Storm the Castle, Stem the Tide

[purple_carpets]

Title: Storm the Castle, Stem the Tide
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 5600
Disclaimer: Not my boys. Kripke broke them long before I ever got to them.

Summary: It's only a cough, really. Until the cough turns into a fever and Sam gets all weird and Dean starts seeing Alastair and suddenly he's back in hell.

It's time for my spn_reversebang and to fill 'Minor Illness' on my hc_bingo card.

Special thanks to geckoholic and jesseofthenorth who were the greatest emergecy betas I could have ever hoped for. You guys rock.

Now click on the banner and go and make sure to tell apieceofcake what an absolutely amazing artist she is




The cabin is Sam’s idea.

“You’re beat,” he announces somewhere between Mankato and Burnsville, like it’s his decision to make and Dean is too busy trying to suppress a cough to really argue.

To make matter worse and because the universe really needed another win in its never ending game of Kicking Dean While He’s Down, Dean has been delegated to shotgun and Sam simply points the Impala east to Pastor Jim’s old hunting cabin and that’s that.

Dean glares and scowls and huffs and Sam just rolls his eyes in that indulgent way that almost looks sad. Dean doesn’t really know what that look means and he’s not particularly interested in finding out.

The tickle in the back of his throat gets worse with every minute he tries to bite down on the hacking coughs and Sam actually flinches every time Dean can’t fight back a dry, gurgling sound. Kid’s got this crazy theory that Dean’s angel-made body came without a fully developed immune system and keeps freaking out whenever Dean so much as sneezes.

Which is fuckin’ ridiculous. That bout of the chicken pox a couple of weeks ago was just a coincidence, as are the constant colds and low fevers he keeps picking up. Dean doesn’t think Sam knows about all the bizarre rashes that show up every now and then.

He can see the huffy irritation crawl up his brother's face when he makes a small, almost-choking sound in the back of his throat. It’s like the kid can see the coughs he’s trying to hold back. Thick, yellow jellyfish and rusty knives, cutting through his throat.

It’s just the thick layer dust, covering every surface of the cabin, floating through the air, making the itch worse with every breath.

Dean rubs a tired, slightly shivering hand over his face while Sam brings in the last of their duffels. “Do we have any Aspirin?” he asks and immediately regrets it when Sam drops the bags right in the doorway and hurries over to put freakin’ a hand on Dean’s forehead.

“Dude.” The shriek goes too high and Dean’s voice breaks halfway through it, turns it into a sorry little cough. “Dammit, get your paws off me.”

“You’re sick.” Sam glares and that fresh cut on his bottom lip opens up again. “You’re sick. You’re sick and you went on a hunt. You didn’t even tell me.”

“I’m not sick,” Dean growls because he doesn’t want to think about how the grave yard kept blurring around him and he how he couldn’t stop the spirit from scratching away at his brother’s face. "Gimme a beer, Sam." Dean tries to ignore the fact that his voice sort of shrivels up and dies and he has to fight against the feeling of inhaling sawdust every time he opens his mouth. "I'm fine." Sam screws up his face at the word, like he's tasting something motor-oil-lemon bitter and Dean rolls his eyes. "I am."

"Your voice sounds off," Sam observes in that bitchy little brother tone of his. "And you have a fever."

"I'm a Winchester," Dean mumbles, hoping that will be enough for Sam to let it go.

He runs a tired hand over his clammy face. The skin feels stretched thin there, too tight for his body and for a second Dean has to bite down on his lower lip until he draws blood and the pain drowns out all the memories of roaring heat and splitting skin and flesh melting off his bones.

"Dean?"

Sam's snapping his fingers in front of Dean's face. It's loud. Annoying and loud and Dean reaches up to bat at the offending snappitysnapsnap sounds, but his hand misses Sam's entirely.

Sam makes a funny little noise, halfway between a sob and a huff. "Dude, you're so not not-sick."

