Can’t See In Your Windows, for legoline (gen, PG-13)
Title: Can’t See In Your Windows
Author: sparkofire / Steely Dan
Recipient: legoline
Rating: PG-13
Author's Notes: 10,500 words. This started out as one story and then became two… and a lot longer than I intended. Hope Legoline enjoys!
Summary: For the prompt: Pre-Series: while John is on a hunt and leaves Dean and Sam behind, Sam comes down with a fever and maybe measles or the flu or whatever, and Dean nearly freaks out
~
2001
John and the Impala left on a Monday when the blue sky looked like cake frosting and the sun made the sidewalk sticky.
Sam sat in the grass, gangly legs pushed up against a stump and hair drooping. A fan that blew pathetically in the muggy air sat in the window of the shambling white and brown house behind him. The creaky walls were melting in the heat, wooden frames sagging under.
His face was dark, lighter around his hairline and almost a red at the tip of his nose. His hair was bleached down to a light nut at the ends and they clung onto his neck and temple. “He’ll be back in two weeks,” he said, voice barely carrying. Graduation - a month and three weeks away - Dad would be back for that.
Not that it mattered. Things were changing; time was slipping so fast through Sam’s fingers and each day was colored red and white for Stanford and the thick envelope at the bottom of his drawer.
The heat was hitting his stomach and he felt all irritable and nauseous like he’d just spun round and round the merry-go-round in a wide-open desert with no water.
Midwest summers always got to Sam the worst, dry heat coming up through the ground and just frying everything. California, New York, Florida, even Texas were preferable. There was at least the ocean and sea breezes along the coast.
Sloppily pressured water hit the side of his face, going up his eardrum. He spluttered, water falling down his t-shirt and hitting the top of his jeans. It lukewarm but it felt good and he turned into the spray as he stood up. “Dean. You’re supposed to be inside.”
The green walking cast burned out at him from Dean’s chicken white legs, only broken by smatterings of dark hair, up to the hemline of the jean cutoffs he was wearing. This weather had made even Dean give up his hatred of shorts. Sweat was smeared across Dean’s upper lip, face too pale for the hot weather. “Too hot in the house.”
The green hose was jerking as the water pressure came and went, sending fierce spurts of the water out before dying to a trickle. Dean’s smile was a fraction too wide, trying to convince Sam that everything would be okay.
The water was aimed at Sam’s stomach now and it dripped down the inseam of his jeans and soaking his feet. “You shouldn’t be standing up.” The words were dragged off his tongue, the sun making everything slower.
He stared at Dean through the haze of water and hot sun and remembered Dean in the back seat, black leather making the bone poking jaggedly out of the skin look all the whiter and Dean gasping with a gray mouth and bleached out knuckles.
“I’ve been laid up for a month here and then six weeks before that in the hospital. Can’t stay in that bed a second longer.” The words came out a bit sharp and Sam twisted his face away, glaring at the ground.
Dean sprayed the water down his own head. His straight shoulders looked awkward, thrown off as he balanced on this good leg, broken one sticking out like a misplaced twig. He didn’t look at Sam for a second and then turned back, face a bit softer, like he was really trying. “C’mon, Sammy, it’s really hot. I promise I’ll lay down soon if it keeps your bikini from twistin’ all up.”
Sam cracked a grin that faded when Dean wavered on his good leg, knee unlocking. “Hey. Easy. Guess you’re not ready for marathons yet?”
The cool water was turning into sticky sweat and Sam got one arm under Dean levering him up the slumping stairs and into the dark heat of the house.
Dean’s sheets were almost damp to the touch and Sam moved one of the fans closer after he settled Dean out flat and made sure his leg was propped up with pillows. The constant wind blew up Dean’s spikes and he was almost falling asleep when Sam went to the cramped kitchen and stuck his head under the faucet.
Dean had been in full Oscar-the-Grouch mode since he’d woken up in the hospital. The first day or two he had been dopey and overly affectionate with all of the pain meds being pumped into him. Then the “happy juice” as Dean had taken to calling it had worn off - leaving Dean cranky and fussy like a sick three-year-old. He’d been glowering and rude and there was a deeper anger underneath that.
Sam had figured for the first few days it was the idleness and being laid up and John’s abrupt dismissal of Dean from all things involving the hunt. Then when it kept going, Sam had known there was something else. He’d broached it once.
Said something like, “Dean, you can tell me the root of your anger and we can talk about it until you reach some higher plain of peace within yourself.”
Dean had said, “Shut up, bitch.”
Sam leaned on the sink staring out at the brownish green yard and felt sick. He’d dropped the topic then because after all, there was an admissions envelope in his drawer that he definitely wasn’t talking about.
He knew the stress over Stanford and Dean was making him this way. He’d been having stomach pains and nauseous since Dean had come home from the hospital and he had officially accepted Stanford’s offer of a full-scholarship.
Pastor Jim - Sam had called him when the guilt had started taking his appetite and making him hurl everything he ate - said that the answer was in prayer and accepting forgiveness from God. He hadn’t mentioned actually telling Dean or John, but the implication was there in every word.
Sam had ignored his advice and now this stomach bug was getting worse. “I’m probably actually making myself really sick,” Sam muttered, splashing more water on his face. “After graduation… when Dean’s better… than I’ll tell them.”
He popped two Aspirin and swallowed dry.
It wasn’t until around 10 at night that things got bearable. The two K-Mart fans were blowing from opposite corners and all the windows were flung outward, night chirps and sweet cool air beginning to drift through. The new coolness that settled on the top of Sam’s skin was more from being overheated all day then a real drop in temperature.
Sam made smoothies out of apples, oranges, ice and cold yogurt after a dinner that he didn’t eat and Dean drank it down on the couch.
“Is Samantha on a diet?” Dean slurped up a chunk of orange and the words were just a bit too sharp to be a joke. “Watching your girlish figure?”
Sam didn’t let Dean see that he threw up the smoothie in the toilet right after he finished it. The sickly sweet taste of fruit and yogurt coming back up almost made him sick all over again.
He thought of Dean sprawled out on the couch and then of a cold dorm room and people he didn’t know. Dean’s disappointed face flashed through his head, the one that Dean got when Sam told a lie or ate the last cookie. He almost got sick again.
Dean was doing one-legged push-ups when he came out, bad leg draped over his good one and shirt off.
“You shouldn’t be doing that,” Sam said and sat down on the couch.
Dean puffed out. “Shut up,” he said.
Sam glowered at the lines of pain and the tight lines of muscles. He left and came back with water and the pain pills. “Take them - you’re big and strong. Stop killing yourself in this heat.”
Dean grunted, made manly noises. No words. Wasn’t that just like Dean?
They got basic cable on the crappy small TV and Dean dozed on his pain meds that night while Sam watched commercials and did his homework. He popped some more Aspirin for his still aching stomach and helped Dean back to bed while Dean bitched about the heat and his bum leg.
He was trying to mesh the instructions of three different teachers he’d had that year on calculus when he was finally cool enough to fall asleep.
++++++++
1987
They came on a Tuesday when Bobby’s nose was in between the pages of a dusty old tome. The car rumbled up with a noise that made all the junk in his yard jealous and Bobby thought about getting his shotgun out.
He’d only met John Winchester a couple times - on a hunt and then at Pastor Jim’s on a cold night he’d rather not remember, thank you very much - and he’d never had a good feeling about the man. But Bobby didn’t kick the stray dogs out of his junkyard and Winchester couldn’t be much worse then some of those.
When he got to the door, dust on his hands like a second skin, Winchester was standing there. He couldn’t see his face, sunlight spreading over thick shoulders and nearly blinding Bobby for a second or two.
“I need a favor,” Winchester said and it sounded like a command. “I’m hunting up in the mountains. Supposed to be a couple wendigos and I can’t take my boys.” The man had lines all woven into his face, tough like the leather seats on Bobby’s old truck and the set of his mouth made Bobby uneasy.
“Your boys?” He’d only seen the Winchester boys once, in a window half lit up by a yellow flashlight. He knew there was an older kid who didn’t talk much and a younger one that had pressed his face to the grubby window and waved as Bobby walked passed to his truck.
“Dean’s a good kid and he can take care of Sammy - but social services been on my ass and I can’t risk leaving ‘em somewhere. Just for a few days. You’re the closet hunter.” Winchester’s dark eyes were scouring behind Bobby and the hunter realized Winchester was as thrilled about leaving the boys here as a bear was about bees.
Singer looked out at that black hulk of a car and saw a flash of a pale face in the back window. He hadn’t thought much about the kids ever but they’d probably be like little feral pups living on the road with Winchester all these years - just needed a little food and water and to be left by themselves. That he could do. “Have ‘em bring their gear. Don’t have much in the way of toys.”
Winchester nodded like all the soldiers Bobby knew when he was just out of school and working in his daddy’s gun shop. He did a quick turn and walked across the yard, stiff and sucking up all the sunlight.
Bobby went back from the door. He knew he wasn’t needed for the goodbye. If Winchester’s kids were anything like their old man, they’d be smart enough to get inside on their own. Plus, Winchester did rub him the wrong way. Less was more with that man.
The door slammed after he’d barely looked down at the next few words and the engine rumbled away. Jesus, the man didn’t seem much for goodbyes. Probably just left ‘em on the doorstep to find their own way in. Bobby stopped reading but didn’t look up.
Experience with kids he didn’t have - but he knew that hunters were skittish, needed to see things on their own before they could feel at ease. He leaned back in his chair and tried out a smile when a dark head peeped through the doorway.
“You Mr. Singer?” the small boy piped. He didn’t much look like a mongrel, all covered in a layer of soft baby fat with big eyes that bounced all over the room. The stuffed toy tucked under his toy was raggedy as a scarecrow, white stuffing peeking out in clumps. “I’m Sammy and that’s Dean. I’m four and a half and Dean’s eight.”
Bobby stood, bones scraping together with old hunter’s injuries He couldn’t see Dean yet, just a slip of one thin shoulder leaning around the doorframe. “Got your stuff?” he asked. Roughness came out almost against his will. Most hunters weren’t toting their kids around with them and dropping them by his place like it was wham, bam, thank you, ma’am.
“Yup. Dean put them in the room over there. Where’re we gonna sleep, Mr. Singer?” Sam came in further and he couldn’t have been more than three and a half feet high and his jeans dragged on the dusty floor. “You sure have a lot of books,” he went on. “You got Lucky Charms?”
Bobby could see that sad toy was a bear. It was staring at him with one and a half eyes and a crooked, bright red smile.
“Sammy.” And Dean came around the corner, hunched and quiet. He looked silently at Bobby as he grabbed the younger one’s hand and there was something a little touched in those big eyes. He had that wary, flinch waiting to happen air around him, like the rabbits Bobby sometimes saw, perched on old carburetors. He was more Winchester than the little one, stiff and a little too dark to pass as off as normal.
Sammy quieted down with his brother and wrapped pudgy fingers around Dean’s. They looked recently scrubbed - but even all that soap and water hadn’t gotten all the dirt off. There was dust up and down the inside of Dean’s wrist and a stripe of grubbiness over Sam’s cheek.
“My dad said you’d be busy,” Dean said in that same quiet, respectful tone that almost set Bobby on edge. Too polite for him. Hunters were brittle on every edge - not like this unless it served them in some way. “We’ll keep out of your way, sir, won’t cause any trouble.”
Bobby nodded. Didn’t think they would. “You’ll have the back room. One of you can bunk on the floor if you don’t want to share the bed.” Bobby heard from Winchester about how their mama died; little half orphans, both of them, surviving on Winchester’s idea of love. “You boys like macaroni?” he asked. Food and boys went together no matter how they’d been raised.
Sammy wiggled and then fell still. “Yessir,” he said and looked up at Dean. “We both do. And Dean likes extra cheese.”
Dean’s face didn’t change much but when Bobby met his gaze, it was hard for only a second before kind of melting into something a bit softer. He gave a tiny nod. “I can make it, sir,” he said, proud. “My dad says I’m a good cook.”
“I got it, boy. Just… get you and your brother settled in now. Got it?”
They moved off together with Sammy tugging at Dean’s hand. Bobby watched them, long-limbed and healthy and old - half-bred coyotes trying to live among house pets. His stomach did a slow squeeze and it was almost like it was five years ago, in the Gulf of Mexico, with a water nymph on one side and hurricane on the other.
