Author's Note: They should take the computer away from me when I'm going through something tough. Sam tends to suffer right along with me. Wrote this while sitting on my brother's bed, 90% deaf from clogged ears. This was written somewhat as a companion piece to my fic, In Your Eyes, Under Your Skin. Enjoy!

They're hunting a Kelpie when it begins.

It's the three of them, Dean and Sam and Bobby; and while a recently re-souled Sam has a habit of putting himself, lately, between Dean and anything remotely dangerous, including angry customers in line at the store and a terrifying, charging toddler, Dean doesn't think much of it until the Kelpie is aiming to rip his feet out from under him and drag him under the peaty surface of the lake; and suddenly, Sam is there instead.

Sam's only under for a minute. A full minute, but it takes them twice that to revive him. After Dean hauls Sam out of the water, not kicking and screaming but limp and pale, and lays him out on the shore. Ice particles mix with the sand and Dean strips down to bare skin across his chest, using his layers to warm his brother while Bobby administers CPR.

Sam comes around with classic slowness, sputtering up mucky water. Dean wraps an arm around his shoulders and props him up, carding a hand through his wet hair. Sam leans against him and vomits and vomits, over and over again, while Bobby goes to dispatch their mark.

"You okay, bro?" Dean asks, when Sam's dry heaves simmer down to shivering. Sam looks at him, head cocked, and nods. It's not until Dean takes back his own wet coat, just for a windbreak, and Bobby is moving back down the shore to join them that Dean notices Sam corkscrewing a finger into his ear, his eyes squinting shut.

In hindsight, Dean thinks he should've paid attention to that.

But hindsight is twenty-twenty.

Two days pass, and they've parted ways with Bobby. Dean leaves Sam at the motel and goes for a supply run, because Sam has picked up a cold from his dip in the lake and he seems just on this side of loose in the head, talking louder than usual and wearing a constantly pained face. Not that Dean blames him, near-drowning is never high on their list of favorite complications to face on a case; but with all the other things that are misshapen under the surface, he doesn't want to add one more thing to Sam's repertoire.

He comes back with chicken soup and cinnamon rolls and finds Sam pacing; the television is cranked up to near-full volume and the sink is running. Dean cuts Sam a concerned glance, moves past him to the bathroom and shuts off the water. By the time he turns around Sam has dropped onto the bed with his hands clapped over his ears, and he's pressing, hard.

Dean panics, because Hell is waiting in the wings, and he can feel it under his skin. He drops the food and crouches, grappling onto Sam's wrists, hauling his hands away from the sides of his head.

"Sammy. Sammy! Look at me!" He barks, and Sam needles his eyes open. "What happened, huh?"

"I can't hear anything!" Sam practically shouts, his breath smelling like morning-mouth and cough-drops, and Dean sits back on his heels without loosing his grip on Sam's wrists.

"You—what?"

Sam swallows, seems to try to modulate his voice. "Dean. I can't hear anything. I think I'm deaf."

"Your brother is deaf."

Dean wants to scream when the med-clinic doctor gives his diagnosis; Sam is stripped out of his layers and sitting on the cold metal bed and he's shivering, sniffing to clear his clogged sinuses. Dean stares at this balding, short, middle-aged doctor and considers unleashing nearly three decades of frustrations on him and his idiotic, redundant declaration.

"Yeah, I gathered that on account of him not being able to hear me!" Dean snarls, and he's guilty for being mildly glad that Sam can't hear enough to tell him to go easy on the man. "I wanna know what caused it, doc!"

"It looks to be an excess of the water in the ear. That, combined with the mucus in his Eustachian tubes, has caused the blockage." The doctor rubs his dragging jowls, looking properly intimidated.

"All right, so, you're the medical genius. Fix it."

"Obviously, there are things we can do. Candling his ear would—"

"Candling?" Dean echoes viciously. "You wanna stick fire into his ear?"

"It would help to loosen any—"

Dean doesn't hear what it would loosen, because all he can remember is the feeling of a white-hot poker crammed into every orifice of his body. Hell, torture, fire. He imagines triggering the wall, imagines Sam imagining the fire going straight to his brain, liquefying it from the inside.

"Thanks, but no thanks."

"Sir, it might help. Your brother is clearly miserable." The doctor adopts a no-nonsense tone that Dean finds laughable at best. Growing up with John Winchester's no-nonsense and Bobby Singer's no-nonsense makes this man's rulebook seem like a flimsy deck of cards.

"I know he's miserable. But I'll be damned it I let you stick a candle in his ear. Give me a better option."

The doctor splutters. "A decongestant might—"

"Good. Give him that." Dean cuts him off, aware that he's done nothing but cut the man off since he walked in the door with an abbreviated, "And how are we today—?"

