Carry On My Wayward Son

[SexualOddity]

Oh man... this is another birthday gift fic for someone who's birthday was in January. I ought to be shot. It's looking like the best way to get a timely birthday fic from me is to tell me it's your birthday about three-four months before it actually is. Anyway, for MadameNaan on LJ happy...um...birthday?

(Also I'm sorry, I kinda took a liberty with the title. I feel like that should have been saved for a better fic than this, but once I'd thought of it I couldn't think of a substitute that really said what I wanted to say. So...forgive me?)

--

Forget ‘Supernatural’, or ‘The Winchester Gospels’ or whatever else Heaven and the Angels thought they had cooked up for them, if there ever was an honest-to-goodness story of their life it would be a chronicle of fucking shitty ass timing. Dean shifts up a gear and floors the gas, not actually convinced that he wants to get there any faster. He could probably have stopped the Apocalypse, he figures, if he’d have been five minutes earlier at those Church doors. Hell, while he’s wishing for stuff, he may as well have taken a five minute start on his way down to Cold Oak, punched out that frigging psychic Superman and kept the pair of them off this shitty ass merry-go-round to begin with.

There would still have been demons: that’s what Sam would say. There would still have been evil. Their Mom, their Dad, Jess: they would all have still died. This is bigger than any of that because it stops it all. It’s not personal anymore. It’s about the Moms and the Dads and the Jesses of the future. That’s what Sam would say. But Dean eyeballs his brother, shivering in the passenger seat, thinks about where he’s driving him to, and wonders how the hell he’s supposed to avoid treating this as personal.

They’d argued for thirty minutes about stopping, they’d continued to argue when Dean had pulled off the freeway, and Sam, God bless his stubborn, irritating heart, had kept on arguing between bouts of coughing, even when they had paid the motel owners and were traipsing to their room up three flights of stairs. Sam had to be ready, that’s what he said. He couldn’t stop now, because there was no telling when he’d have to step up. Sam did have to be ready, whether Dean liked it or not, and that’s exactly why Dean wouldn’t waver when Sam insisted that they kept on driving.

He couldn’t miss the fact that Sam had been coughing pretty much since they left Missouri, not long after that he’d noticed him losing colour and tiring way too quick. When he’d woken up sneezing and congested, Dean had decided that it was pretty much time to stop.

“That’s it. I’m finding a motel room.”

Sam had rubbed his nose with his sleeve and shuffled up in his seat. “Shit, sorry… I didn’t thindk. You tired? You wandt bme to drive?”

“God no. You’re sick. I want you to rest up.”

Sam just sniffled and stared at him. “I have a cold maybe… I…”

“What?”

“I thindk I rembember you savindg the world with a bleedindg gundshot wound.”

That didn’t matter though. When the pressure was on, whatever happened, Dean would do what he needed to do. Stepping in, making things happen: that wasn’t a problem. Standing to one side while his brother went head to head against God-only-knew-what-kind-of-trials, that was a little different. Well, Dean didn’t have a whole lot of control over that. But one thing he could influence was the state Sammy was in when he went up against these things. Or, he thought he could anyway.

After a lot of arguing, and the remains of an old bottle of Nyquil from the trunk, Dean finally got Sam into a restless, congested sleep and was considering a supply trip to the nearest drugstore. Of course, that was when the phone rang.

After the call, Dean had pretty much convinced himself that his best move was to seek out another fucking hell hound and do this whole thing right, when Sam had shuffled under the covers.

“Who phonded?” he managed, between coughs.

Dean sighed. He was tired, and there would be little point in lying, even if a convincing excuse hadn’t have eluded him.

“That was Kevin.”

**

“Ihh…hnnh HUhhTCHhhYew! HhhHSHhhh’yew! USHHhhuh! Huh’USHhhhuh! HuhhhH’ASHHHhhyew! Ugh, crabp.”

Sam pulls out a roll of toilet paper, lifted from the motel bathroom, and separates a length to blow his nose.

“We should get you some proper supplies.”

But it’s late, and they’re headed to the interstate and probably the best they can get is a late night service station. They’ll have aspirin though, and actual tissues. It’d be something.

