Sixth Night of Jessakkuh
Title: Sixth Night of Jessakkuh
Summary: Dean goes to Stanford to spend Hanukkah with Jess and Sam. They're snowed in. Sam has a cold. Jess has a secret.
Warnings/Spoilers: None
Wordcount: 2,446
Author's Note: Sammyverse, part of an 8-part series with one bit a night through the end of Hanukkah. Happy 6th night! Putting this one up early in hopes you'll find time on your Christmas to squeeze it. And Merry Christmas to all of you who celebrate!
Night #1
Night #2
Night #3
Night #4
Night #5
What's important to fucking remember is that it's an asthma attack. It's not pneumonia, or even bronchitis. It's not a ridiculously high fever. It's not a broken limb or a concussion or internal bleeding or a gunshot wound. It's not third degree burns. It's not an aneurysm. It's not lupus or diabetes or the whole host of other things his anxious brain convinces himself has happened to Sam whenever the phone rings in the middle of the night.
It's an asthma attack. It's an asthma attack with a fever, and it's a really fucking bad asthma attack, but they did a chest x-ray and took some blood and it's just an asthma attack.
So it's time for Dean to calm the hell down.
He's resting, now, not asleep, but resting, breathing shallow but even with the oxygen mask on. He's playing with Dean's fingers but watching Jess and just Jess, because she's being a fucking rock, smiling gently at him and playing with his hair but otherwise treating him like he's normal fucking Sam and not this shaky thing in a hospital bed. She teases him about how tired he looks and walks her fingers up and down his arm and talks about what they'll do for Christmas. “Whatever you want, Sambug,” she says. “Anything in the world.”
He can't talk much, so he just watches and smiles a little and Dean thinks he's answering her pretty well.
“How did you guys do Christmas growing up?” she asks Dean. She leans her elbow on Sam's pillow and keeps playing with his hair. He loves that.
“Different every year,” Dean says. “Winchesters aren't big on tradition.”
“We'll change that,” Jess says. “Sammer, you want Dean for Christmas?”
Sammer is one of their nicknames for him.
Dean fucking hates when anyone but him and John says Sammy, but he likes Sammer on hers. Maybe he would like Sammy, too.
And that scares him.
Sam nods, even though he's got to fucking know that Dean can't come for Christmas. John wouldn't be able to lie to himself that Dean weren't going to see Sammy on something as obvious as fucking Christmas. John knows he comes, but Dean still usually risks it only when Sam's sick, or just on a random weekend if Sam's been annoying and healthy for too long. Christmas is too obvious. He and John might have to fucking talk about it, and John might ask something like, “What do you get out of seeing Sam all the time?” or “Don't you hear him and the girlfriend fucking?” and Dean would really rather not get into those, okay?
(He leans down to Sam and nuzzles his hair, just for a fucking second. Okay?)
Sam starts wheezing again when he pulls away, and Jess says, “God, your poor chest.”
He holds up an okay sign and closes his eyes and concentrates on steadying his breathing.
He's getting worse. Jess says runs a hand up and down his side and says, “I'm going to go harass a doctor. He needs more shots.”
“All right. Okay, Sammy?”
Sam nods and watches her go and then reaches over and clings to Dean. Dean doesn't know if he's just replacing her or if Sam was waiting for her to leave. He doesn't want to know.
Fuck, things get complicated after Sam's been this bad.
“Hey,” Dean says. “Hey, it's okay. You want to sit up a little?”
He nods, and Dean tilts the bed up, leans Sam forwards enough to run a hand up and down his back. Too skinny. Too damn skinny.
Sam sneezes, which is just pathetic, but hospitals cart around whole loads of stuff he's allergic to, so it's kind of expected. But just...this poor damn fucking kid.
He climbs up on the bed next to him. “Hey.”
“Clingy.” Sam leans into him.
“You are too.”
“That's what I meant.”
He wraps an arm around Sam's head and guides it to his shoulder. “You sound horrible.”
Sam nods and tucks his face into Dean's neck. The oxygen mask is cold against his throat.