The doctor scrambles for composure, nods frigidly and lets himself out. Dean rakes his hands back through his hair and turns to Sam with a forced chuckle and a, "Can you believe that mook?" It takes him a second to remember that Sam can't hear him.

But Sam, even deadened to all sound, isn't incompetent; and sometimes Dean forgets that Sam can read him better than anyone else in the world. "Dean," His voice is still inordinately loud, so Dean motions for quiet, and Sam tempers his tone. "You didn't have to yell at the man. He was just doing his job."

Dean opens his mouth to respond, snaps it shut, and hunts around the tiny Emergency Clinic room until he finds a prescription pad and a stubby pencil in a drawer next to the cotton balls. He hops up on the table beside Sam and scrawls hastily on the blank sheet: You didn't hear what he wanted you to do.

Sam reads it, eyes moving fast, then plucks the pencil from Dean's hand and jots down, Can't be much worse than this, Dean. He pauses, then adds, in smaller, cramped handwriting, It's weird. I'm so freaking dizzy. He underlines dizzy five times.

Dean looks up at him, and Sam looks back, with those classic wide, wet eyes that trigger Dean's protective nature. He squeezes the back of Sam's neck. I got you, he mouths, and there's a modicum of relief in Sam's expression when he nods.

The doctor is back in minutes, with two bottles in his hand. Dean hops off the table to meet him, accepting the foreboding orange capsules. One is an over-the-counter decongestant; the second, the doctor explains, is an antibiotic.

"The trapped water in your brother's ear has triggered an inner-ear infection. Have him take quick showers, as hot as he can stand them, for a few days. Avoid any large bodies of water, or submersing his head. If at all possible, he needs to lie on one side or the other while he sleeps, to help drain the trapped water from his ear."

"Got it," Dean makes an effort to be more approachable, this time. "Anything else I need to know about?"

"Yes, crunching ice might help to break up the blockage. Avoid carbonated drinks, since those may cause him to burp, and burping can be hard on his eardrums."

Dean finds himself flashing back to when they were kids and he was trying to raise a fragile infant alongside his destitute father. "No worries, doc, Sam's all green. Health nut. Soda's not on the menu."

"I can appreciate that." The doctor says, responding to Dean's more amiable tone. "Another thing you should expect, son…your brother's going to be much more dependent until his hearing is back. You may find it a real handful to be his caretaker, but I can recommend some live-in assistants if you—"

"Thanks, we're good. I can look after him." Dean pockets the bottles and jerks his head; Sam, who's been tracking his movements consistently through the conversation, rises, laying a hand to the wall to steady himself until the dizziness passes.

They leave together, the mildly perturbed doctor watching them go.

Sam is miserable, stuffy and sniffling for the first two days. After that, his nose starts to run, and it's two boxes of tissues a day and utter, red-eyed misery. Dean spends most of his time on the opposite bed with the television turned on low, just to let the striations blanket the walls while Sam tosses and turns and tries to get some sleep. Every time he wakes, Dean quirks a brow at him, a silent, Anything?

His heart sinks a bit further with every head-shaking no.

Sam lives on hot chicken soup and drugs that don't do any good; his ears are well and thoroughly stopped up. Dean calls Bobby, but all he gets is a, "These things work on their own time, boy. Sam's body'll flush itself when it flushes itself, and there ain't nothin' you and me or modern medicine can do."

Sam spikes a fever, and then it goes; he takes the fastest showers Dean's ever seen. He's religious to stick to the rules the doctor gave them, jotted on a notepad by Dean. Their motel room is always ten degrees hotter than it should be, thanks to the steam.

Dean puts up with it, because a sick, sweaty Sammy in a hot, sweaty motel room is better than his cold counterpart just sitting on the opposite bed, waiting for sunrise.

Crunch. Crunch.

They're holed up in a motel room the next state over; they haven't gone far, because driving seems to make Sam's dizziness worse. Dean's already called Bobby again and taken himself and Sam off the job. Sam's on a regiment of pills that he seems to hate the taste of, but he doesn't complain; he rarely talks at all, anymore, seeming content to follow Dean's cues or to write, more often. He doesn't admit to it, but Dean suspects that feeling the vibration of his own voice but being unable to hear it bothers Sam.

It bothers Dean, too; bothers him that he can't make any fast movements on the periphery of Sam's vision without startling him. Bothers him that he can't crack a joke at Sam's expense, because punchlines lose their punch on paper. Bothers him that someone could murder Dean in his sleep and Sam would sleep right through it.

Crunch. Crunch.

Sam's sprawled on the bed, a twenty-four ounce Styrofoam cup of ice tucked under one arm, and he's flipping aimlessly through the muted television. Dean's researching everything, and nothing; looking for a lead on the Mother of All while keeping an ear on the door and an ear on Sam. He finds himself wishing Castiel were around, but none of his prayers have been answered, and—

Crunch. Crunch.