Sam doesn’t even get time to answer back, before he’s curling over with that horrible fucking, hacking cough, that Dean could swear sounds deeper and rattlier every time he hears it. Sam grabs at the toilet roll again, scrunching up a piece against his mouth. When he’s done that piece doesn’t drop into the footwell along with all the snotty tissues, Sam looks away and crams it into his pocket. Fucking great.

“Sammy… maybe we should talk about our options here…”

Sam just looks over at him, exhausted, eyes all stuffed-up and shimmery, mouth lulling open as his only way to breathe. He scrunches up his face and rubs a fist against his nose as if he needs to sneeze.

“I know you just wanna finish this, and God knows I get that, but if you go up against this thing and you don’t beat its ass…”

“I will,” Sam interjects, wrinkling his nose. When Dean doesn’t respond he clears his throat and tries again. “We dond't even kndow whadt idt is yedt.”

“Last time it was frigging hellhounds! Shit Sam, the way you look right now I’m not sure I’d put you up against an attic ghost.”

“That’s - hhhuh…” He turns to look over his shoulder at the passenger side window “HhhhuhUSHHHhah! HahhTtttISHHhhhh! That’s stubpid.” He tries an ineffectual sniffle and settles in the end for just pressing toilet paper against his running nose. “I have a cold. How mbandy timbes has thadt kebpt you fromb hunting?”

Dean wants to tell him that it’s different this time. That Sam’s always been hardy, tough, Even when his head was all over the place he was always, at least, physically resistant. Over the past few weeks Dean has seen him crumple. He still has this goddamn ginormous body, and huge fucking shoulders, but he’s turning into this little sleepy, shivery thing that picks at it’s food and has to work at things that ought to be easy.

Dean’s not sure, but he thinks that his clothing is hanging off him a little more and he’s practically certain that he’s fastening his belt a couple of notches tighter. This illness is worrying, because he’s not brushing it off like he usually would, but really it’s a symptom of something much bigger. Dean doesn’t tell Sam that though, maybe if he said it out loud it would be the final acknowledgement that his brother was in trouble. Maybe he isn’t quite ready for that.

So he keeps on driving.

[Sawyer]

OHHHH MAN. Happy birthday to her!!! Happy Easter to me! I seriously jumped when I saw that you had posted something!

This is sooooo good. Sam is sooooo sick! And then he has a cold on top of it! And he's been getting so much weaker (so much!) and god, poor baby, that cough (I love it) and not being able to breathe through his nose! Oh my god, how sweet, he's so sweet and broken and sneezing and Dean is SOO CONCERNED for him, wanting to pick up supplies and keep him from going out to fight!

And Sam coughing into the tissues! How cute. And when he had to hide it because of -- reasons -- it was so sad and suspicious and I just feel SO BAD FOR THEM BOTH in a really really good way. I totally love this.

[All Time No]

*climbs out if my hole* will there be more? Please continue... *climbs back in and goes back to lurking*

[SexualOddity]

I did actually think about carrying it on, or perhaps of including the actual trial in the story, but I'd have to make up a trial and in a couple of weeks when we know what the actual trial is it might look completely lame or incongruent. But hey, if people are interested, maybe I'll pick it up again when we know more canon.

[SexualOddity]

Ah okay... actually just re-read this fic and we have had another trial afterwards haven't we? Sorry. Blank moment there. But yeah... Writing stuff for TG's meme at the moment, but I might come back to this when that has finished.

[Sawyer]

You're so awesome! Maybe after the season finale when the meme has also quieted down some? Plus then we'll know all of the trials and everything!

[sneezychick93]

so good!!! oh my goodness i loved it!! PLEASE KEEP GOING!!!

[Zwee]

Aaaahhhhhhhh!!!! WHY ARE YOU SO GOOD AT WRITING?? This is not real life. Is it???

This captures the emotions of Sam and Dean right now so well. They're tense and not entirely honest with each other because Sam's saying he's fine, and Dean's saying he supports Sam completely and will let him do the trials alone, but neither of them want to admit that it's not true!! This is soooo good. And also Sam's sick. He's sick and he's also got a cold and I'm just too full of adoration for this story.

I'm. Not. Breathing.

[sneezysammy345]

KEEP THIS GOING PLEASE!!!!