Work Text:
Dean's heart hurts sometimes.
It doesn't happen often — if it did, maybe he'd be more concerned. Maybe he'd bring it up when Dad came back, wet and mud stricken and cold from his hunts. But it didn't. So he didn't. So it was probably just fine.
It only happened sometimes. Like that night Sammy caught the flu from school and clung onto Dean's sweater tight, eyes hazy and red tinged and all Dean could think about was when he'd clung to Mom the same way last he was sick. Dean didn't think he could get sick anymore. He couldn't. He had to take care of Sammy when the little rat got his own mystery toddler disease, after all. He couldn't get sick anymore.
It happens in happier moments sometimes too — that's when Dean started getting a little worried. He was in Miss Bradshaw's third grade class and she asked everyone what they did over the weekend. Dean was proud when he told her how he'd taught Sammy to hold his dinner knife the right way. Miss Bradshaw said he was a good big brother. His chest felt funny and his heart felt bloated and heavy and wrong till class ended. He shouldered his backpack and walked down the block before the bell went out to pick Sammy up from preschool.
He certainly feels it now. At least the perp is obvious.
Sam's cheek is flushed red.
Dean tried to lie to himself for about two seconds when saw him hunched by the building's door with his teacher crouched next to him, a hand gently holding a pack of ice against his face. A bad fall. An accident.
Something in his chest flares hot and his ears burn.
"Sammy?"
The kid whips his head up, relief stark in the line of his wide eyes. "De—" he cuts himself off, rocketing into his big brothers chest, scrawny arms wound around faded flannel.
"Hey, hey, hey," Dean clutches the kid ot his chest tighter than he should. He reluctantly pushes him back and his chest flares again when he sees his baby brothers face.
Sammy's cheek is red hot to the touch. The pudge there is meant to be soft, chubby like a chipmunk like Sammy's always been. Instead it stretches a little tight when Sammy scrunches his nose and looks swollen and—
"What happened?" Dean demands, heart hammering in his chest.
Sam opens his mouth but his teacher cuts him off.
"A little argument broke out after nap time," the lady's eyes are soft and downturned, a little like the cows in the documentary they watched in Miss Bradshaw's class last week. Dean had to leave early because Sammy had gotten sick. Dean should probably know his teacher's name by now. Instead he takes the ice out of her hands and presses it softly against Sammy's swollen cheek. His baby brother winces a little. Dean's chest feels hot.
"Dean, will your father be coming along to pick you boys up?"
Dean's head snaps up and he clutches Sammy a little tighter to his chest, a dry swallow working its way painfully down his throat.
"He's at work now," Dean starts, pivoting hurriedly when he sees the beginnings of a tight frown on her face that means copscopscops— "but he'll be home really soon. We live right down the street, remember?"
Their motel is a forty minute walk from Sammy's preschool. Dad told him what to tell the adults, though. He told him when Sammy first started preschool. He told him when he first started preschool. Dean isn't stupid. Even if adults can be, sometimes. That's why Dean needs to tell them nicer things sometimes. Because they wouldn't understand, like Dad said. They wouldn't mind if they knew about how important Dad's work was, but they couldn't. So Dean had to say nicer things sometimes.
The lady's brow stays tight so Dean shifts a little, holding the ice pack more firmly against Sammy's cheek as he looks up at her, puffing his chest out as he stretches tall.
"He's really tired, ma'am," he brushes a hand through Sammy's hair as the kid nods, looking up wetly at his teacher. "And Dad's gonna be home real soon."
She still looks hesitant but there's a parent standing impatiently by the door with a deep frown and a snotty kid next to her so she sighs and her knees crack as she uncrouches.
"Alright," she relents. "but have him call me right when he gets home, alright?"
Dean nods vigorously, straightening Sammy's hoodie as his breath comes back to him. "Yes, ma'am."
She gives him a tight smile and Dean leaves just as the mom down the hall starts hissing about her son's alleged vegetable allergy.
Dean tries to get Sam to talk on the walk home, but he won't bite. He stares at the concrete and his hand-me-down Skechers and his lips stay sealed tight. Dean hauls him up into a piggyback ten minutes into the walk instead of their usual twenty since Sammy's feet start to hurt. Dean's chest is burning hot and he feels a little like he's gonna throw up. He hikes Sammy up higher and apologizes quietly when the kid snuffles. Eventually they get 'home'.
The motel room keys are sticky when Dean fishes them out of his pocket. There's a man watching them from inside his Corolla. Dean tries to keep his head down as he jiggles the key a little harder to get it inside the rusty lockplate, metal swollen from age. Swollen like Sammy's little cheek. His arm burns a little and his chest is all wrong. The door creaks open.
Sammy jolts awake a little when Dean says his name. The kid can sleep through anything except for his own name. Sammy goes to rub his eye but he flinches when his pudgy little hand brushes against his cheek. Dean's chest hurts.
"You feeling hungry?" Dean nods towards the countertop with an attempt at a wry smile. "I'll let you have Lucky Charms for dessert if you eat all the nice food I picked up yesterday."
Sammy perks up a little, finally, at that. "Really?" His voice is small and crackly and Dean's breaths come in a little late as Sammy weakly clutches the ice to his face. It's all dripping down his arm by now. Dean takes it and chucks the pack in the weird smelling freezer and takes out a pint of ice cream.
Sammy's eyes light up when he draws it out, mouth dropping in awe before pouting when Dean only drags him to the couch and presses the already sweating pint to his cheek. The AC in the room has been busted for the past week, and summer was creeping its way in.
It takes a few episodes of Voltron and a couple melted scoops of Ben and Jerry's, but eventually Sammy's his usual blabbering self. He asks Dean why the Galra were so mean and if he could pilot a lion one day. When Dean asked which color Sammy wanted he said he'd pilot Red but only if Dean took Black. Otherwise he didn't care. Dean held the dripping pint closer to his baby brothers cheek. He should really ask Dad about his chest thing.