Dean wants to glare, but his eyes are sore and shriveling up in his head like dried-up raisins. He figures he can deal with not not-sick. If not-sick means skipping over meadows, singing songs in the rain while happily painting your toenails, then yeah, maybe what Dean is right now qualifies as not not-sick.

He presses his thumbs over his eyelids, putting pressure on the spot that just won’t stop throbbing. His thoughts seriously suck sometimes, going ‘round in circles, making his head hurt. Dean folds his arms on the table and drops his forehead to rest on top of them. In a manly, noble suffering kind of way.

"I can make you soup," Sam offers and Dean growls into the crook of his arm. He has a feeling it doesn’t come out half as threatening as he intended it to. "Fine, no soup. But you're taking the bed tonight, man."

Dean scowls. It takes him a moment to figure out that Sam is unlikely to notice a glare directed at the inside of Dean's arm, but whatever. He glares a lot and it totally makes him feel better about the whole Sam treating him like a delicate flower thing.

Sam giving up the bed for him is a pretty big deal and probably also a clue that Dean is doing a crap-tastic job of seeming fine.

They spent years fighting over that bed, right up until Sam left for Cali. Had to share it every summer when Dad would drag them out here to train, long after they were too old to sleep in such tight quarters. Some nights Dean would have rather slept on the floor than squashed next to his sweaty, ever-growing brother, but the one time he did and tried to explain the sore muscles and stiff back during morning workout really put him off that notion.

"And where're you g'nna sleep?" he asks groggily. He doesn't even try to lift his head anymore, pulsing and heavy and too fucking hot. "The couch? That thing was too damn small for Dad."

"I'll figure something out," is all Sam says and even though Dean know it's a load of bullshit, he feels his head nodding against his arm, like a feverish, possessed rag doll.

Dean doesn’t like dolls. He used to have a teddy bear called Carlos. Carlos had warm, dark brown eyes and they never once stared at Dean like those creepy ass dolls the girls would bring to kindergarten. Should have burned every single one of them with their staring eyes and unnatural skin and…

Huh. Where did that come from?

Dean frowns and bites down on his lower lip again. He shakes his head to clear away some of the heavy, stifling fog. Winchesters don't do delirious.

"What the...?" There is a hand on his neck, pressing down, massaging and Dean shrugs it off, shoots up in his chair when it returns. "Quit mothering me."

Sam shoots him a dark look he can't quite read, but at least he holds his hands up in surrender and backs off. "C'mon," he says in a weird, soft voice. "Time to hit the rack."

Dean manages to heave himself out of his chair and stumble-step around Sam's probing arms. Kid's probably trying to take his temperature again or something.



Dean tosses around in the old bed, the springs protesting violently against his choppy, badly coordinated movements. The sheets have holes in them, dust from the old covers sticks to the sweaty parts of Dean's back, like salt on hot fries.

It's like the bed's owner's been dead for the better part of two years.

Dean laughs slightly into the moth eaten pillow until the chuckles turn into dry coughs. He's glad he didn't say that one out loud. Sam would've probably heard through the closed door and come in to tear him a new one for speaking ill of the dead. Dean should really have immunity on that by now, even if his club membership has been revoked.

He turns onto his other side, facing away from the window when the light from the stars gets too much to handle. He tries not to think about the way the sheets are scratchy and old and how Pastor Jim probably didn't wash them before Meg cut his throat. And then he definitely doesn't think about how Jim died because he was their friend and how Dean didn't even say goodbye last time they talked on the phone.

Dean reaches up to scratch his arm. His arm where the dust left behind from Pastor Jim being dead for two years clings to his skin and all the scratching he does doesn't get rid of the terrible itch. It's a burn that travels from the little hairs on his arm through the skin, deep into his flesh. He can feel it settle in the deceptively hard mass of his bones. Bones like to pretend they’re all sturdy and solid, but then they snap, just like that. It doesn't matter if you get thrown into a grave marker or a demon flicks its claws. Bones are never as hard and resilient as you expect them to be and the heat from Dean's scratching makes them boil.