When dinner was over, Bobby figured it wasn’t going near as bad as he had thought. Dean was a good boy - rough and clean all at once, barely saying a word over dinner and then washing the dishes like it was his job. He corralled Sammy along in front of him like a worn collie, nodding and smiling and using just enough touch to get the little boy moving.
He didn’t trust Bobby though - he was as jumpy as all get out, expecting every minute for the situation to deteriorate into a Mexican standoff. Bobby let it be. Either the boy would come around when he was ready or he wouldn’t. Winchester couldn’t just leave them here for too long a time. He’d be back before the situation got too intolerable.
That little Sammy, though, he tucked himself next to his brother and his chin had barely cleared the table. And Bobby swore that he’d only stopped his chattering long enough to eat. That boy must’ve had a couple dozen questions, barely even paused long enough to hear the answer before moving right along. Near the end, Dean had finally elbowed him and said “Sam” in that too old voice and that little one had tapered off, ducking his head toward his plate.
He wandered back to their room a little past eight, trying to keep his feet soft but making sure he knocked nice and loud so Dean could hear him. “You boys okay?” he asked and tried to soften the gravel in his throat.
The little one was in cotton pajamas, too small and almost see-through in places even on Bobby’s quick look. He was already in the one bed, knees up to his chest and face sagging a little. That ugly bear of his was snuggled up to his side, half squashed under his hip.
Dean was standing near, swimming in a pair of pajamas. They must’ve been at least a couple sizes too big, dropping over skinny shoulders and pooling around his feet. “We’re just fine, sir,” he said and took two steps until he was just in front of Sammy.
Winchester had had some troubles through out the years - most hunters did - but Bobby had to think about what these boys must’ve seen in those times. He nodded to Dean and stepped back, shutting the door.
The Singer family hadn’t been the best - there had been the fights and the silences - but Bobby had gone to elementary and high school all in the same little town with the same group of rowdy friends. He’d lived in the same too tiny house until he was 18 and bitter enough to just walk away. He had a brother, younger and off somewhere in Virginia with a wife, but they’d never had more then an occasional tussle.
Dean was bred from trouble, grew up learning to duck and keep low, to protect the weaker member of the pack.
Bobby sat down, looked at the dusty books and the dim lamp, at the plastic plates Dean had stacked neatly in the cupboard while his brother carefully dried.
It wasn’t any of his business, Bobby knew, and no good ever came of his sticking his nose where it didn’t belong - but that was no way to raise a kid.
++++++++
2001
Heat itching under skin woke Sam up just after dawn and he took a cold shower before dressing for school. There was a note on the table when he came out, a bright yellow sticky that had a smudge of chocolate on one corner. “Get M&Ms,” Dean said with half-formed and twisted letters.
Sam crumpled the note up and tossed it in the trash.
Dean was asleep, broken leg propped up on two flat pillows. He was wearing just plaid boxers and his arms were akimbo on either side. The sun was caught on the thick stubble across his jaw.
Sam took deep breaths because suddenly the sun wasn’t shining and the moon was much too dark and Dean’s face was all white and squished up and sickly sterile light was spilling from the sliding doors of the Emergency room and Dean was passing out with a quiet gasp when the well-meaning orderly touched his leg. Then it was the future and he and Dean were all alone. His stomach heaved again.
He set Dean’s pills out on the buckling nightstand and trudged out the door with his gray backpack slung on one shoulder after taking some more Aspirin.
The heat was already glossy and bright in the dim early morning, like a girl’s pink lip-gloss, stringy and syrupy across Sam’s skin.
Sam was sweating after a few steps, heat thickening deep inside of him and colliding with the outside warmth to make fire on his skin. His steps were slow and he drank a whole bottle of water before stepping inside the white-tiled air-conditioned halls of the high school, the nausea welling up in his gut.
The bathroom mirror was smudged and a layered nest of toilet paper was slumped in the corner of the stall Sam barfed in. “Gross.”
He wiped his mouth on the toilet paper and spat into the bowl before flushing and coming back out. He splashed water on his face and down his arms, leaning over the smooth counter and taking deep breaths in the mirror. His stomach was aching, bile churning and coming up and he was still so hot even as the cool air slid down the back of his neck from the cooling vent straight above him.
Fifth period bell rang at 1:15 and Sam was already walking home. Achy sickness was spreading up through his bones and he wanted to lie down and sleep, maybe for a week. But he still stopped by the tiny market that was halfway to the house.
Soap, two cans of tomato soup, two jumbo packages of M&M’s and a eight can pack of Sprite: $13.57. Walking home in the midday swelter with a backpack and a bag of groceries: Priceless.
Dean was on the couch when he got home, shirtless and stretched out like a cat. His cast was up on one threadbare arm and he twisted his top body and face when Sam came in. “M&M’s?”
Sam threw one of the bags to him harder than he should and immediately regretted it even though Dean caught it easily.
Dean pulled the top of the bag apart delicately. “Aren’t you supposed to still be in school?”
Sam glanced up and saw Dean’s eyes slide away from him, like he’d been watching carefully. “Didn’t feel good.” Sam rubbed his forehead and ran water over his hands in the sink. “Just some flu I got. I need to take a shower.”
He got down to his boxers, clothes draped over the toilet, when Dean thumped in. He was waving one of those under arm thermometers in the air and he was glowering like this was the worse possible thing he could be doing. “Arm up, Sammy.”
“Dean. It’s 100 degrees even in this house. Taking my temperature won’t even work.”
“If it’s extra high I’ll know.” Dean thumped closer and cornered Sam between the scratched mirror and the rusty tub. “Sam. Don’t be an asshole,” he growled.
Sam took the thermometer and stuck it under his arm. “It’s a little stomach bug. I’ll be fine in a couple days. You’re the asshole.”
Dean crossed his arms and leaned on the doorway. Sam was feeling really naked and like all of his secrets were going to come spilling out at any second by the time the thing beeped.
“101.7,” Sam read aloud. “So I’m a little bit warm… a lot of that’s from the heat. Dean, I really am fine. You don’t need to worry.”
“M’ not worried. Just don’t want that huge ass of yours passing out from heat stroke or something. We can only have one invalid at a time.” Dean took the thermometer back and peered at the reading. “We have some Aspirin in the kitchen - take some when you’re done with your shower.” He clomped out, lines of pain fixed through his shoulders and neck.
Sam kicked the door shut and flipped on the water. He felt grimy and sweaty, the sickness welling up from his belly. He needed to tell Dean that he was leaving. It would be a whole lot easier if his brother wasn’t more difficult to read than Dad’s writing on a bad day.
+++++++
1987
On the second day, right about the time the sun had lengthened across the east facing windows; Sammy trotted right up to Bobby, eager like the fish up in Idaho, and asked to read with him. He had his bear by one paw, almost dragging it on the floor.
Dean was nowhere to be found when Bobby looked behind him and the kid’s eyes were the size of tires. He wasn’t wearing shoes and his feet looked huge in dusty white socks. This one would grow up big, Bobby would bet on it.
“It’s on exorcisms,” he mumbled and pointed to a chair for Sammy to drag over. While the kid was busy, Bobby pulled out a book on ancient Muslim lore. The edges were worn smooth and he shoved papers aside so he could lay the book out. There were pictures in that one, diagrams of this creature and this religious artifact. “You can look through that,” he said when Sam was on his knees, bent over the book. The bear sat in front, watching with that creepy, half-lidded gaze.
He figured the kid would get bored in a few seconds and move on, hopefully back to his brother. Dust bits were floating down, sticking in the kid’s hair and on the ridge by his neck. He looked soft and small and if Bobby had a kid like this, he’d never drag him across the country chasing things.
Kids like this belong in school, in parks, in sports, in libraries - not in drab houses with the source material for horror movies. Bobby slid back around to his book, to the long strings of incantations that spill all the way across the page in tight handwriting. He got back into it, memorizing the subtle vowels on his tongue and noting for which demons this’d work.
Few minutes, later, he looked up. Sammy sat there. He was staring at early drawings of the moon god, tracing the swooping lines and tiny intricate details on the clothing. He must’ve sensed he was being looked at because Sam looked up, straight at Bobby. It was a little uncanny.
“Daddy doesn’t have lots of pictures in his books. Sometimes he draws though.” He hasn’t moved his eyes and his little hands. “I spilled milk on Daddy’s book when he wasn’t there. Dean helped me clean it up and he didn’t know.” The words tumbled out, ending with two dimples, and Bobby was silent until Sammy hopped off the chair.
“I’m gonna go back now. Dean was napping because he wasn’t feeling too good and I was supposed to stay in the room.” His eyes peeked up and Bobby knew he wasn’t supposed to say anything to Dean about this little meeting. The kid brushed his hands on his pants, leaving dust streaks on the worn material. “Thank you, Mr. Singer,” he said, very proper.
“No need to stay in the room,” Bobby said. He felt big and rough. “Just don’t disturb much and the yard’s big enough to do some running.”
Sammy grinned with both dimples again and he bounced from one extra long foot to the other. “Dean said you’d be mean. But you ain’t at all,” he grinned. “Even though you got no Lucky Charms.” He was off then, jack-rabbitting through the doorway.
Dinner was chicken and rice and Dean was grouchy. He washed Sammy’s hands and watched him while the kid ate - but tonight he didn’t even waste politeness on Bobby. He just kept hunched over his plate and silent, except when Sam needed words. As soon as dishes were done, he scooted the littler one out of the room and their door banged.
Bobby almost wanted to pull Dean aside. Tell him, “you’re too young for this. Your daddy shouldn’t be turning you into this little scared silent thing. It ain’t right.” But his words just make the boy curl all up on himself like a hurt puppy, close him off from Bobby for good. But Bobby just kept shut up and let Dean keep his distance.
Singer would say something if he thought it would help.
There was water running in the bathroom when Sam bounded back out into the room. He had pink spots on his cheeks and water was dripping down his neck and soaking the collar of his pajamas.
“You gonna read some more?” he asked all bright and chipper. “Dean just gave me a bath and now he’s taking one.”
“Getting late. You need to be in bed.” He grabbed a towel and mopped up the water on the tiny neck, running the rough material over the floppy hair. No sense in letting the kid catch a cold.
“Not tired.”
He might as well, Bobby picked up the nearest book and motioned for Sam to get over. Sam did, came right over, got in the other chair and pressed himself in Bobby’s arm.
“What does it say?”
“It’s in Latin.” Bobby had a bowling ball attached to his side; made him use his left arm to turn the pages. He frowned. A warm bowling ball. “You getting sick?”
Sam frowned. “Don’t get sick,” he snapped.
“Feel feverish.” That would just be the apple pie in this little buffet if that little one got sick. There was no medicine in the house. Maybe he should drive up to town; the store probably didn’t close until nine or so. At the very least in the morning, he could go down and pick something up.
“Sammy.” Dean’s dark head popped around the door, freckles standing out. His eyes were flat and wary like Winchester’s. “Time for bed.”
“The kid feels hot.” Bobby explained as Sammy slipped away, pushing himself into Dean’s side like he had just been doing with Bobby. “Is he sick?”
Dean wrapped his skinny fingers around Sammy’s wrist. They fit all the way around. “I can take care of it.”
Where was he scraping together all this defiance from?
Bobby closed the book. He wouldn’t force his help. “I’ll go into town in the morning. Pick up some cough syrup or that baby Tylenol. Let me know if you need anything.”
Dean backed up, Sammy dragging along. He was big-eyed, so tough that cracks were coming out everywhere and he looked so young in those crevices. “We’ll be fine, sir,” he said, voice stiff.
“Let me know,” Bobby said as they went around the corner and their door slammed. He could hear Dean, telling Sam to brush his teeth, asking him how he felt.
He felt powerless and he wasn’t used to that. A gun in his hands or a book at his fingertips and Bobby always felt he could get anything done. He could make friends with the most scared animal and put up with jackasses like Winchester until his face turned blue.
But this whole thing, this kid who was somewhere between jackass and scared animal, was like being in an unfamiliar bar when the electricity went out.
All he could do was keep his back to the wall, look unthreatening as possible and hope he didn’t stumble over a landmine.
++++++++
2001
When Sam woke up that night, sweat dripping off of his head and feeling like his stomach was about to burst out through his skin, he knew something was wrong. This wasn’t stress anymore - wasn’t about Stanford.
He groaned and rolled upright, staring at green clock blinking 3:30 am. Another spasm of pain sent him reeling back on the bed, staring up at the dark ceiling. “Dean,” he called, turning his head. “Dean!”