He's just so fucking physical, this kid, and Dean's seen him with his friends at parties, tucking them under his massive arms and fucking with their hair and acting all big brother, and he feels like he did when Sam learned his times tables after two afternoons at the kitchen table with him. Look at Sam fucking learning. Look at him learning this thing that didn't come anywhere near naturally to Dean, because when Sam got to a certain age, John stopped cuddling him up except when he was really sick, so Dean did too, and then he notices Sam trying to hold himself the way John and Dean used to, trying to rub his back with bedposts on motel beds, and, sorry, John, sorry, rules, but, uh, no.
So he trained him into this the same way he trained himself into not shutting the fuck up, not letting Sam bottle stuff up and get himself all anxious, and he makes sure Sam doesn't worry that Dean's okay, and what does he get for that? He gets this cuddly fucking sick kid who he gets to see ten percent of the fucking year, if that, and he's sitting here on his hospital bed with Sam's hands tangled in the hem of his shirt and he's just fucking shattered.
Sam wheezes deep in his chest and Dean wraps an arm around him and says, “Tell me what happened.”
Sam sucks in a breath. “Woke up so tight. Got bad too fast for me and Jess.”
“Fucking viruses.”
Sam nods and wipes his eyes. Ugh, he gets all weepy from the meds, and it's the fucking worst.
“Come here.” He holds Sam close and rocks him a little. This comforts him more than anything in the world, but Sam will never, ever ask for it. Sam isn't a baby.
“You only do this when I'm dying,” Sam says, quietly. “Hey. Am I dying?”
“You're not fucking dying, shut up.”
“I can't breathe, though.”
Dean kisses his forehead. He's still hot.
“Hey. Kisses now? Am I dying?”
“Fuck off, I said you're not dying.” He guides Sam's face into his shoulder because Sam is scared and Sam shouldn't have to look at the machines and his shitty numbers and the mean fucking nurses. Sam gets Dean's shoulder until Jess gets back and that's fucking it.
Sam digs his fingers into his ribcage. He's in pain.
But half an hour ago, he was going blue in the car, shaking like he was convulsing, and Dean was driving these icy damn roads and he had no fucking clue if he could get them there without fucking killing them, and Jess's car had taken them an hour to get out at Sam didn't have an hour, and he couldn't even see his kid because Jess was holding him in the backseat, bringing Sam's lips to hers and letting breaths into his mouth and drawing his out, which Dean thought was maybe bad because the oxygen saturation would be lower than real air and Sam's chest was probably overinflating past the point where she could help but Sam needed someone to believe that they could help him and Dean had no fucking clue and if Sam lived with him he would have a fucking EpiPen in the glove compartment but he didn't and fuck fuck fuck fuck he thought his kid was dying.
“You scared me,” Dean whispers, and he rocks his kid until he stops crying.
**
They shoot Sam up again and he manages to sleep despite the epinephrine, and Jess and Dean keep touching him and waking him up and he eventually gets cranky and tells them to go get something to eat, damn it, so now he and Jess are eating sandwiches outside of Sam's room because fuck if they're going to be too far away. They're going to scrub their damn selves once they're done, because those assholes down in the cafeteria kept eating their peanut butter sandwiches even after they glared at him with all their damn might, and yeah, they're a little paranoid right now, fucking sue them.
Maybe they're a little shaky now.
Dean says, “You've been so fucking fantastic.”
She looks at him with wet eyes. “Really?”
“You held me together. Seriously.” He leans over his knees. “Usually it's Dad, you know? Being the brave one. I'm fucking awesome at the day-to-day, but when he gets really fucking sick, Dad is all over that. He's incredible in a crisis. And I'm just trying not to fall apart.”
“Sam's braver than me,” she says, softly.
“Well, yeah.” Dean laughs a little. “He's kind of hard to compete with.”
“I don't know how he does this. I don't fucking know. It's...he works so fucking hard. He'll get up in the middle of the night and he thinks I'm asleep, when he's not that bad? And I'll just fucking watch him.”
Dean nods. “I used to do that.”
“Just to make sure he's okay, but also...because you watch him timing his breaths out and how hard he's working his shoulders and ribs just to get those shitty little breaths in, and I'm like...I can't even get my fucking lab reports done half the time.”
Dean laughs a little.
