Operator (Supernatural, Dean and Sam)

[sierraplaid]

Title: Operator
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters: Sam, Dean, Bobby, John (gen)
Summary: It’s November 2, a couple of months after Sam starts at Stanford. Dean almost drunk dials Sam. Sam actually drunk dials Dean. Sam’s sick. Dean’s also sick. Then he’s a whole lot sicker, and Sam helps how he can.
Time frame: Stanford era, beginning of Sam’s freshman year
Warnings: None
AN: Title is from the Jim Croce song “Operator.”

Operator

Isn't that the way they say it goes? Well, let's forget all that
And give me the number if you can find it
So I can call just to tell 'em I'm fine and to show
I've overcome the blow, I've learned to take it well.
I only wish my words could just convince myself
That it just wasn't real, but that's not the way it feels.

 

Operator, well let's forget about this call.
There's no one there I really wanted to talk to.

***

The tiny blue screen on Dean’s cell phone dims to gray as he’s staring at it and he snaps it shut with a muttered curse. He scuffs at the snow-dusted sidewalk out in front of the bar with the thick heel of his boot, one numb-fingered hand clenched in his pocket, the other slowly spinning his phone. This’d be easier if he had another beer in him, he thinks. As it is he’s indecisive and freezing and just drunk enough to be on the point of drunk dialing the one person he swore he’d never drunk dial, and on top of that he’s definitely coming down with the freaking head cold he’s been dodging for a week and on top of that it’s the second day of a certain month which explains the drunkenness and the would-be drunk dial and also why this day, this blizzard, town, and bar can just get bent.

It’s late, Dean reasons, trying to talk himself out of it again. It’s a weekday. He’d probably wake him up. There’s no real reason for calling. What’s he going to say, anyway? Hey, jerkface, I don’t miss you. I’m over it. By the way, are you coming home for Thanksgiving? The phone’s still revolving between his fingers. Dad’s a lot harder on me since you left. Classes kicking your ass? You happy and safe? Maybe this’d be easier if he had one less beer in him.

A biting wind kicks up and Dean sneezes and wipes his nose roughly on his jacket cuff. Maybe there’s just no easy way to do this. He should give up or get it over with or give it until tomorrow when he’s sobered up—something. He flips open his phone without really realizing it, pulls up his contacts. Scrolls to S. Then he stares at the screen until it dims again.

The door to the bar jumps open behind him and a knot of rowdy revelers lurches out onto the pavement. They’re shockingly loud and underdressed for the weather and oblivious to both those things and pretty much everything else besides so Dean has to clear out of their staggering path in a hurry, nearly losing his footing on the slick ground and half-falling into a wall. One of them is swearing at the top of his lungs, a few are singing, and everyone else is arguing as they slosh down the sidewalk, their chaotic racket echoing out across the street. In the midst of the receding clamor, belatedly Dean becomes aware of a phone ringing. His, still held open in his hand. He stares down at the blue-lit screen.

For a second he’s freaked, thinking maybe somehow he dialed without knowing it except that doesn’t make any more sense than standing out in a snowstorm because how come it’s his phone that’s ringing, and then for a second he’s elated since, after all, Sam’s the one reaching out to him for a change, so maybe it’s all okay. And then the doubt comes crashing back with the memory of the last time they spoke: pointless small talk and lots of dead air, so damn much to say and none of it said. Suddenly perverse, Dean can’t think of why he wanted to talk to Sam in the first place. I told you, I’m over it. Doing fine without you. Never better. Why the hell is Sam calling him anyway?

The phone’s still ringing, probably getting close to voicemail. In the end, though, it’s a reflex, pure and simple and Dean answers.

“Hey, Sam.”

“There you are. Hey.”

“Yeah, didn’t hear it ringing at first.”

“Oh. Sorry.” Sam’s voice is dark and husky, quiet down the line, and he sounds sick or tired or drunk and Dean, who is all three and therefore not at his sharpest, can’t get a bead on which. “I didn’t mean…. Were you asleep?”

“No. What’s up?”

“Y’okay?” Sam slurs. Drunk. “Thought I should prob’ly call.”

“Why?”

“’s the second.”

Oh, yeah, definitely drunk.

“Not for much longer here, it’s not,” Dean points out, dodging the issue. “It’s late… uh, almost early.”

“Time zones,” Sam says, like he’s just remembering they exist. “Where are you?”

“New Hampshire. Where are you?”

“Palo Alto.”

“Yeah, I know that. Where? Sounds noisy.”