Dean mumbled something from a few feet away then sat up straight just a second later. “Sam?” His shadowy figure turned in the dark, leaning over Sam. “Sam? What’s wrong?” The tattered lamp clicked on and spluttered a second before casting a weird yellow pall over the room.
Sam licked his lips, feeling the salt that had sunk into his skin there. “I think it is appendicitis,” he said, going for calm.
Dean stared at him in the lamplight, wavering as he balanced on one leg. “Jesus, Sam,” he muttered. “Jesus H. Christ, You said it was the flu.”
The world went fuzzy and Dean’s face was just pale and sweat streaked as Sam gasped out loud. “Thought it was.” His face pressed together and he gave in to the pain, curling over his stomach. “Shit,” he muttered, the word dragged out slowly.
Dean’s warm hand wormed in between his own, pressing down just barely on his stomach.
Sam grunted and then couldn’t bite back the yell of pain. He curled tighter, sweaty and shaking.
Dean was cursing under his breath and pulling on shorts and shirt. “We got get you to a hospital,” he was saying. “Can you walk?”
Sam tried to get up again and fell back onto the pillow groaning. The nausea that had been bothering him swelled up and he just barely leaned over the side of the bed before heaving up everything in his stomach.
Dean grabbed his shoulders, kept him from taking a header and Sam drew in deep gasps of air with his eyes closed.
“Shit, Sam, shit.” Dean sounded freaked and Sam opened his eyes, blinking through watering eyes.
“Dean?” he looked down and saw blood mixed in with yellow bile and the hotdogs Dean had cooked for dinner. It was goopy and dark, stringing under the bed. Sam almost wanted to heave again. He licked his lips and tasted iron and salt.
Dean pressed him back to the bed, hands digging into his skin tightly. “You’re burning up,” he said, hands smoothing over Sam’s sweaty arms. Sam’s fingers scrabbled at his for a second and Dean squeezed back. “We don’t have a car - I’m gonna have to call an ambulance.”
Another bout of sickness wormed up Sam’s throat and he just missed Dean’s feet as he leaned over the bed. Dean cursed again and went for the single phone in the small house. Sam couldn’t muster the strength to move back up and he stayed there, half draped over the floor.
Pressure was increasing in his gut and it was hard to draw deep breaths.
“Sam?”
Dean was back and helping him upright, holding him steady.
The air whistled in and out of this throat quickly, drying out his tongue. Dean’s shoulder pressed against his briefly and Sam’s head spun as Dean levered him upright and slipped behind him. He was settled back against his brother’s chest, head tipped against his shoulder.
“Sam, take deep breaths.” Blunt fingers pressed on his bare chest, over his heart. “Easy now.” Dean’s voice kept buzzing along in his ear and Sam felt the heat crawling up over his skin, followed by the chill in his gut of not being able to get enough air.
“It’s okay, Sam, don’t cry.”
Sam realized there was water squeezing out of his eyes and he tried to move his head, wipe them away. “Hu…hurts,” he mumbled. His lips felt ten times too big for his mouth. “G-god…”
That was all the warning he got before his stomach heaved and vomit was coming up his throat. He didn’t have the strength to turn his head and all the sickness just pooled against his tongue. He heaved and coughed, blood and gunk dribbling over his mouth, for a few seconds before Dean flipped him over.
“Shit,” Dean was saying. “Sam, shit.” His fingers were on Sam’s teeth, trying to clear all the vomit out and Sam sucked in air as hard as he could. Dean’s bulky cast was bumping against his leg and Sam gasped deeply and then curled up at the pain. His hand found Dean’s good leg and he squeezed, clenching his teeth down to fight the groans.
By the time the sirens were there and the blue and red lights were flashing in the open windows, Sam hovered just beyond rational thought. He was pushed away from the pain and he could hear Dean’s mumbles - and his louder shouts hailing the paramedics.
He couldn’t tell if his eyes were closed - could just see dark blurs with occasional flashing colors - when he felt different hands on him and could smell sweat that wasn’t Dean’s.
His stomach was pressed on and it felt like his intestines were grating on his ribs. He choked and fought for breath, fought to get closer to Dean, inside his skin. The pain came up again and Sam just sunk under.
++++++++
1987
It was after midnight. The ugly green desk lamp poured yellow light over the text he was working on and the rest of the house was dark. He’d just put the coffee maker on for another pot and was looking out at the weird shadows the junkyard made outside of his window when the door to the boys’ room slammed and Dean skidded in his too big pajamas.
His eyes seemed to swallow up all of his face. “Sammy’s sick,” he said. There was no air in his voice, just hard desperation that Bobby’d heard from hunters all across the country when things were going terribly wrong.
He put down his cup and followed Dean. It had to be bad if Dean was coming in here like this, asking for his help. Kid was still too raw to be asking for help unless it was dire, out of his hands…
Dean had flipped the bedside lamp and it was pointed directly towards the kid.
The little thing even looked smaller then with the blankets pulled up to his chin and face shining with thick sweat. He was moaning, hands clenched in the blankets and little bear pushed carelessly to one side. His skin was red and his fever was pouring out every pore, heating up the air. Dark messy hair was wet and the little mouth was stretched like a rubber band. The little furnace had become a firestorm.
“How long?”
“I woke up and he was like this… I don’t know.” The poor kid was terrified, hands twisting in his shirt and knees almost knocking together. Must’ve been hell for a kid like Dean to wake up to this. There was going to be a heavy weight on this kid’s shoulders after this thing - even heavier then whatever that daddy of his had put there.
Winchester. Bobby winced. If Winchester wouldn’t kill him when he found out Bobby let one of his kids die, then his name wasn’t Bobby Singer. “Get some water in that tub. Lukewarm. And the thermometer from the cabinet there.”
Dean nodded and dragged his fingers off his brother, leaving trails in the sweat, before running out of the room.
Sammy was shaking a bit harder, eyes half-open in a way that terrified Bobby. His breathing was raspy like a water heater on its last legs, rattling and out. Didn’t sound good at all. It was almost too scary to touch the kid with his own big hands - seemed like he could shatter this kid in a second.
Dean’s weight hit the bed softly. “Water’s running. Thermometer’s on the dresser.” He bent over the smaller kid. “It’s gonna be okay, Sammy,” he said. His hands pressed on the hot face and then slipped down to hold one hand. “You’re gonna be fine.”
The eyes dragged up a little further and drifted to the older one. Sammy made a pathetic whining noise and Bobby cringed, his hands clenched on the bed sheets.
“D…d…” the kid stuttered.
Dean was up in his face, not looking like a little kid. “It’ll be okay. Sammy?”
Bobby could practically hear Dean scream, “Do something!” when the bright gaze met his for a second before going back to the kid. But he had nothing, sweat starting up on the backs of his knees, no idea what to do when little kids were sick like this.
He’d be more use with a couple demons and a poltergeist.
Sammy made that little noise again and he closed his eyes, blue veins all across the lids. He was still breathing weird and Bobby worried.
He reached around for the thermometer. This wasn’t good. Not at all. No experience with sick kids and this was on the bad side of sick. He grabbed the thermometer and then Dean shouted out, panicky and stretched thin.
Sammy was jerking on the bed, looking like a rattlesnake in death throes - head thumping on the pillow and legs jittering up and down. It was enough to make Bobby’s mouth dry out like old leather.
“Hold ‘im.” He couldn’t think of anything else to say - could just see that little face drawn up in a painful grimace and the white hands turned into claws. His gut twisted up and he just reached down and gently constrained the tiny arms. The kid was softer than he’d expected, delicate, pudgy baby skin stretched over small muscles that were rock hard and jumping.
Dean looked to be near tears when Bobby caught a glimpse in the half-light. He was just about laid full out next to Sammy, one arm around his waist and another crooked around his head. His freckles were growing in the shadowy room, eating up his face.
His heart was pounding fast and hard but Singer thought he could hear Dean saying “Sammy” in a low, little-boy voice. And, goddamned, if that didn’t make his skin break open just a bit more.
The seizure stopped and Bobby felt like white cotton boxers left too long in the sun. Around him, the air was too muggy and he was hot inside.
Dean’s face was wet and shiny, still monkey-wrapped around his brother. His mouth was wide open and he was shaking hard like the insides of Singer. It looked like he was going to speak - but that just turned into drawn out tremble and he drew the littler one closer.
Bobby looked down, saw one bare, small arm poking out of the covers, reddened with fever. “Get dressed. Hospital’s about 30 minutes away.” There wasn’t really another choice. This situation was way out of his depth and he wasn’t going to just let a kid die because of a fever.
Dean’s hair swung down across forehead, big green eyes weren’t even blinking like those scary, unnaturally large snakes Bobby’d once hunted in the desert. “H-hospital?” He licked his lips and his thumb dug into Sammy’s shoulder.
“Not taking any chances, kid.”
Dean stared at him, trying to gauge him, and Bobby held completely still. Don’t let them see your fear. “Okay. Okay,” Dean said, raspy and thick. He leaned close and touched his forehead to his brother’s. “It’ll be okay, Sammy.” He darted away then, pulling on pants and a shirt.
Bobby didn’t bother with the blankets, just picking the whole bundle up with Sammy’s head and feet sticking out the ends. The hot dampness of the sheets sunk into his arms and he winced as the kid’s oversized feet crashed into the doorframe. “My keys are on the counter,” he said behind him and he heard Dean clattering in the kitchen.
Outside, the air was thin and cold. Sammy moaned a little but didn’t stir. Dean hurried past, arms bare and white. He twisted to see Sammy before getting the truck unlocked and flinging the door open.
“Get in. I’ll pass him up.”
Dean was smaller than Bobby first thought and he had to give himself a push on the door handle to get up on the high seat of the truck. He turned around for Sammy as soon as he was seated. His nails were bitten all the way down and he didn’t even look at Bobby just gathered Sammy in like the kid was his own.
Bobby got in the other side and Dean had arranged Sammy’s blankets and head, arms tucked around the smaller, shaking body. The green lights from the dashboard made the kid look worse, sweaty and moaning.
Dean was bent like a little pretzel over him and Singer thought he was talking but he couldn’t be sure. He looked again and saw that scrappy bear stuffed under the kid’s arm. Dean must’ve carried it out.
He wanted to gun the engine more, but there was no light up here in the hills and the roads were like tangled threads. It would do no good to wrap around a tree.
As soon as they hit the highway though, he gunned the engine, the rumbling coming up through the leather seats. Dean looked up, face huge and washed out, staring out at the dark.
“It’ll be okay,” Bobby said and felt awkward. “I mean, the hospital’s a good one. And we’ll call your dad. Did he leave you a number?”
Dean shrugged and folded back down.
Wouldn’t that just beat all? Winchester not giving his kids any way to contact him while he was gone. When that man came back, Bobby would have to say something. These kids deserved more.
They hit the hospital in half the time Bobby thought they would. The speedometer must’ve crept up without him noticing it. He left the truck idling in the sour light coming out the glass doors, came around and just hefted Sammy up from Dean.
Dean tagged along behind, half-grown legs tripping along double-time.
A nurse looked up from the desk and she was the only one in the whole big room. She went almost as big-eyed as Dean when Bobby just stomped right up to her white little desk and demanded the doctor.
Sammy started moaning as the nurse jumped up to do what Singer said. Bobby instantly got clumsy, hands fumbling over the small back. “Need to sit down. Dean?”
“Here.” Small, gun callused hands grabbed his arm, pushed him over to a chair.
Soon as Bobby was down, Dean was peering at Sammy’s face, hands skipping over the dark hair. “It’ll be okay,” he whispered.
Then there were footsteps across the tile and things blurred as Sammy was lifted out of his arms. Just when he was starting to get comfortable with the idea of a kid being there too. People were asking questions and Bobby felt like he was just spitting out programmed answers.
“He had a fever. Then had a seizure. Couldn’t have lasted more than three minutes. Came straight here.”
“He’s allergic to penicillin,” Dean said, sounding weird. He was as close to his brother as he could get, crammed in between nurses and orderlies.
The doctor had a penlight, peeling back the kid’s eye lids and checking his forehead. “Okay. We need to get him cooled off then we’ll talk some more. Let’s go.”
The bear hit the floor, rolling and landing on its face. No one noticed as they got the kid on a stretcher, pulling him out of the room.
Bobby couldn’t think for a second, just breathing and thinking about little lives just leaving and not growing up. Didn’t actually snap back until Dean started screaming.
He’d seen the toy on the floor, Bobby figured a little later, seen it and flipped. He picked it up in his little hands and went charging after his brother, hollering that Sammy needed the bear.