The bone boils and melts and Dean is still digging his fingers into his arm, even as the skin starts to welt and blister and he can feel pieces of burned, dead skin stick under his broken-off fingernails.

He keeps scratching and scratching and there is blood and liquid bone flowing out of him, soaking the sheets, painting red over Pastor-Jim-being-dead-for-almost-two-years-because-of-them-and-Dean-never-even-saying-goodbye and then it fills the entire room and Dean knows he's going to drown in his own blood again.

He can hear the drums and howls of hell echoing in his ears, demons cheering other demons, screeching for more blood, more pain. His heart speeds up along with the chants and then he's sitting upright and the sounds drain away into an eerie silence only punctuated by his erratic heartbeat.

"Fuck me..." Dean's voice sounds hoarse and broken, too loud in the sudden silence.

He shoves his hand under his pillow, searching for his knife or gun or flask. He can't find anything and his breath catches in his throat when he realizes Sam left him here without a single weapon.

He tries to count in his head, counts his breaths like sheep, lets out a stream of curses and focuses on the flow of his own voice. "Okay," he chants quietly. "Okay, you're fine. You're okay."

He repeats it until he almost believes it.

"Sam?" he calls out in a hoarse voice that sounds small and scared and rolls off the bed into the thick dust on the floor. His fingers twist into the old, sweat-soaked sheets when no-one answers. "Sam, you up?"

Still, he’s met with nothing, so Dean swings his legs over the edge of the bed and heaves himself onto his feet. The floorboards are old and scream under his weight. A sudden wave of nausea washes over him, heatandpainandsick rushing to his head, leaving his body shaking and bent in half. He has to catch himself against the wall, his pulse beating against the inside of his palm.

Dean takes another shuddering breath, makes an effort to ignore the dark, thick blood leaking out of the ceiling and steps over Mia's dead body into the kitchen.

"Wha..?"

Dean whips back around, almost topples over again when the heat in his head spikes up and the walls draw nearer and the floor turns into quicksand. The body is gone. Which is a good thing, considering she's a hallucination and Dean has already established that he is very much not delirious.

Dean finds a six pack in the open freezer. It's luke-warm and a couple of the cans have little bite-marks on them. He studies the tiny imprints for a minute, wonders about infection and rabies and comodo dragons, before he decides he doesn’t really care.

“Cheers, Padre,” he croaks into the empty room, raising his beer to a silent toast.

It's funny thinking of Pastor Jim, sitting alone at his table at night, drinking away his dreams. Dean chuckles darkly, remembers that he never wanted to drink and Dad never drank so much he couldn’t speak and Bobby never had more than one beer for dinner. Until they did. Hits every hunter sooner or later.

Dean hopes it will be later for Sam.



Blood is still dripping from the ceiling. Thick, dark rivers that go thumpthump-thumpidi-thump with the never ending heartbeat of hell.

Why hello there, pup.

Dean's entire body twitches. Somewhere, someone makes a strangled squeaking kind of sound.

Yeah, that's right, didn't think I'd let you play topside forever, did you?

The voice is right behind him and Dean can feel the demon's claws pressing down on his shoulders.

"Not real," he tells himself. "Notrealnotrealnotreal."

He bites down on his lower lip with more force than he intended. Blood spills into his mouth and the pain pulses against the darkness of his not-quite memories, almost pushes them back.

Behind him, Alastair chuckles. Not getting rid of me so easy, Dean-o. Missed you so much...

The voice is right next to his ear now and the claws dig into his shoulders and that high squeal is filling his ears, soft and never ever ending.

And then there is a sudden rich, familiar roar, cutting through the darkness, beating against the walls of the cabin from the outside. It stops and then there’s Sam, standing in the doorway.

"Sammy?"

Something twitches across Sam's face. It's ugly and wild and it takes Dean a minute before he figures out the frantic mantra of Deandeanohmygoddean has anything to do with his brother.

"Sammy?"

