What Sam Needs (SPN, Sam)

[SexualOddity]

Written for tarotgal's prompt on her meme. I'll share the prompt at the end. Hope you like!

--

It could be because he’s too exhausted to fight anymore. It could be because he’s high on allergy medication that isn’t even working. It could be because he feels such an unmitigated failure that he just fucking wants Dean to be right. But for the first time in a long time - in months, probably - Sam feels like maybe he isn’t alone.

It’s been a natural process, really. After their Dad, after Jess, Sam always thought that losing Dean would break him, and it very nearly did do. But ultimately it’s just the same as being cornered by a spirit, or a werewolf, or a pack of demons. If they push you far enough, eventually you have to make a choice. You either fight or you die.

Sam made his choice, and since then he hasn’t stopped fighting.

Which is why he feels so utterly worthless when he realises how easily he goes down.

He’s not cursed, he’s not injured, he’s not sick. It’s hayfever for Christ’s sake, and he couldn’t even keep control of it long enough to take a few syringes of Dead Man’s Blood.

Dean sorted it. He called Bobby, who got a couple of other guys on the job, he packed up the car and drove them out of town, hoping Sam would improve with a little distance from the local pollen (although they’ve gone two hundred miles so far and he hasn’t noticed any difference).

Then he talked to Sam.

--

“You’re a pretty damn good hunter, but you are not the only one.” Dean said, nudging Sam over so he could sit by his side on the bed. “Hunters take breaks. Dad took breaks, if he was hurt, or if he was sick.”

“ I’m not sick.”

“Yeah well, you’ll be hurt quick enough if you try to bust ten vamps sneezing your ass off.”

Dean got up and ambled across to the bathroom. The tap ran, and he re-appeared with a wet flannel.

“Try this on your face. It might help a little.”

It did actually. It was cool where he was hot and soothing where he was swollen and irritated.

“I don’t know where you get the idea that everything on you Sam, but it’s gonna drive you into the ground. Bobby has sorted the vamps’ nest, I’m gonna grab you some more medicine, all you have to do is take a shower and get a little rest.”

“That’s okay for tonight. What if… if I… Oh GodHuhrHUSHH’Ahh! HkKkUSHHhAHh! HEH’TSHHH’AH! ERSHH’ARH!” He gave a long groan and scrubbed at his nose. “What if I’m like this until the end of summer.”

“Let’s see how you are after a shower and a few more miles behind us. If it’s still looking like it’s gonna be a problem, we’ll just have to try a few more medicines, get you allergy shots if we have to.” Dean slapped his thighs, “Okay, here’s what I’m thinking for tonight: decongestants, eyedrops, hot lemon and fancy-pants Kleenex. You can have a hot shower and an extra pillow. How does that sound?”

--

It sounded good, that was the thing. It sounded really damn good.

Sam had been working for a long time on the assumption that Dean just didn’t get him. Dean wasn’t fighting anymore, not like Sam.

When Sam looks at Dean these days he can’t see the guy who despaired of him when he couldn’t kill a victim of possession, or when he wasn’t prepared to finish Jake back in Cold Oak. The fight has gotten bigger now and Dean has given way. And that’s alright. Sam’s not holding it against him. Dean’s been through a lot. He’s given enough. More than enough. But the point is, he’s not a fighter anymore. He doesn’t understand what it is to be a fighter.

But maybe he does understand Sam.

It’s not even really about the physical stuff, although God knows he did get that right: he knew about the itchy eyes, the sore nose and the swollen sinuses, and he had a plan for fixing them before Sam had even raised a word of complaint. But more than that –fuck. He knew what Sam was thinking. When he talked, he spoke right into what Sam fears the most: that everything is resting on his shoulders and when the time comes, he won’t measure up.

He thinks about it, for the first time. Really thinks about it. What if Dean isn’t so out of touch, after all? What if there’s some value in what he’s been saying all along? What if Sam really can lean on Dean, on Bobby? What if there is another way, something aside from all the darkness and the demon blood.

It would be good, really good, to believe that. To just lay down arms and let Dean take the lead.

He doesn’t though. Because it doesn’t quite ring true. It’s a beautiful thought, but when’s the last time he and Dean were really that in sync?

--

When Sam starts searching, he doesn’t even know what he’s looking for.

He finds it though, and to his surprise, it takes the shape of a hex bag, flattened and sewn into the lining of his duffel.

