Whatever happened to Wendigo-hunting?

[SexualOddity]

Another late, late, late one for my meme. (Ridiculously hot) Prompt below:

--

Sam’s head is swimming now, no doubt it’s at least partly to do with the lack of sleep, but there’s a growing realisation between the pair of them that as tall, and broad, and resistant as Sam might be, they really have overdone it with antihistamines this time.

“HurrHuhhASHHHhhyew! ASHHHyew! HahhSh’AHhh!”

Sam stumbles over his own feet, presses a hand on Dean’s chest to steady himself.

“Okay, okay, c’mon,” Dean murmurs. “We’re sitting you back down.”

Dean’s grip is firm against his upper arms, and it guides him backwards until the backs of his calves bump the side of the bed. Dean eases him onto the mattress when his knees buckle, and presses a wad of Kleenex into his open hand.

It actually takes a breath to gather his strength, before Sam can stand to burrow his nose into the paper and blow as hard as he can manage. Dean bought soft, expensive tissues a couple of days back, but now even they are cutting into his nose. It’s too rough and dry and irritated, and sure enough, there are blotches of blood left on the tissue from where the skin on his nostrils has peeled away.

From under the haze, Sam can hear Dean sigh.

“What am I gonna do with you kiddo?”

Sam wonders for a moment whether he’s supposed to respond, but since he doesn’t know the answer either way, he swallows hard instead, trying to catch the itch teasing at the back of his throat.

“We have a couple different types of medicine if you wanna try something else?” Dean offers.

Sam shakes his head and has to grasp at the mattress when the world slides along with his line of vision.

“Dno,” he croakes. “Dno mbore right dnow.”

“You sure? Seems like they’re making a difference, finally. Plus, you know, knocking you out right might not be such a bad thing.”

Sam sniffs as hard as he can manage, but he’s too congested for it to make a lot of difference. It’s tempting. God knows, he can’t have slept more than a couple of hours in the last three days, and even that was in restless-ten-minute spells, but much as the tablets are squashing back symptoms, he doubts it’ll be enough for any real kind of respite.

It’s worse now, in fact, medicated up to his eyeballs, and not just because of the unnerving dizziness, it’s because he’s stopped sneezing, but he sure as hell hasn’t stopped itching. The cocktail of allergy remedies have stripped away none of the impetus but all of the release. Worse, dazed from medication, everything else is slipping apart from this impossible tickling, in his eyes, his sinuses, right down his throat. His feet have curled against the carpet, his hands tightened into fists, his teeth clamped down on the inside of his cheek, all in effort to do something with the bottomless feeling.

He pulls the sleeve of his hoodie over his hand, and seriously considers sticking his face in it. Poor Dean, when he realised how much the dust from the clothes in the duffel was making Sam sneeze, he bundled up the whole lot for a laundry room trip. Trouble is, now it’s the smell of laundry powder that’s getting to him, and even after consuming a quarter of his body weight in antihistamines, just the hint of the stuff coming from his clothes is multiplying the tickling.

“Hey Sammy…” Dean begins, and Sam looks hazily up at him. “Anything I can do?”

Sam just shrugs, presses his nose into the fabric and loses himself in sneeze after sneeze.

**

Sam shuffles backwards on rocky ground as a burst of energy storms towards him. It’s faster than a Spirit, less substantial than a ghoul, and pouring through everything they have on Mythology and Lore has brought up no reliable leads. Things have been getting desperate though, so they’ve resolved to go with the best option they have.

As it closes in, Sam hefts his axe over his shoulder and swings in an almighty arc, slicing iron right through the closest thing that Sam can see to a neck. There’s a howl, and the head disconnects, an other-worldly green gas pouring out into the air.

That’s when Sam sinks to his knees, desperate and clutching at his eyes, at his sinuses, burning and sneezing hopelessly towards the floor.

**

There’s a rush of air and light and itch as Sam chokes awake. His hand closes around his ribs as he fights to catch his breath, and by the time he’s collapsing back against the mattress he’s sneezing and sneezing and endlessly sneezing.

Dean’s hand is rubbing circles against his back.

“It’s okay, Sammy. Hey, it’s okay. Always worse in the mornings, remember?”

Dean’s right. In hayfever season, Sam usually wakes up fucking miserable. When he was a kid Dean used to tell him that his allergies have given him a whole eight hours off for sleeping, and what the hell more does he want. He was kind about it though, and it kept Sam from dwelling on the whole thing for too long.

