Modern Medicine

[SexualOddity]

Hey, so we're up and going with the meme, check it out here: http://sexualoddity.livejournal.com/9827.html if you're interested.

This is my first contribution, prompt to follow:

--

Sometimes it’s tough to make any real kind of sense of it. The road is long and straight and Dean’s mind drifts as he drives. His hands are calloused and rough against the wheel, more than they were when he drove the car to the storage shed and said goodbye, Dean is nearly certain. The backs of his hands right up to the sleeve of his jacket are criss-crossed with scars. Not bites or scratches, not these ones anyway, just a network of nicks and scrapes, from foraging, most often, or from digging out a shelter. He’s changed, he’s not in any doubt of that, but the rest of everything is so damn different that he can’t figure out how much of the tentative awkwardness is a result of Purgatory and how much thanks to the distance that Sam travelled while he’d been gone. Suddenly, Dean doesn’t quite fit, and he’s still not sure whether it’s down to him, down to life on Earth, or down to Sam.

He looks across at his brother, leaning against the passenger side window. Sam changed, more than just aging a year, more than just growing sloppy and domesticated. Considering this, Dean’s mind is almost drawn to their first conversation, but Dean is so damn far from ready to make sense of that right now. His stomach knots and he thinks instead of Sam at the orphanage. They’re dipping into the worst of the winter, and most of the kids had coughs and colds and luminous green snot dribbling over their faces to show for it. And yeah, it was a little gross, but there was intel to get and, well, it’s a cold virus, what’s it really gonna do? But Sam was all hesitant, making sure not to touch anyone and wincing in discomfort when any of the brats sneezed in his direction. Sam hadn’t been like that before. Or had he? And if so, what was the deal? Kid grew up on Ghosts and Werewolves, what the hell’s he got to worry about a fucking virus? Then the minute they’re out of the car Sam’s as good as bathing himself in Purell that he dug from out the glove compartment (and since when did Sam start carrying that shit around in the first place?)

That’s what makes it almost amusing that a day later Dean, who refused the alcohol gel, and dug out and ate a sandwich while Sam gaped in horror, is doing fine; while super-sensitive-Sam is starting with a runny nose and a stubborn cough. When Dean looks across at him again he’s scrubbing the backs of his fingers under his nose. His breath catches, and he abruptly changes tack, grappling in his pocket for the squashed roll of toilet paper that Dean assumes he lifted from the motel bathroom before they left.

“UhTSHHHhhyuh! TSHHH! TSHHH! TSHHhUhh!”

“You okay there, Sammy?”

“’m getting sick,” Sam mutters, shutting his eyes and pinching at the bridge of his nose as he presses his head back against the passenger seat.

Dean eyes him. He was expecting denial, maybe even a fight about it. Isn’t that what he remembers? Or is it just how he would act around Sam now if they’re positions were reversed. And suddenly it’s a jumble of childhood-and-Purgatory-and-Sam-memories that threatens to make his head spin. Deciding he’s too tired to set about unknotting it all right now, he cranks the music up and concentrates on the road.

--

Sam’s laptop is shut when Dean makes it back from the round of interviews, and the chair on which Dean had expected to find his brother is empty and pulled away from the desk. To his surprise, he finds Sam cross-legged on the bed, a tissue crushed up under his nose and all manner of bottles and boxes strewn around him on the blankets.

“Where’d all this stuff come from?”

“I did a pharmbacy rund” Sam is as stuffy as hell and husky, his voice threatening to give out over a fucking five word sentence.

Dean sinks onto the bed opposite.

“Jesus. You should crappy.”

“Yeah.” He pulls out his collar and studies his chest. “Vapour rub’s dnot really helpindg.” He attempts a couple of noisy sniffs under his shirt, but only emerges with nostrils that have flushed an even angrier shade of red and are just now beginning to twitch. He gropes blindly on the bed for his box of tissues and pulls a couple free.

“Ehhh….Hhhhh-ehhhHUHHhTSHHHhYew! ‘TSHHHyew! HuhUSHHhyuh! ESHHHhh! Urgh, God.” He drops his head into his hands and coughs before sighing, stretching, and reaching out for one of several bottles.

Dean picks up the Kleenex box for a closer look. The pattern on the cardboard is pink and the tissues are apparently, ‘infused with aloe vera’. Dean just frowns at them, and then at Sam, and sets them back down against the bed.

Sam coughs again and pulls off his shirt, settling back against the mattress. With a sharp tug he brings the blanket up around his shoulders, sending medicines and balls of used Kleenex tumbling to the floor. Dean’s not sure quite what to say.

“You know we have work to do, right…?”

Sam burrows into the pillow. “Dnot mbe.”

“What?”

Sam sniffs, lazily opens his eyes. He coughs, but it doesn’t seem to do much to clear his throat. “Ndot mbe. EHHTttSCHyew! Fuck. I’bm serious. I’bm worse. Mby fever’s ubp. I’bm gondda take a couple of days to beadt this thindg.”

