An Attribute of the Strong
Chapter One
Summary: Written for the prompt at hoodie-time: Whatever Dean was eating in Purgatory, it wasn't what you'd call well-balanced meals. And adjusting back to 'real' food is harder than he expected. Dean's thin, borderline underweight (despite Sam's bitching at him to eat something), and his immune system really isn't up to dealing with flu season...
"You know, you wouldn't have to do that if you'd just eat something." Sam said it casually, like it was supposed to be helpful, with a hard edge of condescension, like Dean should be smart enough to figure it out on his own.
Dean looked up from piercing a new hole in the leather of his belt just long enough to glare at Sam where he lounged on the bed, laptop on his knees, then turned his attention back to twisting the knife carefully through the leather.
He heard Sam sigh, too loud not to be purposeful. "When you're done, we can go to dinner." A challenge shrouded in mundanity.
Dean lifted one shoulder less than an inch and dropped it again in the semblance of a shrug, refusing to rise to the bait.
"What do you want to eat?" Sam pressed.
"Don't care," he muttered, widening the hole he'd made slightly, cleaning up the edges.
"Dean, come on."
Dean forced himself to look up. "What?"
"You've been back for weeks now," Sam said, and Dean sighed just as loudly as Sam had earlier, looking back at his belt. "Don't do that, you know we have to talk about this."
"No, we really don't," Dean snapped, standing up to thread his belt through the loops. He wasn't staying for this conversation, not again.
"You're skinny, man. I know…I know Purgatory was rough, but –"
"You don't know a damn thing about Purgatory," Dean cut him off. "I spent a goddamn year running and fighting for my life while you were here shacking up with some chick, not even bothering to look for me." He picked up his gun, his jacket, and his keys, jerked the motel door open. "Don't act like you care about what happens to me," he spat and slammed the door, the echo of his words behind him less angry than he meant for them to be, sadder than he cared to admit.
Dean drove half a mile before he pulled over, smacking his hand against the steering wheel, then rested his head against it. "Sorry, baby," he murmured.
When he let himself, he was furious at Sam. He was hurt and betrayed and angry, and he wanted to be those things. He wanted to yell and scream and throw some punches, because every second Sam was gone, Dean was looking for him. Every night Sam was gone, Dean drank until he passed out because he couldn't stop remembering Sam, couldn't stop thinking he was about to walk around the corner and gripe about Dean's socks on the floor, or tell him about a hunt or hand him a beer. He wanted to be angry, but every time he thought of how awful it was without Sam, he knew he couldn't afford it. And when he thought about the first moment he saw Sam after Purgatory, the feel of Sam alive and breathing in his arms, he could almost convince himself he wasn't angry at all.
He let the anger flare up, once in a while, because of all the things he felt, anger was the cheapest. Anger was a tiny down payment on the betrayal and mistrust and uncertainty between them. So he pulled it out like a shield every time Sam nagged him about the weight he'd lost, because if he wasn't angry at Sam for being annoying, he'd be embarrassingly grateful that he even noticed. Dean didn't have that kind of chick flick moment left in him.
An hour after he stormed out, Dean returned with dinner as a peace offering. Sam had moved to the table, squinting at his laptop screen, but as soon as Dean approached, he slammed it shut. Dean raised his eyebrows but didn't comment. He wasn't in a position to be demanding his brother's secrets. He handed a Styrofoam box to Sam.
"I found the most disgustingly healthy thing on the menu for you," he said offhand, as though he hadn't spent a full five minutes looking for something just this absurd. Sam opened the box to reveal what was supposedly some kind of sandwich, except it was vegetarian and gluten-free, whatever the fuck that meant.
"Thanks," Sam said, actually looking kind of happy about the green abomination sitting in front of him. Dean settled onto Sam's bed, opening his own box to reveal a burger and fries. He tipped the box conspicuously toward his brother to show Sam that, yes, he has food. Sam looked like he wanted to argue about Dean eating on his bed, but finally looked back at his own food and kept his mouth shut.
It was a pretty good burger, Dean thought after the first bite. Nothing in Purgatory was soft the way bread was, everything stony solid and razor-sharp edges. Nothing like these crisp vegetables, because stuff didn't grow right there. But there was meat, he reflected, looking at the burger. Torn and mauled and bloody, strewn across the ground in poisonous rivulets. He looked away and forced a second bite, choked on a third, took a deep breath as his stomach roiled, the kind of faint shriek that preceded meat in Purgatory. He set the burger down, poked through the french fries looking for the crispiest ones because the mush of potato reminded him of soil in his mouth, ate exactly five of them, and set the box aside, laying back even though this wasn't his bed. It wasn't much, but he could probably hold this much down, if he really concentrated on not thinking.