Now, Sam feels Dean’s arm around his shoulders as he sits him up, hears the rip of tissues being pulled from out the box, feels Dean hand warm and cupped around his nose, pressing Kleenex up against his face. Sam just gives up and lets the attack overtake him.

**

“You slowing up a little there kiddo?”

Sam nods. He is. They must be going on for their tenth bundle of tissue. When Dean pulls it away from his face Sam takes the tissue box into his own arms and curls up on the bed.

“ESHHshyew! HuhhhUhhHUH’ESHHyew! Ugh.” He presses Kleenex against his face and tries to sniff.

“Hour and twenty minutes sleep Sammy, I’m proud of you.”

Sam just murmurs in agreement, his face burrowed against the pillow. It’s the longest he’s managed to stay asleep since the whole thing started. He hasn’t managed to get a decent look at Dean yet, but he imagines from the crack in his voice that he’s more than a little sleep-deprived himself.

“I was pretty out of it ond allergy bmeds.”

“Yeah, not gonna argue with that. We can go for the same thing again if you want.”

Sam is about to answer when the breath suddenly shudders from his lungs as the tickling in the back of his nose suddenly triplicates. It’s all he can do to snatch a little to replace it before he’s taken over by another fit.

“HuhhASHHHyuh! ASHHHyuh! ESHH! ESHH! ESHH! ESSHH! HuhESHHH!”

“Bless you.” Sam can feel Dean’s fingers in his hair, rubbing circles on his scalp.

“EhhTSCHHhhUh! TSCHhUH! Huh’Huh’HISHH’YEW HihTtCHhYew! ‘TSCHYew! TSCHYew! HuhhASHHahh!”

When it stops, it’s all Sam can do to hold himself upright and blink at the carpet, dazed.

“You want me to dose you up again?”

Sam tries to clear his throat and shakes his head. “I didnd’t like all the bmedicationd,” he tells Dean, “Jusdt stopped bme fromb sndeezing whend I really dneeded to, and it bmade bme dizzy.”

“Okay,” Dean begins, uncertain. “You’re gotta take something though.” He holds out a box.

Sam gives a non-committal murmur and swallows two of the offered tablets.

“TCHHhh’HISHshYew! EHhTCHhh! Has Bobby found oudt whadt we were fightindg yet?”

“Not yet, once he knows, he’ll be in touch.”

Sam sighs. “You’re gondda take bme to a clindic arend’t you?” He blinks up at Dean, exhausted. “KUSHHshYew! KSHHHshyew! HuhhUSHHshyew!”

Dean doesn’t answer right away. He knows it’s the last thing that Sam wants. Quite aside from the fact that it means heading back outside, into all manner of smells and sensations and allergens, all unpredictable and beyond his power to manage, it means concocting some sort of plausible story to tell the doctor, no doubt whilst in the throes of an allergy attack, and probably they’ll only succeed in finding out that the thing isn’t medically fixable.

Sam’s still hoping on Bobby, that he’ll pull out some intel on whatever it was that they were fighting. Find out if they’re likely to come across more of them, discover the nature of that green gas, with any luck, pick up some kind of indication of the best way to piece his immune system back together..

“We’ll give Bobby another day,” Dean agrees at last, “on one condition.”

When Sam looks up at him through watery eyes, Dean takes a tube from out his pocket. “I picked this up for you at the store today. I can’t keep watching you all peeling and bloody and wincing every time you sneeze. And don’t think I don’t see you doing everything to keep from blowing your nose.”

Sam shifts uncomfortably on the bed. He’s barely dared to touch his nose himself over the past few days: the thought of Dean’s fingers all over it, with, God, with scented lotion.

“It’s the mildest stuff they had,” Dean reassures him. “Hypoallergenic. And I’ll be gentle.”

Sam doesn’t feel he has a great deal of choice.

They’re talking about two things to deal with, just two things: the pressure of Dean’s fingers and the smell of the lotion. The alternative is outside and that could mean any number of irritants. Sam’s sinuses still ache with the memory of stumbling out of the car and up to the motel room. As crappy as he’s been feeling, their little twenty-dollar-a-night-space has become something as a protective bubble. He’s not ready to break it just yet.

“You’re gondda mbake mbe allergic to bmy ownd dnose,” Sam grumbles.