The group of people didn’t even turn around, just headed through a set of doors that slammed shut behind them. Dean was charging at the door like he was planning on just breaking through them.
Bobby just managed to grab him before that, pulling the kid against his chest and sticking his heels down. “Now you just got to settle down,” he said, going for the whole tough-love thing. “Just settle down. They’re gonna take good care of your brother.”
Dean was holding that damn bear and just staring, wasn’t screaming or crying any more. He just looked wrecked, train landing at the bottom of a cliff kind of wrecked. He straightened and held the bear held the bear under his arm, and nodded. “I’m okay, Mr. Singer.”
Bobby nodded and gave him some room. He still crouched though, keeping the kid in his line of sight. “You wanna phone your dad, now?”
Dean’s head bent and his knuckles whitened over the arm of the bear. “All I have is the name of the motel he was planning on staying at,” he said and it sounded to Bobby like he was ashamed.
“Well, that’s something,” he said. Winchester was probably doing the best he could, he reminded himself.
Dean breathed deeply. “Let’s wait a bit, before calling. If he’s in the middle of something, don’t want to worry him. “ He held his breath like he was waiting to be shot down, told his idea wasn’t good enough.
Bobby looked him straight in the eye. How old was this kid? Because he sure as hell wasn’t eight like his brother claimed. “Okay. Your call, boy.” He stood up and his knees popped. “Just let me know if you do want to phone him.”
Bobby ended up asking the night nurse for a place to eat. All the coffee he’d drank earlier was sitting in his gut uncomfortably and his hands were jittering a little, though that could’ve been from a lot of things.
She pointed them both to a Denny’s a block down and even thought it took some doing to convince the kid to leave the hospital - the night nurse promised to call the manager of Denny’s if there was a problem - Bobby got them both down there.
“Order anything you want,” Bobby said in the goopy yellow light of the restaurant. The bright menus glared up at him, blurred before his eyes. “I’m getting pancakes,” he announced out loud. The kid was just too quiet, it was making him a bit jumpy.
“There’s this Denny’s,” Dean started out, really quiet, “in Nevada, has the best pancakes of any other Denny’s I’ve been to.”
“Bet you’ve been to a lot of them too.”
“A lot,” Dean agreed, staring hard at the menu. “Been to 31 states.”
Bobby whistled. “Been to more than I had. Didn’t even leave South Dakota until I was 18.”
“Dad said he didn’t leave Kansas until he was 18 and went to fight in the war.” Dean stopped and seemed to weigh Bobby for a second or two. “I’ve been to eight different school since 1st grade. Sammy hasn’t been to school yet but he’ll start and kindergarten next fall, Daddy says.”
Most the kid said to him since he’d been there, all in one mouthful. Bobby nodded and looked down at the menu. “Do you like that?”
Dean shrugged and fidgeted with the menu. “It’s okay.”
They both ordered pancakes when the tired waitress made her way over. Bobby got another coffee and Dean ordered one too and looked kind of surprised when Bobby didn’t say a word.
“Don’t think you’re going to be sleeping much tonight anyway,” Bobby said. “Sammy’ll be okay,” he repeated. “You don’t have to worry. Sometimes little kids get fevers but they’re tough.”
“Yeah,” Dean took a deep breath. “I turned the water off in the tub before we left. I’m sorry I didn’t get you sooner, Mr. Singer.”
Bobby looked down. “You got me just fine. Good thing remembering about the water.” Coming back to a flooded house would not have made Bobby’s day, that’s for sure.
“Should’ve been sooner. I… I messed up. I’m not supposed to do that. I think he got it from me… I wasn’t feeling good, but I was fine. But Sammy’s just little, I guess. I’m supposed to take care of Sammy and I didn’t… I didn’t do that. Dad wouldn’t ever have…”
“You take care of your brother fine.”
Dean’s shoulders were bent over and he was staring down at the table like it was going to swallow him any second. Bobby leaned back and imagined two boys who only had each other in the whole world; never having any other friends because they moved too much and having a father who convinced them their lives depended on protecting each other.
“You’re a kid, Dean. It’s my fault for not paying more attention…” Bobby trailed off and watched Dean play with the menu, eyes never coming up to meet Bobby’s. Nothing he said would convince the boy he wasn’t responsible for his brother like this. “It’s not your fault. You love that kid. Anybody can see that. You’re doing the best you can.”
“He’s my brother,” Dean said, hair flopping over his face. His whole face was sagging with tiredness and his chin was grubby. He looked abandoned and kicked down, running on nothing but adrenaline.
It should’ve been Winchester, sitting here, blaming himself. Not a kid that’d probably already seen enough that he’d never be normal, crumpled up inside by years of not having a mom and not being a kid.
When their food came, they ate in silence and then went back to the hospital together and waited for news in tiny waiting room. Eventually Dean got tired enough to slump against Bobby - but he never really fell asleep.
The doctors came out when the eastern skies just started turning a paler shade of blue and pink.
They said Sammy had a really high fever, probably caused by bacteria. No meningitis or epilepsy or any of those things Bobby had been afraid of since Sammy first started jerking on the bed. They said he would be fine. His fever was already coming down and he was responding to the antibiotics.
Bobby signed on as the father and soon enough both he and Dean were crammed into the tiny room they put Sammy in the pediatrics wing. The kid had an IV in his arm and a tiny oxygen mask - but he looked better. No moaning or shaking or blue veins pushing out of white skin, Bobby was relieved.
Dean had fallen asleep an hour or two after the sun came up, head cushioned on his arms as he leaned on the bed. Dean had tucked ugly bear under Sammy’s arm as soon as he came into the room and Bobby swore that thing was smirking at him.
When Sammy woke up and the fever left, he was like the three other little kids Bobby remembered being around - sniveling and whining and leaking tears every other second. Dean didn’t help matters, clucking over the boy like he’d risen from the grave.
They made a pair, Sammy clinging to Dean and that bear and Dean telling Sammy how brave and strong he was, telling him all the stuff they’d do back at Bobby’s. He was promising him Lucky Charms and pancakes, legos and tons of books. The kid’s face was flushed red half the day, snot drying under his nose and tears dripping off his chin. Dean kept using Kleenexes to clean him up like a pro.
They got to take Sammy home the next day. The kid was still cranky but happy enough to sit between him and Dean on the truck ride home. He fell asleep halfway there, drooling on Dean’s shoulder.
Winchester had finally graced him with a call, said he was coming home in a couple days. Bobby didn’t say a word about the little one and the fever. Dean could tell the story if he thought it was needed.
Bobby sat on his scruffy recliner, sun coming through a window and heating up his tired skin. He felt ten years older than usual today, strung out from worry and having two kids squirming around.
He was thinking about dust and guns, laying down new salt lines and working on that one car, when he realized Sammy had never asked for John all that time he’d been sick. Just kept a hold of his brother. And if that didn’t say something about the sad state those two boys were in, he didn’t know what did.
When Dean came in, eyes red rimmed and hands tired, Bobby took a good long look at him.
“Don’t ever think you ain’t doing a good job, Dean,” he said. The boy sat down and didn’t even look at him. “That boy is happy and he loves you. That daddy of yours can’t even be bothered…”
Dean’s face tensed up, hands curling. “My dad loves us, Mr. Singer. He does right by us.” Dean was locked up and old sounding. Conversation was definitely over.
“Alright, boy. Your daddy should be here on Saturday. Said he was finished up with those wendigos.”
Dean’s face was still harsh but Bobby could see the bits of relief softening the edges of his jaw.
He was an outsider, Bobby realized. He’d never understand Winchester and these two boys, never see how one kid could raise another and think it was okay. But that was the life of hunters, living on the fringes of the world and shaking off normal and acceptable and convention.
Dean needed a momma but Bobby couldn’t give him that, couldn’t come close. So he gave what he could.
“You give me a call if you need something. You or your brother.”
Dean didn’t say anything, but he nodded. That was enough for Bobby.
John did come in two days and took those boys away with barely a word to Bobby. And that was just fine.
Dean and Sammy waved goodbye though. Dean even shook Bobby’s hand, looked him seriously in the eye and said, “thank you, Mr. Singer, for everything.”
“Take care of yourself,” was all Bobby could say.
+++++++++
2001
When Sam woke up, the side of his face was hot with sun and an air conditioning was buzzing away. He felt hazy, blood moving slowly along his veins as the world telescoped into focus.
Dean was breathing softly in the half snores Sam had grown up hearing. He was leaned over the bed, head pillowed on his arms. That couldn’t be too comfortable.
Sam moved a bit in the bed and watched as Dean sort of jolted away, wiping his eyes and hiding his yawns behind his elbow.
“Hey. You feeling okay?” Dean was bending near, smelling of stale coffee and cheap gum. “Do you need some water?”
Sam nodded, feeling awfully like he was four years old and needing Dean to do everything for him. A straw slid into his mouth and he sucked gratefully. “My appendix, I guess then,” he said and felt the weakness all the way down to his toes.
Dean grinned. “Nah. You had a pansy ulcer. It punctured your intestine or something. Had to do surgery to get it all cleared up in there.”
That explained the tightness in his stomach. Sam frowned. “An ucler?”
“Yeah. Can you believe it? The doc said it was caused by bacteria or something.” Dean was grinning. “Much pussier than a bone sticking out of your leg. I definitely win this one, Sammy.”
Sam groaned and turned his head on the bed. Dean was never going to let him get away with having an ulcer. He wondered if the stress over Stanford had actually caused it. Sam felt his insides drop again. Stanford. He had to tell Dean.
“Dean. I have to tell you.”
“If it’s about Stanford, I know. Found the letter in your stuff after I came home from the hospital.” Dean ducked his head and put his hands on his bad leg, rubbing his thigh.
“You knew?” That explains the bits of anger that had been bleeding out of Dean all this time. Dean had been angry at him for going, Dean hated him… Sam felt his insides crumple into a ball. “Dean…”
“Don’t want to talk about it, Sammy.” Dean still wasn’t looking at him. “Nothing has to happen yet, right?”
“Are you mad?” Sam asked, feeling all strung out and loopy on the medication. He thought about the M&M’s and the crappy fans and hoses squirting water down his neck. “Dean.”
“I’m not mad. I was. But I’m not any more.” Dean’s voice got that tone from when Sam was a kid and couldn’t sleep. “Hey, you need to sleep now. I promise I’m not mad at you now.”
“Are you sure?” He was going to stay awake until this was all figured out. Dean would only talk in these moments. When Sam woke up again, it would be back to teasing and avoidance and denial techniques worthy of a doctoral thesis.
“Yeah, Sam.”
“Then… then maybe, you could come with me.” Sam rubbed his hands on the sheet and forced himself to meet his brother’s eyes. “We could get an apartment.”
Dean’s face shuttered almost instantly, eyes still warm but hardened. “We’ll talk about it later,” he said.
“You’re lying.” Sam faced the window. “You have to stop doing what Dad wants, Dean. It’s destroying you. We both deserve to live our own lives.”
He didn’t have to look back to know Dean was glaring.
“This is my life, Sam. This is my choice. Dad did his best by us and that’s all we can ask for.”
“Yeah,” Sam sighed and closed his eyes. The conversation would go nowhere. “Thanks for taking care of me,” he said after awhile. Like you always do, he didn’t say. Like Dad doesn’t, he really didn’t say.
Dean shifted. “Yeah. You’re welcome.”
Sam closed his eyes. “You deserve more than this,” he tried again, sleep was creeping over his brain. “You could…”
“Go to sleep, Sam.”
Sam let himself drift because Dean always knew what was best. Sometimes it was so clear to Sam that Dean would never leave Dad. But he wanted Dean to come with him, have that normal life that he knew Dean wanted in some deep, closed part of himself.
He wanted Dean to stop being that half-wild thing that Dad had made him into. He wanted him to live in a little town where there were no ghosts or scary creatures - where Dean didn’t end up with a broken bones poking out of his skin miles from the nearest hospital. But Dean would never agree to all those white picket fences and if Sam wanted that life, he was going to have to give up a little bit on Dean.
But at least Dean wasn’t mad anymore. Sam didn’t have to worry about him finding out about Sam’s escape plan. They could face this together. And Sam had no doubt Dean would get him through this - just like Dean had gotten him over every other scary hurdle in his life. Things would be fine.
“It’ll be okay,” he mumbled just before he fully fell asleep. “We’ll work things out, Dean.”
He felt Dean shift closer, felt the bed dip when Dean put his hands on the mattress. “Yeah, Sammy, I know it’ll be.”