Sam is standing in the doorway, still staring, like maybe he can see the blood dripping from the ceiling and Alastair's arms wrapped around Dean's neck and Dean doesn’t want to think what will happen if they are real. Then Dean blinks and Sam is standing right in front of him, grabbing his hands and it's almost like he can't feel Alastair’s hot, chuckling breath ghosting over his cheek.

"Sa..." Dean takes a deep breath. He hates it when his brain gets stuck in a loop like that. It's worse than the times he goes completely silent. "Sammy, I..."

I thought you left, why are you back?

"It's okay." Sam's voice is soft and low and even though it does nothing to calm down the frantic-bird heartbeat in Dean’s throat, it is comforting in a confusing sort of way. "I just went out to get some stuff, thought you were asleep."

Dean nods hastily. He was. It's not Sam's fault Dean forgot his goodnight drink.

Sam's fingers are still twisted around Dean's, pulling, tugging and Dean needs to look down to realize he has both his hands wrapped around one of the empty cans, his fingers cramping in time with his erratic heart. He relaxes them with an effort, enough for Sam to pry the broken aluminum out of his hands.

"God dammit, Dean," Sam huffs with that special bitch face leaking out of his eyes. The one he only uses when he's pissed because he thinks Dean is intentionally hurting himself. Dean can't look at it so he focuses on the empty cans, scattered all over the table instead. "Jesus Christ, you're burning up."

One of Sam's hands shoots up to Dean's forehead again and Dean tries to lean back, away from the probing fingers, but stops almost immediately when the room starts spinning around him, groans and closes his eyes against the way everything blurs into bright screaming.
"'m fine," he slurs and just like that his brain is unstuck again.

Sam groans. He runs his hands through his hair until it's all ridiculous and standing up instead of falling into his eyes.

"C'mon," he sighs, like he doesn't want to deal with the fallout from whatever he actually wants to be saying. "You're sick, you're drunk. Let's get you back to bed, okay?"

Dean feels the air rattle through his throat, burning cold against the throbbing heat, stopping here and there like an old engine. "No." His back and neck and jaw are suddenly rigid with tension, trembling and Dean can't even shake his head. "No, I...I said I'm fine."

He works against the tight, trembling muscles until he can meet his brother's eyes. Please, don't make me go back in there. Saying it out loud would damn near kill him, but he can try his own, week, trembling version of Sammy's puppy dog eyes.

One of Sam's hands is still resting on Dean's cramping fists. Dean can feel the weary sigh there on his wrist when it travels through his brother's entire body. His lips twitch and he thinks it probably doesn't even look like the grateful smile he means it to be.



"Ibuprofen," Sam says from somewhere above Dean. Dean groans as another shudder runs up his spine and he spews another thick string of alcohol and bile into the rusty bucket. "I knew they'd be a bad idea after what you've had to drink."

Dean wants to shoot back some smart-ass line about not shoving the stuff down his throat then, but the words get tangled together somewhere in the mess of pain and heat and sick that is his head right now. He can feel his fingers dig little round dents into the bucket when a new wave of bad rushes up his body, rolls around in his throat for a minute before it slides back down to settle as a heavy, cold rock high in his stomach.

He swallows a couple of times, tries to get his throat to remember working the other way 'round. "Okay," he whispers more to himself than anything else and dammit, this self-assuring crap is not going to be a thing. "Think I'm done." He looks at Sam this time so that makes it better.

Sam puts a steaming cup on the table and takes the bucket out of Dean's hands. With a firm order of "drink", he walks out the backdoor, holding the barf-bucket at a weird angle, like he expects it to attack at any moment.

Dean's head protests with a single angry throb when he forces his upper body upright again. He glares at the cup on the table. He can smell something funny. Sweet and bitter and Sam. He hooks a finger through the ceramic handle and pulls the cup closer. Tea, he realizes with an automatic feeling of vague disgust. He sniffs again. Bet Sam didn't even make it Irish. Which makes him wonder, is there such a thing as Irish Tea? His throat is dry though and his mouth tastes like sick and Sam did use that one tone that's always sort of scared Dean on a level he doesn't ever want to go near exploring, so he lifts the cup to his lips and takes a tentative sip.