“Some bar.”

“That’s always a good sign. I thought you were gonna study for the bar.”

“Still not funny.” Sam breaks off and coughs a few times. “Maybe later.”

“Maybe later it’ll be funny or maybe later you’ll study?”

“You’re never funny,” Sam says, and now his voice is unquestionably stuffed up and low, and Dean gets suspicious.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m great.”

Dean waits a minute in case Sam wants to elaborate but Sam’s got nothing to say. Then he tries awkwardly, “So, uh… how’s… school?”

Sam makes a distracted I dunno sound like he’s not at all interested in the question.

“Straight-A geek-boy doing straight-A geek-boy stuff, probably not that interesting, huh?”

Sam’s silence is a shrug.

“You got nothin’?” Dean probes. All he can hear is the hum of drunken background noise, quick snatches of laughter, and then there’s a muffled sound away from the phone that sounds like Sam’s sneeze. “You’re sick, aren’t you?”

“’s fine,” Sam says sharply, sniffs into the phone. “I’m fine, school’s fine, everything’s fine.”

There’s a pang of something under Dean’s rib cage—guilt, concern, vindication, more guilt—as, for the first time in all this, it occurs to him that maybe Sam is actually not enjoying himself at school. His mind goes a bit blank while this new thought works its way around in his head and he finds himself wishing he were as sober as he’d need to be to really have that conversation. Then Sam’s breath catches and there’s the same muffled sound again, not quite as far from the phone and unmistakable this time, and Dean decides they can talk about everything else some other time.

He’s going to start harassing his brother to take better care of himself and get out of the bar and go home to bed but irony’s a bitch and the next breath Dean takes of the dry, icy air chafes in just the wrong way against his sore throat and sets him off coughing before he can do anything to fight it back. It already doesn’t sound good and what’s more Sam hears it, too.

“Wait a second,” Sam says. “Are you…?”

“Shut it.” Dean clears his throat, then drives another cough into his elbow.

“You’re sick.”

“Takes one to know one, doc.”

Sam’s quiet. “You okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Hunting?”

“Yeah.”

“Where’s, uh,….”

“He’s here,” Dean cuts Sam off, sparing him the trouble of having to say it. “I’m waiting for him outside the bar. Freezing my ass off.”

“Yeah, where are you?”

Dean laughs. “New Hampshire.”

“Right.”

“Listen, little brother, isn’t it a little late for you to be out on a weeknight? Time to go home, don’t you think?”

“Jus’ having a drink. You’re at a bar, too. What’s wrong with that?”

Lots, Dean thinks, already regretting his evening out.

“A night on the town and not feeling great don’t mix, is all. Hey, I’ll walk you home.”

“You’re in New Jersey.”

“Hampshire. Same difference. Start walking.”

“Fine, ’m going.”

He must put his phone in his pocket because everything goes fuzzy for a bit and then when he gets back on the line it’s just to say, “I’m outside,” and Dean says, “Good,” and they both go silent. Dean just waits, listens to his brother’s breathing.

Sam’s walking quickly, maybe uphill, and every now and again a car rushes past. Dean passes the time shifting from one foot to the other and flexing his non-phone hand to keep blood flowing to all ten digits.

“Almost home?” he asks after a while, wondering if maybe Sam’s forgotten he’s even there.

But Sam answers, “Yeah,” and keeps on walking, and Dean goes back to waiting.

He’s seen pictures of Stanford, just a handful, in an admissions brochure he found that he wasn’t supposed to and that he wished he hadn’t. Now he’s imagining Sam walking past this giant, glowing building, the only one that stands out in his memory, walking alongside it like he’s on a treadmill on some futile, golden quest, colossal palm trees marching past on his left and stretching beyond the horizon, tree after tree after tree. It’s a spring day full of sun in the photo and Dean can’t help but picture the campus that way always, even when he checks the weather in Palo Alto as he often finds himself doing and sees that it’s raining or cold or cloudy. In his mind it’s sunny there even now, at midnight.

Finally Sam’s shoes are stomping up a flight of stairs and Dean drifts out of his reverie.

“You there?”

“Yeah.” Sam sounds stuffed up and out of breath. “Just outside.”

“All right, time to call it a night, sasquatch.”

Sam doesn’t disagree, just sneezes.

“Do you have the plague or something worse?”

“Just a cold. It’s going around.”

“You never get the fun transmittable ones.”

“You don’t have to worry about me, you know.”