"Would you cut that out?" Dean snaps, wheeling in the chair to face Sam. Sam's expression is blank, innocent, and for one second Dean regrets his outburst.

Then Sam's face splits into the broadest smile Dean's seen in years, and he trickles three more ice cubes into his mouth and crunch, crunch.

It occurs to Dean for the first time then that he can still hear and Sam can't, so Sam is probably going to make the most of it.

You suck, he mouths, and Sam's grin dissolves into belly-shaking laughter.

The pranks start later that week.

Dean fires up Sam's laptop and freezes it on Busty Asian Beauties. Sam cranks up a Kelly Clarkson song on the television and hides the remote; which wouldn't be a problem, except he's also duct-taped over all the buttons, so Dean can't change the channel. In retaliation, Dean hoses Sam's bed with water from the ice machine. Sam sings Broadway songs, loud and off-key, following Dean around constantly.

Dean would be annoyed, if it weren't for the fact that he knows Sam is making the most of things; that he's back, he's had a rough year—give or take one hundred and seventy nine, by Hell standards—and Sam is unwinding.

It strikes Dean, the irony of the situation, because were the roles reversed he knows he would be a sullen terror. But Sam seems to take it in stride, constantly compensating for his loss of hearing with pranks that are singularly annoying to Dean.

When they go out, to the diner on the corner for meals twice a day, Sam sticks close to Dean; he walks cautious and watches his own flanks, and Dean's, wary of every side. Dean orders for both of them, but Sam's not incapable. He's just too busy charting his surroundings to care if he orders, or if Dean does.

For the first time in years, Dean really begins to see just how intuitive Sam does.

It's in the way he notices things without the use of all five senses; how he compensates with restless eyes, deeper breathing—sometimes open-mouthed, tasting the air—and runs his hands over everything. He's feeling, Dean comes to understand, feeling vibrations, and he makes better sense of that when they're leaving the diner, crossing the parking lot, and Sam's walking with his hand to the tin siding of the establishment and suddenly he reaches out, jerking Dean backwards and nearly clean off his feet.

Dean watches the truck that he hadn't seen before whip around the corner and fly past; the one whose tires might have worn him as a handsome stain had Sam not sensed it sooner.

"Did you—?" He begins, and Sam nods, his forehead a crinkled seam of worry. "Wow." Dean shakes his head. "Thanks, Sammy."

Sam nods; reading Dean has always been easy to him.

What bothers Dean is the way other people treat Sam; the way the waitress seems to act like Sam is a special case, a few screws loose and a few French-fries short. The way kids on the street holler stuff about a sasquatch they see walking to and from the diner every day; Dean is glad Sam is oblivious to that, or seems to be, but the abuse he hears aimed at his brother makes his blood boil, anyway.

"This is why I hated when dad made us stick around town for a more than a few weeks, man," Dean grumbles after another volley of taunts flung toward their retreating backs. Sam's walking with his elbow digging Dean's ribs, so he feels the vibration and glances at him, questioning. Dean just looks away.

It's not until the twentieth time they're leaving the diner that something happens. That in the late afternoon that same group of kids—four of them, all in their late teens—are cruising past, with the punk, city-slicker look that always set Dean on edge in high school. They stop in the path of the Winchesters, and the abuse starts; racy, snide remarks aimed toward Sam, and Dean doesn't think these boys have a brain cell between them if they're taunting two grown men like this. Which means they're cocky, overconfident. Which means they're probably packing.

"You mind?" Dean nods to their tricked-out dirt-bikes, blocking the sidewalk. "We're kind of in a hurry."

"Yeah, I bet you are," The kid in the lead twists his face into an ugly sneer. "I bet you can't wait to get this guy back to your dingy motel so you can do the dirty with him."

That starts Dean's blood simmering. "You wanna show a little respect, kid?"

"Yeah, sure, what are you? My mom?"

Sam nudges Dean. Let's just go around them.

Dean nods, and brushed around the entourage of teenagers, but the comment that slaps him in the back of the head stops him cold in his tracks: "Oh, what, he's not just deaf, now he's a dumb freaking retard, too?"

It's not high school, Dean thinks, it's not Dirk, or Tommy, or Blake, or any one of those streetwise douchebags who thought Sam was an easy target. And they're adults now.

That doesn't stop him from turning, catching Sam's worried eye, then squaring up to the kids. "Don't talk about my brother like that."

"Oh, dude, he's sleeping with his own brother? Groady!" One of the boys chortles. "Bet that's why his brain's so messed up, his parents were probably—"

And that's it, Dean snaps, Dean moves forward and grabs the kid's collar and then he feels the cold kiss of a gun beside his temple.

"Let him go, man!" The leader hollers.

