleep. After all of the shit that they’ve dealt with, heaven and hell, good and evil, life and death multiple times over, it’s nice to know that there’s one place that’s just… predictable. For both of them.
Sam asks for the light off again, and Dean complies. In the darkness, Sam is quiet again, running his fingers slowly over the soft surface of the carpet beneath them. Dean shifts slightly, stretching out his back with a muted groan. Spending eight hours a day behind the wheel of a car for most of his life didn’t do him any favors, but he’ll stay until Sam’s ready to leave.
Eventually, Sam will probably fall asleep, and Dean will be able to tell by the even sound of his breathing, the quiet that comes when Sam stops fidgeting and twitching. Twenty-eight years spent managing the care and feeding of Sam Winchester have taught him a few things.
Summary: Sam is back from Hell and is one giant mess of sensory issues and hallucinations. The common cold is just not something he can easily deal with. Dean tries his best to help, because it’s Sam.
Characters: Sam, Dean
Rating: PG (couple of swear words, post-Hell-trauma Sam, gratuitous hurt/comfort)
Wordcount: 6605
Beta read by the lovely tarotgal. Thank you, tg!
Dean can already tell it’s going to be a bad day - maybe a bad week - when he comes into Sam’s room in the morning to find his brother sitting cross-legged on the side of the bed, elbows propped up on his knees and his forehead resting against his palms. He’s breathing slowly in and out, like he’s trying to prepare himself for the day ahead, and Dean knows it means he’s not feeling good. On these days, staying in bed is usually a much better option, but Sam is stubborn. When he’s lucid enough to know what’s going on, he still has this stupid sense of responsibility, like he should be up and doing things, researching something, hunting evil. So it’s Dean’s job to force him back into bed and make him rest like a normal human being.
Of course, “not feeling good” can mean all kinds of things these days when it comes to Sam. Sometimes it doesn’t even have to do with the fact that his brain is quite literally scrambled all to hell. Sometimes it just means that Sam is plain old feeling-like-crap sick. Ever since he’s gotten back, he gets sick so easily, like his body just refuses to deal with anything. There’s no fighting it off anymore. If Sam starts coming down with a cold, Dean is pretty much guaranteed to have a one hundred percent full-blown miserable stuffy Sam for the next few days. Which was difficult enough when his brother wasn’t crazy. Now, it’s just one more thing to add to the list of things Dean has to worry about when it comes to taking care of Sammy.
“Hey, man,” he says softly as he enters the room, trying not to startle his brother, because Sam is skittish about pretty much everything.
Sam looks up and yep, Dean’s right. He looks pale and sweaty, is breathing just a little too hard, eyes just a little too glassy-looking. “Hi,” Sam answers, the word almost lost in his sleepy mumbling voice, already thick with congestion.
“Why are you up? Go back to bed,” Dean says, all matter-of-fact.
“M’fine,” Sam continues, kneading two fingers against his temple with a small grimace of pain and unfolding his legs as if to get out of bed.
“Nuh-uh,” Dean says quickly, striding across the room and pushing his brother firmly back down into the pillows. “You’re sick. Don’t even try to deny it. Just get back in bed and rest.”
Sam sighs in his stuffed-up voice and sniffles a little.
“You stay right here, okay?” Dean tells him. “I’m gonna go make us some breakfast, get you some juice. I’ll just be right around the corner in the kitchen.”
Sam shakes his head. “…I’ll think too much,” he murmurs.
Dean hears the slight edge of fear in his voice and pauses in the doorway, rubbing a hand against the back of his neck as he rethinks his plan. “Alright. You wanna hang out with me?”
Sam nods, his eyes darting over to an empty space near the window. Dean wonders who or what he’s seeing.
“We can do that,” he says quickly, breaking Sam’s focus and drawing his attention back to the present. If this cold is anything like the last one, Sam’s going to be clingy, which means making him comfortable in the living room so Dean can still get things done. He would do anything for his brother, but there are only so many hours he can spend lying in bed before he starts to go a little stir-crazy. Fortunately, they’ve made the apartment pretty Sam-friendly, so Dean hopes it won’t be too hard to keep him happy. “C’mon.” He beckons with one hand, waiting for his brother.
