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- This fanfiction is the sequel to "Bringing Bees Successfully Through the Winter (English Version)" I recommend reading that one first!
- If you want to read the original version of it (in Italian), please find it here.
Making Winter Endurable for Bees
"Three days ago, my brother took a bullet, and he’s had a fever ever since," Dean said over the phone. And that was all it took. Sam sighed, Dean sighed, the world sighed along with them.
But in the end, the doctor came almost right away.
Latin features. Calm voice, gentle hands.
He accepted the 'it was a hunting accident' explanation without too many questions, which made Dean instantly like him.
He probed Sam’s rigid abdomen—actually, James’s—and removed the last bandages, frowning at what they revealed.
“Who the hell stitched him up here?”
Sam’s eyes rolled like two billiard balls toward Dean’s, who stood by the bedside doing his best to appear indifferent, looking elsewhere. Trying not to get pissed.
He cleared his throat. “Walk-in clinic.” He forced out one of his most satisfied smiles from his extensive repertoire of satisfied smiles; it was so fake it was just as well the doctor didn’t see it, too busy assessing the damage.
“Amateurs,” the man added, shaking his head in disgust.
“Will they hold?” Sam’s forehead cloth flopped to one side as he turned his head to ask the question. The doctor didn’t answer right away; he wanted to check each stitch, pulling, lifting, inspecting them to the limit of human patience and endurance. Only then did he confirm that yes, they were definitely the work of a butcher, but they would hold.
And Dean was convinced Sam saw it—the silent sigh of relief he let out while rolling his eyes.
The antibiotics prescribed at the hospital aren’t enough. They need to be supplemented with other synthetic stuff Dean had never heard of, along with corticosteroids, stomach protectors, anticoagulants, and possibly even some vitamins, which never hurt.
Dean nodded throughout the explanation; the doctor’s illegible handwriting on that white sheet, revealing the names of allies in their battle, had something comforting about it. But then the doctor raised an eyebrow at the second page of the treatment plan, the one stapled a bit haphazardly.
“Tell me, James…” The way he changed his tone put Dean on high alert; his whole body tensed up. “Have you ever had any problems with addiction in the past?”
Dean turned his head to the side and then laughed. If only this guy knew how Sam, the epitome of righteousness, wouldn’t even go to bed without changing his underwear!
But his brother’s response hit him like a stab in the chest.
“Why did you say yes?”
“Because it’s true, Dean.”
The doctor didn’t like that little cough Sam kept interrupting the visit with, the tune of a radio off-frequency. He wanted to listen to his chest and shoulders, recommended something, but by then Dean already hated him.
The porch had a monochromatic spectrum interrupted by a strong touch of bottle green, almost a harbinger of an early spring Dean didn’t need. It was all the fault of that white sun shining from some vague point beyond the clouds. If it hadn’t been there, nothing would have given Sam the impression that leaving the bed and freezing his butt off outside was a good idea.
“Demon blood doesn’t count.” He placed two pills and a cup of tea in Sam’s hands, feeling that neither the coat nor the plaid draped over his shoulders really shielded him from the cold.
“It doesn’t count because you decided it doesn’t?” Sam’s lips were whiter than the frost on the grass. He coughed as he tried to swallow the medicine.
“It just doesn’t count. Think whatever you want, but it doesn’t count.”
Sam managed a smile, but the pain from the wound must have been so bad that it barely emerged as a grimace, which only pissed Dean off even more.
Dean shook his head, glanced at his watch. “Come on, let’s get you back to bed. It’s freezing out here.” He abandoned his coffee cup on the windowsill, his hands sliding behind Sam’s back.
“Just a little longer—”
“Sam.”
“Just a little longer, Dean—” Sam bowed his head onto his chest, biting down on his lower lip. “You heard the doctor, right?”
“Since when does what others say matter so much?”
“Since they’re right.”
“Yeah, right.” Dean averted his gaze, nodding irritably. He pretended not to see how Sam gritted his teeth to avoid screaming as, stubbornly, he leaned his vertebrae back against the bench. On his pale face, his cheeks glowed like two burning furnaces, seeming capable of repelling any attempt by the cold to attack them.
“I mean, we called him because we wanted a medical opinion—”
“Yeah, a medical opinion. Not a doctor who doesn’t mind his own business.”
“He was just doing his job. He gave me more effective medicine, said I need to sit up to let my lungs expand, get some fresh air—”
“And completely cut out the morphine.”
Sam said nothing, but he gave that look. Dean would prefer a thousand times over to keep arguing with Sam in a sterile back-and-forth that would burn itself out rather than receive that look.
It was the look that asked for surrender, that literally said, ‘Okay, I get where you’re going, don’t make more excuses, you’re busted,’ and in the face of such an affront, Dean just wanted to put him over his knee and spank him like he was still three years old (the fact that he never did, not even when Sam was three, was a minor detail).
He shifted, retrieved his cup. The coffee had gone cold, but he needed to do something.
