Supernatural: Unbroken (part one)
Summary: They don't have time for headaches. With having died and pending hell, headaches should be nothing. Set sometime after Dean sells his soul for Sam. One shot.
Characters: Sam, Dean, echoes of John
Warnings: Spoilers abound
Disclaimer: no son mios, o sea, no estoy recibiendo plata por este cuento.
On to the fic!
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Unbroken
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Dean speaks softly.
That’s how Sam knows Dean knows he has a murder-scene-in-my-skull headache before he admits it to himself.
And it’s not just the talking softly. It’s the superlight tread Dean turns all his movements into. The Impala rolls smoother under his touch, rocking in a gentle rhythm when Dean glides it over the speed bumps in the motel parking lot.
It feels wrong, Sam thinks, Dean taking time to deal with him carefully.
They don’t have time for headaches.
With having died and pending hell, headaches should be nothing.
The car stops without even a lurch, settles with a sigh, but Sam grimaces in the silence, tilts his head forward and clicks his teeth together.
“Hold on,” Dean whispers. His voice is followed by the grunting grind of metal door. A second later Sam’s own door clicks open and his brother is leaning over him. “Here,” he says, “take this.” Says it like Dad used to, an order, not a suggestion. John Winchester had never been big on suggesting things. Had never offered hesitant questions like, would you like to take some aspirin, or, do you think it might help if you lie down?
(Would you mind if I sold my soul for your life?)
No, always just, you’re sick, get your ass in bed.
(I’m going to take care of this my way, now get in line).
Sam blames his brother for that because Dean needed the heavy handed approach sometimes.
Still does.
It’s not like he does anything to help himself. He won’t even lift a finger, won’t do a damn thing to…
“Sam.”
Sam can’t get away with the same kind of heavy-handed with Dean that Dad could, but it doesn’t stop him from trying, doesn’t stop him from alternating between subversive and shouting, even when he’s getting nowhere and Dean is acting like everything is nothing at all.
“Sammy.”
He chuffs air through his nose, feels a rebounded throbbing slice through his eyeballs. He tips the offered pills into his mouth and swallows, heeding Dean, whose orders are gentle instead of gruff.
“Easy, Sam, damn it.”
Usually.
He coughs and sputters as Dean pulls back the water bottle.
“Dude,” Dean murmurs softly. The word is distant and hollow in contrast to the light-strong fingers that anchor the side of Sam’s head. A rough-dry palm rests solid against his jaw, stabilizing. Dean uses his other hand and the slightly scratchy cuff of his shirt to remove water from Sam’s chin, then sits back on his haunches, twisting the cap back onto the bottle. “Okay?"
Sam folds his lips together, closes his eyes. He grunts instead of answering, but cracks his lids enough to see Dean press his mouth shut, stark-dark eyes wide and watching, elusive thoughts flickering behind them. Sam has the sudden urge to tackle him into the ground and yank each thought out with pliers.
He’s running out of time and he wants it all. Dean and Life. All of one, and all of the other.
He’s never ever easily accepted that he can’t have both.
Suddenly, the dull-grey light across Dean’s face warps and intensifies. The illusion of electricity bolts behind Sam’s eyes and he locks his lids tight again.
Shoes crunch against asphalt as Dean stands. Warm fingers settle on the back of Sam’s neck, pushing purposefully below his hairline. The echo of the pressure rebounds from his forehead, mirror points he’s never figured out, but it feels like heaven. Two clear lines of peace slicing through his brain. Dean increases the pressure, easing him forward.
Sam goes with it, finds his forehead resting against the chilled black dashboard, and can’t help his breathy sigh.
“Stay put,” Dean orders, and his hand is gone.
Lighting runs through Sam’s head, back to front, back to front. He sucks in his cheeks, focuses on the cool of the dash, and tries to think of nothing.
It works, sort of, the cool, the pressure, and the not thinking. He zens out. It feels like only seconds before Dean’s hands are on him again. “Got the room, time to get inside, kiddo.”
Sam frowns, moans, feels a rush of shivery pricks dancing down his face when he sits up.
Dean never calls him kiddo anymore.
He makes jokes that aren’t funny, talks of nothing that matters, and lets Sam only close enough to see the shiny exterior of his brick wall. They’re walking in circles, practiced steps around each other, with each other, holding things back and then shoving things forward, like a sparring match that’s gone too far.
And night after night Sam looks but finds no answers.
“You gonna hurl?”