Sam nods again and climbs slowly off the bed, pulling the ends of his sleeves over his hands and clenching them tightly into fists. He rubs at his forehead with one cotton-covered hand, wincing. Then he shuffles across the room after Dean, but pauses in the doorway, shifting his weight from one foot to the other and looking anxiously at Dean. “Can you… can you talk?” he whispers.
Dean nods, falling into the routine. “Okay, here’s one I like. I read this yesterday. Did you know that about a third of all Taiwanese funeral processions include strippers?” he says with a grin.
Sam, staring at the floor, smiles.
“Betcha didn’t know that one, huh?”
Sam shakes his head. “No.”
“So, what do you think? Am I me?” Dean holds his arms out, palms up, and raises his eyebrows, waiting for his brother’s answer.
Sam sniffles and nods, taking a slow step into the living room.
“Good. I like being me. I want to continue being me,” Dean answers. He’ll do this a hundred times a day if he has to. If proving he’s not a figment of his brother’s fucked up mind is what he has to do every day for the rest of his life, then that’s what he’ll do. It’s the reason he’s got a dozen trivia books locked in a box where Sam can’t get to them, just so he can fill his brain with useless facts and prove that he knows things that Sam doesn’t.
He steps aside to let Sam into the room. “Where do you want to go?”
Normally, they’d eat breakfast at the dining table, but Sam usually gravitates toward comfortable spaces when he’s not feeling well. So he wordlessly stumbles over to the crash pad in the corner and collapses down into it. Dean likes to call it the world’s largest bean bag chair, and the description fits. When Sam feels like he’s falling, like nothing is connected, all he has to do is lie down on it, and the comforting feeling of the plush fabric and foam filling molding to the shape of his body makes him feel safe and secure. Dean spreads a blanket over him and Sam burrows in, curling up on his side. He starts twisting one hand through his hair, fingers moving in small, repetitive motions. Since he’s gotten back, he’s developed a hundred different coping mechanisms, like he’s always trying to ground himself in reality.
Satisfied that Sam’s settled for the moment, Dean cleans up the debris from their movie marathon last night, picking up the nearly empty popcorn bowls, his beer cans, Sam’s plastic water bottles. He dumps them on the kitchen counter and pops a couple of waffles into the toaster. Easy breakfast is good breakfast.
“Nngh…” Sam moans from across the room, and Dean looks up to find him with the heels of his hands pressed against his eyes.
“Too bright?” he asks, and Sam nods.
He should have known. Sunlight - any kind of bright light, really - is just not compatible with Sam’s sensory system on bad days. He draws the blackout curtains over the windows and turns on the two lights in the corners of the room, the paper lantern ones that cast a soft, golden glow over everything. Then he turns off the fluorescent lights in the kitchen and grabs extra boxes of tissues out of the closet by the front door, making sure they’re the good kind with the lotion.
He sets those on the coffee table, adjusting it so it sits directly in front of the futon, which is still folded down and piled with plenty of blankets and pillows. When they first moved into the apartment, Dean had practically cleared out the bedding section of every department store in the area, looking for the softest, warmest blankets and the biggest, most comfortable pillows. Hell was iron and chains and bone and blood, and Dean is determined to make this place as safe as it can possibly be.
He hears the metal spring! of the toaster and goes back into the kitchen, grabbing plates and two glasses of orange juice.
When he heads back into the living room with breakfast balanced carefully in his arms, Sam has shifted positions on the crash pad, lying on his stomach with his long legs hanging off the edge, bare toes tensing when he sneezes. He must have reached over and pulled a pillow off of the futon, because he’s now hugging it tightly, cheek pressed against the soft fabric as he watches Dean. At least he still seems fairly aware of things, which is a good sign.
“Hey, Sammy?” he says as he sets the plates down on the coffee table.
“ihh… huh’KSHHH!” Sam sniffles and makes a face. Dean hands him a tissue, which he takes with a nod.
“Want some breakfast, bud?” Dean continues, trying to sound cheerful and keep Sam focused.