"Dean." Dean sat back up slowly, shooting an annoyed glance at Sam and his goddamn puppy eyes. He choked down a few more bites of burger, a couple more fries. Because maybe it would make Sam happy, even if it meant he'd probably have to puke later. And then he lay back and closed his eyes, folding his hands on his stomach instead of clutching it the way he needed.
"Shut up, Sam." He didn't even open his eyes because he knew exactly what Sam was doing. They'd had this conversation so many times, he didn't even have to look to know Sam was wearing his concerned face.
"You can't be full already." Another challenge clothed in disbelief.
"Well, I am," Dean snapped, opening his eyes to glare at the ceiling, dropping one of his hands to the bed, clenching his fists in the sheets. He pressed the other a little harder against his stomach. Not just full, actually. Nauseated. Exactly as he was every time he tried to eat anything substantial.
"Dean, you've lost so much weight," Sam tried again. "I can count your ribs through your shirt." Dean looked down at his chest and raised his eyebrows because couldn't really argue with that. "What are you trying to do?"
"Not trying anything, Sammy. Just not hungry," Dean said tiredly.
Sam gave one of those ridiculous sighs again, and Dean closed his eyes once more. "Can you at least not sleep on my bed?" Sam snapped, like he was indignant instead of worried. Dean didn't know why they bothered with these stupid masks anymore.
Dean rolled off the bed, and his stomach lurched. He scrambled toward the bathroom, barely making it in time to lose his so-called dinner in just a couple quick heaves. He stayed for a long moment, breathing heavily, trying to let his stomach settle, before straightening up, wiping his mouth and flushing. He turned to brush his teeth, only to find Sam standing in the doorway because he hadn't even had time to close the damn door. "Ever heard of privacy?" he rasped, irritated.
"Jesus, Dean," Sam said softly. "Jesus."
He was doing the goddamn puppy dog eyes again and Dean could feel himself crumbling. It made him want to shove Sam back a step, startle him enough to knock that look off his face, just long enough for Dean to leave. But the stupid eyes were working on him and instead he leaned heavily on the sink, hanging his head.
"Ever since I got back…" Dean trailed off, waved his hand in a motion he hoped would encompass puking his guts out every time he ate, when he could eat at all.
"You've been doing this since you got back?" Sam asked, a weird accusing lilt to the guilt in his voice.
"Not doing anything, Sam," Dean said tiredly, before running a toothbrush quickly around his mouth to kill the taste.
"No, I meant….Christ, Dean."
Dean leaned down to spit out his toothpaste, studiously avoiding Sam's stupid wounded expression.
"I thought you were starving yourself because…" Sam mumbled then paused. "I don't know why," he added in a rush like Dean wouldn't notice it was a lie.
"Not a fucking girl," Dean griped. He did shove Sam now, more to get out of the bathroom than anything. The puking had left him feeling weak and shaky, and he just wanted to go to bed and ignore this whole damn conversation.
"I wasn't trying to…" Sam trailed off as Dean kicked off his boots and laid on his bed, fully dressed. He heard Sam say something else, but he didn't listen, closing his eyes and curling around his aching stomach. A moment later, the light clicked off and Sam's hand brushed lightly on his shoulder. Dean fell asleep to the mechanically clicking of the laptop keys and he dreamed of Purgatory, of a million eyes blinking at him as his body shrank under their scrutiny no matter how hard he fought.
-SPN-
"Why didn't you tell me?" Sam asked as soon as Dean opened his eyes. Sam sat on the opposite bed, leaning forward, hands clasped between his knees so that his face was approximately a foot from Dean's.
"The fuck?" Dean groaned, rolling to face away from Sam. "Do I have to teach you about personal space too? Jesus Christ."
"I was thinking this whole time you were doing this on purpose, or something," Sam pressed. "You should have told me." Like it was something you just came out and said. Like you could admit you couldn't do the most basic goddamn thing in the world, to your brother who thought you were a needy bitch and had been glad to be rid of you.
"You could have asked," Dean muttered instead, pushing himself up until he was sitting against the headboard.