“Yeah, maybe.” Dean sighs, “but you’ll feel better.”

Sam can’t deny that the physical pain in his nose has been one of the most miserable things. It’s so raw now. And he’s been so desperately dependant on the tissues, on rubbing it dry when it ran, and rubbing off layers of skin in the process. He settles back on the mattress at Dean’s instruction and then just takes a breath and prepares himself for the worst.

It starts almost immediately, the minute that Dean twists off the cap. Dean was right, it’s only gently scented, but it’s more than enough. Every smell, the lingering scent of Dean’s lunch after he’s eaten it out in the corridor, the faint aroma of toothpaste on Dean’s breath in a morning. It’s the reason Sam hasn’t eaten and has barely cleaned himself during the past three days. It’s the reason he’s terrified to step outside.

There’s an involuntary groan at the back of Sam’s throat and Dean looks up from smearing the stuff over his fingers.

“I know kid, I’m sorry. I’ll try and be quick.”

Dean leans in closer, and tears tumble instantly over Sam’s cheeks in ineffectual defence, as the continued itching in his nose buzzes into an unavoidable climax.

“HuhhKh’HESHHuh!”

Sam is jerking forward before he even realises the sneeze is on top of him. Dean reaches for a tissue, but mercifully he doesn’t press it right onto Sam’s nose, just holds it protectively in front of his face. The feeling isn’t slowing, and apparently that much is obvious, because Dean hasn’t moved back in with those lotion-covered fingertips.

“NnnghhTSHHhUhh! EHTttSCHYEW! TSHCH’UH! TuhHSCHhhUh! HEhPTCH’ChissshhYew! ESCHHHuhhh!”

Sam just flops back on the bed, his lungs ache and he’s exhausted, but this is nothing new.

“Okay. You’re doing good kid. Catch your breath.”

“God, Deand, I dond’t thindk…”

“Five minutes. Just do this thing for me and I’ll leave you alone, I promise. You can have eye drops and B movies and hypoallergenic pillows.”

Sam groans, but he doesn’t pull away when Dean closes in with lotion-sticky fingers. They close tight around his nostrils as he gulps at the air.

“Okay, easy there tiger,” Dean soothes, pinching hard at Sam’s nose and easing the cream into the skin with his free fingers.

The pressure is a delicate torture, Dean’s thumb and fourth finger plug up the fit that’s threatening, leaving his lungs to fill and empty with helpless urgency. Dean’s index and middle finger massage the bridge of Sam’s nose, working in lotion that stings against the dried-out skin. Following the stroke of Dean’s hand is a reactive and swelling itch, running down and down the length of his nose with Dean’s fingers, only to be caught up in the mass of congestion and Dean, penning everything in with a pinch.

Dean’s grasp shifts, and Sam knows he wants to move over to his nostrils, but he can’t help jerking his head away from Dean’s reach.

“HuhNKKESHHhhYew!” Sam twists his head at the last moment to sneeze openly toward the mattress, possessed for a moment by a swell of frustrated tickling. He grips at his own nose in an attempt to contain it, as he launches into a fit of unexpected force.

“HhhuhhNGHHH! NGHH! HhhNnnSHhtcYew! HNNNGHTsssshyew! TSHHH’yew! ESHHHhYew! ThhHUHSHHah!”

When it slows for a moment, Sam shuffles towards the end of the bed, hands clasped around his face, waiting for the rest of the attack to play out.

“HehhhTSHHshyew! TSHHshyew! USHHhah! USHHuSHHah! HehhASHHH! ASHHHhh! HehAHThCHYEW!”

Wearily, he stretches himself out on his back on the bed. He’s breathing carefully through his mouth, certain that even the air pushing its way through his runny nose would be enough to render him helpless right now.

“You sure you’re ready for this?”

Sam nods. He just wants it over with.

With his eyes closed he can hear the squeeze of the tube, and he holds his breath, anticipating the worst. This time Dean moves in quickly, pinching with his thumb and forefinger at the top of the fleshy part of Sam’s nostril. He squeezes there for a minute until Sam’s breathing settles somewhat, and starts working his way around Sam’s nose with his free hand.

He works around the outside of Sam’s nostrils first, but that’s over relatively quickly and then he’s easing a finger around where his nose is pinched, trying to moisturise the insides of the base of his nostrils, having to work a finger carefully between the skin in order to get to everything without releasing his grasp. Sam squeezes his eyes shut. He can feel his lungs beginning to fill.