Sam nods again and climbs off the crash pad, moving over to sit carefully on the edge of the futon, legs sticking out under the coffee table. It’s really kind of funny-looking, like Sam is an overgrown kid, but you won’t catch Dean saying anything about it. He just sits down next to his brother while Sam surveys the table. There are two waffles for each of them - Dean’s waffles slathered in syrup and butter, and Sam’s plain. Dean is usually lucky to get him to eat anything, especially on the days when he’s sick, so simpler tends to be better.
He picks up the waffle with one hand, ignoring the fork that Dean placed next to the plate. On some days, metal is a problem, and Sam can’t stand the taste of it in his mouth. Which is exactly why there’s a Ziploc bag of plastic silverware hanging out in Dean’s jacket pocket in the hall closet, on the off chance that they go somewhere else to eat, because plastic is usually okay. According to Sam, it tastes smooth.
Sam needs a lot of stuff these days, just to get by.
He takes a careful bite, chewing slowly and swallowing with a barely noticeable wince, which Dean of course notices. So there’s going to be a sore throat to deal with later, too. That’s just great… but at least Sam’s eating. He continues to take small bites of the waffle, staring off into space, and Dean just watches him for a while, quietly eating his own breakfast. If Sam were in the mood to talk while they were eating, he would start the conversation. So Dean waits.
After Sam finishes his first waffle, the glass of juice is still sitting untouched on the table. Because it’s probably the only thing of any nutritional value in the whole meal, Dean pushes it forward. “Here, Sammy,” he says. “You gotta stay hydrated.”
Sam stares at the glass for a moment, as if just now figuring out what it is, and then leans forward to pick it up and take a careful sip. He starts to swallow, then gags, making a horrified face, and spits the mouthful of orange juice out with a panicked groan. “No!” he cries, retching, and shoves the glass back, tipping it over and sending juice spilling all across the table. He twists away, pressing his face into the pillows on the futon, and Dean hears his muffled voice repeating, “No no no not again you can’t make me I won’t do that again please no…”
“Sammy,” Dean says, risking placing a hand on his shoulder. Sam is too freaked out to notice. “Buddy, calm down. It’s just orange juice. It’s okay.”
“No no no I can’t I’m not gonna do that…” Sam continues frantically, shaking his head back and forth.
“Hey,” Dean says, raising his voice a bit but trying to stay calm. “I’m not trying to make you do anything. It’s okay. You’re safe. It’s just juice. Sammy, listen to me.” But he can tell Sam’s already too far gone. So the only thing he can do is let his brother work it out on his own, and eventually he’ll calm himself down. He sits there, rubbing circles on Sam’s back and watching the orange juice drip slowly onto the carpet. “Okay,” he murmurs. “It’s okay. We’ll just stay here for a while. We’re good. We’re good…”
Sam continues to cry and mumble to himself for another ten minutes or so, but eventually the sobs transition to quiet, hiccuping breaths. He goes still, pulling a blanket over himself. Dean takes the opportunity to pad over to the kitchen and wet a towel, soaking the orange juice out of the carpet as much as he can. The remains of breakfast sit forgotten on the table. It’s okay. They’ll try again later. Because that’s just what they do now.
When he looks up, Sam’s eyes are closed, so he’s resting quietly if not actually sleeping. Dean decides to use the opportunity to try getting some work done. After all, with Sam the way he is now, a full-time, normal person job is pretty much impossible. So he takes work when he can get it, hoping he’ll make enough money to pay the bills and provide for Sam. These past few days he’s been working on typing up the text of a handwritten hunter’s journal that Bobby had given him to copy down. It’s mostly boring stuff he already knows, but Bobby’s paying him for it, so he doesn’t complain. Bobby helps out more than Dean would like to admit, so he tries to do as much as he can in return.
Sometimes he wishes he and Sam could still hunt. On some days, the idea of spending the rest of his life making food and cleaning up and making sure his brother isn’t panicking sounds so mind-numbing he can hardly stand it, but when he really thinks about it, he knows there’s nothing else he would ever do instead. If Sam needs him, then this is where he is. It’s just that simple.
Sam has always been priority number one.