"Fuck!"

It burns. Hotter than the hottest coffee Dean's ever had. He pushes the cup away and breathes with his mouth open.

"Dean?" Sam is in the doorway, dripping wet bucket hanging from his hand, a look of panic in his eyes that Dean can't quite place.

"Fuckin' thing burned my tongue," he explains. His tone isn't sulky at all. Not even one bit.

It's amazing how quickly Sam can move. It's like he blurs and then he's standing next to Dean again. Dean is still trying to wrap his mind around that one, but Sam snaps at him all loud and mad and it's like somebody's stabbing Dean's head. "It's tea. It's made with boiling hot water."

"You..." Dean almost says You told me to drink it. All indignant and pouty and sick, but that would mean he tried the tea because Sam said so and that's just not something he's prepared to admit, so he glares and shuts up.



The sofa bed is even more uncomfortable than the real one. There's a spring digging into Dean's ass. It gives a rusty squeak every time he shifts his weight.

"Can you please at least try to sleep?" Sam asks in that pissy, pseudo-patient tone of his. He's gotta be uncomfortable, perched on that hard, wooden chair with his elbows digging into his thighs. Dean would send him away, but he’s sort of scared that Alastair will come back or Mia will show up again, dead and ripped to bloody shreds, so he just hopes Sam doesn’t have any plans of getting up any time soon.

"'m not tired," Dean snarls. It's a flat-out lie. A bad one, probably, seeing as his eyes keep drooping and it takes a huge effort every time he has to force them back open. Keeping forty years of hell repressed and pushed down is a challenge during the best of nights. It's damn near impossible with his brain fried six ways from Sunday and Sam hovering over the last of Dean's booze. “I’m sick…” It possibly isn’t a huge revelation, but Dean keeps going, rubs his freezing hands together between his legs until he can almost feel his fingers again.

He’s pretty sure he was wrong earlier. This isn’t hell fire. Something zapped him to the North Pole and now they’re trying to turn him into one of Santa’s fucking elves. Or something.

“I hate bein’ sick…” Sam just looks at him. Dean wonders how the little shit can see anything beyond those ridiculous bangs of his. Things must be a bitch for his peripheral vision.  “I’m gonna take a shower.”



Dean tries not to look at the thick black velvet that's spinning cobwebs from one corner of the ceiling to the other. He's had worse, he tells himself. Rat infested motel rooms and moldy, half-blue bread that leaves him undecided, worrying if he'd rather throw up or fight the hunger back a little while longer.

The water smells like smoke. Thick and black like sure death and then it flows down Dean's face, fights its way into his mouth, even though he's gritting his teeth and he knows he's drowning.

Drowning in liquid smoke and black mold and all Sam's going to find is a sorry heap of wet ashes in the shower drain.

But that's okay. Dean doesn't mind being a heap of dead as long as he doesn't have to get reassembled and go through it all over again this time.

Really think I'm gonna let that happen, sweetheart?

Dean jumps and his feet skitter in the wet bathtub and he gasps in huge lungfulls of smoke and water and blood.

"Ala-A-al-" It's no use. The water pushes the name right back down his throat and then he's coughing and gagging and Alastair is laughing quietly behind him.

The shower head screams. It screams and groans and rattles and the smoke-blood-water is boiling hot against his skin, raising blisters all over his arms and chest and then he looks up and there's Mia, glued to the ceiling, blood and velvet black.

"Dean?”

His name comes from all sides. High and rough and screaming and laughing and scared and suddenly the floor under his feet is gone and the walls slip away and the ceiling becomes the walls.



Sam is cleaning up around him. It's loud and it hurts and sometimes he dabs something across Dean's forehead. Rough and scraping hot and Dean tries to turn away and bury his face in the corner of the couch forever, but Sam's hands are burning rocks against his ice-cold skin, forcing him to turn back around.

Sam shouldn't be here. Shouldn't be within twenty feet of Dean and his germs and Alastair, so pissed about being killed.

"Go'way."