He feels different, just from holding the thing in his hands. Actually, he feels like he’s gonna have an allergy attack, which is ridiculous because the past three days have been pretty much continuous allergy attack. The insides of his nostrils were already raw and sensitised, but a map of little prickles bursts out all over them and tears pool in the corners of his eyes.

He’s curious, though, so he holds the bag to his nose and smells the fabric.

It all happens in an instant. The scorching in his nose becomes so intense, so suddenly, that it takes his breath away, just as he tries to gasp in preparation for a sneeze. The result has him doubled over in a coughing fit, his nose twitching and his breath hitching stubbornly whenever it can break free between coughs.

He sneezes so hard he almost trips over the table. It explodes out of him, jarring at his lungs and throat. He scrabbles at the Kleenex box, but his lungs are filling quicker than he can think. He hasn’t even managed to stand back upright before he’s sneezing again, and again, and again.

That solves one mystery.

The next thing Sam finds is the fucking spell.

--

He waits until he’s recovered a little before he takes the bag apart, sat at an open window, wet flannel at his face, but he’s still a complete mess by the time he’s finished. It’s exhausting. He’s already sneezed more in the past week than he has in years, but this is something else, this is threatening to break his record in a single day. By the time he can pull out the components, his face is full and aching. There are three of them: tree sap, knotweed, and something he identifies online as Holy Rope.

He runs them through a quick Google search. The first hit is ‘Mind Penetration, Casting Instruction.’

He wonders whether he should have seen it sooner…

--

The attack came on slow, throughout the whole of their three hour drive. At first he was just a little itchy, and he constantly wanted to sniff. He noticed it, in passing, and hoped he wasn’t coming down with something. It wasn’t until about an hour and a half in that he felt like he was going to sneeze. It was something about the way the tickly feeling moved and collected behind his nose. But he didn’t rub at it. His breath didn’t catch. He wondered whether they still had takeout napkins in the car, but he didn’t reach for them.

Dean shuffled and dragged out a bandana from the pocket of his jeans. He held it to Sam without a word.

“What? How di-HEH…” Sam snatched at the bandana, realising he didn’t have time for questions. “HUH’HTTCHtchyew! HuhhhHKK’TCHtchyew! H’USHCHfhh! Ugh. Sniff. How did you know I needed this?”

“Uh… You looked like you were looking for a na… uh... some Kleenex.”

“Right.”

--

After that, the sneezing had continued. The sun was becoming a problem, peeking out unexpectedly between trees and beaming right into the car, but it wasn’t just that.

It should have been light-tickle-sneeze (probably sneeze, sneeze, sneeze)-done. Irritating, but manageable, and nothing that Sam hadn’t dealt with a million times before.

This was... not the same.

This ticklishness wasn’t a flash fire event, starting with the light and ending with the sneezes. It was persistent, bobbing and changing and irritating but never backing down, no matter how hard his lungs tried to force it out. His eyes weren’t much better, itching coarse and hot, right in the corners. The urge to stop and claw at his face was growing by the minute, but that wouldn’t achieve much except drawing Dean’s attention, so Sam just sniffled and sneezed and tried to find the napkins he was sure were in the back seat.

Once he’d located the takeout bag and used every one of the half dozen napkins it contained, Dean looked over.

“Dude, are you alright?”

Sam was pretty sure that he wasn’t, but the skies had been cloudless and the sun low since they’d entered Tennessee, so the question seemed odd.

“Sniff! Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Are you serious? Sam, you’ve sneezed about twenty times in the last ten minutes.”

“Yeah. It’s a hahhh… a… KTCHyew! HAK’Tchyew! Sniff! It’s a sunny day. I always sneeze a lot on sunny days. Sniff! Normally you don’t bat an eyelid.”

Dean looked away. “Oh. Yeah. I dunno. I guess it seemed different this time.”

There was no real point in denying it.

“Yeah, it seems different to me too,” he sighed and wound up his window. “AhhHPttchYEW!”

--

They pulled over a little way down the road because Dean thought he had some antihistamines in the trunk. A little digging through rifles, shovels, and salt rounds, and he managed to pull them out.

Sam took them. And then he kept on sneezing.

He sneezed successively, in fives, and sixes and sevens at a time. He sneezed so hard that his chest started to ache and his voice turned gravelly. He sneezed until his nose dripped continuously and the skin under his eyes got all puffed up and hot.

When he felt as though he couldn’t possibly take any more, he checked his watch.

Six minutes had passed.

After nine minutes, he was still itching like crazy, rubbing his nose and eyes on his arm. He needed Kleenex. Or another bandana. Or maybe for the goddamn medicine to work.