For the next hour or so, it’s quiet. The only sounds are the soft click of keys and the rustle of turning pages as Dean works at the dining table across the room and Sam tossing and turning occasionally from his place on the futon. He’s sleeping lightly, waking up briefly with a sneeze or a harsh fit of coughing every once in a while, but he’s still getting some rest, so Dean is grateful. It could be worse.
“Dean?” he hears Sam call softly, so he twists around in his seat, draping an arm over the back of the chair.
“Hey, Sam,” he responds. “How’re you doing?”
Sam shrugs, the blanket shifting on his shoulders as he moves. “I don’t know… don’t feel good.”
“I know, buddy.” Dean gets up, closing the laptop, and heads back over to the living room. “You need anything?”
Sam hesitates, looking uncertain.
He hates asking for things. A hundred years of conditioning by pissed-off archangels had taught him that asking for anything always ended in pain. If he wanted to sleep, he was beaten unconscious. If he asked for a drink of water, they’d hold his head underwater until he drowned. He still has trouble remembering that things don’t work that way anymore.
“C’mon, what is it?” Dean encourages him in a soft voice. “Anything you want, Sammy, and I’ll get it.”
“Can you… can you read?” Sam asks, almost a whisper. He’s staring down at the floor, not looking at Dean, submissive. He coughs roughly into a closed fist, the sound ripping through his chest. Dean always forgets how quickly Sam gets sick.
“Sure,” Dean says. “Of course.” This is a thing they’ve been doing lately. Before Sam got back, Dean hadn’t read a book aloud to someone in twenty years, not even to Ben when he’d lived at Lisa’s place for a couple of months. The last time he’d done any storytelling had been when Sam was six or seven years old, and the only way to get him to calm down and go to sleep at night was to read to him. It seems to work now, too. Reading calms Sam, keeps him focused on a story and not all the crap in his head.
Before he sits down, Dean grabs their copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone from the bookshelf. It’s a little bit battered and there’s tape holding the cover together, but it was cheap at the used book store, and Sam had decided they needed to work their way through the series, since Dean had never read the books. Sam had made it very clear that watching a couple of the movies on a crappy hotel TV didn’t count.
“Move over,” Dean says as he nears the futon, and Sam scoots over to one side, leaning back into the pillows that Dean piles up against the wall. Settling down on the bed, he makes sure that Sam is comfortable before flipping to the place where they last left off, bookmarked by a piece of junk mail. Sam curls up next to him, close enough to rest his head against Dean’s shoulder so he can see the words, too.
Dean begins to read as Harry Potter and Hagrid make their way through the crowded streets of London to The Leaky Cauldron. Dean doesn’t do the voices, because he’s not sure he can convincingly sound like an eleven-year-old British wizard, but his voice is soothing, and Sam listens, sniffling occasionally and playing with the hem of the blanket wrapped around his shoulders.
Harry has just finished reading over his Hogwarts supply list when Sam’s breathing changes, catching as he inhales. “Wait,” he says in a choked gasp, reaching one hand forward to blindly push the book away. He starts to cough wetly, pressing his forehead against Dean’s shoulder so that Dean can feel each shake of his brother’s body as his lungs fight for control. Dean rubs his back comfortingly with one hand, but pauses when the coughing fit doesn’t stop. Instead, it becomes more regular, a deliberate rhythm, like Sam is a record stuck on repeat.
“Hey. Hey, buddy, you hear me? That’s not helping, Sam. You need to breathe,” Dean coaches, trying to get through to him.
Sam keeps coughing, his face buried in the soft fabric of Dean’s t-shirt, fists clinging tightly to his sleeve.
“Sam…” Dean tries to sound serious but gentle, giving his brother a stern warning. The way Dad might have sounded if he had ever been a normal dad instead of a drill sergeant. “Sam, talk to me.”
“Drowning,” Sam gasps, pulling at Dean’s shirt.
“No, you’re not drowning,” Dean responds firmly. “You’re just sick, okay? It’s just a cold. Breathe, Sam. C’mon man, you can do this. Just breathe for me, okay?”
“Can’t-!”
“Yeah, you can,” Dean encourages him, rubbing a hand briskly up and down his back as he picks up the book again. “Hey, Sam, do you remember what happens next in the book?”
