Relentless (SPN, Dean)

[dw124]

“Whad the fugk is thadt? huh-HRRSCHHHH!”

 

Sam stops with his hand in the grocery bag, the plastic crinkling quietly against his sleeve, a box of decongestants in his grasp. “What?”

 

“Thadt.” Dean points accusingly, glaring at Sam with a bleary-eyed, fever-tired expression on his face.

 

Sam looks down at the table, at the few items he’s just unpacked. “What, this?” he asks, holding up the tissue box. Dean really should know what it is. He’s been through two of them already and is most of the way through his third.

 

Dean nods, sniffling and rubbing a hand against his sore nose. His face scrunches up and then goes slack as he gears up for yet another sneeze. “Heh…. IUSHHHH!” He scrambles for the tissue box on the bed, pulling out another few from his rapidly dwindling supply, and attempts without much success to blow his nose.

 

“Figured you could use some more,” Sam answers, gesturing with the new box at the swarm of used tissues that have begun to colonize Dean’s bed.

 

Dean gives a final, wet honk into the tissues and then tosses them aside. Sam tries to repress a shudder as they land on his closed laptop on the nightstand.

 

“Id’s bidg, Sab,” Dean says, as if that explains everything.

 

“Yeeeah,” Sam says slowly. “I got the biggest box I could find.”

 

Dean huffs out a frustrated breath. “Doh, dot bidg… it’s bidgk, Sab!”

 

Sam attempts a translation to English. “It’s.... pink?”

 

“YES.”

 

“So?” Sam looks down at the box, totally innocuous in his hand.

 

“I’b dot usidg bidgk dissues,” Dean explains, as if this tissue box has personally offended him in some way.

 

Sam’s stunned into exasperated silence for a moment before rolls his eyes. “Seriously? You’ve snotted your way through three boxes of tissues in the last twelve hours and you won’t use them because the box is pink?”

 

At Dean’s defiant silence, Sam shakes his head and tosses the box of tissues onto the bed, anyway. “Dude, screw you. Do what you want,” he says angrily. He stalks over to the kitchenette with the other plastic bag in hand, shoving bottled drinks and plastic tubs of fresh soup into the little fridge. Then he drops into a chair at the dining table and opens the book he’d been reading, pointedly not looking at his brother as he pulls out the bookmark and picks up where he’d left off.

 

From his nest of misery on the bed, Dean sniffs and swipes at his runny nose with the last tissue in his current box, alternating glares at Sam and the pink tissue box.

 

* * *

 

Dean is tired. So, so tired. He can’t remember ever being this tired.

 

He collapses back on the bed with an exhausted sigh, breathing only through his mouth because his nose is too stuffed up to do him any good. He’s pretty sure he can actually feel the congestion moving through his sinuses, and he tries his best not to move, holding off the inevitable for as long as he can.

 

The box of tissues he’d been using has long since run out, and he can’t muster up the energy to trudge to the bathroom again for more toilet paper. The stupid pink box of tissues Sam had bought sits unused at the foot of the bed, nestled in a tangle of blankets, but it’s the principle of the thing. No matter how sick he is, he should be able to hold onto some shred of dignity.

 

...Right?

 

He sighs congestedly, breath rattling his his chest. And as it turns out, lying flat on his back is even worse than sitting up, because he’s slowly starting to feel like he’s drowning in his own mucus. With a groan, he rolls to one side, pushing himself up on arms that feel simultaneously heavy and shaky, and props a stack of pillows up behind his back. He tries to lean back against them, but all of the movement has shifted things around in his head and he can feel the sudden prickling itch in his sinuses. He’s gonna sneeze again.

 

He sucks in a careful breath, trying to will the feeling away, but then his eyes start to tear up and he knows he’s not going to be able to fight it. “heh…”

 

* * *

 

Unbeknownst to Dean, who is preoccupied with keeping his impending sneeze at bay, Sam looks up at the sound of his brother’s quick inhalation of breath. He sees Dean sitting there with his eyes closed, taking slow, shallow breaths that are hitching dangerously. Sam knows what’s coming.

 

“Hhh… hheh-uhh…”

 

Sam quietly closes his book and gets up from his chair. He takes the four steps across the room to the foot of Dean’s bed, where Dean has stubbornly left the new box of tissues sitting amongst the blankets. Sam reaches forward, grabbing the box in one hand and tearing open the perforated top with a ripping sound.

 

“...ehhh…”

 

Dean cracks one eye open to look up at his brother, hand frozen halfway toward his face as he tries desperately to quell the itch. Without a word, Sam pulls three of the tissues out of the box and holds them out as a peace offering.

 

“He-ahhh--!” It’s too late. “HEHTSCHHHSHH!” Dean pitches forward with a massive sneeze, spraying the blankets in front of him. As he sucks in a quick gasp of breath he blindly stretches his hand out, and Sam slaps the tissues into his palm.