Nine minutes had to be long enough, it just had to be. They couldn’t expect someone to put up with this for more than nine minutes. He was pretty certain that whenever Dean took an allergy pill he just got better.

There was probably something wrong with the medicine. It was right in the bottom of the trunk; it could have been old. Or maybe the wrong blister pack was in the box and Sam had actually taken an antacid or something. It could happen. Dean always mixed up the rental boxes whenever they had a movie night.

He caught Dean looking across at him then, and wondered whether he should tell him that the tablets were a bust. But then his breath caught and, of course, he started sneezing too much to say anything. By the time he had finished, it had been eleven minutes since he’d taken the medicine.

Eleven minutes.

That was too long. It had to be too long. Something was wrong.

He wiped his eyes and held up the box for a closer look.

Without even taking his eyes off the road, Dean snatched the packet out of his hands and tossed it onto the back seat.

“What’re you..?” Sam croaked.

“They’re in date.”

“What?”

“The antihistamines. They’re in date. Just like I told you when I gave them to you.”

“Hhhuh…HuRrAHSSHhhAHh! HurRHAHTschew! Sniff!” Sam wiped at his nose with the back of his hand. “I wasn’t…”

“Yes you were. Now shut up and give them some fucking time.”

--

After two hours, Dean conceded that the tablets hadn’t worked. The next ones Sam took didn’t work either, or the ones after that. They did find some eye drops that allowed him to walk around without crashing into things, but that was about as far as it went in terms of relief.

It was weird. Sam had had hayfever pretty badly as a kid, but that didn’t explain why his symptoms would reappear so suddenly and so spectacularly now. Dean was in favour of just handing over the job and getting out of the way of whatever local pollen was kicking his ass, but Sam wasn’t about to give way just because of a little inconvenient plant life.

So they headed over to the morgue to carry on with the hunt and everything got a whole lot worse.

A few vials of Dead Man’s Blood. It was a simple enough job, Dean reminded him, but one where they couldn’t afford to announce themselves. Fine. Sam got it. And he’d gotten into a nice little rhythm of squeezing and rubbing at his nose. It was sore as fuck, and soon he was gonna have to sink his head into a box of Kleenex and sneeze until it fell off altogether, but for the time being he had things under control.

It ought to have been easier in the morgue, with all its airtight doors and windows, but the second he entered, the cheap chemical tang of cleaning products went right to his sinuses, exploding the uncomfortable balance he’d been working so hard to achieve.

“Sammy…” Dean whispered.

Sam shook his head, holding up a hand as if to placate Dean.

“It’s hehhh… It’s ohhhh…hah! okay… Hahhh…AhhhHh… IhHhhh…HHhUh…”

It was a fight. As honestly as any wendigo hunt or demon encounter, and a couple of times Sam was seriously on the brink of losing it. But ultimately, finally, he let out a breath, his nose tingling in angry rebellion.

“Jesus, Sammy…” Dean breathed, his tone somewhere between exasperation and relief.

“I’m fine. Just come on.”

As he reached down to open one of the drawers, the sneeze barrelled into him like a freight train. Before he’d even realised what he was doing he’d taken a tremendous breath. He let go the drawer, dropped his syringe kit…

Dean’s fist closed around his nose.

“HnNNG’UHh!”

Sam looked up at him, breathless. “How did you know? That came out of nowhere. I barely knew it was coming.”

Dean just shrugged. “I have allergies, I know how they work.”

“God. You’d have thought you’d found a precognition spell in that witches’ stuff last week,” Sam joked.

Dean gave him such a strange look that it distracted him, just a moment, from the careful control of his breathing. It’s all it took to set him off hitching helplessly.

Within thirty seconds they were racing to the car with security on their tail and not an ounce of dead man’s blood between them.

--

Within five minutes, Sam has a nice little fire going. The smoke in the air of the little room is killing him, but he doesn’t care. When Dean gets back, he’s not taking a second peek inside his brain.

The last corner of the bag is turning to ash and Sam is caught in the middle of a particularly vicious sneezing fit, when the door clicks open.

“Sam? Jesus, you sound…”

Sam looks up blearily, and sees Dean take in the room, Sam’s laptop and the smoking wastepaper basket.

When he speaks, his voice is flat and defeated.

“How did you know?”

Sam shrugs. “You kndew too buch. B-before you… HAhTtiSHhh! Snf! Before you left, you seembed to kndow exactly whad I deeded.”

