Homespun (SPN fic)

[Sawyer]

Written for my meme here! (Come and join!)

Prompt by SexualOddity: They haven't had all that much cause to discover this before, but it turns out that Sam is completely and helplessly allergic to domesticity - hoovering, dusting, cleaning products, pot plants, the whole kit and caboodle. The bunker turns out to be something of a mixed blessing.

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-

Sam hasn’t said anything about it, but Dean still knows that he’s woken up every morning with a stuffy nose and a raw throat that would linger until he popped a couple of Benadryl at breakfast. But because Sam isn’t making a big deal out of it, then perhaps Dean won’t, either.

But that doesn’t mean that he isn’t going to do something about it. So when Sam ambles into the kitchen at 6:30AM sharp and winces as he clears his throat before mumbling a congested “Mbornindg,” Dean decides that he’s finally had it.

“Y’know, I was thinking we’d do a little spring cleaning today.”

The bunker isn’t exactly pristine. Yeah, Dean’s kept the kitchen near-sparkling and the library is certainly clean enough, but the rest of the place is more or less covered in dust and grime and probably mold, given that it’s been left untouched for so many years.

Sam’s eyebrows jump up like he’s surprised, but the expression dissipates as quickly as it came. “Yeah,” he agrees hoarsely, clears his throat and pushes his hair away from his face. “Yeah, uh, sounds good. We got supplies?”

Dean just grins and says, “Let’s get to work.”

-

“Huhh’hh! Hh’hh’HUH’ESSHhsh!” Sam’s first task was to wipe down the table in the library, so he’s armed with a roll of fresh paper towels and a bottle of green all-purpose cleaner that Dean had assumed wouldn’t give him any trouble. “Huh’ISHHCHhuh!”

Obviously, he had failed to calculate that Sam would still be sensitive from this morning – and that perhaps a strongly scented chemical solution wouldn’t be the easiest on his sinuses.

“HihhIHSHHchh!”

“All right, give me that.” Dean snatches the bottle from Sam’s hands while his head is still buried in his shoulder. “Pretty counterproductive with you blowing snot everywhere, don’t you think?”

“Shhuhh… Shut up. NghISHHhuh!”

“Uh huh.” Dean rips off a sheet of paper towel and presses it into Sam’s hands. “Here, why don’t you and your allergies go and vacuum in the other room. Use the cleaning powder first. I’ll take care of this.”

-

After Sam blows his nose, Dean hears a little clattering and a lot of sniffling and when he looks over a few minutes later, he sees Sam applying the carpet shake with one hand and using the other to pull his shirt collar over the lower half of his face.

“Dude, what are you doing?”

Sam drops the collar to answer, but instead of speaking he gasps involuntarily and turns to face the wall, sneezing as if it’s a demonstration. “HhhHH’KTCHchshew! KtTchISHHEW! Uh. Sniff! If I do it this way, it won’t make me sneeze.”

“Seriously? You’re allergic to this stuff too?”

“It’s a scented powder, Dean…”

Dean rolls his eyes and smiles a little (because Sam is really fine, he’s fine), then sprays a little more of the cleaner onto the table while Sam recovers his face into his shirt.

“I don’t think I’m really allergic,” Sam amends, speaking a little more loudly to make up for the muffled quality that the shirt fabric has given his voice. “It just… gets into the air and irritates me, I don’t know. Sniff!”

Sam blows his nose a couple more times before he actually takes out the vacuum, a beat-up-but-still-working old thing that Dean, tight on money, had picked up at a secondhand store. He’d bought it unassembled but, given his own engineering genius, hadn’t had much of a problem putting it together.

Just as Sam hadn’t had a problem turning it on, it seems, as the aggressive hum of the machine drowns out the sounds of his own incessant (but dwindling) sniffling. Dean begins to dust the shelves, courteously making sure to swipe in the opposite direction of the open doorway that leads to the room Sam is in. He feels productive and relaxed, surprisingly but pleasantly domestic.

And then, without rhyme or reason, the air becomes quiet again, the vacuum having stopped far too soon for Sam to have already finished. Dean hears a clicking, popping noise and turns his head to see that the top of the vacuum has come undone, exposing the filter, which then emits a thick cloud of dust that floats upwards and directly in front of Sam’s face.

Sam doesn’t even bother trying to repair the appliance, and instead stumbles 180 degrees and sneezes into his hands.

“UhtCHSHHUH! KhhHhUH’ISHSHEW! Damn it – huhh-hh’AESSHUH! ITSHHUH! TSHHCHEW! ISSHEW! Hh’uhh’USSHEW!”

Dean is fast to act, moving quickly to reach the vacuum and roll it further away from Sam and into the other room. He knows that Sam will be out of commission for a while and will definitely need to stay away from this room, with all of its dust-polluted air.

“Huh’hhESSHUH! HpTSSCHUH!”

Sam’s got residue from the explosion sprinkled on his shoulders and the front of his shirt and even some in his hair, further infecting the air surrounding Sam as his entire body shakes with each violent, convulsing sneeze. Dean’s already planning to bag Sam’s clothes and take them to the laundromat, lest he contaminate their own washing machine with hundred-year-old dust.

Sam rubs his nose until it’s bright cherry pink in order to stave off the rest of the fit, and Dean says, “I think you’re done for the day.”

“Uhh… hh’ISHHEW! God!”

“You go and take a shower,” Dean instructs, grabbing his brother by the arm and leading him down the hall. “I’ll take care of… all of this. We can try again tomorrow.”

[MaiMai]

Eeeee this so adorable!!! I love how protective Dean is and just everything it's so perfect!! Awww, I love this so much!