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Sam glances surreptitiously over at Dean as his brother drives, the occasional streetlight and the dim glow of the dash the only illumination. One year. Three hundred sixty-five days. Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes. His eyes burn and he wants to throttle his brother for doing something so incredibly stupid. Yet, at the same time, he knows, deep down inside, he’d’ve done the same. He isn’t one to call the kettle black.
Without warning, Dean twists to the left, sneezing hard against his shoulder, misting the corner of the window with fine droplets. Sniffing hard, he turns back to the road. In the next slant of light, Sam sees that the gash on his forehead is still sluggishly oozing blood, thick clots beginning to form. It’s not deep or wide enough for stitches but rubbing alcohol, butterfly bandages, and surgical tapes are definitely in order as soon as they get back to Bobby’s.
“So it’s over. It’s really over,” Dean says, half-awed, leaning against the rear passenger door, reaching up and dabbing at his forehead with an old t-shirt he’d fished from the rear footwell. They’re on the side of a road somewhere in Wyoming, making a pit stop. Turning his face away barely in time to cough phlegm all over the shoulder of his jacket, he sniffs hard, running his cuff beneath his nose as he tilts his head back to look up at the stars.
“Yeah. It is.” Sam pops the trunk, roots around for their first aid kit.
“Fuck, Sam,” Dean exhales, turns to his brother and grins ruefully. “We’re not gonna know what to do with ourselves. Maybe we should go to Disneyland.”
Sam’s throat tightens. He doesn’t trust himself not to tear a new one into his brother. He focuses on undoing the catch to their first aid kit. He plucks out an alcohol wipe, tears open the wrapper, and hands the swab to Dean. “Clean your face. Your cut’s still bleeding.”
At the halfway point, Sam takes over the wheel, following the mismatched taillights of Bobby’s junker. Ellen’s riding with Bobby and Sam’s thankful to the older woman’s tact in giving them the space they need.
Dean’s huddled up in the passenger seat, pale in the glow of the passing lights, sniffing hard. He coughs and sneezes explosively into his hands.
Sam glances over when Dean smears his palms against the thighs of his jeans with a muffled fuck and cups his hands around his nose, fingers digging into sinuses.
“You okay?”
There’s a nod.
“Sounds like you’re coming down with something,” Sam comments, flipping open his phone.
“Nah sick…” Dean’s voice is muffled by his hands.
“Uh huh. Yeah. Right.” Sam presses 2, speed-dialing Bobby. “Hey Bobby? Sorry, Ellen. Next town, we need a pharmacy run.”
“You can’d tell the difference between Bobby’s voice and Ellen’s? Tha’s jus’—” a burst of coughing interrupts him “—freakin’ lame.”
“Shut up.”
It’s in a Walgreen’s parking lot somewhere in South Dakota where Sam tears open the box of cherry-flavored Robitussin CF and opens the bottle.
He hands the vial to Dean, not bothering with the tiny measuring cup. “Bottoms up.”
Dean’s asleep, sagged up against the window, snoring congestedly and drooling on himself, when they pull into Singer’s Salvage hours later.
He blinks awake just as the engine cuts out, runs a hand across his eyes. Sitting upright, he downs another dose of medicine, swigging straight from the bottle, guesstimating the amount.
He waits a beat before lurching out of the car and staggering into the house, shrugging off Sam’s steadying hand.
They’re all sitting at the kitchen table, still riding on the adrenaline high, knocking back whiskey, mulling over the Devil’s Gate, when Dean finishes the bottle of cough syrup that has done nothing for the crap that’s digging into his chest, chasing it down with two shots of Jim Beam.
Sam’s in the bathroom when Dean decides it’s time to turn in, shoves his chair back and rises. The world suddenly goes sideways and flips on him.
He breaks out in a cold sweat and there’s strong hands cupping his elbow, fingers entwining in his. He’s dimly aware that it’s not Sam who’s lowering him back onto the chair. He feels a palm cup the back of his neck and it’s cool and dry and steady as it forces his head between his knees. He grips the worn denim there, gulping convulsively, willing himself not to puke. There’s the sound of a woman’s voice in his ear, fingers caressing the hair at the nape of his neck, but he doesn’t quite register it.
After a while, the world refocuses and the pressure eases up, allowing him to straighten slowly.
Ellen’s frowning. “You nearly passed out there. You okay?”
Before he can duck or protest, her palm’s on his sweaty forehead. When he feels himself lean slightly into her touch, he tells himself it’s because the world’s still spinning.
“You might have a bit of a fever. It’s hard to tell. When was the last time you ate? You going to throw up?”
Dean shrugs — no clue — and palms his stomach. “N-no. Don’ think so, at least.”
“Alright. Slow ‘n easy.” She sets out a glass of water and a couple of saltine crackers that she’s conjured out of nowhere.
He’s just swallowed down the first cracker when: “Gonna spew.” He gags, vomits, pink-red bile splashing onto the floor.
Sam’s there to catch Dean during a reprise of the faceplant-and-puke routine less than ten minutes later and drags his ass to the second-floor guest room. Briskly, Sam relieves his brother of boots, jacket, jeans, overshirt, and manhandles him into bed, setting the wastepaper basket by his head.
“Don’t feel good,” Dean mumbles, lifting a corner of his sheet to his face and empties out his sinuses into it. He stares at the thick, gooey trails of snot for a moment before flicking his gaze back to Sam. He clenches his jaw, pales, but everything stays down.
“Shut up, jerk, and sleep.”
The overhead light is extinguished, plunging the room into darkness and there’s the creak of box springs as Sam settles on the other, too-narrow, too-short twin bed. He forces his breathing to slow, even out, staring through the window at nothing in particular. He sniffs, muffles it in his pillow. And listens to the sound of Sam rustling in the other bed.
Unexpectedly, Sam’s voice breaks through the darkness. It's quiet, gentle, as though his huge Stanford-educated brain finally worked out the real reason why Dean can't — won't — let himself fall asleep just yet, “It’s okay. I won’t go anywhere.”
When Dean awakes, hours later, head aching, sinuses throbbing, Sam’s there with tissues — the ones coated with aloe shit that leaves his hands feeling greasy — and more cough medicine that does jack-squat for the incessant sneezes that already seem to be on their way out.
By the time they leave Bobby’s, there’s three hundred and fifty-nine days left on the clock.