 

“HMPHSHH! NGSHH! hhh’HCHSHHHH!” Dean manages to catch the wet sneezes in the tissues, but they’re coming too fast and too strong. He shoves his face into the crook of his shoulder, trying to contain some of the force of the sneezes exploding through him. “HNGKSHHHuh! NGXTCHHH! HHSHHHHH! Ss--Sabby-- IHH’ETTCHHH!”

 

“I gotcha, man,” comes Sam’s voice from somewhere near him, but goddammit he can’t look up because there’s another sneeze coming and he can’t stop it so he draws a breath and pitches forward and--

 

“MPFSHHH!” Dean makes contact with something simultaneously soft and reassuringly solid, and he blinks his eyes open to see Sam leaning forward across the bed, one hand raised toward Dean. There’s pressure at his nose and Dean dimly realizes that it’s Sam, his fingers pinching gently around the bridge of Dean’s nose to keep the tissues in place.

 

Dean sighs in relief, which is quickly replaced by a sneeze that rocks them both. “HPSCHHH!”

 

And finally, finally, the fit starts to back off, and Dean is able to get a proper breath of air in. “Thagkyou,” he gasps, Sam’s fingers still rubbing reassuringly at his nose through the tissues.

 

“Y’okay?” Sam asks, moving the tissue down and wiping at Dean’s runny nose before Dean gets another handful up to his face and takes care of the rest. He blows into them with a breath that nearly makes his ears pop and feels the tissues grow soggy in his grasp. He quickly balls those up and grabs for more, the box nestled between them on the bed. He doesn’t give a shit anymore if they’re pink, as long as they help stop the feeling that all of his bodily fluids are leaking out through his nose.

 

“Ughhh…” he groans, voice slightly muffled by the tissues. “I dod’t know. Babye. I bight have to… have to sdeeze again… soond--” Or make that immediately. “AEHHHHTSCHHH!” That one scrapes at his throat, the force of it taking him by surprise. His nose is already running again, and he swipes at it with another tissue, trying to decide if he still feels like he needs to sneeze.

 

When he glances up, it looks like Sam is waiting for a verdict, too. His eyebrows are raised, forehead creased in concern, and Dean waves a hand vaguely at him, giving him a tired nod. “Yeah, I’b… oh, handg ond--I… hk’XTSHH! ...I thigk I’b good. Aside frob the whole ‘beig so friggin’d codgested’ thidg…”

 

“Yeah?” Sam echoes, equal parts confirmation and sympathy. “Oh, hey, I have drugs for that.” He gets up from the bed, nabbing the box of decongestants from where he’d abandoned it on the table. Bringing that and a fresh bottle of water over, he hands them over to Dean before he settles back down on the edge of the bed, shooing a couple of errant tissues back to the other side of the bed.

 

“Thagks,” Dean says gratefully, extending a hand and tearing the box open. “Sorry I was sudgch a digck to you before. I’b jusd -- hh’KTSHH! -- I’b jusd so tired of sdeezidg…”

 

Sam nods. “I get it.”

 

Dean looks down at the box in front of him, a fresh tissue ready and waiting. “You dknow, these are acgdually dot thadt bad. I thidgk there’s lotiond or sobethidg id theb…” Good thing, too, because he definitely needs it, his nose scraped raw and red by the first three boxes of cheap motel tissues. He sniffs desperately for a second, trying to hold back his constantly runny nose, before he succumbs to another couple of rough sneezes. “HH’GSHHH! EH’TDSHHH!”

 

“Bless you… times a million,” Sam says.

 

Dean is quiet for a moment before he says, in a voice that’s dangerously close to pleading. “...D’you… d’you thidgk you could gedt be ady bore?”

[tarotgal]

Och, this is so delicious! You were so quick from prompt to final product, and it turned out so fantastic. I love it!

List time!

• Incredibly wet and strong sneezes... so many Gs and Ds and build-ups and guuhhh. Wonderful spellings! All the best spellings!
• YAY for the bit where Dean's waaaaaaaaay too stuffed-up to say the word 'pink.' That warmed my heart
• Sooooo much congestion, and he feels it when he moves positions. But his nose is just leaking and the poor baby can't help it, but the tissues are pink and it's the principle of the thing.
• “Dude, screw you. Do what you want.” Sam losing his temper is just perfect. He's trying to take care of Dean and anticipate his needs and if Dean doesn't want it then FINE! He's just going to take his book and fume silently. Not his fault if Dean's being a dick.
• “I gotcha, man,"  Sam taking pity on his pathetic, sick brother and helping him anyway
• That fit. OMG. And a sneeze so strong they both get rocked by it.
• “Oh, hey, I have drugs for that.” Awwwww
• Dean apologizing... and asking for more pink, lotion-filled, soft tissues.

[jensdw]

This is... 

The spellings and Sam putting the tissue to Dean’s nose was also... 

Thanks for sharing this. 

[telltale]

I really enjoyed this.  Your congested spellings are super.

[Shamaël]

Your congested voice is amazing... And Dean and Sam's relationship is perfectly in character, both cute and funny. Thanks for sharing this with us!