“Yeah, well, it’s my job, just like being a loser nerd who gets straight A’s is your job, right?”

“Besides, you’re sick, too. You should worry about you.”

Sam stops for a second and by the length of the pause Dean can tell he’s about to say something sincere and mushy.

“Hey, Dean?”

“Yeah, what? Get it over with.”

“Just… take care of yourself, all right?”

“Dude."

“I mean it. Don’t let it go to your chest.”

Dean had just been about to cough but now he bites it back, clears his throat, and challenges, “What do you know about it?”

“It always does.”

“Okay, I’m hanging up now.”

Sam sighs. “Yeah. All right.”

“Go get your roommate to tuck you in, you lightweight. Fluff your pillow for you….”

“Bite me, Dean.”

“’Night, Sam.”

Dean snaps his phone shut and shivers deeper into his coat. The night chill has found every opening and seam, seeped in through the soles of his shoes, settled in his bones, and he can tell he’s going to pay for this. He coughs and looks down at his watch. Freaking early, November 3.

He takes off jogging around the block to clear his head.

***

A few days later when he’s out on a dinner run for John and himself, bundled into two jackets and wishing for a third, so stuffed up he can’t pronounce his own name, Dean gets a call from Bobby.

“Bobby, hey, it’s been a while.”

“I was gonna say it’s good to hear your voice, but, damn, what’d they do to you, kid?”

“Nothing, I’m fine. What’s up?”

“You expecting a package?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Got one here I think’s for you. Real suspicious, though. No return address, beat-up envelope, writing’s a mess.”

“Are the ‘A’s written weird?”

“Well, they ain’t the first thing I noticed, but now that you mention….”

“It’s from Sam.”

“I figured. When can you come pick it up?”

***

The address is lopsided, scrawled unevenly across the padded envelope in thick black marker, the wrong ZIP code scribbled over and the right one remembered underneath it. There’s too much postage and most of it’s in thirty-three- and one-cent stamps.

“It’s a mystery why the P.O. didn’t have it exploded by a robot,” Dean says.

He’s standing on Bobby’s porch out of the flurrying snow, turning the package over in his hands while Bobby leans in the doorway and looks off into the distance over Dean’s shoulder. Beyond the salvage yard gate he can just catch a glimpse of the Impala’s glowing tail lights, can barely hear the low throb of her engine. He’s trying to decide if he has a message for Dean to take to John, and so he answers somewhat vaguely, “You said it, kid.”

“Why would he mail me something?”

“I got no idea. He was clearly more than a little tanked when he mailed it. Hell, maybe he didn’t even mean to. Open ‘er up.”

“Nah, I’ll get to it later.” Dean sniffs and turns away to muffle a single cough in the crook of his arm. He can tell he doesn’t have long to get out of Bobby’s earshot before he has to give in to the coughing fit he’s due for any minute now, if this whole day has been any indication.

“In case it is explosives I wouldn’t want to be responsible for your untimely death,” he says. “Besides, I gotta get going.”

He tucks the envelope into the duffel bag slung over his shoulder, covering it with three loaner books from Bobby—Dean’s idea for a smokescreen for the social call and one that Bobby finally agreed to after extracting a promise that he’d get his books back before the end of the week.

“Stay for coffee next time,” Bobby says. “You look like you could use a good dose at the minute.”

“Thanks. And thanks for everything.”

Bobby nods. “You get shed of that cough, y’hear?”

***

Maybe it’s because the mystery package has been hidden away, unopened, for eight suspenseful hours by now or maybe it’s because he’s really starting to feel like crap but either way it’s a long evening for Dean. He and John go through the motions—room-temperature dinner, exhaustive survey of all twelve TV channels, rote weapons check and cleaning. Dean feels like he hasn’t stopped coughing all night.

“One hell of a cold,” John comments, handing over a whetstone. “Laundromat tomorrow.”

“Sure,” Dean says, before he’s coughing again.

It’s late when John finally goes for a shower and Dean gets a minute to himself. As soon as he hears the water running he’s rushing to dig out the envelope, then knifing through the excessive lashings of packing tape, tearing the crumpled paper aside.

It’s a sweatshirt—red. Cardinal. There’s a tree on the front and Dean has no idea why.

It’s a stupid thing for Sam to have given him, really. It’ll just weigh his duffel down. He’ll have to hide it from Dad on laundry days and of course it had to be a conspicuous color and naturally it’s the size of Sam so it won’t be the easiest to cram somewhere unnoticed. Dean can tell the damn thing’s going to be nothing but a nuisance. It’s not as if he’ll ever wear it.