“Nnh… D-Diagon…” Sam whimpers. The coughing hasn’t stopped, still there in that compulsive rhythm, punctuated by gasps as Sam chokes out his response.
“That’s right. And if you want to hear it, you have to stop coughing. This is real, okay? You, me, the book. None of that stuff in your head. Focus on this.” Dean flips through the pages, scanning for where they left off, and begins to read again, his voice carrying over the sound of Sam’s desperate coughing that has taken on a near-hysterical edge. “Harry had never been to London before.” Dean’s voice is strong and sure, breaking through his brother’s panic. “Although Hagrid seemed to know where he was going, he was obviously not used to getting there in an ordinary way.”
The coughing eases slightly and Dean feels the tension in Sam’s muscles start to drain away. Sam sucks in one deep breath after another.
“There you go, kiddo, that’s it… ‘He got stuck in the ticket barrier on the Underground, and complained loudly that the seats were too small and the trains too slow.”
Sam’s breathing gradually quiets down into a wheezy pattern of inhale, exhale, without the panicky edge to it. He sighs, sounding frustrated, and Dean pats his shoulder comfortingly.
“I know it sucks, man, but you’ll get better,” he says. “Want me to finish this chapter?”
Sam nods quietly and snuggles deeper under his blankets.
By the time they make it through the next twenty pages, Sam has started to fall asleep again, his head dropping against Dean’s shoulder and then jerking back up as he opens his eyes with a startled look. The third time Sam falls asleep, he stays asleep, so Dean quietly sets the book down on the coffee table and maneuvers his brother so he’s lying down on the futon, positioned comfortably amongst the pillows. Dean slides off the edge of the futon, watching Sam to see if he wakes up. He doesn’t, so Dean turns around and resumes his place at the dining table, typing a little more slowly so that the keys don’t make too much noise.
Every once in a while, he turns around to check on Sam. Just to make sure he’s alright. Each time he finds that Sam is fine, all things considered, and sleeping comfortably, snoring slightly with his mouth open. No nightmares, no tossing and turning, just dozing on the futon, wrapped snugly in warm blankets.
Dean works for a while longer, but eventually gives up, restlessness taking over. He stands up and stretches, then gazes around the room, tapping his fingers against his leg. There’s not a lot you can do when your sick brother is asleep in the middle of the room. He meanders quietly around the apartment, trying to fight off the cabin fever feeling. He checks the fridge, taking stock of how much food they have. He folds all of the clean laundry and puts it away. He reorganizes their DVD collection by each movie’s level of awesomeness, because alphabetically is just too boring.
Eventually, when he’s completely run out of things to do, he makes himself a sandwich. Dragging one of the dining chairs over to the living room, he sits there and eats while watching TV on mute, glancing over at Sam every couple of minutes just out of habit.
By mid-afternoon, the most exciting thing Dean has done is check the mail in the tiny lobby downstairs. By the time he gets back, flipping slowly through the small stack of bills, coupons, and junk mail, Sam has started to wake up, turning over restlessly.
The front door creaks as Dean shuts it behind him, and Sam quickly looks up, startled, his hair sticking out at odd angles. He’s sprawled on his stomach across the futon, blankets bunched around his waist. There’s a fine sheen of sweat on the bare skin of his back where his t-shirt is scrunched up against the blankets.
“Hey, Sammy. You been awake long?” Dean asks.
“No,” he answers, and god, it’s like he’s been screaming for a week, his voice is so wrecked. “I don’t-” he swallows, grimacing in pain, the coughs into the pillow. “I don’t feel good…”
He keeps saying that, like it’s not glaringly obvious in every sneeze and cough and groan of pain, and Dean wishes there was more he could do to help his brother stop feeling so miserable. “Yeah, you don’t sound good, either,” he sympathizes, reaching out a hand to lay it on Sam’s fever-warm back as he sits down on the edge of the futon. They have a thermometer, one of those in-the-ear deals, but Sam doesn’t like it, so Dean only uses it when things get really bad. This is just a normal, low-grade, bad cold fever, the kind that makes just enough of a difference to make Sam uncomfortable and fidgety, like there’s something wrong with his skin.
Sam shakes his head in agreement with Dean’s observation, although in his current position it looks more like he’s trying to press his face deeper into the blankets, sink right in and disappear.