The End.
Author: sparkofire / Steely Dan
Recipient: legoline
Rating: PG-13
Author's Notes: 10,500 words. This started out as one story and then became two… and a lot longer than I intended. Hope Legoline enjoys!
Summary: For the prompt: Pre-Series: while John is on a hunt and leaves Dean and Sam behind, Sam comes down with a fever and maybe measles or the flu or whatever, and Dean nearly freaks out
~
2001
John and the Impala left on a Monday when the blue sky looked like cake frosting and the sun made the sidewalk sticky.
Sam sat in the grass, gangly legs pushed up against a stump and hair drooping. A fan that blew pathetically in the muggy air sat in the window of the shambling white and brown house behind him. The creaky walls were melting in the heat, wooden frames sagging under.
His face was dark, lighter around his hairline and almost a red at the tip of his nose. His hair was bleached down to a light nut at the ends and they clung onto his neck and temple. “He’ll be back in two weeks,” he said, voice barely carrying. Graduation - a month and three weeks away - Dad would be back for that.
Not that it mattered. Things were changing; time was slipping so fast through Sam’s fingers and each day was colored red and white for Stanford and the thick envelope at the bottom of his drawer.
The heat was hitting his stomach and he felt all irritable and nauseous like he’d just spun round and round the merry-go-round in a wide-open desert with no water.
Midwest summers always got to Sam the worst, dry heat coming up through the ground and just frying everything. California, New York, Florida, even Texas were preferable. There was at least the ocean and sea breezes along the coast.
Sloppily pressured water hit the side of his face, going up his eardrum. He spluttered, water falling down his t-shirt and hitting the top of his jeans. It lukewarm but it felt good and he turned into the spray as he stood up. “Dean. You’re supposed to be inside.”
The green walking cast burned out at him from Dean’s chicken white legs, only broken by smatterings of dark hair, up to the hemline of the jean cutoffs he was wearing. This weather had made even Dean give up his hatred of shorts. Sweat was smeared across Dean’s upper lip, face too pale for the hot weather. “Too hot in the house.”
The green hose was jerking as the water pressure came and went, sending fierce spurts of the water out before dying to a trickle. Dean’s smile was a fraction too wide, trying to convince Sam that everything would be okay.
The water was aimed at Sam’s stomach now and it dripped down the inseam of his jeans and soaking his feet. “You shouldn’t be standing up.” The words were dragged off his tongue, the sun making everything slower.
He stared at Dean through the haze of water and hot sun and remembered Dean in the back seat, black leather making the bone poking jaggedly out of the skin look all the whiter and Dean gasping with a gray mouth and bleached out knuckles.
“I’ve been laid up for a month here and then six weeks before that in the hospital. Can’t stay in that bed a second longer.” The words came out a bit sharp and Sam twisted his face away, glaring at the ground.
Dean sprayed the water down his own head. His straight shoulders looked awkward, thrown off as he balanced on this good leg, broken one sticking out like a misplaced twig. He didn’t look at Sam for a second and then turned back, face a bit softer, like he was really trying. “C’mon, Sammy, it’s really hot. I promise I’ll lay down soon if it keeps your bikini from twistin’ all up.”
Sam cracked a grin that faded when Dean wavered on his good leg, knee unlocking. “Hey. Easy. Guess you’re not ready for marathons yet?”
The cool water was turning into sticky sweat and Sam got one arm under Dean levering him up the slumping stairs and into the dark heat of the house.
Dean’s sheets were almost damp to the touch and Sam moved one of the fans closer after he settled Dean out flat and made sure his leg was propped up with pillows. The constant wind blew up Dean’s spikes and he was almost falling asleep when Sam went to the cramped kitchen and stuck his head under the faucet.
Dean had been in full Oscar-the-Grouch mode since he’d woken up in the hospital. The first day or two he had been dopey and overly affectionate with all of the pain meds being pumped into him. Then the “happy juice” as Dean had taken to calling it had worn off - leaving Dean cranky and fussy like a sick three-year-old. He’d been glowering and rude and there was a deeper anger underneath that.
Sam had figured for the first few days it was the idleness and being laid up and John’s abrupt dismissal of Dean from all things involving the hunt. Then when it kept going, Sam had known there was something else. He’d broached it once.
Said something like, “Dean, you can tell me the root of your anger and we can talk about it until you reach some higher plain of peace within yourself.”
Dean had said, “Shut up, bitch.”
Sam leaned on the sink staring out at the brownish green yard and felt sick. He’d dropped the topic then because after all, there was an admissions envelope in his drawer that he definitely wasn’t talking about.
He knew the stress over Stanford and Dean was making him this way. He’d been having stomach pains and nauseous since Dean had come home from the hospital and he had officially accepted Stanford’s offer of a full-scholarship.
Pastor Jim - Sam had called him when the guilt had started taking his appetite and making him hurl everything he ate - said that the answer was in prayer and accepting forgiveness from God. He hadn’t mentioned actually telling Dean or John, but the implication was there in every word.
Sam had ignored his advice and now this stomach bug was getting worse. “I’m probably actually making myself really sick,” Sam muttered, splashing more water on his face. “After graduation… when Dean’s better… than I’ll tell them.”
He popped two Aspirin and swallowed dry.
It wasn’t until around 10 at night that things got bearable. The two K-Mart fans were blowing from opposite corners and all the windows were flung outward, night chirps and sweet cool air beginning to drift through. The new coolness that settled on the top of Sam’s skin was more from being overheated all day then a real drop in temperature.
Sam made smoothies out of apples, oranges, ice and cold yogurt after a dinner that he didn’t eat and Dean drank it down on the couch.
“Is Samantha on a diet?” Dean slurped up a chunk of orange and the words were just a bit too sharp to be a joke. “Watching your girlish figure?”
Sam didn’t let Dean see that he threw up the smoothie in the toilet right after he finished it. The sickly sweet taste of fruit and yogurt coming back up almost made him sick all over again.
He thought of Dean sprawled out on the couch and then of a cold dorm room and people he didn’t know. Dean’s disappointed face flashed through his head, the one that Dean got when Sam told a lie or ate the last cookie. He almost got sick again.
Dean was doing one-legged push-ups when he came out, bad leg draped over his good one and shirt off.
“You shouldn’t be doing that,” Sam said and sat down on the couch.
Dean puffed out. “Shut up,” he said.
Sam glowered at the lines of pain and the tight lines of muscles. He left and came back with water and the pain pills. “Take them - you’re big and strong. Stop killing yourself in this heat.”
Dean grunted, made manly noises. No words. Wasn’t that just like Dean?
They got basic cable on the crappy small TV and Dean dozed on his pain meds that night while Sam watched commercials and did his homework. He popped some more Aspirin for his still aching stomach and helped Dean back to bed while Dean bitched about the heat and his bum leg.
He was trying to mesh the instructions of three different teachers he’d had that year on calculus when he was finally cool enough to fall asleep.
++++++++
1987
They came on a Tuesday when Bobby’s nose was in between the pages of a dusty old tome. The car rumbled up with a noise that made all the junk in his yard jealous and Bobby thought about getting his shotgun out.
He’d only met John Winchester a couple times - on a hunt and then at Pastor Jim’s on a cold night he’d rather not remember, thank you very much - and he’d never had a good feeling about the man. But Bobby didn’t kick the stray dogs out of his junkyard and Winchester couldn’t be much worse then some of those.
When he got to the door, dust on his hands like a second skin, Winchester was standing there. He couldn’t see his face, sunlight spreading over thick shoulders and nearly blinding Bobby for a second or two.
“I need a favor,” Winchester said and it sounded like a command. “I’m hunting up in the mountains. Supposed to be a couple wendigos and I can’t take my boys.” The man had lines all woven into his face, tough like the leather seats on Bobby’s old truck and the set of his mouth made Bobby uneasy.
“Your boys?” He’d only seen the Winchester boys once, in a window half lit up by a yellow flashlight. He knew there was an older kid who didn’t talk much and a younger one that had pressed his face to the grubby window and waved as Bobby walked passed to his truck.
“Dean’s a good kid and he can take care of Sammy - but social services been on my ass and I can’t risk leaving ‘em somewhere. Just for a few days. You’re the closet hunter.” Winchester’s dark eyes were scouring behind Bobby and the hunter realized Winchester was as thrilled about leaving the boys here as a bear was about bees.
Singer looked out at that black hulk of a car and saw a flash of a pale face in the back window. He hadn’t thought much about the kids ever but they’d probably be like little feral pups living on the road with Winchester all these years - just needed a little food and water and to be left by themselves. That he could do. “Have ‘em bring their gear. Don’t have much in the way of toys.”
Winchester nodded like all the soldiers Bobby knew when he was just out of school and working in his daddy’s gun shop. He did a quick turn and walked across the yard, stiff and sucking up all the sunlight.
Bobby went back from the door. He knew he wasn’t needed for the goodbye. If Winchester’s kids were anything like their old man, they’d be smart enough to get inside on their own. Plus, Winchester did rub him the wrong way. Less was more with that man.
The door slammed after he’d barely looked down at the next few words and the engine rumbled away. Jesus, the man didn’t seem much for goodbyes. Probably just left ‘em on the doorstep to find their own way in. Bobby stopped reading but didn’t look up.
Experience with kids he didn’t have - but he knew that hunters were skittish, needed to see things on their own before they could feel at ease. He leaned back in his chair and tried out a smile when a dark head peeped through the doorway.
“You Mr. Singer?” the small boy piped. He didn’t much look like a mongrel, all covered in a layer of soft baby fat with big eyes that bounced all over the room. The stuffed toy tucked under his toy was raggedy as a scarecrow, white stuffing peeking out in clumps. “I’m Sammy and that’s Dean. I’m four and a half and Dean’s eight.”
Bobby stood, bones scraping together with old hunter’s injuries He couldn’t see Dean yet, just a slip of one thin shoulder leaning around the doorframe. “Got your stuff?” he asked. Roughness came out almost against his will. Most hunters weren’t toting their kids around with them and dropping them by his place like it was wham, bam, thank you, ma’am.
“Yup. Dean put them in the room over there. Where’re we gonna sleep, Mr. Singer?” Sam came in further and he couldn’t have been more than three and a half feet high and his jeans dragged on the dusty floor. “You sure have a lot of books,” he went on. “You got Lucky Charms?”
Bobby could see that sad toy was a bear. It was staring at him with one and a half eyes and a crooked, bright red smile.
“Sammy.” And Dean came around the corner, hunched and quiet. He looked silently at Bobby as he grabbed the younger one’s hand and there was something a little touched in those big eyes. He had that wary, flinch waiting to happen air around him, like the rabbits Bobby sometimes saw, perched on old carburetors. He was more Winchester than the little one, stiff and a little too dark to pass as off as normal.
Sammy quieted down with his brother and wrapped pudgy fingers around Dean’s. They looked recently scrubbed - but even all that soap and water hadn’t gotten all the dirt off. There was dust up and down the inside of Dean’s wrist and a stripe of grubbiness over Sam’s cheek.
“My dad said you’d be busy,” Dean said in that same quiet, respectful tone that almost set Bobby on edge. Too polite for him. Hunters were brittle on every edge - not like this unless it served them in some way. “We’ll keep out of your way, sir, won’t cause any trouble.”
Bobby nodded. Didn’t think they would. “You’ll have the back room. One of you can bunk on the floor if you don’t want to share the bed.” Bobby heard from Winchester about how their mama died; little half orphans, both of them, surviving on Winchester’s idea of love. “You boys like macaroni?” he asked. Food and boys went together no matter how they’d been raised.
Sammy wiggled and then fell still. “Yessir,” he said and looked up at Dean. “We both do. And Dean likes extra cheese.”
Dean’s face didn’t change much but when Bobby met his gaze, it was hard for only a second before kind of melting into something a bit softer. He gave a tiny nod. “I can make it, sir,” he said, proud. “My dad says I’m a good cook.”
“I got it, boy. Just… get you and your brother settled in now. Got it?”
They moved off together with Sammy tugging at Dean’s hand. Bobby watched them, long-limbed and healthy and old - half-bred coyotes trying to live among house pets. His stomach did a slow squeeze and it was almost like it was five years ago, in the Gulf of Mexico, with a water nymph on one side and hurricane on the other.
When dinner was over, Bobby figured it wasn’t going near as bad as he had thought. Dean was a good boy - rough and clean all at once, barely saying a word over dinner and then washing the dishes like it was his job. He corralled Sammy along in front of him like a worn collie, nodding and smiling and using just enough touch to get the little boy moving.