Even when, in the middle of the night, he wakes up both himself and John with endless coughing, and John stands over him with one hand on his forehead and says he thinks it might be pneumonia, and Dean knows it is, was always going to be—even then, when John heads out to find some always-open pharmacy and Dean gets the full-body chills and drags himself out of bed to crank the heat up—even then, on his way back to bed, he rummages under the sweatshirt in his duffel for another pair of socks and grabs his own black coat from the back of a chair and pulls it on before burrowing under the blankets.

For minutes on end he’s shivering, can’t get warm, thinks all the layers in the world couldn’t make him feel warm, and then in a flash he’s too feverish hot for any layers at all. He shoves off the covers and wants to strip out of the coat too but he doesn’t have the energy for it so he just lies still and coughs and swelters. He tells himself, see, he doesn’t need the sweatshirt anyway. Got it, Sam? I’m over it. Fine without you. Not like he can’t take care of himself.

Dean’s phone buzzes once on the nightstand and he just barely hears it over the coughing. Probably Dad. It’d be like him to find a hunt between the motel and the drug store. Dean snakes an arm over and grabs his phone, checks his texts, and there are two, the first of which he didn’t hear at all, and neither of which is from Dad.

Sorry for surprise mailing you the bomb threat. Was a little out of it at the time.

There’s a seven-minute gap of indecision between this text and the next.

You probably don’t want it. Maybe come drop it off sometime?

Dean puts the phone down and for a while he doesn’t have to think, just takes refuge in the coughing fit that’s the perfect excuse for ignoring everything else that hurts in his chest and indulging in the immediacy of this. He can’t sleep. Can’t breathe without coughing. Can’t think about Sam without wanting to punch a wall. When did the easy stuff get so hard?

What a stupid thing for Sam to have given him. It’s winter in California, too. Doesn’t Palo Alto have sweatshirt weather? Of course he doesn’t want the goddamn sweatshirt. He wants his goddamn brother. Through the haze of fever that’s the only thing that’s clear. Everything else is a riddle and he doesn’t need riddles right now; what he needs now is sleep.

The phone’s on the mattress beside him and he’s catching his breath and resting with his eyes closed when it buzzes again. Dean doesn’t budge. It wouldn’t be the first time he hasn’t wanted to talk to Sam since he left but it never really gets any easier. It’s nice that Sam’s trying but it’s still not enough. Dean manages a minute without looking. A minute and a half.

In the end, though, it’s a reflex, pure and simple, and he checks the new message.

How’s the cough?

***

End

 

 

Edited April 25, 2017 by sierraplaid

[MissBayliss]

Okay... A few things...

9 hours ago, sierraplaid said:

Sam’s voice is dark and husky, quiet down the line, and he sounds sick or tired or drunk and Dean, who is all three and therefore not at his sharpest, can’t get a bead on which.

Looooove this.

9 hours ago, sierraplaid said:

He’s going to start harassing his brother to take better care of himself and get out of the bar and go home to bed but irony’s a bitch and the next breath Dean takes of the dry, icy air chafes in just the wrong way against his sore throat and sets him off coughing before he can do anything to fight it back. It already doesn’t sound good and what’s more Sam hears it, too.

“Wait a second,” Sam says. “Are you…?”

“Shut it.” Dean clears his throat, then drives another cough into his elbow.

“You’re sick.”

And all of this.

9 hours ago, sierraplaid said:

“I mean it. Don’t let it go to your chest.”

Dean had just been about to cough but now he bites it back, clears his throat, and challenges, “What do you know about it?”

“It always does.”

Hnnnnnnnnggg.

9 hours ago, sierraplaid said:

so stuffed up he can’t pronounce his own name

Oh my gosh.  *perfect*

9 hours ago, sierraplaid said:

Dean sniffs and turns away to muffle a single cough in the crook of his arm. He can tell he doesn’t have long to get out of Bobby’s earshot before he has to give in to the coughing fit he’s due for any minute now, if this whole day has been any indication.

This makes my imagination do SO many things... 

9 hours ago, sierraplaid said:

Even when, in the middle of the night, he wakes up both himself and John with endless coughing, and John stands over him with one hand on his forehead and says he thinks it might be pneumonia, and Dean knows it is, was always going to be—even then, when John heads out to find some always-open pharmacy and Dean gets the full-body chills and drags himself out of bed to crank the heat up—even then, on his way back to bed, he rummages under the sweatshirt in his duffel for another pair of socks and grabs his own black coat from the back of a chair and pulls it on before burrowing under the blankets.