Dean glances at the clock on the wall, realizing how many hours it’s been since the breakfast that Sam only partially ate. He sets the mail on the counter and reaches into the refrigerator, grabbing a cup of applesauce. “Hey,” he says. “I got an idea. You think you can try to eat something for me now?”
“…try,” Sam responds quietly. Then he takes one deep breath and holds it, steeling himself. Very hesitantly, he raises his head, as if he’s afraid of what he’ll see.
He just sees Dean. “Are you… Dean, are you…?”
Dean nods, because he gets it, even if Sam can’t say the words. “Hey, did you know that it would take you roughly 165 days to drive to the moon if you were going 60 miles per hour?”
“Long way…” Sam answers, twisting around to sit up with his legs stretched out in front of him.
“You seeing anybody else right now, Sam?” Dean asks.
Sam shakes his head, briefly pressing a hand to his forehead. “Just you. I just… I had to be sure. I think it’s… it’s a good day, but I don’t feel good. And I don’t know…” Dean hates it that this is Sam’s idea of a good day - he’s miserably sick, but at least he’s not being tortured by hallucinations of archangels and a younger brother he abandoned, not reliving a hundred years of constant pain and fear, not so afraid of the world that he spends hours immobile on the bed, staring at the wall and unreachable even to Dean.
Sam sneezes wetly, rubbing his nose against his sleeve. Dean looks around for a box of tissues, trying not to think too much about the bad days.
“Hey, Sammy?” he asks again, because they’re already getting off-topic.
“ihhKSHH!” Sam sneezes again. He breathes in, sounding even more congested than earlier, and looks back up at Dean, taking the proffered tissue. “Huh?” He scrubs at his nose with an irritated look on his face while he grabs a blanket from behind him and wraps it tightly around himself, clinging to the fabric.
“You need to eat something, dude.” Dean holds up the little plastic cup, shaking it slightly back and forth. “It’s just applesauce. You like it. Think you can try some?”
Sam hesitates, then nods. But even as he nods, his eyes start to become a little unfocused, and Dean can tell he doesn’t have much time before Sam checks out completely. So he quickly pulls the lid back on the applesauce with the sound of ripping aluminum.
“Alright,” Dean says. He keeps up a litany of comforting words, just because sometimes it helps keep Sam aware. If he’s got something to focus on, he’s less likely to get lost in all of the crap inside his head. A hundred plus years of Hell doesn’t leave much room for real life sometimes. “Here you go,” Dean says, holding a spoonful of applesauce up to Sam’s lips.
Normally, Sam probably wouldn’t let himself be fed like this, but he’s tired and despite Dean’s best efforts, sometimes he just… stops. It’s like things just build to a breaking point and Sam tries so, so hard to fight it, but eventually, the world catches up with him and he has to shut down for a while. The little things add up, one tiny shock to his system after another.
Right now, though, the only thing that matters to Dean is getting Sam fed, dignity be damned. “Long day, huh?” he murmurs, not expecting an answer as he lifts another spoonful to Sam’s lips.
They continue like that for a couple of minutes, Dean feeding Sam slow bites of applesauce, pausing in-between to let his brother breathe. Sam is staring at some point past Dean, and Dean has no idea what’s going on in his head. It’s times like these, when all is quiet, that are almost more scary. At least when Sam is hallucinating and yelling at invisible people, Dean can sometimes figure out who he’s talking to or what’s going on. Then he’s got some hope of offering comfort, but this - this is what he can’t fix.
He notices that Sam’s nose has started to run, but Sam is oblivious, staring straight ahead at the wall. Dean understands, because he’s tried so many times to imagine what it must be like. It’s just too much for Sam to process. The air from the vents against his skin, the faint noise of traffic outside, the sweet taste of applesauce against his tongue. They’re all little things, inconsequential to most people, but there’s only so much that Sam’s frayed nervous system can handle at once. So Dean grabs a tissue from the box on the futon and takes care of Sam’s nose for him with the gentlest of touches.
When the applesauce container is empty, Dean gets up to throw it away, resting one hand against Sam’s leg before he leaves. Sam is still staring off into space, blinking slowly and not reacting to anything.