Dean's voice clings to the roof of his mouth and he can't even take a full breath before Sam pushes the sweet, acid tea to his lips again.



"He's down for the count," Sam's voice sifts through the thick cotton in Dean's head. "No, Bobby, it's bad. Really bad...." Dean tries to keep listening, but the heat spikes, irritated pins and needles all over his head and then he is drowning in the darkness again.

Ssshhh....

Alastair is carding his claws through Dean's hair. He doesn't have to look to know it's standing up in every which direction, spikey with congealing blood.

“I don’t know what to do anymore. He’s…I just don’t know, Bobby.”

He doesn’t want to drag your sorry ass around anymore. But that’s okay, son. I’ll always take care of you.



"I told them no." He knows his grip on Sam's arm is too hard, but he can't let go, can't let Sam walk out on him when he needs him to understand that he never wanted any of this. "I swear I told them no. I told them forever, but then they...he...I couldn't take it anymore, Sammy, but I swear I didn't know what I was starting. I woulda told them no forever if I'd known."

"It’s a wonder you held out as long as you did," Sam whispers. “No-one could have done a better job of it.”

Daddy did, Alastair whispers from behind Sam. Dean can see the cruel grimace out in the dark, even though he can’t make out the demon’s face. Daddy took everything I threw at him for a hundred years and when he couldn't take it anymore, he fought his way off my rack and crawled out of the pit.

"That's not true," Dean whispers. It can't be.

“It is.” Sam sounds so sure of himself and Dean wonders how long his brother has been able to hear Alastair’s voice.

It’s good when everything drowns away in darkness again. It’s better than having to listen to Sammy agreeing with Alastair.

Dean dreams of knives and fire and pain that is so familiar and welcome it doesn’t even hurt anymore.

Then it all drains away, gets sucked into the empty, dark corners of the room and Mia’s back on the ceiling, staring down at him with huge, gaping holes for eyes, thick blood dripping from her face into Dean’s mouth.

"Please don't," she whispers. Her voice sounds just as broken as it does in Dean's dreams. "Please, you don't want to do this."

She's right. He doesn't.

But he did back then. Reveled in the way the blood he smelled wasn't his for the first time in thirty years. He fell in love with her screams, the begging and crying, the endless calls for help.

They were each other's firsts. Alastair liked to make jokes about it. You and me, round about midnight, you and me. He whisper-sang in Dean's ear while Dean watched the first stream of blood slide down her shivering body. Round about midnight, someone got to draw first blood. Ooh, I got to draw first blood.

"I'm sorry," he whispers. She keeps staring at him, crying blood while her lips move around pointless pleas for mercy. There is no pity in hell and Dean was too far gone, had let too many pieces of his humanity slip into the roaring streams of hellfire to feel anything but lust at her desperate cries. "I couldn't help it," he tells her and for a second something like cold hatred flashes through her dead eyes. Then it's gone and she's back to pleading.



The sandpaper is back to scraping over his face, turning his cheeks bloody, soaking up his tears. He wonders when he started crying again. Thought he’d given up on that too long ago to remember.

“Dean, you gotta snap out of this, I don’t wanna hurt you.”

Is that his name? His brain only processes the first word and he isn’t even sure what that means.

Boy, have I messed up your head.

Hands in his hair, over his face, ripping away skin before wiping away the blood.

That’s it, kiddo. I’ll fix you right up.



Sometimes, when you’re in hell, the screams all blend together until they turn into crushing silence. Heavy and rock solid and suffocating. It’s real. More real than every single one of the blades.



It’s cold.

“Dean, you’re burning up.”

Too cold. He tries to hide his face in the shadows, grabs at whatever he can, pulling, tearing, then  pain, quick and burning on his left cheek, then the right.

“Oh my…fuck, Dean, I’m sorry, just hold still, please.”

There is another sound. High and keening and pleasejustletmegoImsorry.

“It’s okay.”

The freezing cold blood-soaked rag settles on his forehead and he can’t move, can’t throw it off, hooks tying his arms to the darkness.