He didn’t trust Bobby though - he was as jumpy as all get out, expecting every minute for the situation to deteriorate into a Mexican standoff. Bobby let it be. Either the boy would come around when he was ready or he wouldn’t. Winchester couldn’t just leave them here for too long a time. He’d be back before the situation got too intolerable.
That little Sammy, though, he tucked himself next to his brother and his chin had barely cleared the table. And Bobby swore that he’d only stopped his chattering long enough to eat. That boy must’ve had a couple dozen questions, barely even paused long enough to hear the answer before moving right along. Near the end, Dean had finally elbowed him and said “Sam” in that too old voice and that little one had tapered off, ducking his head toward his plate.
He wandered back to their room a little past eight, trying to keep his feet soft but making sure he knocked nice and loud so Dean could hear him. “You boys okay?” he asked and tried to soften the gravel in his throat.
The little one was in cotton pajamas, too small and almost see-through in places even on Bobby’s quick look. He was already in the one bed, knees up to his chest and face sagging a little. That ugly bear of his was snuggled up to his side, half squashed under his hip.
Dean was standing near, swimming in a pair of pajamas. They must’ve been at least a couple sizes too big, dropping over skinny shoulders and pooling around his feet. “We’re just fine, sir,” he said and took two steps until he was just in front of Sammy.
Winchester had had some troubles through out the years - most hunters did - but Bobby had to think about what these boys must’ve seen in those times. He nodded to Dean and stepped back, shutting the door.
The Singer family hadn’t been the best - there had been the fights and the silences - but Bobby had gone to elementary and high school all in the same little town with the same group of rowdy friends. He’d lived in the same too tiny house until he was 18 and bitter enough to just walk away. He had a brother, younger and off somewhere in Virginia with a wife, but they’d never had more then an occasional tussle.
Dean was bred from trouble, grew up learning to duck and keep low, to protect the weaker member of the pack.
Bobby sat down, looked at the dusty books and the dim lamp, at the plastic plates Dean had stacked neatly in the cupboard while his brother carefully dried.
It wasn’t any of his business, Bobby knew, and no good ever came of his sticking his nose where it didn’t belong - but that was no way to raise a kid.
++++++++
2001
Heat itching under skin woke Sam up just after dawn and he took a cold shower before dressing for school. There was a note on the table when he came out, a bright yellow sticky that had a smudge of chocolate on one corner. “Get M&Ms,” Dean said with half-formed and twisted letters.
Sam crumpled the note up and tossed it in the trash.
Dean was asleep, broken leg propped up on two flat pillows. He was wearing just plaid boxers and his arms were akimbo on either side. The sun was caught on the thick stubble across his jaw.
Sam took deep breaths because suddenly the sun wasn’t shining and the moon was much too dark and Dean’s face was all white and squished up and sickly sterile light was spilling from the sliding doors of the Emergency room and Dean was passing out with a quiet gasp when the well-meaning orderly touched his leg. Then it was the future and he and Dean were all alone. His stomach heaved again.
He set Dean’s pills out on the buckling nightstand and trudged out the door with his gray backpack slung on one shoulder after taking some more Aspirin.
The heat was already glossy and bright in the dim early morning, like a girl’s pink lip-gloss, stringy and syrupy across Sam’s skin.
Sam was sweating after a few steps, heat thickening deep inside of him and colliding with the outside warmth to make fire on his skin. His steps were slow and he drank a whole bottle of water before stepping inside the white-tiled air-conditioned halls of the high school, the nausea welling up in his gut.
The bathroom mirror was smudged and a layered nest of toilet paper was slumped in the corner of the stall Sam barfed in. “Gross.”
He wiped his mouth on the toilet paper and spat into the bowl before flushing and coming back out. He splashed water on his face and down his arms, leaning over the smooth counter and taking deep breaths in the mirror. His stomach was aching, bile churning and coming up and he was still so hot even as the cool air slid down the back of his neck from the cooling vent straight above him.
Fifth period bell rang at 1:15 and Sam was already walking home. Achy sickness was spreading up through his bones and he wanted to lie down and sleep, maybe for a week. But he still stopped by the tiny market that was halfway to the house.
Soap, two cans of tomato soup, two jumbo packages of M&M’s and a eight can pack of Sprite: $13.57. Walking home in the midday swelter with a backpack and a bag of groceries: Priceless.
Dean was on the couch when he got home, shirtless and stretched out like a cat. His cast was up on one threadbare arm and he twisted his top body and face when Sam came in. “M&M’s?”
Sam threw one of the bags to him harder than he should and immediately regretted it even though Dean caught it easily.
Dean pulled the top of the bag apart delicately. “Aren’t you supposed to still be in school?”
Sam glanced up and saw Dean’s eyes slide away from him, like he’d been watching carefully. “Didn’t feel good.” Sam rubbed his forehead and ran water over his hands in the sink. “Just some flu I got. I need to take a shower.”
He got down to his boxers, clothes draped over the toilet, when Dean thumped in. He was waving one of those under arm thermometers in the air and he was glowering like this was the worse possible thing he could be doing. “Arm up, Sammy.”
“Dean. It’s 100 degrees even in this house. Taking my temperature won’t even work.”
“If it’s extra high I’ll know.” Dean thumped closer and cornered Sam between the scratched mirror and the rusty tub. “Sam. Don’t be an asshole,” he growled.
Sam took the thermometer and stuck it under his arm. “It’s a little stomach bug. I’ll be fine in a couple days. You’re the asshole.”
Dean crossed his arms and leaned on the doorway. Sam was feeling really naked and like all of his secrets were going to come spilling out at any second by the time the thing beeped.
“101.7,” Sam read aloud. “So I’m a little bit warm… a lot of that’s from the heat. Dean, I really am fine. You don’t need to worry.”
“M’ not worried. Just don’t want that huge ass of yours passing out from heat stroke or something. We can only have one invalid at a time.” Dean took the thermometer back and peered at the reading. “We have some Aspirin in the kitchen - take some when you’re done with your shower.” He clomped out, lines of pain fixed through his shoulders and neck.
Sam kicked the door shut and flipped on the water. He felt grimy and sweaty, the sickness welling up from his belly. He needed to tell Dean that he was leaving. It would be a whole lot easier if his brother wasn’t more difficult to read than Dad’s writing on a bad day.
+++++++
1987
On the second day, right about the time the sun had lengthened across the east facing windows; Sammy trotted right up to Bobby, eager like the fish up in Idaho, and asked to read with him. He had his bear by one paw, almost dragging it on the floor.
Dean was nowhere to be found when Bobby looked behind him and the kid’s eyes were the size of tires. He wasn’t wearing shoes and his feet looked huge in dusty white socks. This one would grow up big, Bobby would bet on it.
“It’s on exorcisms,” he mumbled and pointed to a chair for Sammy to drag over. While the kid was busy, Bobby pulled out a book on ancient Muslim lore. The edges were worn smooth and he shoved papers aside so he could lay the book out. There were pictures in that one, diagrams of this creature and this religious artifact. “You can look through that,” he said when Sam was on his knees, bent over the book. The bear sat in front, watching with that creepy, half-lidded gaze.
He figured the kid would get bored in a few seconds and move on, hopefully back to his brother. Dust bits were floating down, sticking in the kid’s hair and on the ridge by his neck. He looked soft and small and if Bobby had a kid like this, he’d never drag him across the country chasing things.
Kids like this belong in school, in parks, in sports, in libraries - not in drab houses with the source material for horror movies. Bobby slid back around to his book, to the long strings of incantations that spill all the way across the page in tight handwriting. He got back into it, memorizing the subtle vowels on his tongue and noting for which demons this’d work.
Few minutes, later, he looked up. Sammy sat there. He was staring at early drawings of the moon god, tracing the swooping lines and tiny intricate details on the clothing. He must’ve sensed he was being looked at because Sam looked up, straight at Bobby. It was a little uncanny.
“Daddy doesn’t have lots of pictures in his books. Sometimes he draws though.” He hasn’t moved his eyes and his little hands. “I spilled milk on Daddy’s book when he wasn’t there. Dean helped me clean it up and he didn’t know.” The words tumbled out, ending with two dimples, and Bobby was silent until Sammy hopped off the chair.
“I’m gonna go back now. Dean was napping because he wasn’t feeling too good and I was supposed to stay in the room.” His eyes peeked up and Bobby knew he wasn’t supposed to say anything to Dean about this little meeting. The kid brushed his hands on his pants, leaving dust streaks on the worn material. “Thank you, Mr. Singer,” he said, very proper.
“No need to stay in the room,” Bobby said. He felt big and rough. “Just don’t disturb much and the yard’s big enough to do some running.”
Sammy grinned with both dimples again and he bounced from one extra long foot to the other. “Dean said you’d be mean. But you ain’t at all,” he grinned. “Even though you got no Lucky Charms.” He was off then, jack-rabbitting through the doorway.
Dinner was chicken and rice and Dean was grouchy. He washed Sammy’s hands and watched him while the kid ate - but tonight he didn’t even waste politeness on Bobby. He just kept hunched over his plate and silent, except when Sam needed words. As soon as dishes were done, he scooted the littler one out of the room and their door banged.
Bobby almost wanted to pull Dean aside. Tell him, “you’re too young for this. Your daddy shouldn’t be turning you into this little scared silent thing. It ain’t right.” But his words just make the boy curl all up on himself like a hurt puppy, close him off from Bobby for good. But Bobby just kept shut up and let Dean keep his distance.
Singer would say something if he thought it would help.
There was water running in the bathroom when Sam bounded back out into the room. He had pink spots on his cheeks and water was dripping down his neck and soaking the collar of his pajamas.
“You gonna read some more?” he asked all bright and chipper. “Dean just gave me a bath and now he’s taking one.”
“Getting late. You need to be in bed.” He grabbed a towel and mopped up the water on the tiny neck, running the rough material over the floppy hair. No sense in letting the kid catch a cold.
“Not tired.”
He might as well, Bobby picked up the nearest book and motioned for Sam to get over. Sam did, came right over, got in the other chair and pressed himself in Bobby’s arm.
“What does it say?”
“It’s in Latin.” Bobby had a bowling ball attached to his side; made him use his left arm to turn the pages. He frowned. A warm bowling ball. “You getting sick?”
Sam frowned. “Don’t get sick,” he snapped.
“Feel feverish.” That would just be the apple pie in this little buffet if that little one got sick. There was no medicine in the house. Maybe he should drive up to town; the store probably didn’t close until nine or so. At the very least in the morning, he could go down and pick something up.
“Sammy.” Dean’s dark head popped around the door, freckles standing out. His eyes were flat and wary like Winchester’s. “Time for bed.”
“The kid feels hot.” Bobby explained as Sammy slipped away, pushing himself into Dean’s side like he had just been doing with Bobby. “Is he sick?”
Dean wrapped his skinny fingers around Sammy’s wrist. They fit all the way around. “I can take care of it.”
Where was he scraping together all this defiance from?
Bobby closed the book. He wouldn’t force his help. “I’ll go into town in the morning. Pick up some cough syrup or that baby Tylenol. Let me know if you need anything.”
Dean backed up, Sammy dragging along. He was big-eyed, so tough that cracks were coming out everywhere and he looked so young in those crevices. “We’ll be fine, sir,” he said, voice stiff.
“Let me know,” Bobby said as they went around the corner and their door slammed. He could hear Dean, telling Sam to brush his teeth, asking him how he felt.
He felt powerless and he wasn’t used to that. A gun in his hands or a book at his fingertips and Bobby always felt he could get anything done. He could make friends with the most scared animal and put up with jackasses like Winchester until his face turned blue.
But this whole thing, this kid who was somewhere between jackass and scared animal, was like being in an unfamiliar bar when the electricity went out.
All he could do was keep his back to the wall, look unthreatening as possible and hope he didn’t stumble over a landmine.
++++++++
2001
When Sam woke up that night, sweat dripping off of his head and feeling like his stomach was about to burst out through his skin, he knew something was wrong. This wasn’t stress anymore - wasn’t about Stanford.
He groaned and rolled upright, staring at green clock blinking 3:30 am. Another spasm of pain sent him reeling back on the bed, staring up at the dark ceiling. “Dean,” he called, turning his head. “Dean!”
Dean mumbled something from a few feet away then sat up straight just a second later. “Sam?” His shadowy figure turned in the dark, leaning over Sam. “Sam? What’s wrong?” The tattered lamp clicked on and spluttered a second before casting a weird yellow pall over the room.