He’s only gone a minute or two, around the corner in the kitchen, but when he comes back, Sam is crying.
He’s curled into a ball on the futon, hands pressed against his ears, eyes squeezed shut. Tears are leaking from under his closed eyelids and he’s breathing in quiet, hitching gasps, which somehow manages to be more heartbreaking than the full-body sobs of other meltdowns.
Dean touches his bare ankle and Sam starts violently, shaking the futon with the sound of creaking metal. His eyes open wide, panicked for a second before they land on Dean. He’s breathing shallowly, like a hunted animal. He’s got that lost expression on his face, that slight tremor in his body, and Dean knows enough by now to understand that Sam is totally and completely overwhelmed with the world.
“Sammy, you want the closet?”
Sam nods desperately, scrubbing at the tears with the knuckles of one hand.
“Okay, come on.” He starts to guide Sam up and across the apartment to the walk-in closet in Sam’s room, which is the whole reason Dean rented this particular apartment in the first place.
Sam hesitates when Dean opens the door, taking a step backwards. “Talk first,” he whispers, sniffling.
“Did you know that there are more than five million puppies born in the US every year?”
Sam shakes his head and steps inside the closet, pulling Dean inside and closing the door before anything else can get in. It’s tight, but big enough that they both fit comfortably. They settle down on the pile of cushions on the floor, facing each other in the darkness, knees pulled up and toes touching. Dean reaches out and takes hold of Sam’s hands, rubbing gentle circles against the smooth skin with his thumbs.
“It’s okay, Sammy,” Dean whispers.
“heht’DSHHH!” Sam sneezes in response, and Dean hears him sniffle wetly, feet shifting in the narrow bar of light that shines under the door from the bedroom. But even though his breathing still sounds congested, it’s evened out now, which means Sam is calming down, which is one good thing.
It’s funny how much he appreciates the little things, like Sam breathing normally, but it’s because he remembers how it was when Sam first got back. Dean had learned the hard way how much things had changed for Sam, when he’d spent hours trying to stop Sam from clawing at his own skin, or watching him freaking out because of a blaring car alarm in the parking lot of that week’s motel. It had taken a lot of research, and more than a few experiences he didn’t ever want to relive, but eventually he’d figured out how to help Sam cope.
He’d started by finding the apartment. He wishes they could have afforded a house, someplace completely private, but this is the best he can do for now. In all his research, he’d figured out that one thing Sam really needed was a place to retreat to when he couldn’t handle it anymore, just one place where he felt completely safe. Of course, it should be a lot nicer. As far as Dean’s concerned, Sam deserves the fucking best of everything, but that’s not the way reality works. It’s what they can afford, but Dean’s made it nice enough, with a little help from Bobby.
Sam’s closet is the one place where he has complete control of everything. It has lights that change color and ones that stay still. It has things with different textures, for when Sam need something different to touch - smooth, rubbery, rough, bumpy, but mostly soft things because those are his favorites. It can be warm or cool, depending on what Sam needs it to be. He can play sounds from the speakers Dean mounted onto the walls - soft music or waves crashing on the shore or birds calling in the night. Dean even recorded the Impala’s engine, that familiar rumble, for the times when Sam needs to feel like he’s home, but it’s too big and too scary and too much to go out into the world. Sam even has a huggable pillow that vibrates, for when he’s not sure that his mind is attached to his body and he needs that constant physical stimulation to keep him grounded.
Dean knows he’s afraid of getting lost.
Taking care of Sam had always been his job, yeah, but he’d always known how to do it… before. This new Sam is one giant mess of frayed nerves and unpredictable reactions. The slightest thing could set him off, and just living in the world is usually too much for him. The Idiot’s Guide to Lucifer’s Cage had conveniently gone missing, so Dean worked with what he had, spending countless hours researching sensory processing disorders, autism therapy, anything that would help his brother feel safe in his own skin. He was in real credit card debt under his real name for the first time in his life, but there was nothing he would have done differently.