"was always going to be" - perfection. I love this entire part. The image of how John is in this fic is fantastic. 

9 hours ago, sierraplaid said:

takes refuge in the coughing fit

Gahhhh. Such a beautiful notion. 

 

Sorry for the long post. I could have quoted each and every sentence, because each and every sentence was perfect. Coughing!Dean is captivating, sickness coupled with emotional vulnerability enchanting. I will read this again and again, and hope to one day be as good as you are. All the love  

[Wow Really?]

Lord have mercy. You'd think it was my birthday with all the amazing SPN goodness on this forum today. 

Just what the doctor ordered. 

Coughing Dean is my favorite  

[sierraplaid]

On 4/25/2017 at 4:17 AM, MissBayliss said:

Okay... A few things...
Looooove this.
And all of this.
Hnnnnnnnnggg.
Oh my gosh.  *perfect*
This makes my imagination do SO many things...
"was always going to be" - perfection. I love this entire part. The image of how John is in this fic is fantastic.
Gahhhh. Such a beautiful notion. 

Sorry for the long post. I could have quoted each and every sentence, because each and every sentence was perfect. Coughing!Dean is captivating, sickness coupled with emotional vulnerability enchanting.

Oh, you. You made my day. "Sorry for the long post"?? Sorry??? As-freaking-if I would mind. I'm so glad you liked this -- I had a sneaking feeling that, as a fellow coughing!Dean aficionado, you might enjoy. You also managed to pick out some of my own personal favorite bits which just makes me want to fly over the moon.

On 4/25/2017 at 4:17 AM, MissBayliss said:

I will read this again and again

On 4/25/2017 at 4:17 AM, MissBayliss said:

and hope to one day be as good as you are

Do not be RIDICULOUS; you're already mind-blowingly amazing and somebody whose fic I admire and aspire to emulate.

On 4/25/2017 at 4:17 AM, MissBayliss said:

All the love

[sierraplaid]

On 4/25/2017 at 4:48 PM, Wow Really? said:

Lord have mercy. You'd think it was my birthday with all the amazing SPN goodness on this forum today. 

Just what the doctor ordered. 

Coughing Dean is my favorite  

YAAAY! I'm so glad you liked it!

 

[MissBayliss]

5 minutes ago, sierraplaid said:

Oh, you. You made my day. "Sorry for the long post"?? Sorry??? As-freaking-if I would mind. I'm so glad you liked this -- I had a sneaking feeling that, as a fellow coughing!Dean aficionado, you might enjoy. You also managed to pick out some of my own personal favorite bits which just makes me want to fly over the moon.

Do not be RIDICULOUS; you're already mind-blowingly amazing and somebody whose fic I admire and aspire to emulate.

You may or may not have made me tear up just now 

[sierraplaid]

3 minutes ago, MissBayliss said:

You may or may not have made me tear up just now 

Aw.

[blueprint]

This one was really good. Believable, in character and amazing sneezing!  Thank you!

[AngelEyes]

This is fantastic writing. Very poignant of the feelings Dean is going through about Sam leaving and being sick on top of it clouding his thoughts. So well done!

[sierraplaid]

On 5/2/2017 at 2:17 AM, blueprint said:

This one was really good. Believable, in character and amazing sneezing!  Thank you!

Thank you! I'm happy you liked it and felt it was in character.

14 hours ago, AngelEyes said:

This is fantastic writing. Very poignant of the feelings Dean is going through about Sam leaving and being sick on top of it clouding his thoughts. So well done!

Ahhh, thanks, much appreciated!

[estrelleta]

Ohhhh I love this one so, so much. I'm a real sucker for fics that fill in the gaps from this specific era when Sam went off to college, and this is so beautifully written.

On ‎25‎/‎04‎/‎2017 at 3:50 AM, sierraplaid said:

Dean puts the phone down and for a while he doesn’t have to think, just takes refuge in the coughing fit that’s the perfect excuse for ignoring everything else that hurts in his chest and indulging in the immediacy of this. He can’t sleep. Can’t breathe without coughing. Can’t think about Sam without wanting to punch a wall. When did the easy stuff get so hard?

Gahhhh my heart </3

[sierraplaid]

4 hours ago, estrelleta said:

Ohhhh I love this one so, so much. I'm a real sucker for fics that fill in the gaps from this specific era when Sam went off to college, and this is so beautifully written.