“But who's to say that our kid will be that great?” Jess says. “How many people in the world could handle being this sick? God, he's fucking happy.”
“Jess. You'll know exactly how to take care of this kid. You know what to do. And that kid is half you and half Sammy. He's going to be the damn best. She. She's going to be the damn best.”
She wipes her eyes.
“God, you and Sam, all teary on me today.”
She laughs. “Shut up, Dean.”
He gives her a quick squeeze and kisses the top of her head. “I talk a big game, but I'm going to bawl my eyes out if you have a sick baby.”
“God, me too. Sam will be strong, though.”
Dean wants to agree.
He says, “Jess, Sam's going to have a really fucking hard time.”
Jess looks down and nods.
“But he is going to love that kid like you wouldn't fucking believe. Sam's going to be the best goddamn dad.”
“Learned from the best,” Jess says, bumping him a little with her elbow, and Dean laughs a little when he realizes she means him.
“I'm his fucking mom,” Dean says, because he's used to simplifying him and Sam down. It's just easier. (It's easier for everyone but him and Sam, but they can just smile. And come on, this is Sam's girlfriend.)
“Maybe that's why I love you so much,” Jess says, and she wraps her arms around his waist and squeezes him.
Dean says, "Hey, this is a hospital, you know? I bet you could find a test."
Jess breathes out. "In a little while."
"What?"
"I want to stay like this for a little while."
**
They're still in the hospital when the sun sets, and they don't allow candles, so they light them secret and quick behind the bed and giggle and sing fast and Sam coughs at the smoke.
**
“How do you do it?” Sam whispers, when Jess is asleep next to the bed, Sam's hand in her hair and his head resting on Dean's chest.
“What?”
“Watch this.”
“Oh, fuck, Sam, don't.”
'I'm afraid of watching this.”
“It's a lot fucking easier than what you do, I'll tell you that.”
“You think?” Sam says.
“Are you kidding me?”
Sam plays with his fingers. “You guys give me all this credit, but what Dad said that one time is right, you know?”
“What?”
“I don't really do anything.” Sam rubs his knuckles up and down his chin. “Remember, that time we thought we'd found what got Mom, and I was so fucking sick? And Dad just needed me to do some research, and I told him I was all tired from trying to breathe, and he kind of freaked out? Said...” Sam lifts the oxygen mask to his mouth for a few breaths. Dean always wonders how he can tell he needs it. “Said he knew it sucked, but I kept fucking doing it because my body knew I needed it so it was still just a reflex, so I didn't have any other damn choice, and I couldn't be tired from something my body fucking does on its own.”
“Except your body doesn't fucking do it on its own.”
Sam coughs into his elbows. “It's not Ondine's Curse, you know?”
“What?”
“Never mind. I just mean...I kind of do do it on my own. I do a shitty job, but it's still a reflex. In and out.”
Dean blinks and says, “Sammy, I don't think you realize how easy it is for most people.”
Sam looks up at him.
“We don't think about it,” Dean says. “We don't...think about what muscles we're using. We don't get sore.”
“Really?”
Dean pushes his face into Sam's cheek. “It's just normal.”
“This is normal for me, though.”
“And that's why anyone who says you're not strong is full of goddamn shit.”
“I'm a wimp. I cry.”
Dean makes his voice funny like the guy from the movie to say, “Sam Winchester, you're my hero,” and Sam laughs until he coughs.
Dean moves his hand around and rubs Sam's shoulders, because the fucking kid aches.
“It's hard for you to watch,” Sam says. “That's not a reflex.”
“You think looking at you isn't a reflex? Have you seen that hideous face of yours? I have to make sure it's not a fucking illusion.”
Sam smacks him.
“Sammy,” Dean says. “I'll watch you do anything. You're good.”
So then he watches Sam sleep and wheeze and shiver for a few hours, and then he takes out his phone and takes a picture of Sam tangled up in his IV and his oxygen mask and his girlfriend and sends it to John.
Because fuck him.
Because John has two fucking awesome kids.
that your skinwalker you're hunting? John texts back, almost fucking instantly.
yessir
how's he doing?
breathing
There's a pause this time, and then a new text: that's my boy.