Sam licked his lips, feeling the salt that had sunk into his skin there. “I think it is appendicitis,” he said, going for calm.
Dean stared at him in the lamplight, wavering as he balanced on one leg. “Jesus, Sam,” he muttered. “Jesus H. Christ, You said it was the flu.”
The world went fuzzy and Dean’s face was just pale and sweat streaked as Sam gasped out loud. “Thought it was.” His face pressed together and he gave in to the pain, curling over his stomach. “Shit,” he muttered, the word dragged out slowly.
Dean’s warm hand wormed in between his own, pressing down just barely on his stomach.
Sam grunted and then couldn’t bite back the yell of pain. He curled tighter, sweaty and shaking.
Dean was cursing under his breath and pulling on shorts and shirt. “We got get you to a hospital,” he was saying. “Can you walk?”
Sam tried to get up again and fell back onto the pillow groaning. The nausea that had been bothering him swelled up and he just barely leaned over the side of the bed before heaving up everything in his stomach.
Dean grabbed his shoulders, kept him from taking a header and Sam drew in deep gasps of air with his eyes closed.
“Shit, Sam, shit.” Dean sounded freaked and Sam opened his eyes, blinking through watering eyes.
“Dean?” he looked down and saw blood mixed in with yellow bile and the hotdogs Dean had cooked for dinner. It was goopy and dark, stringing under the bed. Sam almost wanted to heave again. He licked his lips and tasted iron and salt.
Dean pressed him back to the bed, hands digging into his skin tightly. “You’re burning up,” he said, hands smoothing over Sam’s sweaty arms. Sam’s fingers scrabbled at his for a second and Dean squeezed back. “We don’t have a car - I’m gonna have to call an ambulance.”
Another bout of sickness wormed up Sam’s throat and he just missed Dean’s feet as he leaned over the bed. Dean cursed again and went for the single phone in the small house. Sam couldn’t muster the strength to move back up and he stayed there, half draped over the floor.
Pressure was increasing in his gut and it was hard to draw deep breaths.
“Sam?”
Dean was back and helping him upright, holding him steady.
The air whistled in and out of this throat quickly, drying out his tongue. Dean’s shoulder pressed against his briefly and Sam’s head spun as Dean levered him upright and slipped behind him. He was settled back against his brother’s chest, head tipped against his shoulder.
“Sam, take deep breaths.” Blunt fingers pressed on his bare chest, over his heart. “Easy now.” Dean’s voice kept buzzing along in his ear and Sam felt the heat crawling up over his skin, followed by the chill in his gut of not being able to get enough air.
“It’s okay, Sam, don’t cry.”
Sam realized there was water squeezing out of his eyes and he tried to move his head, wipe them away. “Hu…hurts,” he mumbled. His lips felt ten times too big for his mouth. “G-god…”
That was all the warning he got before his stomach heaved and vomit was coming up his throat. He didn’t have the strength to turn his head and all the sickness just pooled against his tongue. He heaved and coughed, blood and gunk dribbling over his mouth, for a few seconds before Dean flipped him over.
“Shit,” Dean was saying. “Sam, shit.” His fingers were on Sam’s teeth, trying to clear all the vomit out and Sam sucked in air as hard as he could. Dean’s bulky cast was bumping against his leg and Sam gasped deeply and then curled up at the pain. His hand found Dean’s good leg and he squeezed, clenching his teeth down to fight the groans.
By the time the sirens were there and the blue and red lights were flashing in the open windows, Sam hovered just beyond rational thought. He was pushed away from the pain and he could hear Dean’s mumbles - and his louder shouts hailing the paramedics.
He couldn’t tell if his eyes were closed - could just see dark blurs with occasional flashing colors - when he felt different hands on him and could smell sweat that wasn’t Dean’s.
His stomach was pressed on and it felt like his intestines were grating on his ribs. He choked and fought for breath, fought to get closer to Dean, inside his skin. The pain came up again and Sam just sunk under.
++++++++
1987
It was after midnight. The ugly green desk lamp poured yellow light over the text he was working on and the rest of the house was dark. He’d just put the coffee maker on for another pot and was looking out at the weird shadows the junkyard made outside of his window when the door to the boys’ room slammed and Dean skidded in his too big pajamas.
His eyes seemed to swallow up all of his face. “Sammy’s sick,” he said. There was no air in his voice, just hard desperation that Bobby’d heard from hunters all across the country when things were going terribly wrong.
He put down his cup and followed Dean. It had to be bad if Dean was coming in here like this, asking for his help. Kid was still too raw to be asking for help unless it was dire, out of his hands…
Dean had flipped the bedside lamp and it was pointed directly towards the kid.
The little thing even looked smaller then with the blankets pulled up to his chin and face shining with thick sweat. He was moaning, hands clenched in the blankets and little bear pushed carelessly to one side. His skin was red and his fever was pouring out every pore, heating up the air. Dark messy hair was wet and the little mouth was stretched like a rubber band. The little furnace had become a firestorm.
“How long?”
“I woke up and he was like this… I don’t know.” The poor kid was terrified, hands twisting in his shirt and knees almost knocking together. Must’ve been hell for a kid like Dean to wake up to this. There was going to be a heavy weight on this kid’s shoulders after this thing - even heavier then whatever that daddy of his had put there.
Winchester. Bobby winced. If Winchester wouldn’t kill him when he found out Bobby let one of his kids die, then his name wasn’t Bobby Singer. “Get some water in that tub. Lukewarm. And the thermometer from the cabinet there.”
Dean nodded and dragged his fingers off his brother, leaving trails in the sweat, before running out of the room.
Sammy was shaking a bit harder, eyes half-open in a way that terrified Bobby. His breathing was raspy like a water heater on its last legs, rattling and out. Didn’t sound good at all. It was almost too scary to touch the kid with his own big hands - seemed like he could shatter this kid in a second.
Dean’s weight hit the bed softly. “Water’s running. Thermometer’s on the dresser.” He bent over the smaller kid. “It’s gonna be okay, Sammy,” he said. His hands pressed on the hot face and then slipped down to hold one hand. “You’re gonna be fine.”
The eyes dragged up a little further and drifted to the older one. Sammy made a pathetic whining noise and Bobby cringed, his hands clenched on the bed sheets.
“D…d…” the kid stuttered.
Dean was up in his face, not looking like a little kid. “It’ll be okay. Sammy?”
Bobby could practically hear Dean scream, “Do something!” when the bright gaze met his for a second before going back to the kid. But he had nothing, sweat starting up on the backs of his knees, no idea what to do when little kids were sick like this.
He’d be more use with a couple demons and a poltergeist.
Sammy made that little noise again and he closed his eyes, blue veins all across the lids. He was still breathing weird and Bobby worried.
He reached around for the thermometer. This wasn’t good. Not at all. No experience with sick kids and this was on the bad side of sick. He grabbed the thermometer and then Dean shouted out, panicky and stretched thin.
Sammy was jerking on the bed, looking like a rattlesnake in death throes - head thumping on the pillow and legs jittering up and down. It was enough to make Bobby’s mouth dry out like old leather.
“Hold ‘im.” He couldn’t think of anything else to say - could just see that little face drawn up in a painful grimace and the white hands turned into claws. His gut twisted up and he just reached down and gently constrained the tiny arms. The kid was softer than he’d expected, delicate, pudgy baby skin stretched over small muscles that were rock hard and jumping.
Dean looked to be near tears when Bobby caught a glimpse in the half-light. He was just about laid full out next to Sammy, one arm around his waist and another crooked around his head. His freckles were growing in the shadowy room, eating up his face.
His heart was pounding fast and hard but Singer thought he could hear Dean saying “Sammy” in a low, little-boy voice. And, goddamned, if that didn’t make his skin break open just a bit more.
The seizure stopped and Bobby felt like white cotton boxers left too long in the sun. Around him, the air was too muggy and he was hot inside.
Dean’s face was wet and shiny, still monkey-wrapped around his brother. His mouth was wide open and he was shaking hard like the insides of Singer. It looked like he was going to speak - but that just turned into drawn out tremble and he drew the littler one closer.
Bobby looked down, saw one bare, small arm poking out of the covers, reddened with fever. “Get dressed. Hospital’s about 30 minutes away.” There wasn’t really another choice. This situation was way out of his depth and he wasn’t going to just let a kid die because of a fever.
Dean’s hair swung down across forehead, big green eyes weren’t even blinking like those scary, unnaturally large snakes Bobby’d once hunted in the desert. “H-hospital?” He licked his lips and his thumb dug into Sammy’s shoulder.
“Not taking any chances, kid.”
Dean stared at him, trying to gauge him, and Bobby held completely still. Don’t let them see your fear. “Okay. Okay,” Dean said, raspy and thick. He leaned close and touched his forehead to his brother’s. “It’ll be okay, Sammy.” He darted away then, pulling on pants and a shirt.
Bobby didn’t bother with the blankets, just picking the whole bundle up with Sammy’s head and feet sticking out the ends. The hot dampness of the sheets sunk into his arms and he winced as the kid’s oversized feet crashed into the doorframe. “My keys are on the counter,” he said behind him and he heard Dean clattering in the kitchen.
Outside, the air was thin and cold. Sammy moaned a little but didn’t stir. Dean hurried past, arms bare and white. He twisted to see Sammy before getting the truck unlocked and flinging the door open.
“Get in. I’ll pass him up.”
Dean was smaller than Bobby first thought and he had to give himself a push on the door handle to get up on the high seat of the truck. He turned around for Sammy as soon as he was seated. His nails were bitten all the way down and he didn’t even look at Bobby just gathered Sammy in like the kid was his own.
Bobby got in the other side and Dean had arranged Sammy’s blankets and head, arms tucked around the smaller, shaking body. The green lights from the dashboard made the kid look worse, sweaty and moaning.
Dean was bent like a little pretzel over him and Singer thought he was talking but he couldn’t be sure. He looked again and saw that scrappy bear stuffed under the kid’s arm. Dean must’ve carried it out.
He wanted to gun the engine more, but there was no light up here in the hills and the roads were like tangled threads. It would do no good to wrap around a tree.
As soon as they hit the highway though, he gunned the engine, the rumbling coming up through the leather seats. Dean looked up, face huge and washed out, staring out at the dark.
“It’ll be okay,” Bobby said and felt awkward. “I mean, the hospital’s a good one. And we’ll call your dad. Did he leave you a number?”
Dean shrugged and folded back down.
Wouldn’t that just beat all? Winchester not giving his kids any way to contact him while he was gone. When that man came back, Bobby would have to say something. These kids deserved more.
They hit the hospital in half the time Bobby thought they would. The speedometer must’ve crept up without him noticing it. He left the truck idling in the sour light coming out the glass doors, came around and just hefted Sammy up from Dean.
Dean tagged along behind, half-grown legs tripping along double-time.
A nurse looked up from the desk and she was the only one in the whole big room. She went almost as big-eyed as Dean when Bobby just stomped right up to her white little desk and demanded the doctor.
Sammy started moaning as the nurse jumped up to do what Singer said. Bobby instantly got clumsy, hands fumbling over the small back. “Need to sit down. Dean?”
“Here.” Small, gun callused hands grabbed his arm, pushed him over to a chair.
Soon as Bobby was down, Dean was peering at Sammy’s face, hands skipping over the dark hair. “It’ll be okay,” he whispered.
Then there were footsteps across the tile and things blurred as Sammy was lifted out of his arms. Just when he was starting to get comfortable with the idea of a kid being there too. People were asking questions and Bobby felt like he was just spitting out programmed answers.
“He had a fever. Then had a seizure. Couldn’t have lasted more than three minutes. Came straight here.”
“He’s allergic to penicillin,” Dean said, sounding weird. He was as close to his brother as he could get, crammed in between nurses and orderlies.
The doctor had a penlight, peeling back the kid’s eye lids and checking his forehead. “Okay. We need to get him cooled off then we’ll talk some more. Let’s go.”
The bear hit the floor, rolling and landing on its face. No one noticed as they got the kid on a stretcher, pulling him out of the room.
Bobby couldn’t think for a second, just breathing and thinking about little lives just leaving and not growing up. Didn’t actually snap back until Dean started screaming.
He’d seen the toy on the floor, Bobby figured a little later, seen it and flipped. He picked it up in his little hands and went charging after his brother, hollering that Sammy needed the bear.