“I’m fine, Dean. Really.” A series of racking coughs betrayed him. He blew through his teeth, pressing a gloved hand to his coat. The wound was begging for mercy, and it was begging him—not Sam, who had decided not to feel it or see it.
“Oh yeah, you’re the picture of health, buddy.”
“I’ve had worse.”
“You’re about to pass out.”
Sam gazed ahead with an expression Dean would describe as philosophical, but the truth was there was nothing in that yard where his brother could hide, create a world of his own, escape the objective reality he’d (un)graciously provided. A fluffed-up sparrow landed on a bare tree without making the slightest noise. It looked around, bewildered. For a moment, it seemed to look straight at Sam, and he didn’t seem to hold up well under that gaze.
“I’m fine,” he repeated, but it was clear he didn’t believe it anymore either.
The cup almost slipped from his hands when he tried to bring it to his mouth. “Easy.” Dean guided the gesture with one hand, the other already caressing Sam’s nape with a circular, gentle motion.
It was a kindness he allowed himself from time to time, a weakness that surfaced less often than he actually wanted. Sam was in pain, feverish, and his face tense from the agony; his abdomen gnawed by a wound that wasn’t healing as it should, and his lungs demanding payback for that night in the cold and the subsequent forced immobility. Dean had more justifications than he needed to let his hands cling as he always wanted to cling to that skin that felt like it belonged partly to him too, some secret appendage encoded in his genes. And Sam didn’t mind, he had no complaints.
Dean reluctantly drank the last dregs of his terrible coffee, then did what he should have done a long time ago. It felt irritating and profoundly wrong to lift Sam’s chin and look again at those bruises. He could see his brother’s Adam’s apple jump, his carotid artery swell, his breath fragment as he closed his eyes and gripped the armrest of the bench. Sam was desperately trying to stay there. He was trying to anchor his mind and body in the present and only in the present.
Dean pulled out a tube of ointment from his pocket—one of those things they’d never had in their first aid kit until now, squeezed a bit onto his fingers.
Four days had passed, but those bruises were still there: remnants of Corbin vulgarly left on his brother; nausea rose in Dean.
Dean tilts Sam's neck to the side, pushing his hair behind his ear to reveal the dark bruise—the worst one, sitting on the left side between his jaw and neck. He hates all of them, but this one in particular: the skin around it is so pale it looks almost translucent, as if framing it like a disgusting mark, a system glitch. A flaw in creation.
“It’s a bit cold,” he says, not even giving Sam time to respond. The ointment is on the bruise, and when Sam lets out a small whimper—because damn, it is cold, and Sam is burning up—Dean is already gently rubbing it in, carefully, suppressing the urge to just scrape it off, to tear it from Sam’s skin.
He turns Sam’s head to the other side and repeats the process. His mouth feels dry; he doesn’t want to talk. This isn’t something they talk about. Sam, on the other hand, lets Dean touch those bruises with a surrender that makes him furious because damn it—that ungrateful bastard tried to take Sam away from him, and just the thought of it should make Sam feel the same growing anger that Dean feels under his skin; because Sam is a part of him, and it’s not okay for him to just sit there, accepting everything like some damn Gandhi.
“It’s okay, Dean…”
Sam pulls away from his touch with a slight tilt of his chin. Clearly, that damn bruise won’t disappear just because Dean keeps tormenting it.
“You really should go back inside.” The fumes of resentment must have gone to his head because he feels almost drunk. “I mean it,” he insists, but Sam is caught in another coughing fit that’s shaking his chest, and Christ—he’s not stopping.
“Sammy?”
The way Sam clutches his abdomen shows that his damn crooked stitches aren’t holding up well either. Damn it.
“Hey, Sam… Sammy?” Dean perches on the arm of the chair, placing a hand on Sam’s hunched back, curled in on himself like some kind of dying hedgehog. Hidden between his chest and hoodie, Sam’s cheeks, once flushed, now have a bluish tint, and Dean’s resolution to stay calm starts to break—first with a tremble of his face, then with the most heartfelt, genuine 'shit.'
Shit.
“Sit up, Sam. Come on—get your head up, come on!” Dean grits his teeth and eyes, struggling as he presses against Sam’s chest and back, trying to get him into a more normal position. Sam’s lips and chin are smeared with sticky saliva, and through it, the air escapes with a hissing sound, creating a foamy mix streaked with blood.
“I think you’ve been out here long enough. Time to get you back to bed, Sammy.”
He doesn’t wait for the coughing to stop completely; as soon as he notices even a slight improvement, Dean grabs Sam by the shoulders of his coat and literally drags him back into his room.
“Dean, wait–” Sam stumbles, his fingers weakly gripping the glass door; Dean doesn’t even know why he stopped. “I-I’m fine–”
By now, they’re both gasping for breath. Dean looks at him without meeting his eyes—Sam’s cheeks have regained some color, which is good (but not enough to make Dean believe the crap he’s saying). “I’m happy for you, Sam,” he smirks, tilting his head sarcastically. “But you’re coming inside anyway! Let’s go!”