And then one more text, a minute later:
tell jessica happy hanukkah
Summary: Dean goes to Stanford to spend Hanukkah with Jess and Sam. They're snowed in. Sam has a cold. Jess has a secret.
Warnings/Spoilers: None
Wordcount: 2,446
Author's Note: Sammyverse, part of an 8-part series with one bit a night through the end of Hanukkah. Happy 6th night! Putting this one up early in hopes you'll find time on your Christmas to squeeze it. And Merry Christmas to all of you who celebrate!
Night #1
Night #2
Night #3
Night #4
Night #5
What's important to fucking remember is that it's an asthma attack. It's not pneumonia, or even bronchitis. It's not a ridiculously high fever. It's not a broken limb or a concussion or internal bleeding or a gunshot wound. It's not third degree burns. It's not an aneurysm. It's not lupus or diabetes or the whole host of other things his anxious brain convinces himself has happened to Sam whenever the phone rings in the middle of the night.
It's an asthma attack. It's an asthma attack with a fever, and it's a really fucking bad asthma attack, but they did a chest x-ray and took some blood and it's just an asthma attack.
So it's time for Dean to calm the hell down.
He's resting, now, not asleep, but resting, breathing shallow but even with the oxygen mask on. He's playing with Dean's fingers but watching Jess and just Jess, because she's being a fucking rock, smiling gently at him and playing with his hair but otherwise treating him like he's normal fucking Sam and not this shaky thing in a hospital bed. She teases him about how tired he looks and walks her fingers up and down his arm and talks about what they'll do for Christmas. “Whatever you want, Sambug,” she says. “Anything in the world.”
He can't talk much, so he just watches and smiles a little and Dean thinks he's answering her pretty well.
“How did you guys do Christmas growing up?” she asks Dean. She leans her elbow on Sam's pillow and keeps playing with his hair. He loves that.
“Different every year,” Dean says. “Winchesters aren't big on tradition.”
“We'll change that,” Jess says. “Sammer, you want Dean for Christmas?”
Sammer is one of their nicknames for him.
Dean fucking hates when anyone but him and John says Sammy, but he likes Sammer on hers. Maybe he would like Sammy, too.
And that scares him.
Sam nods, even though he's got to fucking know that Dean can't come for Christmas. John wouldn't be able to lie to himself that Dean weren't going to see Sammy on something as obvious as fucking Christmas. John knows he comes, but Dean still usually risks it only when Sam's sick, or just on a random weekend if Sam's been annoying and healthy for too long. Christmas is too obvious. He and John might have to fucking talk about it, and John might ask something like, “What do you get out of seeing Sam all the time?” or “Don't you hear him and the girlfriend fucking?” and Dean would really rather not get into those, okay?
(He leans down to Sam and nuzzles his hair, just for a fucking second. Okay?)
Sam starts wheezing again when he pulls away, and Jess says, “God, your poor chest.”
He holds up an okay sign and closes his eyes and concentrates on steadying his breathing.
He's getting worse. Jess says runs a hand up and down his side and says, “I'm going to go harass a doctor. He needs more shots.”
“All right. Okay, Sammy?”
Sam nods and watches her go and then reaches over and clings to Dean. Dean doesn't know if he's just replacing her or if Sam was waiting for her to leave. He doesn't want to know.
Fuck, things get complicated after Sam's been this bad.
“Hey,” Dean says. “Hey, it's okay. You want to sit up a little?”
He nods, and Dean tilts the bed up, leans Sam forwards enough to run a hand up and down his back. Too skinny. Too damn skinny.
Sam sneezes, which is just pathetic, but hospitals cart around whole loads of stuff he's allergic to, so it's kind of expected. But just...this poor damn fucking kid.
He climbs up on the bed next to him. “Hey.”
“Clingy.” Sam leans into him.
“You are too.”
“That's what I meant.”
He wraps an arm around Sam's head and guides it to his shoulder. “You sound horrible.”
Sam nods and tucks his face into Dean's neck. The oxygen mask is cold against his throat.