The group of people didn’t even turn around, just headed through a set of doors that slammed shut behind them. Dean was charging at the door like he was planning on just breaking through them.
Bobby just managed to grab him before that, pulling the kid against his chest and sticking his heels down. “Now you just got to settle down,” he said, going for the whole tough-love thing. “Just settle down. They’re gonna take good care of your brother.”
Dean was holding that damn bear and just staring, wasn’t screaming or crying any more. He just looked wrecked, train landing at the bottom of a cliff kind of wrecked. He straightened and held the bear held the bear under his arm, and nodded. “I’m okay, Mr. Singer.”
Bobby nodded and gave him some room. He still crouched though, keeping the kid in his line of sight. “You wanna phone your dad, now?”
Dean’s head bent and his knuckles whitened over the arm of the bear. “All I have is the name of the motel he was planning on staying at,” he said and it sounded to Bobby like he was ashamed.
“Well, that’s something,” he said. Winchester was probably doing the best he could, he reminded himself.
Dean breathed deeply. “Let’s wait a bit, before calling. If he’s in the middle of something, don’t want to worry him. “ He held his breath like he was waiting to be shot down, told his idea wasn’t good enough.
Bobby looked him straight in the eye. How old was this kid? Because he sure as hell wasn’t eight like his brother claimed. “Okay. Your call, boy.” He stood up and his knees popped. “Just let me know if you do want to phone him.”
Bobby ended up asking the night nurse for a place to eat. All the coffee he’d drank earlier was sitting in his gut uncomfortably and his hands were jittering a little, though that could’ve been from a lot of things.
She pointed them both to a Denny’s a block down and even thought it took some doing to convince the kid to leave the hospital - the night nurse promised to call the manager of Denny’s if there was a problem - Bobby got them both down there.
“Order anything you want,” Bobby said in the goopy yellow light of the restaurant. The bright menus glared up at him, blurred before his eyes. “I’m getting pancakes,” he announced out loud. The kid was just too quiet, it was making him a bit jumpy.
“There’s this Denny’s,” Dean started out, really quiet, “in Nevada, has the best pancakes of any other Denny’s I’ve been to.”
“Bet you’ve been to a lot of them too.”
“A lot,” Dean agreed, staring hard at the menu. “Been to 31 states.”
Bobby whistled. “Been to more than I had. Didn’t even leave South Dakota until I was 18.”
“Dad said he didn’t leave Kansas until he was 18 and went to fight in the war.” Dean stopped and seemed to weigh Bobby for a second or two. “I’ve been to eight different school since 1st grade. Sammy hasn’t been to school yet but he’ll start and kindergarten next fall, Daddy says.”
Most the kid said to him since he’d been there, all in one mouthful. Bobby nodded and looked down at the menu. “Do you like that?”
Dean shrugged and fidgeted with the menu. “It’s okay.”
They both ordered pancakes when the tired waitress made her way over. Bobby got another coffee and Dean ordered one too and looked kind of surprised when Bobby didn’t say a word.
“Don’t think you’re going to be sleeping much tonight anyway,” Bobby said. “Sammy’ll be okay,” he repeated. “You don’t have to worry. Sometimes little kids get fevers but they’re tough.”
“Yeah,” Dean took a deep breath. “I turned the water off in the tub before we left. I’m sorry I didn’t get you sooner, Mr. Singer.”
Bobby looked down. “You got me just fine. Good thing remembering about the water.” Coming back to a flooded house would not have made Bobby’s day, that’s for sure.
“Should’ve been sooner. I… I messed up. I’m not supposed to do that. I think he got it from me… I wasn’t feeling good, but I was fine. But Sammy’s just little, I guess. I’m supposed to take care of Sammy and I didn’t… I didn’t do that. Dad wouldn’t ever have…”
“You take care of your brother fine.”
Dean’s shoulders were bent over and he was staring down at the table like it was going to swallow him any second. Bobby leaned back and imagined two boys who only had each other in the whole world; never having any other friends because they moved too much and having a father who convinced them their lives depended on protecting each other.
“You’re a kid, Dean. It’s my fault for not paying more attention…” Bobby trailed off and watched Dean play with the menu, eyes never coming up to meet Bobby’s. Nothing he said would convince the boy he wasn’t responsible for his brother like this. “It’s not your fault. You love that kid. Anybody can see that. You’re doing the best you can.”
“He’s my brother,” Dean said, hair flopping over his face. His whole face was sagging with tiredness and his chin was grubby. He looked abandoned and kicked down, running on nothing but adrenaline.
It should’ve been Winchester, sitting here, blaming himself. Not a kid that’d probably already seen enough that he’d never be normal, crumpled up inside by years of not having a mom and not being a kid.
When their food came, they ate in silence and then went back to the hospital together and waited for news in tiny waiting room. Eventually Dean got tired enough to slump against Bobby - but he never really fell asleep.
The doctors came out when the eastern skies just started turning a paler shade of blue and pink.
They said Sammy had a really high fever, probably caused by bacteria. No meningitis or epilepsy or any of those things Bobby had been afraid of since Sammy first started jerking on the bed. They said he would be fine. His fever was already coming down and he was responding to the antibiotics.
Bobby signed on as the father and soon enough both he and Dean were crammed into the tiny room they put Sammy in the pediatrics wing. The kid had an IV in his arm and a tiny oxygen mask - but he looked better. No moaning or shaking or blue veins pushing out of white skin, Bobby was relieved.
Dean had fallen asleep an hour or two after the sun came up, head cushioned on his arms as he leaned on the bed. Dean had tucked ugly bear under Sammy’s arm as soon as he came into the room and Bobby swore that thing was smirking at him.
When Sammy woke up and the fever left, he was like the three other little kids Bobby remembered being around - sniveling and whining and leaking tears every other second. Dean didn’t help matters, clucking over the boy like he’d risen from the grave.
They made a pair, Sammy clinging to Dean and that bear and Dean telling Sammy how brave and strong he was, telling him all the stuff they’d do back at Bobby’s. He was promising him Lucky Charms and pancakes, legos and tons of books. The kid’s face was flushed red half the day, snot drying under his nose and tears dripping off his chin. Dean kept using Kleenexes to clean him up like a pro.
They got to take Sammy home the next day. The kid was still cranky but happy enough to sit between him and Dean on the truck ride home. He fell asleep halfway there, drooling on Dean’s shoulder.
Winchester had finally graced him with a call, said he was coming home in a couple days. Bobby didn’t say a word about the little one and the fever. Dean could tell the story if he thought it was needed.
Bobby sat on his scruffy recliner, sun coming through a window and heating up his tired skin. He felt ten years older than usual today, strung out from worry and having two kids squirming around.
He was thinking about dust and guns, laying down new salt lines and working on that one car, when he realized Sammy had never asked for John all that time he’d been sick. Just kept a hold of his brother. And if that didn’t say something about the sad state those two boys were in, he didn’t know what did.
When Dean came in, eyes red rimmed and hands tired, Bobby took a good long look at him.
“Don’t ever think you ain’t doing a good job, Dean,” he said. The boy sat down and didn’t even look at him. “That boy is happy and he loves you. That daddy of yours can’t even be bothered…”
Dean’s face tensed up, hands curling. “My dad loves us, Mr. Singer. He does right by us.” Dean was locked up and old sounding. Conversation was definitely over.
“Alright, boy. Your daddy should be here on Saturday. Said he was finished up with those wendigos.”
Dean’s face was still harsh but Bobby could see the bits of relief softening the edges of his jaw.
He was an outsider, Bobby realized. He’d never understand Winchester and these two boys, never see how one kid could raise another and think it was okay. But that was the life of hunters, living on the fringes of the world and shaking off normal and acceptable and convention.
Dean needed a momma but Bobby couldn’t give him that, couldn’t come close. So he gave what he could.
“You give me a call if you need something. You or your brother.”
Dean didn’t say anything, but he nodded. That was enough for Bobby.
John did come in two days and took those boys away with barely a word to Bobby. And that was just fine.
Dean and Sammy waved goodbye though. Dean even shook Bobby’s hand, looked him seriously in the eye and said, “thank you, Mr. Singer, for everything.”
“Take care of yourself,” was all Bobby could say.
+++++++++
2001
When Sam woke up, the side of his face was hot with sun and an air conditioning was buzzing away. He felt hazy, blood moving slowly along his veins as the world telescoped into focus.
Dean was breathing softly in the half snores Sam had grown up hearing. He was leaned over the bed, head pillowed on his arms. That couldn’t be too comfortable.
Sam moved a bit in the bed and watched as Dean sort of jolted away, wiping his eyes and hiding his yawns behind his elbow.
“Hey. You feeling okay?” Dean was bending near, smelling of stale coffee and cheap gum. “Do you need some water?”
Sam nodded, feeling awfully like he was four years old and needing Dean to do everything for him. A straw slid into his mouth and he sucked gratefully. “My appendix, I guess then,” he said and felt the weakness all the way down to his toes.
Dean grinned. “Nah. You had a pansy ulcer. It punctured your intestine or something. Had to do surgery to get it all cleared up in there.”
That explained the tightness in his stomach. Sam frowned. “An ucler?”
“Yeah. Can you believe it? The doc said it was caused by bacteria or something.” Dean was grinning. “Much pussier than a bone sticking out of your leg. I definitely win this one, Sammy.”
Sam groaned and turned his head on the bed. Dean was never going to let him get away with having an ulcer. He wondered if the stress over Stanford had actually caused it. Sam felt his insides drop again. Stanford. He had to tell Dean.
“Dean. I have to tell you.”
“If it’s about Stanford, I know. Found the letter in your stuff after I came home from the hospital.” Dean ducked his head and put his hands on his bad leg, rubbing his thigh.
“You knew?” That explains the bits of anger that had been bleeding out of Dean all this time. Dean had been angry at him for going, Dean hated him… Sam felt his insides crumple into a ball. “Dean…”
“Don’t want to talk about it, Sammy.” Dean still wasn’t looking at him. “Nothing has to happen yet, right?”
“Are you mad?” Sam asked, feeling all strung out and loopy on the medication. He thought about the M&M’s and the crappy fans and hoses squirting water down his neck. “Dean.”
“I’m not mad. I was. But I’m not any more.” Dean’s voice got that tone from when Sam was a kid and couldn’t sleep. “Hey, you need to sleep now. I promise I’m not mad at you now.”
“Are you sure?” He was going to stay awake until this was all figured out. Dean would only talk in these moments. When Sam woke up again, it would be back to teasing and avoidance and denial techniques worthy of a doctoral thesis.
“Yeah, Sam.”
“Then… then maybe, you could come with me.” Sam rubbed his hands on the sheet and forced himself to meet his brother’s eyes. “We could get an apartment.”
Dean’s face shuttered almost instantly, eyes still warm but hardened. “We’ll talk about it later,” he said.
“You’re lying.” Sam faced the window. “You have to stop doing what Dad wants, Dean. It’s destroying you. We both deserve to live our own lives.”
He didn’t have to look back to know Dean was glaring.
“This is my life, Sam. This is my choice. Dad did his best by us and that’s all we can ask for.”
“Yeah,” Sam sighed and closed his eyes. The conversation would go nowhere. “Thanks for taking care of me,” he said after awhile. Like you always do, he didn’t say. Like Dad doesn’t, he really didn’t say.
Dean shifted. “Yeah. You’re welcome.”
Sam closed his eyes. “You deserve more than this,” he tried again, sleep was creeping over his brain. “You could…”
“Go to sleep, Sam.”
Sam let himself drift because Dean always knew what was best. Sometimes it was so clear to Sam that Dean would never leave Dad. But he wanted Dean to come with him, have that normal life that he knew Dean wanted in some deep, closed part of himself.
He wanted Dean to stop being that half-wild thing that Dad had made him into. He wanted him to live in a little town where there were no ghosts or scary creatures - where Dean didn’t end up with a broken bones poking out of his skin miles from the nearest hospital. But Dean would never agree to all those white picket fences and if Sam wanted that life, he was going to have to give up a little bit on Dean.
But at least Dean wasn’t mad anymore. Sam didn’t have to worry about him finding out about Sam’s escape plan. They could face this together. And Sam had no doubt Dean would get him through this - just like Dean had gotten him over every other scary hurdle in his life. Things would be fine.
“It’ll be okay,” he mumbled just before he fully fell asleep. “We’ll work things out, Dean.”
He felt Dean shift closer, felt the bed dip when Dean put his hands on the mattress. “Yeah, Sammy, I know it’ll be.”
The End.