“ What? That was it? Seriously? Not the bandana or the antihistamines? Not keeping you quiet in the mortuary?”

“Those coud have beed lucky, w-whed’s the last tibe you… heh… HehEHhhhHew! EHhhHuww! HAH’ESSSt! HAH’ESSSt! HAhh….AHhhh… HAH…”

The tickling has been overwhelming ever since fiddling with the hex bag had ramped up his congestion. Sam twists, looking for the light fitting, desperate to trigger a sneeze. Behind the stuffiness, the feeling that had been feathery grows claws, and tears stream down Sam’s face.

“Hur-Ahhh… HAh…. AHH… HURRR’ASHHHHSHYEW!”

“Dude, what is going on with your allergies?”

Annoyed at Dean’s concern, Sam gives a congested sniff. “I duddo, mbabye it has s-sobethidg to do with your huh… your hexbag HhhHewwwHESHHSHYEW!”

“The hexbag?”

“HUH’HIHhhUHhhSHYEW! Snf! I’ve beed worse ever sindce I laid hands on the fuckidg thidg.”

“Oh God Sam, I had no idea. I thought it was hayfever. Shit. I would never have…”

“Are… HAH’ESCH! Are you kiddidg be?”

“What?”

“You’ll happily hack indto mby braind, but baking be sdeeze is where you draw the lide? Uh…TSCHUEW! What the hell is wrondg with you?”

“What choice did I have Sam, come on,” Dean counters, beginning to sound angry for the first time. “You’re not talking to me, you’re sneaking around...”

“And your response is to… to… HkK’SHYEW! HUK’SHEWuhh! HEHT’SCHYEW! HETSCHYEW! EHTSHYEW! EHT’SCHUH! HUH-UH-ISHHHHUH!”

“Okay, Sam, we need to get you away from this smoke.”

“Nhhuh… Nuhh-Huhhh… HuH’HISHHSHYEW! Uh… UHTSCH’SHYEW! USCHH! HUH-USCHHHUH! Ndo.”

“What do you mean, ‘no’?”

“You… AHH’SCHAH! AHhhSCHAH! HURRASCHH’AHhh! “ Sam huffs, catches his breath. “You dod’t get to mbarch back id here and play big brother ndow.”

Groping in the tissue box, Sam finds he has used the last one. He throws it to the ground in annoyance and wipes his face on his arm instead.

Dean pulls a fresh box out of the drugstore bag, opens it up and lays it on the table for Sam. “Look, I get it, I messed up, okay? I just… I knew you were getting into something, I saw an opportunity, and I thought this way I’d find out what was going on.”

Sam grudgingly pulls some Kleenex from the new box and turns his back to blow his nose.

“You know what I actually found?” Dean continues. “The reason why you’re doing this. I don’t know what’s gotten into you but you are terrified of showing any weakness. All I hear about in your thoughts is how everything is on you. And you’re dead wrong. But maybe I get it a little more. You’re doing… whatever it is you’re doing, because you think you have no choice. Well, that’s bullshit. You got me, you got Bobby. The angels apparently have something up their sleeves, whatever you wanna make of that. We got options. We’re not in a corner yet, Sam.”

“Amb… HNghISHHYEW! Amb I supposed to be imbpressed?” Sam’s voice cracks painfully as it rises in pitch. “You learnded this stuff by readindg mby mind. HuRrRISHH’SHYEW! Combe back to be whed you wandda have a real relationship.”

Sam’s phone buzzes in his pocket, and isn’t that perfect timing?

He looks across at Dean, “I thindk Ibm gondda take this call.”

--

“Hey there champ,” Ruby’s voice hums through the earpiece as Sam steps out into the corridor. “I’m betting I know what you need...”

“Yeah Ruby,” Sam answers. “I thindk you do.”

--

Prompt by tarotgal:

He/she can read thoughts now (alien device, curse, magic, alien species, whatever makes sense in your fandom) and gets found out because of knowing whenever someone else is about to sneeze and being ready for it (getting out of the way, handing a tissue, etc.)

[Anilkex]

Sigh.

I love you.

I read it once, read the prompt, then went back and read it again. I love that you made me do that.

There was jumping, and I liked it. The driven angst that was Sam when Dean came back was perfectly illustrated, especially with the ending.

I loved that the sneezing was accidental - not part of the plan at all, and that's the part Dean was sorry for. Which makes Sam's anger more justified, yet makes it sadder that Dean felt that's all he had left, because, as Sam said...

when’s the last time he and Dean were really that in sync?

