Author's notes:
1) Obviously set before 10.21, which I'm hoping isn't permanent.
2) I'm not going to rationalize sick Dean with the Mark of Cain. My explanation was lame so I removed it, please use your imagination if this detail bothers you. It's happening, so there.
3) Warning: vomit and slightly bad grammar
4) Apologies to the first people who tried to read this story - something went wrong and it posted in technogarble. Hoping that a repost works!
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Charlie fumbles with the complicated lock and spell combo at the entrance to the bunker, but eventually gets it open. She breaks a nail releasing the third seal, no big deal, it's not like the guys think of her in sexy ways, at least she doesn't think so. Not her type anyway. She sticks her finger in her mouth to dampen the pain from her fingernail torn off to the quick, squints her eyes and recites the last seal's incantation. A little garbled, but it does the trick and she's in.
"Wass-ap, bitches?", she calls out, surprised when no one answers. Really? It's not like she hasn't been texting her plans to visit for the past week. Rude! Mental note to prank some hunters once she's picked a room and had a shower. Maybe stick to the classics: short sheet the beds and saran wrap the toilets? No! She'll hack their phones to send out hourly cartoon porn website recommendations to each other.
Her phone vibrates. Four rapid fire texts from Sam: Sorry, won't be there when you arrive. In Topeka, back tomorrow. Hunt. Check on Dean, he looked weird when I left.
Weird? Dean looked weird? That can't be good. She texts back: Weird how?
Can't explain, just... weird. Like a hedgehog, all prickly looking. Squinty. Weird. That doesn't help, does it? Sam texts.
Um, no. Charlie replies. She hopes that Dean's not in some Mark-of-Cain-related emo crisis. He's been kind of an ass lately, but she's willing to give him some leeway since he's got a pretty good excuse for it. However, she's got a limited tolerance for Dean's bitchiness when in close quarters, and Lebanon's not really a hotbed of tourist attractions if she needs to escape for a few hours. She's not even sure if there are any cafés with wifi nearby. This might be a long week.
Charlie tosses her bag into the room she stayed in last time, and goes in search of (possibly weird looking) Dean. Finds him a few doors down, and quickly wishes she hadn't. She presses her back against the wall in the long hallway, and tries to calm her heart rate by taking a few deep breaths.
Ew. Oh, ew. Dean's sick. Like, throw-up sick.
Charlie's not good with sick. She's a lone wolf by trade, spending more time interacting with online people than live humans. Not that she has anything against live humans, she's just not as comfortable with them. Online folks are less... messy. There's no risk of exposure to bad breath, greasy skin, body odour, or other squick-inducing features of IRL people when she's online, and those are every day human issues. She was perfectly fine with never seeing another person hurl, heck, she fast-forwards those kinds of scenes in videos. Now she's seen a grand total of two seconds worth of Dean puking his guts out, and it's two seconds that she'll never be able to erase from her brain. So gross!
Dammit, she promised Sam that she'd check in on Dean, didn't she? Charlie considers texting Sam again to let him know that she was running later than expected, and wouldn't arrive until tomorrow, then make a quick exit from the bunker heading directly for a motel as far away from the incredible exploding Dean as she can get. She feels like a weenie for thinking this, she's a big girl, a hunter now; a little puke shouldn't scare her off. Except that it does! It so does!
She pokes her head into the large dorm-style bathroom. The door squeaks as she opens it and Dean looks in her direction. Crap! He's seen her, no chance for a hasty retreat without seeming like an uncaring jerk.
"Charlie?", Dean whispers, his voice hoarse and cracking, "'zat you? 'M s'ck Charlie". He rests his head back against the mosaic tile backsplash next to the toilet, eyes closed.
"Um, yeah, I can see", squeaks Charlie. "You need anything?" PleaseNoPleaseNoPleaseNo, she thinks.
Dean doesn't reply, instead, he lurches forward and lets out a wet belch. Vomit splashes onto the toilet seat, and Charlie gags.
She closes her own eyes, plugs her nose, and moves towards Dean, free arm outstretched, aiming for his back. When she makes contact, she crouches down and starts rubbing furious circles, too fast and too hard. She can feel Dean's muscles contracting with each heave, and she gags along with him, a microsecond lag behind.
Dean finally stops and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand before flushing the mess away. "Charlie?", Dean mumbles, "Y'r makin' this worse, go 'way". He doesn't have to ask twice, she's up and out of the bathroom in a heartbeat.
Charlie retreats to the room she picked, and grabs her bag. This room no longer appeals, she's going to find one on the opposite side of the universe if she can, but she eventually settles for a broom closet with a cot near the dungeon. Far, far away from Dean and his gastric exorcism routine. She peels off her clothes and scrambles into the shower, where she turns the water up as hot as she can then scrubs at her skin until it feels raw. When she finally feels clean, she curls up on the cot and flicks on her laptop, anxious for some monster-blasting MMORPG distraction.
An hour or so later, her phone vibrates again. Thinking it's Sam, Charlie opens her text messages. Crap! It's Dean, and now he's probably seen the little 'read at 2:17 pm' bit under his words. She promises herself that she'll turn off that feature ASAP, but it's too late to avoid this one. Dean's text reads: help to bed pls. Dean's lucky that she loves him, anyone else and she'd be making excuses, any excuses to get out of re-exposure to the ick.
She opens the squeaky bathroom door, and sees Dean in exactly the same position as when she first walked in on this mess. Eyes closed, head resting against the cool bathroom tiles. On hearing the squeak, he opens one eye a slit, then closes it when he's confirmed that the visitor is Charlie. A disturbingly pale Charlie, but still Charlie.
"Help me up?", he asks.
Charlie moves in and grabs him from the front, attempting to lift Dean by the armpits and grunting with the effort. His head flops forward onto her shoulder and he burps. Charlie feels something hot and wet land on her back. Oh God, he's puked on her! She cringes and a small strangled noise escapes her throat. This is more than she can take, even from Dean. She drops him unceremoniously to the linoleum floor, then lands in his lap as she makes her own dive for the toilet. Dean is apparently unfazed by other people's vomit, even in his current queasy state he's able to hold her hair back and whisper soothing words. When she's done, she looks at him, a bit sheepishly. "Sorry, I'm not good around puke", she tells him. "I'd never guess", Dean replies.
Stomach empty, Charlie pulls off her soiled tshirt and again tries to help Dean to his feet, this time taking a back-focused approach. Together, they stumble down the hallway until they reach the lounge. "Here's good enough", says Dean. He collapses into the couch, and closes his eyes, ready for some healing sleep. Charlie collapses next to him, wiped out both emotionally and physically, too tired to even care that she's in her bra, reeking of sick, and dangerously close to the supplier of said sick. There's not much worse that could happen tonight (barring apocalyptic-type events that seem to follow the Winchester boys), she thinks.
Thankfully, this time she's right. Sam arrives home as expected early the next morning. The first thing he does is look for Dean. What he finds are both Dean and Charlie, mouths open, asleep tangled together under a ratty wool blanket on the couch. Sam pieces it together without waking them, though he's not entirely sure why Charlie's shirt is missing. Both hunters look like they've been to hell and back, hair tousled and spiked from sweat, and... other fluids. Ew. Dean is squinting in his sleep, and Charlie's making little snuffling noises.
Now he's got two hedgehogs, but they're safe, so Sam smiles.