In his efforts to build a Sam-safe environment, he’d practically memorized the inventory of some online stores, buying weighted blankets and glowing lights and soft, squeezable things. He’d bought the crash pad to help Sam relax, and fidget toys to keep his hands occupied when he started to get twitchy. He’d found the kind of laundry detergent that wouldn’t give Sam headaches, the lights that didn’t hurt his eyes, and the foods that wouldn’t hurt his mouth when he was having a bad day.
Like the trained hunter that he was, Dean had quickly learned to experience the world through his brother’s eyes, gauging the sensory impact of everything he encountered. Would that be overwhelming, calming, just the right amount of stimulation? It had taken time, and a lot of trial and error, but they were starting to work out patterns and routines. And as screwed up as it might seem from the outside, it works for Sam, and that’s all that matters to Dean.
After they’ve been sitting there for ten minutes or so, listening in silence to the rhythm of each other’s breathing, Sam’s soft voice reaches out through the darkness. “Can you make it light?” he asks.
“Sure,” Dean responds, in the same soft tone, because everything is soft and quiet in here. And besides, this place is Sam’s room. Whatever he wants, he gets. Having spent so many years at the mercy of Michael and Lucifer and their endless ideas for different forms of torture, Sam needs to feel like he’s got a voice again. So Dean gives him choices and makes sure he knows that he has the right to ask for anything. He reaches for the color projector that’s positioned on the floor next to him, flipping a switch so the light comes on. “Do you want blue, green…?” Dean asks as he cycles through colors.
“Green,” Sam says, and Dean stops, illuminating Sam’s face in green light.
“It’s like trees,” Sam says with a smile and a sigh of contentment. “…we didn’t have any trees.”
Dean knows where he’s talking about.
“When I walked, I forgot about the trees.” Sam sounds far off, and Dean knows he’s flashing back to those first days out of Hell, when everything was scary and sharp and incredibly, painfully real. “And I was scared. I thought they were giants.”
“Only things bigger than you, huh?” Dean nudges Sam’s foot playfully with his own.
Sam smiles a bit, because he gets the joke, but says seriously, “Everything’s bigger than me.”
At his own expense, Dean says, “I distinctly remember being called ‘short’ on several occasions so A, you’re a liar, and B, you don’t worry about the stuff that’s bigger than you, okay? That’s why I’m here. We’ll work it out.”
“Yeah…” Sam says softly, leaning his head back against the wall for a moment.
Then he sneezes again, and Dean automatically responds with a quiet, “Bless you.”
“Don’t,” Sam says, voice raspy and congested. “Don’t do that. I shouldn’t be blessed.”
Dean snorts and shakes his head, casting shadows in the green light. “Now that’s a load of crap. You should be blessed more than any other person on this planet. You saved the world, Sam.” And then, almost to himself, he murmurs, “My Sammy saved the world…”
Sam looks up at him for just an instant, this fleeting smile flashing across his face before he lowers his eyes again, like he still doesn’t believe he did anything important. Like it was just another job. Sam is broken, but he’s also stronger than anyone else Dean has ever known. And he knows that even if given the chance to go back and change it, Sam would still have said ‘yes’. If it meant the difference between saving people or letting everything fall apart, Sam wouldn’t even think of it as a choice. It’s just the way he is.
So Dean is happy with the fact that he can at least give Sam this one thing, this one tiny thing to help him feel better. And - he will never admit this, but he suspects Sam already knows - Sam’s room even helps Dean. Sometimes when he’s tired, worn out exhausted bone-aching done tired, and Sam’s asleep, he sneaks into the closet, fills the room with amber light, and falls asleep. After all of the shit that they’ve dealt with, heaven and hell, good and evil, life and death multiple times over, it’s nice to know that there’s one place that’s just… predictable. For both of them.
Sam asks for the light off again, and Dean complies. In the darkness, Sam is quiet again, running his fingers slowly over the soft surface of the carpet beneath them. Dean shifts slightly, stretching out his back with a muted groan. Spending eight hours a day behind the wheel of a car for most of his life didn’t do him any favors, but he’ll stay until Sam’s ready to leave.
Eventually, Sam will probably fall asleep, and Dean will be able to tell by the even sound of his breathing, the quiet that comes when Sam stops fidgeting and twitching. Twenty-eight years spent managing the care and feeding of Sam Winchester have taught him a few things.