Sam groans as Dean resumes the march into the room, about eighty percent annoyance, the rest, pain—or maybe the opposite, judging by the wrenching sound he makes when Dean helps him back onto the bed.
“Let’s see what you’ve done here…” Dean uncovers Sam’s abdomen even before taking off his coat, bracing himself for another apocalyptic sight.
Relief comes only when he sees the bandages around the wound: they’re still white. Clean and untouched, just as the good doctor had applied them a few hours before. Dean feels a tingling in his wrists, a strange lightness in his stomach as he touches the thick dressing with his fingertips.
He wants to compliment Sam for at least keeping the stitches intact this time, but he fears that might encourage him to do more stupid things, so he stays quiet. He settles for watching his brother lying on the mattress, shivering from cold sweats. His eyes closed, fists clenched beside his flushed, feverish face—he looks like some big, oversized baby, and Dean would almost smile if he couldn’t see all the pain Sam is stoically enduring.
He helps him off with his shoes, then the coat, slowly—one arm, then the other. Every movement free of groans is a small victory for Dean, a little trophy to show that part of himself that doubts him, saying ‘hey, you son of a bitch, look—I’m doing good! I still know how to take care of my damn little brother!’
He tucks the blankets up under Sam’s chin, and Sam clenches his jaw, burying his face into the pillow as he slowly tries to roll onto his side, a position that seems to somehow ease the hell in his abdomen.
Dean bites his lip, watching him for a few more seconds, deciding to let that image settle the internal battle in his mind.
He bends a knee onto the edge of the mattress, perching on it. “Give me your arm,” he demands, authoritative, though he’s already slid his hand under the sheets and retrieved Sam’s fever-softened arm before its owner can even move.
Sam lifts his face from the pillow, a lock of brown hair caught between his lips. “No morphine.”
“No morphine,” Dean confirms defensively, sacrificing one of his FBI ties to make a makeshift tourniquet.
“Promise me?”
“I’ll hook you up to an IV with some of this crap your good doctor prescribed. I paid good money for it; I expect it to work.”
Sam doesn’t seem convinced. He furrows his brow, but evidently, he’s too weak to do anything more than glare at Dean with those slitted eyes under which Dean fears he might lose himself.
"Come on, make a fist!" he snaps, exasperated, while continuing to massage the crook of Sam's arm with an alcohol-soaked pad.
Sam poorly disguises a grimace of pain, and it's the surrender Dean was hoping for. The younger Winchester sinks his head back into the pillow, as if agreeing to something he knows he can't control, and it's that shadow of consent that Dean clings to. He taps a couple of times on a shy but fairly plump vein (one of the few still intact), aligns the needle, and gets it in on the first try. "Not bad, huh?"
He doesn’t expect a response, and he doesn’t get one. He secures the IV line with some tape, and the same old, constant guilt gnaws at his stomach like tiny needles pushed in by a clumsy hand. It stings even sharper when he retrieves a vial from the bedside drawer that isn’t exactly on the prescription list, but who gives a damn?
When the three milliliters flow down the line and Sam lets out a relieved moan that smothers all remorse, Dean knows he’s done the right thing.
He heads to the bathroom once his brother’s breathing stabilizes. He’s back a few seconds later with a fresh basin of cold water, settling on the other side of the bed. This time, he wants to see his face. He feels like he has the courage and the authority to do it.
"How about some hot dogs for lunch? There's a truck out front, and they don't seem half bad..."
"Hot dogs? Not a bad lunch for a recovering patient." A tired smile surfaces on Sam’s face, and Dean gives himself some internal credit for successfully distracting him from both the previous topic and the cloth he’s resumed using to cool Sam’s forehead.
"Would you prefer chicken broth?"
"Hot dogs are just fine." Sam coughs, pressing the back of his hand against his mouth. The drug-induced sluggishness makes him seem like a creature from another world.
"After all, it's comfort food. We’ll save the broth for tonight."
"Who needs comforting?"
Dean purses his lips, shaking his head. "No one I know, that’s for sure." He refreshes the cloth, wiping Sam’s eyes. He watches them, glossy and almost amused, slowly lose focus.
"Get some rest now. I’ll wake you in a few hours." Dean swallows, unsure if he even remembers how to give a genuine, reassuring smile, but he manages something close enough, because if Sam can still see him, it’s exactly what he wants to show him before he drifts off into the peaceful, artificial sleep Dean’s created.
Slowly, Sam’s fingers loosen their grip on the sheets and go limp, splaying out against his chest. Dean tucks them back under the covers, adjusting the cloth on his forehead.
He lets a hand glide down Sam's now-relaxed side, and he smiles.
He did the right thing, he tells himself. And if those small pangs of guilt start knocking again, Dean will meet them with his firm resolve: it’s his job, and no one else’s, to take care of his little brother. The rest can go to hell.
The End.