Work Text:
NOW
He fumbles at his cell on the bedside table. His fingers are too stiff, arm muscles weak and elastic. He manages to close his hand around the hard plastic and pulls his arm back beneath the covers. He’s shivering, almost trembling, but it doesn’t make any sense because he’s sweating buckets, can feel the drenched, limp sheets twisted around his body. He swallows, igniting the fireball that explodes in his throat. He presses the green SEND button and the display lights up like some kind of beacon, the blue backlight making him screw up his eyes. Blindly, he presses the luminescent number one and holds the phone up to his ear.
Dad’s cell defaults to voicemail and he ends the call without leaving a message. Bypassing number two, he goes for three.
Pleasepickuppleasepickuppleasepickup, he begs silently, breathing raggedly.
The phone on the other end rings once… twice…
“Hello?” the gruff, familiar voice cuts through the darkness and Dean almost wants to sob in relief. “Who’s this and you better have a damned good reason for calling at this time of the night.”
Dean lets out a harsh pant that’s way too hard to pull back into his chest. “It’s me,” he croaks out in a half-strangled voice that’s oddly high-pitched and sounds like it’s been dragged over gravel and burning coals.
“Dean?” Bobby’s voice is instantly sharp, concerned, all annoyance stripped away. “You all right, son?”
“Not really,” Dean manages to suck in a sharp gasp of air that doesn’t feel like it makes it all the way past his tonsils and glands. “I’m… I feel kinda sick.” He closes his eyes and tentatively swallows the saliva that’s pooling in his mouth and groans as his throat does the glass-exploding thing. “Sam’s gone… and I dunno when Dad’s going to be back. He’s not answering his phone.” His voice cracks and he feels tears burn behind his eyelids.
“Where are you?” Bobby’s question is too loud, too much and it makes his head throb again.
“Uh… Min-Minnesota, I think. Couple hours from you. Just over the border. Ca-Can’t remember the name of the town. The motel begins with R…”
“Okay, kid. I’m on my way. Sit tight.”
Dean nods, remembers that Bobby can’t see him. “Thanks,” he rasps out and hears the line go dead.
BEFORE
“Hey.”
Something thuds into his lap and Dean slowly peels himself from the passenger door, raising his dark glasses. He blinks, still feeling exhausted, and glances down into his lap. He looks at the foil-wrapped burger and then back up at his father. “I’m not hungry,” he says, carefully setting it beside him on the bench seat. He grimaces, palms his stomach. It doesn’t make sense — it’s been hours since he’d barely eaten several bites of scrambled eggs, and he still feels full.
Dad glares at him. “Dean, this has got to stop. I know you miss Sam but your brother’s made his choice. I need you to get your head back in the game. You’re no good to me like this.”
Dean shrugs. His head aches. Hell, everything aches. And it’s too fucking early for this argument again.
He pulls his sunglasses back over his eyes, plunging the too bright world into blessed dimness and curls back up against the sun-warmed leather, resting his temple against the smooth glass.
John exhales loudly, impatiently. “Fine. But next time we stop, you’re eating and running suicides.”
NOW
He must’ve dozed off because the next thing he knows, the glowing digital clock’s jumped ahead an hour and twenty minutes. He still feels exhausted and weak, despite the hours he’s slept, and there’s a distinct, heavy pressure in his groin.
With a soft whimper, he pushes himself upright, his arms trembling with the exertion. Just the routine movement of sitting up leaves him feeling impossibly drained.
It’s definitely harder to breathe and he doesn’t feel like he can pull enough oxygen into his lungs, as though all the air keeps getting stuck somewhere around his throat.
His overfull bladder sloshes uncomfortably and he staggers to his feet. His side aches, the pain radiating up to his left shoulder, and the shallow, Darth Vader breathing isn’t really helping.
He makes it to the bathroom without faceplanting, a fact he considers a win. He relieves himself and pulls up his thin black boxer shorts. He’s gasping and sweating, now, and he feels lightheaded and dizzy. He reaches out for the doorknob and everything tunnels and goes black.
BEFORE
Dean can feel Dad’s eyes watching him as he makes his painfully slow way from the Impala to the bed farther from the door. It’s way harder and more exhausting than it should ever be.
“Seriously?” John’s voice is a rough growl as Dean collapses facedown on the thin, worn-out comforter. “You slept the whole damn day, Dean.”
“Please,” he whisper-croaks, his voice wrecked. “Just lemme sleep. I just gotta sleep this off. I’ll be fine for the hunt. I swear. I’ll be ready for tonight. Just… jus’ feel a little tired is all.”
“That’s it.” He feels Dad’s heavy footfalls cross the room and the mattress sink slightly at his hip.
Dean curls towards the rough denim and old leather presence that is his father. With his eyes closed, he can almost pretend things are the way they were then.
“C’mon, get up,” Dad’s rumble is oddly patient. “I just need you to sit up for me.”
Dean nods into the pillow, already getting his hands underneath him. He eases himself upright, and his hand slips off the bed and Dad catches him before the rest of him can follow. The pressure of Dad’s hand against his side makes him cry out, one sharp, bitten-off note. It’s cut off before it can really leave his swollen, aching throat but Dad hears it anyways.
“You hurt?”
Dean shakes his head, hesitates, and nods. “It wasn’t a hunt,” he mumbles out, head coming to a rest on his father’s shoulder.
“Okay.” Dad’s fingers are sure, impossibly gentle as they palpate his abdomen. He explores a sensitive spot just beneath his ribs on his left side a moment longer than the others. “Huh,” he says. “Anything else?” His hand snakes out, palms his forehead and Dean leans into it just as Dad pulls it back. “You got a fever.”