“No.” He twitches his eyes away from Dean’s and crushes his lips together. Hopes it’s true. But getting to the motel room door is an ordeal. Pain is walking a tightrope in his head, taunt between his ears. He’ll only hurl if pain trips off the rope, but keeping it balanced doesn’t feel likely.
“Keep your eyes closed,” Dean mumbles, voice funnily flat.
Sam twitches his eyebrows together, but listens.
Dean keeps him steady all the way to the door, then leaves him there, going back to close and lock the car. Sam hears the distant, muted grunt of metal and squinches his eyes.
He startles when Dean’s hand tightens over his elbow.
The door opens to drab interior and, after they enter, things turn mushy and blurry in Sam’s head.
He’s mostly okay with that.
When he wakes up, his face is mashed against a cold tile floor, head heavy and stagnant.
An even colder cloth is folded onto the side of his forehead, and, as he registers its presence, a chilled drop of water escapes from it, tickle crawling downwards, lodging in his eyebrow. The itchy sensation is an odd distraction from the pain.
Dean is somewhere behind him, hand making slow, smooth motions over his shoulders, rhythm steady.
Pain is tiptoeing the tightrope more confidently-managing-and Sam is relieved. Just don’t move, focus on the steady sooth of Dean’s hand, and he’s good.
And it stays that way-all stays okay-until a truck, a trucking truck, rumbles loud, blasting its horn outside their room.
He gags violently.
Dean makes sure he makes the toilet. Doesn’t mumble or murmur, just rubs Sam’s back until he’s spitting out the last of everything he can.
The second time, Sam’s more aware.
He’s still in the bathroom. At least, part of him is. The room isn’t long enough. His lower legs are stretched onto the carpet outside the door, bare pad of one foot resting against the lowest rung of a luggage rack.
The tile feels colder than before, icy against his arm and the left side of his face.
He shivers but doesn’t move.
Dean’s leg is a warm line against his back. Sam pictures him slumped upright against the tub, head tilted into the wall, eyes closed, mouth open, crick in his neck from having sat there all night.
Sam rolls his head experimentally but doesn’t look behind him to see if he’s right.
The headache feels gone but he’s afraid if he shifts too much he’ll break the disturbingly magic combination of bathroom floor and Dean. The pain has changed from balancing tightrope walker to stalking lion, flitting through the shadowy corners of his vision, waiting for a reason to pounce. He keeps his breathing even, keeps himself steady, counting silently in and out.
“Better?” Dean’s voice floats from behind him, sounds gritty, reminds Sam of the soft crunch of gravel underfoot on rainy days. Unforgiving and malleable at the same time. His brother doesn’t sound like he’s been slumped against the wall, or like he has a crick in his neck.
He doesn’t sound like he’s been sleeping at all.
“Bed? Or do you wanna stay here?” Dean’s voice crunches on.
Cool sheets, a warm blanket, and twelve hours of soft sleep sounds awesome, but getting there sounds like something else. Dean will wait to see what Sam wants to do. He understands the whole stalking-lion analogy. Sam’s unclear whether that’s because Dean’s walked Sam through this one time too many, or whether it’s because Dean gets headaches of his own. He suspects it’s the first, because he’s pretty sure the headaches Dean gets are different, less a natural bodily response to neglect, more from getting himself knocked out so many times. Sam doesn’t let himself dwell on that. With having died and pending hell, headaches should be nothing.
Sam reaches a clumsy hand up to his face and rubs a knuckle over his damp eyebrow. “Bed,” he decides.
Dean gets him to his feet smoothly and shadows him to the nearest one, blankets already turned down. There are no leaping lions and the chlorine smell of the crisp sheets doesn’t trigger his gag reflex. He feels good, but also shaky, migraine leftovers creating illusions of mud and slow motion. He rolls onto his back. Biting his lip against the wobbly tremble traipsing down his body.
Dean stands over him in the dark, reaches to card a careful hand over his head, lingering like he can’t help himself.
“’m okay.”
Dean doesn’t respond, but he drops the hand, replaces it with the damp cloth, turns his back and shuffles toward the tiny fridge. Dim light through the window highlights the green in his eyes when he turns back around. They look blank and empty.
For a moment, Dean looks dead already.
Sam feels his heart pound, the vein in the side of his forehead beating in echo.
“Go to sleep,” his brother says, gruff undertone, soothing and alive.
Death disappears.
Sam closes his eyes, and spends the rest of the night dreaming of Dean, kneeling in front of a lion, staring it down, waiting stupidly and defenselessly for it to pounce.
~
tbc
Part Two