Look After You

[mellaithwen]

Title: Look After You
Chapters: One-shot
Rating: PG-13, Gen
Word Count: 1, 011
Summary: It's up to Sam to take care of his brother

Written for 15minuteficlets

 

If I don't say this now, I will surely break.

 

Sixty-three hours and forty minutes. That’s how long it took for the fever to break. Almost three days of sitting by his brother’s side with an ice cold washcloth, listening to the mutterings of one too out of it to notice his own honesty. It amazed Sam how easily Dean relayed information when his body was too busy trying to fight infection, fight viruses or cope with blood loss.

 

It was in those moments; Sam could know everything in the space of an hour. Find out his brother’s favourite colour, favourite animal, favourite childhood memory, true feelings regarding the hunt, their father, anyone and everyone they had ever met. The demon itself even. Sam had fought back the laugh to see that even now, ill as he was, Dean could still muster a string of curses when it came to the bastard who had destroyed his childhood.

 

And that wasn’t Sam’s own interpretation from a boy school in Stanford, and forced to listen to reason, and his inner psychiatrist. Oh no, Dean was the one who had complained. Two days in, already rambling, making no sense half the time, but giving Sam the distinct impression that his brother was melancholy. So sad, and he didn’t mean it in the dork-way. Or the pathetic way, but in the melancholy way. Where each sad sentence, slurred and barely audible made his heart constrict, and a lump formed in his throat while Dean’s voice went off on many tangents, all of which ending with a bittersweet silence, Sam could neither stomach, or be rid of.

 

An ill-Dean was an open book, pages ruffled but relatively untouched. Delicate paper covered in sensitive scripture, cautious calligraphy that span for pages and pages. Chapters of their lives, sometimes messy, hurried, but mostly readable. And mostly audible when Dean dare speak them aloud. Reading like he used to when Sam was younger, and he couldn’t get to sleep no matter how dark the room was, or how quiet the house became.

 

“An insomniac to the end, my little brother.”

 

A dying Dean, was more closed, book that is, than ever, but unaware Dean, while ill, while burning with fever, body betraying his innermost secrets, Sam found it all to be a bit much, and he berated his own selfishness. For so long he had urged his brother to speak, but the defence mechanisms gave no leeway, and with a deep hatred for chick flick moments, hugging, or bearing all to Dr Phil, Sam was left in the dark for too long.

 

But now if ever they opened, Dean’s eyes shone, glazed, pupils dilated, lips cracked, but still muttering about his breaking heart, the pieces cast aside, and hidden until the glue could be found.

 

It was a defence mechanism to never appear weak that had gotten them there, Sam by Dean’s bed, checking his pulse, breathing, watching his chest rise and fall, and waiting for him to rouse himself enough to take more medicine.

 

It was a defence mechanism, or rather, more of a defence, to do as he was told, and suck it up, soldier. It was a defence mechanism, that made Dean ignore the symptoms, or just ignore everything.

 

Aches and pains were no stranger to Dean Winchester, but Sam had seen him wincing and swallowing the pills that didn’t seem to work. Headaches were more Sam’s thing, but again, Dean was no stranger to them, and thus, took a little more than the recommended dose. No big deal. The coughing turned to hacking before Sam almost exploded in his brother’s face, hating the reminder of almost losing Dean as he rubbed his chest, large hands straying over his heart, shoulders popping back, as he tried to alleviate the pressure and discomfort.

 

Dean had continued his quest for stupidity and hiding his hurt, until finally that first morning as the fever began to set in slowly, he had collapsed. Sam had seen his brother fall too many times to count, and almost ninety-percent of the time, he got back up. He might fall later on, and his father would carry him back to the motel room, his son’s head resting beneath his neck, body bent, and almost broken laid out on the rank sheets as a young Sam waited in the corner, wringing his hands, and panicking to no end.

 

Dean always tried to get up, at some point. But this time, he stayed down. Stayed still, spread eagle on the tarmac outside of the motel room door, something Sam counted himself lucky for, as his brother’s muscle was a bitch to carry long distance. A bitch to carry full stop. Not that he was any better. He could remember so many instances where as a gangly teen, prone to attacks for some reason, Dean had been forced to carry his brother to safety, grumbling all the way while the shots resounded in the distance as their father killed the beast, or exorcised the demon, salted the spirit...

 

But that was extreme fatigue for you. Seldom does it let you get up, and Dean had been trying to ignore it best he could. The sudden tiredness nagging away at him until his body had had enough and demanded he give in.

 

Sam had to keep a close tab on it, the virus; the influenza. It could lead to pneumonia, respiratory failure, and could turn life threatening in the space of a minute, a minute, too short for any EMT’s to get to them. But a hospital visit too soon would drain their dwindling money supply and ignite an unwanted fury Dean. He did hate the places after all. Which left the motel as the only option. Curtains closed should Dean wake up suddenly, and Sam knew from experience that the light from the summer sun would not be appreciated in the slightest. His own bed was still perfectly unruffled and not slept in. He had stayed by his brother’s side, falling asleep as his head rested on his forearms by the side of the bed, and he would do so until Dean himself could wake up and complain about the close vicinity his brother had occupied.

 

But Dean kept quiet, and in silence, Sam worried.

-Fin

Second one done for 'fatigue'

Comments

[mellaithwen]

thank you! Ah a few people have said that now...and a lot want a second chapter :| kinda hadn't banked on anything though :S maybe...