Lastly, I cannot keep up with the brilliant way you spell out the sneezing. I suck at it, and you're just...like...yeah. MmmmmmMmmmm

I say it every time you write a fic like this (which is every time you write a fic)...you put a depth in there that's worthy of the characters, and leaves me thinking. It's beyond the fun stuff, and that makes it something to go back to repeatedly.

Well...and the fun stuff is...MmmmMmmmm...

[LastHope]

I'm not usually into SPN or SPN fics but this one is glorious! Thank you so much for sharing!

[sierraplaid]

Oh, man. Cute, painful, engrossing.... I like. The exploration of Sam's headspace is really intricate.

This:

“Dude, are you alright?”

Sam was pretty sure that he wasn’t, but the skies had been cloudless and the sun low since they’d entered Tennessee, so the question seemed odd.

“Sniff! Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Are you serious? Sam, you’ve sneezed about twenty times in the last ten minutes.”

Guh. swoon

Also, "Dean always mixed up the rental boxes whenever they had a movie night." This is such a great image and seems like exactly the kind of thing Dean would do.

[Sass]

This was a well thought out story and very original, I really like it because I felt so bad for Sam during that period, everyone was so mean to him.

[Pyrus_Fangmon]

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I love you

[SexualOddity]

I've decided to try to make more of an effort to respond to comments. I used to think, 'yeah but do they really want to read me saying thank you', but then I realised that whenever I comment I check back for a reply, so here goes...

Sigh.

I love you.

I read it once, read the prompt, then went back and read it again. I love that you made me do that.

There was jumping, and I liked it. The driven angst that was Sam when Dean came back was perfectly illustrated, especially with the ending.

I loved that the sneezing was accidental - not part of the plan at all, and that's the part Dean was sorry for. Which makes Sam's anger more justified, yet makes it sadder that Dean felt that's all he had left

The feeling is totally mutual!

I feel like I can't write a story without jumping lately. This did start out chronological, but I was kind of boring myself as I was writing it. I think maybe I don't really have the skill yet to keep a reader hooked in for a resolution at the end. It just feels a bit like 'yeah, these are a bunch of things that happened, so what?' if I can't make the point I want to make at the start. But I'm glad the jumping is still working for you!

I think it's easier for Dean to be sorry for the physical side of it because he can understand that part more easily.

Thank you for your comment, you always say the nicest stuff x

I'm not usually into SPN or SPN fics but this one is glorious! Thank you so much for sharing!

Yay! Thank you. I feel like this isn't a very easy one to get into if you're not into the series, because it's quite specific to the season in which it's set. But I'm glad it worked for you anyway.

Oh, man. Cute, painful, engrossing.... I like. The exploration of Sam's headspace is really intricate.

This:

“Dude, are you alright?”

Sam was pretty sure that he wasn’t, but the skies had been cloudless and the sun low since they’d entered Tennessee, so the question seemed odd.

“Sniff! Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Are you serious? Sam, you’ve sneezed about twenty times in the last ten minutes.”

Guh. swoon

Also, "Dean always mixed up the rental boxes whenever they had a movie night." This is such a great image and seems like exactly the kind of thing Dean would do.

Oh man. Thank you so much! I've been loving your fics so I'm glad to have shared something you can enjoy in return.

I'm glad that you liked the Sammy-brain stuff. That is my favourite thing about fanfiction. The ability to be able to go 'Oooh - that's interesting. Let's sit down and unpick it.' I drive people I know mad by wanting to discuss everything I'm into at great length. Ah well, there'll always be MSWord waiting for me when everyone in my real life gets sick of intricate discussions about character motivations.

Also, Dean Winchester was totally the scourge of Blockbuster Video. (If they had Blockbuster in the US )

This was a well thought out story and very original, I really like it because I felt so bad for Sam during that period, everyone was so mean to him.

I feel like this makes me a bad Samgirl, but I found Sam infuriating in S4, to the point where I find it really difficult to watch that season (which is a shame because it has some of the best episodes). That kind of made me enjoy writing this though, because I believe that people always have a reason for their actions, however crazy, and that reason makes sense to them. Writing this was a fun excercise in 'Why are you doing that?' I will probably still want to yell at the TV screen next time I watch S4, but maybe now I'll be a little bit more forgiving once the initial frustration has subsided.

Thank you so much for your comment. I love your work and your characterisation so I'm extra flattered when you enjoy something of mine!

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I love you

Totally feeling the love! Thanks Pyrus!

[HPG]

I'm drooling.