Dean lifts his heavy head from Dad’s shoulder and tugs down the collar of his overshirt. John grimaces, probing the swollen glands.
“Well,” he says, with a sharp, frustrated exhale. “You’re sitting this one out.”
NOW
There’s someone slapping his face gently and it’s way too hard to pull in air.
He shivers, hears someone curse loudly, and feels himself being propped up against the wall.
The world focuses slightly and he sees —
“Bobby?” he mouths, gaping desperately, like a fish with no water.
The older man rises to his feet and suddenly he’s alone and the room’s filling up with steam, which makes it even harder to breathe.
Then he’s dragged up to his feet so quickly the world flips on end and he goes under again.
BEFORE
Dean comes around when he senses someone’s unlacing and tugging off his boots, jeans but he doesn’t open his eyes, hovering in the twilight somewhere between awake and dreaming. There’s brisk, callused hands easing off his long-sleeved blue shirt, stripping him down to boxers and t-shirt. They are gentle, though, as they ease the covers from beneath him, then he feels himself being covered up with the duvet.
He thinks he hears Dad mention something about a Chupacabra, being back sometime in the next couple of days, and to call if necessary, but he isn’t sure.
NOW
He sloughs through muddy-brown murky darkness, surfacing slowly. Smell returns first, all sharp disinfectant and sickness. Hospital. His brain still feels dull, stupid, and it takes way more effort than it should to drag open his eyelids.
There’s someone sitting in the chair beside his bed. Someone wearing a battered oil-stained trucker’s cap and a well-worn flannel shirt….
“Bobby?” He rasps out in a voice that doesn’t feel or sound like his.
Bobby jerks instantly awake, leaning forward. “Welcome back, Sleeping Beauty.”
Dean’s brow furrows. “How… What…” he rotates his head, feels something go taut and pull his movement short, then he registers the hard plastic of the nasal cannula pressed uncomfortably against his nostrils.
“What d’you remember?”
Dean starts to shrug, decides against it. He concentrates. “Bathroom,” he finally says.
“Yeah. You passed out. Damn near suffocated by the time I got there. Your throat’d completely closed up.”
Dean feels his cheeks burn as he drops his gaze. He’s still exhausted, kitten-weak. “Sorry.”
“What the hell d’you got to be sorry for?”
Dean shrugs, doesn’t look up as he picks at the blanket.
“Don’t give me that crap, boy.” Dean tenses up at the sharp bark in Bobby’s voice, gaze snapping back up. The older hunter gentles his tone. “It wasn’t any trouble coming out this way.” Bobby stands up, exhales. “All right. I’m just gonna get the nurse and then we can go home, now that you can breathe and all.” He snakes out a hand and presses a button on Dean’s bed, raising the head until Dean’s almost sitting upright. “You’ve got a nasty case of mono, but you’ll live.”
BEFORE
He’s not sure how much time’s passed the next time he comes around. The exhaustion creeps in first, as it always does, followed closely by his throat flaring painfully awake. He doesn’t have any strength, his limbs feeling like overcooked noodles.
He glances up and sees his cellphone. It’s too far away for him to reach. He squeezes his eyes shut, wills himself not to fall apart. Besides, it’s not like he has anyone to call anyways. Dad’s out on a hunt and Sammy…
He rolls to his other side, back to his phone.
… And Sammy wasn’t ever coming back.
NOW
Dean shuffles slowly out into the bright sunlight, the glare making him duck his head and screw up his eyes tightly. One corridor, one elevator ride, and halfway across a hospital parking lot, he’s ready to faceplant. He’s grateful for Bobby’s hand at his elbow, warm and steady, steering him towards the faded red Pinto.
Bobby opens the passenger door and lets Dean ease himself in.
“You can jus’ drop me off back at the motel…” Dean rasps out in the voice that isn’t his, all rough and gargled-gravel as Bobby slips into the driver’s seat and starts the car. “I’ll be okay.”
Bobby cuts a glare at him. “And bang up job you did last time with that. You’re coming with me. I’ve got your gear and left a message with your daddy.” He exhales, shifts the car into reverse. “Get some sleep before you collapse, willya. We’ll be there in a coupla hours.”
AFTER
Dean rests his sweating forehead on drawn-up knees, wrapping his arms around his shins, trying to even out his breathing. He’s panting hard, trembling all over as though he’s just tried to scale Mount Kilimanjaro or outrun a Black Dog instead of climbing a half-dozen measly steps.
“Dean?”
He glances up at the sound of his name and sees Bobby standing at the foot of the staircase.
“You all right?” Bobby takes the stairs far too easily and settles on the tread besides him.
Dean nods. “Y-yeah,” he wheezes out, takes a deep breath and steadies. “I’m good. Just a little tired.” He curls over his knees again and feels Bobby’s hand settle on his shoulder, rubbing it through the sweat-soaked fabric of his t-shirt.
Bobby’s silent for a long moment. “C’mon kid, let’s get you settled up.” He stands, wraps his hand around Dean’s biceps and eases Dean to his feet. “I’ve got a cot in the library.”
Dean halts, legs shaky, clutching the banister. “N-no. It’s okay. I can sleep upstairs. You don’t have to….”
“Nonsense. Somebody has to keep an ear out for the damn mutt. Rumsfeld can be a right big baby about storms and the dark….”
He nods, taking a deep, steadying breath. “Okay… yeah. Okay.”