Sam paused, frowning at him. "I'm sorry. You're right," he said finally and before Dean could think the world was ending because there was one fucking thing in this world that wasn't his fault: "But you should have told me."
"I can take care of myself, Sam. Been doing it for years."
"I can help you," Sam insisted. "I read about this, last night."
"What, you found online support for Purgatorian stomach bugs?" Dean asked, hauling himself out of bed and heading for the shower, turning it on so Sam would stop talking.
"It's not a stomach bug," Sam said over the sound of creaking pipes. "It's called Refeeding Syndrome."
"I don't have some fucking syndrome," Dean retorted.
"Dean, would you just listen to me for one minute, please?" Sam demanded, and Dean stopped. He looked at Sam for a long moment, then waved at him to continue.
"It happens when you've been fasting or malnourished. It's like your body can't just accept normal food again," Sam said in a rush. "And it can be really dangerous. But it's easy to treat."
"Okay, I'm listening," Dean said, folding his arms.
"We just have to start slow. Give you stuff that's easy to digest, stuff with a lot of minerals in it because yours are probably depleted. Work back up to cheeseburgers and stuff."
Which sounded a lot more pleasant than what it actually was. Dean had pictured all the times he was sick as a kid, being fed his dad's stew and milkshakes. But, according to Sam, milkshakes were far too rich and Dad's stew had too much protein. What he actually got was "Scrambled eggs. No bacon, no sausage. Just scrambled eggs." Dean jabbed his fork at the offending yellow substance.
"Easy to digest," Sam said earnestly and for just a second, Dean remembered that exact look on his brother's face when he was twelve, bringing him the right tools to tinker with cars in Bobby's yard, and Dean crumbled.
"Fine," he mumbled through a mouthful of eggs, washed down with a glass of milk – "Has a lot of phosphate, it'll help get your metabolism on track," Sam had explained, trying, and failing, to hand Dean some sort of ridiculous diagram to prove his point.
It wasn't actually that bad, and when he didn't have to pull over to throw up, he considered it a win.
Sam attacked Dean's alleged syndrome with the same intense approach he used for all other aspects of his life. He read every single thing he could find on the internet, scoured the library, wrote out meal plans and then annoyed the hell out of Dean until he complied with the gospel of Sam. For five solid days, Sam was pushing some kind of snack at Dean every two hours on the hour, even to the point of pausing halfway through digging a grave to tell Dean it was time for a banana, which was conveniently left resting on top of the weapons duffle. Dean threw it at Sam's head instead.
-SPN-
Despite Sam's ridiculously over the top attempts at taking care of him, Dean had to admit defeat at a gas station in some Podunk town in Montana. Because he felt like complete crap and after driving five hours through Jack Frost's temper tantrum because Sam insisted there was a case up in this godforsaken part of the country that couldn't wait until it thawed a bit, Dean was in no shape to continue driving. Already he'd nearly spun them off the road when a wayward sneeze caused him to jerk the wheel over a patch of ice. He might be falling apart and this was sure to make Sam call him on it, but damned if his baby was going to suffer with him.
While Sam was still inside primping in the mirror or whatever girly shit he did that took so goddamn long, Dean finished filling the tank and planted himself firmly in the passenger seat, trying to convince himself of some residual Sam body heat left in the seats despite the icy weather. When Sam finally came out of the gas station, he looked at Dean curled in the passenger seat, then pointedly around at the snow piling up and the ice slicking the roads, and back at Dean, because they both knew Dean didn't trust anybody with his baby in this kind of weather. Dean gave him the most menacing glare he could muster under the circumstances, and Sam had the good sense to get in the driver's seat and shut the hell up.
After an uncomfortably silent twenty minutes, punctuated only by the occasional painful sneeze from Dean because Sam would apparently rather listen to him suffer than turn on the damn radio, Sam finally said "Snack time."
"Not hungry," Dean muttered, refusing to take the apple Sam was trying to hand him, instead turning his head to rest on the passenger door.
"Dean, c'mon. You've been doing so well." He had too, although it wasn't as though eating was a particularly complex skill. He'd even been feeling a little better overall, less weak and dizzy than he'd been since getting back topside. Until, that was, he started feeling like complete shit again.
"Not now, Sam," Dean said as firmly as he could, but his voice cracked at the end as he broke off into a harsh cough. He turned away from the window again, looking for some water or coffee or something liquid to quash the fire erupting in his throat. Sam handed him a bottle of water and Dean took a few gulps before capping the bottle and leaning back against the seat, closing his eyes and trying to catch his breath.