“S-ss-ss?”

Dean floats closer to the surface, almost grasping the sounds around him.
“Ss-Sa-a…”

It can’t be his voice, all hoarse and high, and hiding behind too little air.
“Sshh, it’s okay.”

Sam’s voice cuts through the thick darkness. Something warm wraps itself tighter around Dean’s shivering form and he lets himself drift back under.



The blood is gone by the time Dean manages to keep his eyes open for several minutes at a time. He looks around carefully, checks the corners and the ceiling and Sam, slumped over in his chair in a way that will leave him sore and stiff for at least a day.
Light is filling the room now, where it was almost drowning in thick, blinding darkness last time Dean remembers.

Dean wets his lips with his tongue, tastes salt and dried copper. His breath catches ever so slightly in his throat and a filthy, dry rag falls off his head, lands on the floor next to Sam’s foot.

An old army blanket is wrapped around his shoulders and Dean would shrug it off, but his arms are heavy and not cooperating and he drifts back under.



“I’m okay,” Dean rasps. His voice is still thin and embarrassingly small and the words burn in his throat. “Let’s get outa here.”
"Just like that?" Sam asks. There is an edge to his voice that cuts through the hoarse weariness. "Dean you were hallucinating last night. You thought you were in hell."

Dean shoots Sam a long look. "And now I'm not anymore."
Sam looks at him for the longest time. Just looks at him with those warm, safe eyes that cut through Dean’s crap, right down to the screaming, broken-up thing that used to be his soul. "Just like that?" he repeats, quieter this time. Honestly curious, rather than bitchy and irritated.

Dean shrugs. "Happens." The small movement sends a dull, throbbing pain down from his shoulders into his sore back.

He heaves his duffels onto the kitchen table. His arms join his back and Dean has to bite back a pained groan. He digs around in his bag, fingers searching frantically until he finds the last of Pastor Jim’s beer.

He digs his fingers into the lid of the can, relaxes at the familiar hiss.

"What the hell?" Sam whips around so fast he almost blurs. "Dude, you've got to be kidding me."

Dean blinks. "Wha..?" He has no idea what's gotten Sam all rallied up this time. "What...I?"

"The beer, you moron?"

Dean starts a little at the loud noise, but quickly rearranges his face into a dark scowl. "Dude, cut me some slack. I had a rough night."

Sam's mouth falls slightly open in that disbelieving, pissed-off way that is 100% John Winchester. "You're about to get yourself a rough day..."

Dean glares. His stomach turns at the mere thought of putting the can near his lips, but the memories of last night are still raw and drinking away the taste of blood in the back of his mouth has become second nature over the last few months. Funny how he used to spend hours promising his little brother that he wouldn't ever turn into Dad, that he only ever drank for fun. He gets what his father was doing now. Gets it on the level where he's willing to drink himself sick if it will just drive the pain away, like Sam just can't.

“I’m better now,” he says and feels a blush crawling up his face when the last word turns into a dry cough.

“Better isn’t good.” Sam takes the beer out of Dean’s hands and his skin feels cool and soothing against Dean’s own. “Take these instead, okay?”

Dean dry swallows the Ibuprofen without hesitation. Last night really lowered his bar for embarrassment. Taking his meds without a token protest doesn’t even register anymore.
“You know you can talk, right?” Sam has his back turned to him, pouring the last of Dean’s beer down the drain. Which is ridiculous, considering they were just about to leave anyway, but Dean isn’t going to complain as long as he doesn’t have to look Sam in the eye right now.

“I don’t wanna talk.”

Sam nods. His hair bounces up and down on the back of his head. “I get that. I really do. Just…if you wanna, I’m here, ‘kay?”

Dean gulps down the heavy ball of emotion that’s suddenly fighting its way up his throat. Which doesn’t make a lick of sense because Sam’s offered to talk a million times and Dean has laughed at him every single time he brought it up, but now, after tonight - things are different now.

“Okay,” he forces out on the tail-end of a cough. “Don’t count on it though.”