He's just so fucking physical, this kid, and Dean's seen him with his friends at parties, tucking them under his massive arms and fucking with their hair and acting all big brother, and he feels like he did when Sam learned his times tables after two afternoons at the kitchen table with him. Look at Sam fucking learning. Look at him learning this thing that didn't come anywhere near naturally to Dean, because when Sam got to a certain age, John stopped cuddling him up except when he was really sick, so Dean did too, and then he notices Sam trying to hold himself the way John and Dean used to, trying to rub his back with bedposts on motel beds, and, sorry, John, sorry, rules, but, uh, no.
So he trained him into this the same way he trained himself into not shutting the fuck up, not letting Sam bottle stuff up and get himself all anxious, and he makes sure Sam doesn't worry that Dean's okay, and what does he get for that? He gets this cuddly fucking sick kid who he gets to see ten percent of the fucking year, if that, and he's sitting here on his hospital bed with Sam's hands tangled in the hem of his shirt and he's just fucking shattered.
Sam wheezes deep in his chest and Dean wraps an arm around him and says, “Tell me what happened.”
Sam sucks in a breath. “Woke up so tight. Got bad too fast for me and Jess.”
“Fucking viruses.”
Sam nods and wipes his eyes. Ugh, he gets all weepy from the meds, and it's the fucking worst.
“Come here.” He holds Sam close and rocks him a little. This comforts him more than anything in the world, but Sam will never, ever ask for it. Sam isn't a baby.
“You only do this when I'm dying,” Sam says, quietly. “Hey. Am I dying?”
“You're not fucking dying, shut up.”
“I can't breathe, though.”
Dean kisses his forehead. He's still hot.
“Hey. Kisses now? Am I dying?”
“Fuck off, I said you're not dying.” He guides Sam's face into his shoulder because Sam is scared and Sam shouldn't have to look at the machines and his shitty numbers and the mean fucking nurses. Sam gets Dean's shoulder until Jess gets back and that's fucking it.
Sam digs his fingers into his ribcage. He's in pain.
But half an hour ago, he was going blue in the car, shaking like he was convulsing, and Dean was driving these icy damn roads and he had no fucking clue if he could get them there without fucking killing them, and Jess's car had taken them an hour to get out at Sam didn't have an hour, and he couldn't even see his kid because Jess was holding him in the backseat, bringing Sam's lips to hers and letting breaths into his mouth and drawing his out, which Dean thought was maybe bad because the oxygen saturation would be lower than real air and Sam's chest was probably overinflating past the point where she could help but Sam needed someone to believe that they could help him and Dean had no fucking clue and if Sam lived with him he would have a fucking EpiPen in the glove compartment but he didn't and fuck fuck fuck fuck he thought his kid was dying.
“You scared me,” Dean whispers, and he rocks his kid until he stops crying.
**
They shoot Sam up again and he manages to sleep despite the epinephrine, and Jess and Dean keep touching him and waking him up and he eventually gets cranky and tells them to go get something to eat, damn it, so now he and Jess are eating sandwiches outside of Sam's room because fuck if they're going to be too far away. They're going to scrub their damn selves once they're done, because those assholes down in the cafeteria kept eating their peanut butter sandwiches even after they glared at him with all their damn might, and yeah, they're a little paranoid right now, fucking sue them.
Maybe they're a little shaky now.
Dean says, “You've been so fucking fantastic.”
She looks at him with wet eyes. “Really?”
“You held me together. Seriously.” He leans over his knees. “Usually it's Dad, you know? Being the brave one. I'm fucking awesome at the day-to-day, but when he gets really fucking sick, Dad is all over that. He's incredible in a crisis. And I'm just trying not to fall apart.”
“Sam's braver than me,” she says, softly.
“Well, yeah.” Dean laughs a little. “He's kind of hard to compete with.”
“I don't know how he does this. I don't fucking know. It's...he works so fucking hard. He'll get up in the middle of the night and he thinks I'm asleep, when he's not that bad? And I'll just fucking watch him.”
Dean nods. “I used to do that.”
“Just to make sure he's okay, but also...because you watch him timing his breaths out and how hard he's working his shoulders and ribs just to get those shitty little breaths in, and I'm like...I can't even get my fucking lab reports done half the time.”
Dean laughs a little.