Mercifully, Dean seems to decide he’s finished with the left side and sets to work on the right. He starts with the corners of his nose again and it’s not so bad. The minute he starts to ease a finger over the edge of his nostril though, it’s too much, and before he has realised it, he’s stifling violent sneezes against Dean’s hand.

“I’mb sorry,” Sam mumbles, when he has control over himself.

Dean just shrugs. “All in a day’s work Sammy. We’re nearly there.”

And with that Dean works the lotion into the tip of Sam’s nose and then up and down the septum, stroking with a teasing finger. It’s too light. God he’s desperate for some decent pressure up under his nose, feels like it might actually calm his breathing from jerking and hitching and fluttering out of his control. This, this touch is horrendous: just gentle enough to draw the itching like a lightning rod. He gives a final, desperate gasp.

“HhhNKKKhhTCHyew! Tuh’NSHHHuh! USHHuh!”

He curls right up from his stomach, and fuck fuck, Dean isn’t letting go. Sam wonders how he avoided a headbutt.

“Nghhh! NGHH! HNGHH! HuhNGHH!”

“Okay,” Dean soothes. “Okay Sammy, we’re done.”

Sam groans and flips over onto his stomach, burrowing his face into the pillow and sneezing and sneezing until he settles down.

**

Dean is good to his word, and it’s not long before they’re tucked up under blankets watching the TV. The attack has finished, and there’s nothing left that’s really setting him off, but there’s this lingering low-level irritation that’s bugging him still. They’re about thirty minutes into 'Chainsaw Sally' before Dean says anything.

Sam has the last tissue in his box clasped up against his nose.

“Shit. I thought you’d be better by now.” He says, before leaning over the edge of the bed and fishing for more Kleenex. “It the smell of the lotion?”

“I thindk so.” Sam takes the new box from Dean, and pulls out a fresh tissue. “Huhh…H’ESHhYuh! ESHhSHuh! HehttTSHHshyew!”

Dean winces. “Shit, I’m sorry.”

“Dond’t be,” Sam insists, before blowing his nose. “You helped.”

“You’re all sneezy…”

“Yeah. Budt I’mb dnot sore. Idt’s…” Sam rolls his eyes and reaches again for the box of tissues, “KhhHESHhSHyew! EHTshhYew! HuhhhESHHH!” He sniffs. “Idt’s a lodt better.”

“Okay. Awesome.”

“Yep.” Sam turns his cellphone over in his hand, “Jusdt dneed Bobby to combe through for bme dnow.”

Dean claps him on the shoulder “Any minute now kiddo.”

Sam murmurs in appreciation and rests his head back against his propped up pillow.

“…Hey Sammy..?”

Sam looks across at Dean through sleepy, watery eyes.

“Is now a good time to talk about breakfast and showering?”

Sam sinks down on the mattress and throws the blanket over his face.

--

Prompt (by UntilUntilUntil):

some sort of THING happened on a hunt recently and you can gloss right over this but BASICALLY there was this chemical/heat/supernatural substance of some kind and it bothered sam's nose like crazy and now it is a few days later and his POOR POOR NOSE is still completely fucked up and he is itchy and sneezy like ALL THE TIME. and by like all the time i mean actually all the time. it is BRUTAL, and of course he's sneezing at the drop of a hat at like specks of anything he's allergic to or dean blowing on his nose ummmm or anything like that, and it is pretty much insane and ridiculous but like actually sneezing feels better than just feeling like he has to sneeze all the time soooo. and then there is probably some sex or maybe not but the IMPORTANT part is that AFTER LOTS AND LOTS OF INCIDENTS WITH POOR SAM'S NOSE dean eventually is like okay LIE DOWN we are putting LOTION on it and of course it actually DOES make it feel better but EVEN MORE OF COURSE between dean touching his nose and the smell of the lotion (because the smell of fucking ANYTHING is doing it POOR SAM'S BROKEN NOSE, SERIOUSLY, IT IS SO BROKEN, GUYS, IT'S SO ITCHY) it is not exactly an easy process.

Edited November 25, 2012 by SexualOddity

[stephab13]

Oh sweet baby Jesus.

[sneezysammy345]

Awwww. Poor Sammy. Sore nose and really needing to sneeze. Great fic.