A second later, though, he felt Sam's palm on his forehead. "Shit, Dean, you've got a fever." The hand was gone before Dean could even muster the strength to push it away, and he sort of missed the coolness of Sam's skin against his own.
"Fuck," Sam muttered, and Dean felt the car slow. He blinked his eyes open and noted the motel sign up ahead.
"Don't stop," he said and his voice broke. He coughed shallowly, trying to clear his throat. "We gotta make Trego by nightfall."
"Trego will still be there when you don't have a fever."
"Not what you said this morning," Dean muttered.
"You're sick," Sam insisted, parking the car in front of the office. "The poltergeist can fucking wait."
"It's just a fever," Dean grumbled.
"Dean, you're borderline underweight, you're malnourished. Your immune system is compromised." Sam said it urgently, like Dean was fucking dying or something, which he wasn't. He just had a stupid fever. "If it's just a fever, it'll be gone by tomorrow and we can get to Trego then. Okay?"
Dean rolled his eyes. "I'm not underweight." But Sam was already out of the car, the sound of the door slamming drowning out Dean's protests.
-SPN-
"You have to say sorry," Dean murmured, tugging his blankets down enough to glare at Sam with one eye.
"I'm not apologizing to you, Dean," Sam said as he rooted through their first aid kit, not even bothering to notice all the effort Dean had put into this cyclops glare.
"Not to me," Dean said, then paused as Sam rattled a pill bottle loudly. "To Baby."
"Fuck, Dean, there is nothing in this stupid box," Sam griped, like he it was Dean's fault, when they both knew who usually restocked the damn thing. And for that matter, Dean thought uncharitably, Sam had had plenty of time to buy cold pills while Dean was in Purgatory.
"I'm serious, Sam." Dean shivered again, coughed painfully, and pulled the thin blanket back over his head. It didn't help. "You slammed the door."
Another ridiculous sigh from Sam. "I'm sorry, okay?"
"No, you have to go tell Baby," Dean insisted, pulling the blankets back down to look at Dean imploringly, teeth chattering uncomfortably.
Sam rolled his eyes.
"Sammy? While you're out there apologizing, go buy soup." He sneezed in what he hoped was a convincing way.
"Oh, now you're hungry?" Sam snarked, and actually threw his hands up like he was in some overacted junior high play.
"No," Dean said. "I'm fucking freezing."
Sam sighed again, but this time it wasn't the huge gust of exasperation. It was the softer huff of resignation. Sam snatched the sheets and blankets off his own bed and settled them over Dean, sitting lightly on the edge of the bed to tuck them in all around, then running his hand lightly along Dean's back and up to cup the back of his neck. "Fever's gone up," he said softly. "Okay. I'm gonna go out real quick. I saw a store not that far from here. I'm gonna get us some stuff to make it through the next couple of days."
"No," Dean said then broke into another coughing fit. "Trego tomorrow."
"Uh-huh." Sam smoothed his hand over Dean's head like he was pushing his hair back from his forehead even though Dean didn't have that ridiculous mop Sam did, but Sam's hand was gone before he could get his arm out of the blankets to swat him away. He scowled instead, but Sam was standing up to grab the keys and missed it.
He turned the TV on, flipped through the channels until he found Dr. Sexy MD, and tossed the remote onto the bed by Dean's face. "Don't die while I'm gone. I don't feel like dealing with any more dead bodies this week," Sam said, which really meant that he was worried.
"Be careful with my car," Dean said when he really meant 'be careful with my brother.'
-SPN-
True to his word, Sam was back after less than one episode of Dr. Sexy, but it was a close thing. Dean had actually started considering the best way to change the channel without emerging from his blankets might be to use his tongue, figuring that the germs he might pick up couldn't be that much worse than whatever he already had, and quite frankly, his entire body hurt too much to consider much else.
Thankfully, just as the credits appeared, Sam stumbled in the door coated in white like a sugar doughnut, weighed down with several plastic grocery sacks. Dean blinked gummy eyes up at him and sneezed. Sam slammed the door and dropped the bags on the table.
"Trego, Sam," he coughed. "The fuck is all that?"
"Fuck Trego," Sam muttered darkly. "Damn poltergeist is probably under six feet of snow by now. Radio said this storm isn't letting up any time soon. We're fucking stuck."