“We’re hunting,” Dean tells him, as if it’s all the argument needed, because, really, it should be.

Sam has already closed his eyes. “We have a good week before the ndext attack.”

Dean is at a loss.

“Sam. It’s a cold.”

Sam shuffles up in the bed, grabbing a few extra tissues from the box by his side. He’s uncomfortable, Dean can see.

“And?” Sam croakes.

“And what?”

“EhhhTSHHHshYew! UhhSHhhUh!” Sam blows his nose. “Whadt differendce does thadt bmake?”

“Because… we fight through this crap. We fight through way worse than it. Because we’re doing a job.”

And all at once, Dean feels on insubstantial footing. He is remembering this right, surely..? Are his measures just that skewed from Purgatory and the constant need to keep on going.

“We don’t just quit hunting in the middle of a job.” He tries to say it firmly, but even as the words leave his mouth he’s doubting them.

Sam coughs.

“Dno Dean,” Sam answers, eventually. “You kdnow whadt we do?”

The tension that Dean didn’t know was knotting his muscles begins to relax, because the truth is, he’s not sure, and he wants Sam to answer his own question.

“We keebp fightindg,” Sam continues. “We fight ourselves indto the groundd, usually indjure ourselves ind the process. Thend we’re oudt of it for, like, a week, because because by thend we’re too wornd out to shake the dabmnd thindg.” He sighs. “I’mb gondda take sombe bmedicinde and onde, bmaybe two days, tops. I’ll be fidt and healthy londg before we have to be ubp and about for roundd three.”

Talking has obviously exhausted him, because he curls forward, coughing endlessly into his cupped hands. He’s shivering by the time he’s finished. And against any kind of reason, something tightens in Dean’s gut. He picks up a plastic measure from the nightstand.

“So what was the reading on your… uh… thermometer.” The word actually eludes him for a minute. It’s a relief. Yes. This word is unfamiliar because they don’t do this. They do hands-cupped-around foreheads and whatever pills are in the first aid kit that week.

“Onde-oh-onde poindt six.”

Dean’s eyebrows raise. He’s still vaguely aware that it changes nothing, that temperature, like everything else is relelvant. It can’t be more than three months ago that he was on his side in the mud and wet leaves, writhing with fever after infection set in from a dirty wound. God only knows what kind of temperatures he worked his way up to back then, and he certainly didn’t have a thermometer to tell him.

Even so, the knot in his stomach isn’t loosening , and he sinks down onto the bed next to his brother, clasps a hand around his arm.

“You got this pretty bad, huh, kid?”

Sam tries to sniff and leans back against the headboard, bundling blankets around himself.

“Yeah,” he mutters.

Dean casts an eye on the medicines Sam has littered across the bed and floor. “How did you even know about this stuff?”

“I’ve beend with dnormbal people. Ndormbal people use this stuff.”

Sam sinks back against the bed and leans on the pillow, but he’s tense, skin tight at the corners of his eyes. Dean wonders if he has a headache. They sit like this for a good ten minutes and Sam doesn’t seem to make it any nearer to sleep. Dean fiddles absently at one of the packets where he’s sat.

“Hey Sam?”

Sam murmurs in response.

“What’s this one do?”

Sam reaches a weary arm out from under the blanket, sniffs and brings the box closer to his face.

“Idt’s like mbedicinde ind a drindk.” He coughs, “Kindd of a bidt bmore soothindg. Good for your throadt.”

“You take this one yet? You sound like you need it."

“Ndo ndot yet. I’d have to boil a kettle. I’ll take idt later. I jusdt wanted to take endough to sleep for dnow. Whadt I thought was endough…” he grumbles, on second thought.

“I could boil a kettle for you?” Dean offers. He feels brighter, though he’s not totally sure why.

“Yeah..?”

“Sure.” Dean rips open the box and fingers inside. There’s more than half a dozen packets inside, but they’re plain white plastic with nothing but a product number stamped across the centre. Dean pulls a couple out and frowns at them.

“Deand…” Sam’s voice is muffled in layers of bedsheets. “Indstrucdtions are ond the back of the box.”

--

Prompt, by 27_JaredJensen:

S8. Sam and Dean are in an environment where there are germs. Dean is like lol I just spent a year in purgatory wtf are germs, and Sam is like omg germs gtfo. So naturally Sam then gets sick. Dean finds him resting in bed with lotion-y tissues and all kinds of medicine and shit in the middle of a case, because that’s what he did in the past year when he was sick- he took time off and rested and bought all the stuff he needed that they never really cared about while living on the road/hunting. (feel free to insert some flashbacks, Sam/Amelia, etc.) And maybe Dean is like, ew don’t expect me to cuddle you like you’re probably used to now, it’s JUST A COLD, but then of course he still takes care of his poor sick little brother.

[EmeraldThread]

This is awesome! I don't know a thing about Supernatural, but I love scenarios where one character is sick and the other is telling them to work through it. Sick, feverish Sam is so cute and then caretaker-y Dean, just YES. Every time I read your fics, they just draw me in, and I think this one has become one of my favorites.