“But who's to say that our kid will be that great?” Jess says. “How many people in the world could handle being this sick? God, he's fucking happy.”
“Jess. You'll know exactly how to take care of this kid. You know what to do. And that kid is half you and half Sammy. He's going to be the damn best. She. She's going to be the damn best.”
She wipes her eyes.
“God, you and Sam, all teary on me today.”
She laughs. “Shut up, Dean.”
He gives her a quick squeeze and kisses the top of her head. “I talk a big game, but I'm going to bawl my eyes out if you have a sick baby.”
“God, me too. Sam will be strong, though.”
Dean wants to agree.
He says, “Jess, Sam's going to have a really fucking hard time.”
Jess looks down and nods.
“But he is going to love that kid like you wouldn't fucking believe. Sam's going to be the best goddamn dad.”
“Learned from the best,” Jess says, bumping him a little with her elbow, and Dean laughs a little when he realizes she means him.
“I'm his fucking mom,” Dean says, because he's used to simplifying him and Sam down. It's just easier. (It's easier for everyone but him and Sam, but they can just smile. And come on, this is Sam's girlfriend.)
“Maybe that's why I love you so much,” Jess says, and she wraps her arms around his waist and squeezes him.
Dean says, "Hey, this is a hospital, you know? I bet you could find a test."
Jess breathes out. "In a little while."
"What?"
"I want to stay like this for a little while."
**
They're still in the hospital when the sun sets, and they don't allow candles, so they light them secret and quick behind the bed and giggle and sing fast and Sam coughs at the smoke.
**
“How do you do it?” Sam whispers, when Jess is asleep next to the bed, Sam's hand in her hair and his head resting on Dean's chest.
“What?”
“Watch this.”
“Oh, fuck, Sam, don't.”
'I'm afraid of watching this.”
“It's a lot fucking easier than what you do, I'll tell you that.”
“You think?” Sam says.
“Are you kidding me?”
Sam plays with his fingers. “You guys give me all this credit, but what Dad said that one time is right, you know?”
“What?”
“I don't really do anything.” Sam rubs his knuckles up and down his chin. “Remember, that time we thought we'd found what got Mom, and I was so fucking sick? And Dad just needed me to do some research, and I told him I was all tired from trying to breathe, and he kind of freaked out? Said...” Sam lifts the oxygen mask to his mouth for a few breaths. Dean always wonders how he can tell he needs it. “Said he knew it sucked, but I kept fucking doing it because my body knew I needed it so it was still just a reflex, so I didn't have any other damn choice, and I couldn't be tired from something my body fucking does on its own.”
“Except your body doesn't fucking do it on its own.”
Sam coughs into his elbows. “It's not Ondine's Curse, you know?”
“What?”
“Never mind. I just mean...I kind of do do it on my own. I do a shitty job, but it's still a reflex. In and out.”
Dean blinks and says, “Sammy, I don't think you realize how easy it is for most people.”
Sam looks up at him.
“We don't think about it,” Dean says. “We don't...think about what muscles we're using. We don't get sore.”
“Really?”
Dean pushes his face into Sam's cheek. “It's just normal.”
“This is normal for me, though.”
“And that's why anyone who says you're not strong is full of goddamn shit.”
“I'm a wimp. I cry.”
Dean makes his voice funny like the guy from the movie to say, “Sam Winchester, you're my hero,” and Sam laughs until he coughs.
Dean moves his hand around and rubs Sam's shoulders, because the fucking kid aches.
“It's hard for you to watch,” Sam says. “That's not a reflex.”
“You think looking at you isn't a reflex? Have you seen that hideous face of yours? I have to make sure it's not a fucking illusion.”
Sam smacks him.
“Sammy,” Dean says. “I'll watch you do anything. You're good.”
So then he watches Sam sleep and wheeze and shiver for a few hours, and then he takes out his phone and takes a picture of Sam tangled up in his IV and his oxygen mask and his girlfriend and sends it to John.
Because fuck him.
Because John has two fucking awesome kids.
that your skinwalker you're hunting? John texts back, almost fucking instantly.
yessir
how's he doing?
breathing
There's a pause this time, and then a new text: that's my boy.
And then one more text, a minute later:
tell jessica happy hanukkah