"You're the one –" The cough came on so suddenly Dean almost choked, spluttering and coughing all the more as his throat was torn raw and his mouth began to taste faintly of blood. His brother was at his side in an instant, pulling him up until he was sitting cradled against Sam's chest, coughing uncontrollably, barely able to wheeze a breath between bouts of hacking.
"Jesus fuck, Dean!" Sam said, rubbing his back and that fucking hurt, his goddamn skin hurt and Sam was raising bruises alone the knobs of his spine but he couldn't even catch his breath to tell him. His vision started to darken at the edges and he lost track of what Sam was cursing, the only sound the crackle of his lungs collapsing as he desperately tried to breathe.
Slowly, the coughing subsided and Dean sagged, gasping shallowly, against Sam who was holding him tightly, rocking him back and forth gently, one hand running carefully through Dean's hair. He took a couple more shallow breaths and weakly pushed Sam away so he could flop back down onto the mattress, wincing as the contact made his muscles ache.
Sam hesitated for a moment where he sat on the edge of the bed, half reaching for Dean like he was going to hold him again but seeming to realize that wasn't going to do anything helpful at all and instead muttering, "Drugs."
"Cocaine with a side of heroin," Dean ordered weakly. "Nothing I have to smoke."
Sam rolled his eyes but the lines crinkling his brow weren't quite as deep when he returned holding what for Dean would have been a handful of pills.
"The fuck, Sammy?" Dean rasped. "I was kidding, I'm not trying to overdose tonight. I've puked enough lately."
"Tylenol, NyQuil, and a fuckton of vitamin C," Sam said, forcing the pills into Dean's hand. "Just take them, okay?" And then the puppy dog eyes. Sam turned away and started doing something in the kitchen while Dean took the pills one at a time, wincing as each dragged along his sore throat.
Sam returned, shuffling between the beds to stand in front of Dean with a hot water bottle, an icepack wrapped efficiently in a towel, and a thermos. He tugged Dean's blankets away and Dean made a mortifyingly pathetic noise of protest, then an equally humiliating hum of content as Sam settled the warm rubber bag against his belly. Sam tucked the blankets back around him, then walked around the bed and sat next to Dean, back against the headboard, swinging his legs up and kicking off his boots. Dean rolled over onto his back, dragging the water bottle with him and stared up at Sam.
Sam handed him the thermos. "Soup. You've got to eat something. Can't lose the progress we already made, okay?" Dean wriggled one hand out from under the blankets and took the thermos, staring at it from his reclined position like he could take off the lid and move the soup to his mouth with just his brain. But that had always been Sam's area of expertise, not Dean's.
Wordlessly, Sam slid an arm behind Dean's shoulders, wincing as shoulder blades dug into his arm, and pulled Dean up enough to prop several pillows behind his back. Dean settled back into them, immediately breathing easier. Sam unscrewed the top of the thermos for him because Dean was still unwilling to move any more body parts out of his blanket cocoon. Dean frowned as he felt Sam's arm worm its way beneath the top pillow and then Sam's arm was sort of wrapped around him, his hand holding the cloth-covered icepack to Dean's forehead. Which meant, despite the fact that he couldn't really feel Sam's arm through the pillow or feel Sam's anything through the layers of blankets, he was basically nestled in his brother's arms and that was just a little weird.
"Sam…" he protested quietly, glancing up to find his brother staring determinedly at the procedural cop drama that had taken the place of Dr. Sexy.
"Shut the fuck up and drink your soup, Dean." He said it nicely though, no edge or undercurrent at all. And maybe this was weird and touchy-feely and entirely too chick flick, but damn if it didn't help. He wasn't shivering anymore and the aching in his joints was already abating. He hadn't quite noticed the flush of fever in his face but the ice was making it feel a hell of a lot better. The soup even actually tasted good.
And maybe he could feel the ridges of his ribs pressing up where his arms were crossed over his chest, maybe he was sicker than he'd been in years. But he wasn't in Purgatory, alone with no one looking for him. And maybe Sam hadn't looked for him. But Sam did go out into a blizzard for him. And maybe he was still hurt and betrayed and angry. But right here, with the feel of Sam alive and breathing at his side Dean wasn't angry at all.
He gripped the remote through the blankets and tossed it into Sam's lap. "Change the channel, bitch. Fucking hate CSI."