A metric ton of angry Sam catapults into the kid, flinging him onto the sidewalk, and the other punks scatter. The gun goes off, and for half a second Dean's panicking, right down in the marrow of his bones, but Sam's not hurt. He's holding the kid's head over the gutter, straight into oncoming traffic.

Before Dean has a chance to think that maybe this is Soulless Sam peeking through the cracks of the wall, Sam hauls the boy out of harms way. He spins him around and wrenches the gun from his hand and backs him against the fence that edges the sidewalk.

"Don't," His voice is still loud, loud enough to draw attention across the street. "Point a gun at my brother. Understand?"

The kid nods, real fear in his eyes, and Sam lets him loose. They flee on their bikes, the whole posse, and Sam holsters the gun in his waistband.

Dean's wrestling for control of his temper when he turns to Sam. "Dude, that was pretty wicked. You didn't even flinch when the, uh," He trails off, reality settling in, and he mimes gunfire. Sam smiles half and taps the side of his head. Dean grins, "Right, you couldn't hear it. Small favors, huh?"

Sam nods, and pockets his hands.

Dean takes comfort in knowing that, even deaf, Sam can watch his back.

It's the following day when Dean is at the kitchenette table, poring over lore books again, and he hears a low, "Oh," on the bed behind him.

It's not a hurt 'oh', or a depressed one; it's more surprised than anything, but it still has Dean snaking around in the chair. Sam is sitting cross-legged on the bed, crunching ice and flipping through an old gun manual; except he's not flipping anymore, he's sitting frozen with one hand cupped to the side of his head, staring sightlessly at the pages. Dean tries not to think Wall, checking what Sam's reading on his way over to the bed. "Sam?"

Sam looks up, eyes wide. "Say my name." His voice is normal, almost strangely so, and Dean's brain fires with warning bells.

"Sam."

Sam shakes his head. "Not that, say—"

"Sammy?" Dean says, and he says it because Sam is worrying him, with that detached expression and his hand still cradling his head; but Sam grins like he's just heard the Heavenly Host in song.

"Yeah. That."

Dean blinks. "Sam, can you hear me?"

"My ear just popped," Sam says, by way of confirmation.

"You sure? It's not like…some kinda fluke?" Dean demands, unable to believe that the antibiotics and decongestants might have, finally, worked.

"Positive. It feels good, feels…back to normal." Sam shakes his head slowly, rocks it from side to side. "Oh, man, Dean. I almost forgot…" He trails off, suddenly contrite, and Dean flips a grin.

"What, you forgot what I sounded like?" When Sam smiles, sheepishly, Dean plops onto the other bed. "Good luck shutting me up, Sammy."

Sam digs at his ear, then works his jaw back and forth. "Ugh, it's popping like crazy, Dean. Feels weird."

"Quit it." Dean kicks him, then tugs on his boots. "Let's get the hell outta dodge, man. I hate this town."

They load the Impala, and Dean is just glad that Sam is walking without a list to his stride. Loves the way his brother stops to listen to the birds singing and the cars backfiring on the highway. Loves how Sam grins when Dean leans in the open window and fires up the Impala, just to hear her purr.

"So," Dean crosses his arms on the roof of the car. "What valuable lesson did we learn from this one, Sammy?"

Sam holds up a finger, his expression ironic. "No dipping with Kelpies."

"Right," Dean chuckles, because sometimes there are just things that happen, and you don't learn a life lesson, but you live through them. And you remember, he thinks, what it means to take care of someone, and to be cared for, without any strings attached.

They climb in, slam the doors, and Sam actually laughs at the sound. "Man, I thought I was never gonna get my ears back."

Dean hesitated, fingering the keys. "Sam, what was it like?"

"What, being deaf?" Sam asks, and Dean rolls his eyes.

"No, bein' a can-can dancer in Vegas."

Sam snorts. "It was like being deaf, Dean, I can't explain it." He pauses, thoughtful, then reaches over and claps his hands over Dean's ears. Dean squirms, tries to buck his hold, but Sam is strong and it's a second later that Dean realizes he really can't hear much of anything under Sam's hands, other than his own heartbeat; or Sam's, through his hot palms.

He sees Sam's lips move, but all that comes through is a muffled slur of words, and it gives him a woozy feeling so he smacks Sam's arms down. "Cut it out."

"Yeah. Exactly," Sam says, and Dean thinks maybe he understands; that the worst wasn't being deaf, but being deaf to Dean's voice.

When the moment becomes too emotional for comfort, Dean reaches over and cranks on Metallica so loud that Sam groans, clapping his hands over his ears. "Ah, God, I wish I was deaf again."

And then he blinks, and tips his head to one side. "Oh, come—my right ear just went out again!"

And because Dean knows there's a light at the end of the tunnel for these things, he just laughs. "Be careful what you wish for, Sammy!"

He sings along down the road, pure, sweet revenge, with Sam digging at his affected ear all the way.