Gahhhh my heart </3

Thank you!! I'm glad you liked it!

[gingerdean]

Wow... I can't believe I'm just now reading this. I saw when you posted it, and I'd meant to come back to it when I had the time, since it was a bit longer. And then life happened, and it slipped by my radar. Man, was I missing out. 

 

Ok, so first of all...I loove Stanford-era fics! Especially ones that explore the dynamics between the brothers during this time frame. I really, really loved how you wrote the interactions between Sam and Dean here. I can totally imagine this type of scenario taking place. 

And then this:

On 4/24/2017 at 8:50 PM, sierraplaid said:

“Hey, Dean?”

“Yeah, what? Get it over with.”

“Just… take care of yourself, all right?”

“Dude."

“I mean it. Don’t let it go to your chest.”

Dean had just been about to cough but now he bites it back, clears his throat, and challenges, “What do you know about it?”

“It always does.”

Mmm. I have a thing for Dean being prone to chest infections. (wow, that sounds so mean when I say it like that ) And I love how this is never said outright, but you let the conversations and the rest of the story unfold, and let us work up to that conclusion. I also love how Dean being prone to pneumonia is such a 'thing', that Sam and Bobby become overly attentive to Dean's illness, and express their concerns to him about it. 

I also adore how you wrote John in this. He's very caring and attentive towards Dean here, but still very much in character. (Which is a hard line to tread sometimes with John, imo.) I adored the caretaking scene with John and Dean, when Dean's illness takes a turn for the worse. 

I also really loved the part where Dean gets his package from Sam (And also the idea of Sammy drunk-mailing Dean a red sweatshirt with a tree on the front of it )  But then, this:

On 4/24/2017 at 8:50 PM, sierraplaid said:

Of course he doesn’t want the goddamn sweatshirt. He wants his goddamn brother.

^  Ouch. This hurt. Right in the feelers. 

 

And the last line, of course:

On 4/24/2017 at 8:50 PM, sierraplaid said:

How’s the cough?

When we see that Sam's been thinking about and worrying over Dean this entire time. Of course he was.  

 

 This is a lovely fic, beautifully written. You are such a talented writer. Thank you for sharing this with us  

[sierraplaid]

@gingerdean

My god, the comment is longer than the fic. I you.

On 6/28/2017 at 11:30 PM, gingerdean said:

Ok, so first of all...I loove Stanford-era fics! Especially ones that explore the dynamics between the brothers during this time frame.

Me, tooooo. I would give pretty much anything for a Stanford-era flashback on the show. /weeps

On 6/28/2017 at 11:30 PM, gingerdean said:

Mmm. I have a thing for Dean being prone to chest infections. (wow, that sounds so mean when I say it like that ) And I love how this is never said outright, but you let the conversations and the rest of the story unfold, and let us work up to that conclusion. I also love how Dean being prone to pneumonia is such a 'thing', that Sam and Bobby become overly attentive to Dean's illness, and express their concerns to him about it. 

Okay, so, I actually know exactly when my Dean-prone-to-chest-stuff headcanon started, and it was that scene in 5x21, the Pestilence episode, which was, IMO, a gross letdown apart from that bit. Just something about how (at least at the beginning, before he's too out of it) he's so conscientious about coughing into his sleeve, and the fact that it took him down before Sam. He's actually pretty cough-y throughout the series. (I'm working on a small treatise on the subject. ) (Not really.) (Maybe just a list.)

Also, thank you for the comment about how it's never said outright. I was trying to keep it from being too obvious. Yay!

On 6/28/2017 at 11:30 PM, gingerdean said:

I also adore how you wrote John in this. He's very caring and attentive towards Dean here, but still very much in character. (Which is a hard line to tread sometimes with John, imo.) I adored the caretaking scene with John and Dean, when Dean's illness takes a turn for the worse.

Thank you!! I find John really hard but REALLY rewarding to write. I'm so glad you liked my version here.

On 6/28/2017 at 11:30 PM, gingerdean said:

I also really loved the part where Dean gets his package from Sam (And also the idea of Sammy drunk-mailing Dean a red sweatshirt with a tree on the front of it )  But then, this:

^  Ouch. This hurt. Right in the feelers.

And the last line, of course:

When we see that Sam's been thinking about and worrying over Dean this entire time. Of course he was. 

 This is a lovely fic, beautifully written. You are such a talented writer. Thank you for sharing this with us  

No, thank you for reading. I'm so, so glad you liked it.