With thanks to Alex L. Kerr
The Next Day
K Hanna Korossy
Dean: Look, man, the second trial hit you a lot harder than the first one.
I don't know whether it was just more intense or what...
Sam: Felt the same. Till the next day. - Pac-Man Fever
Dean started awake from the blissful lack of a dream and just took a moment to relax into the bed. Exhaustion weighted his body, and his eyes still felt raw from all the driving and the staring at the bright soul that was Bobby and definitely not from holding back tears. Just…fatigue.
He wasn't sure what woke him, therefore, except maybe the rain that was drumming down on the motel roof. Already he was used to life in the bunker, where they were insulated from any outside sounds or, you know, windows, so that storms and bright morning sunshine and wind took him a little by surprise now.
Except, the rain sounded awfully loud.
Dean turned his head, squinting toward the door. The parking lot's yellow lights streamed through the open door, illuminating the spears of rain that followed it in. A door that had most definitely been closed when they went to bed.
Frowning, Dean slid his hand under the pillow to curl around his knife—some things you never forgot—and rolled onto his side facing the other bed. Dean peered at the tossed covers, trying to discern if there was a human shape in them. "'S'my?"
No answer.
Fatigue forgotten, Dean slid out of bed, crouching low to assess danger. But nothing was obvious, besides an open door and a missing brother. Jaw set, he rose and crept to the door.
He didn't have to go far.
A few feet out, just beyond the meager awning and two concrete steps, stood Sam in his night-wear of undershirt and boxers, now plastered to his skin by the pouring rain. He was motionless, aside from the intermittent shivers that ran through him, turned away from the door, looking at nothing Dean could see. Just…standing in the cold rain.
Yeah, that was normal.
Dean's hand flexed on the knife as he stepped up to Sam, circling him carefully. This could be a possession thing, a Trial thing, or a vestige of Sam's recent sightseeing trip to Purgatory and Hell. At this point, Dean would take a high fever over any of those.
Sam didn't react to his presence, his eyes open but unmoving. Dean finally reached out to touch him, taking one chilled arm.
"Sam?"
Sam blinked, face twitching as it came back to life. A faint line gathered between his eyes—Sam sign for thinking—and the lax muscles in Dean's grip bunched. He blinked again, then turned to face his brother, expression arranging into one of confusion. "Dean? What're we…?"
Close enough. Dean himself was freezing, barefoot and similarly unclad, and who knew how much longer Sam had been out there. Dean turned him toward the room without another word and prodded him inside. Thankfully, there was no protest.
Once in, Dean shut the door, grimacing at the dissolved salt line but not actually caring much: not like that would do any good against the threats they faced those days. He shoved Sam toward the nearest bed, then turned toward the bathroom.
"Dean, what—?"
He returned with two surprisingly fluffy towels and dropped one next to Sam before draping the other over his head. "Dude, you tell me. I woke up with the door open and you playing statue outside in the rain." As if Sam were a kid again—because he was kinda acting like it—Dean rubbed the towel vigorously over his wet hair.
Surprisingly, or maybe not, Sam just swatted half-heartedly at him before giving up, shivering and slumped under Dean's ministrations. "I don't remember." His voice was muffled through the layer of terrycloth, but Dean still heard the words, and the worry under them. "I, uh…where are we again?"
Dean made a face that Sam wouldn't see anyway. "Somewhere in New England. You remember stopping for the night? After you got back from Purgatory, and…Bobby?" Satisfied with his work—Sam's head looked like a porcupine—he tossed the towel and tugged on Sam's wet shirt. "Get these off."
Sam obediently started shucking clothes, but his movements were sluggish, uncoordinated. Cold, tired, or weak: Dean didn't know and, right now, didn't want to care. He untangled those octopus arms from the clinging cloth, held Sam up when he staggered trying to remove his shorts. Dean tossed him another towel and made sure he was using it before starting his own disrobing.
"Sam?"
"Uh, yeah. I guess. We were in the woods. Naomi sent Bobby to Heaven. Crowley took off. Right?" He sounded uncertain.
"Yeah. Then I packed you up and we hit the road, stopped here after a coupla hours. You remember any of that?"
"…No."
Mostly dried off, Dean fished out clean clothes for them both, passing Sam's to him. "I'm not surprised, man—I don't think you really woke up between the car and the bed." He eyed Sam as Sam eyed his shirt as if it were an alien artifact. "You don't remember going outside?"
"No." Sam sighed, finally starting to dress. Thank God, because Dean had had enough trauma that day. Night. Whatever. "I guess I was dreaming."
"Uh-huh." Dean kept the skepticism out of his voice; this wasn't about riling Sam. He honestly didn't know, and Dean was just as happy not sharing what he himself suspected. He dipped into their other bag this time, the medical kit he'd brought in because, post-Hell and Purgatory and Trial Number Two, he really didn't know what they'd be dealing with, and fished out a pair of pills. "Here," he said, holding them out with a bottle of water.
Sam took them without question, which right there told Dean everything he didn't want to know.
He helped Sam to the other bed, noting that he was right, Sam was warm to touch despite the cold rain, and still shivering. Dean added one of his blankets to those on Sam's bed, then went and turned on the coffeemaker. While Sam blinked drowsily at the wall, Dean poured most of the hot water into a water bottle, the rest into a cup of soup mix.
He sat on the edge of Sam's bed, struck by déjà vu again as Sam peered up at him through tousled hair. "Lift up." Sam uncurled enough to accept the water bottle and hug it close. "Can you get some of this down?" He knew Sam's stomach had been iffy since the first Trial, and they were at two and counting now.
Sam looked doubtful but didn't protest when Dean found him a straw so he could sip while lying down. His eyes got heavy as he drank, the shivering tapering to occasional shudders.
Dean should've been grateful: Sam was letting him take care of him, responding to the care. But his pliability, his weakness and lack of complaints or eye rolls just pushed Dean's worry higher.
Sam was asleep by the time the soup was mostly gone, and Dean figured that was good enough. He put the mug on the nightstand, tugged Sam's blanket up to his neck. Pressed fingers up under his brother's jaw to find his temp was a little better and his heartbeat was slowing. He looked like he was on the third day of the flu, but these were symptoms Dean could treat. It was what he might not be able to fix that gnawed at him.
"Gonna tie you to the bed if you take another walk," he murmured to the sleeper, and patted his shoulder once before rising. As soon as he turned away, Dean's expression grew hard.
He had a call to make.
00000
The sound of metal-on-metal yanked him out of sleep into…sort of twilight awareness. His senses were slow to come back online—Dad would have been so disappointed—and memory was spotty.
But there was Dean, sitting in the driver's seat next to him—car door, that sound had been the slam of the car door—watching him carefully, and even though that meant things were probably not okay, it also meant he didn't have to worry.
Sam stretched with caution, used to the tight space of the Impala and soreness of muscles he couldn't even remember using. But there was something more now, a deep feeling of…off, and Sam wearily remembered that, too: Trials, right.
He rubbed sleep from his eyes, and yawned in Dean's face. "We home?"
Dean looked torn between concern and laughter. "Yeah. I had the bunker redone in Early American Diner."
Sam stared at him, brain still moving too slowly, then through the front window at the line of tractor trailers in front of a dusty road stop. "Oh."
"O-hi-o, actually." Dean smirked at him, the ass. "Someplace called…" He lifted the receipt stapled to the brown bag he held. "Englewood."
"Fascinating," Sam deadpanned, shoving hair out of his face and licking dry lips.
"Brought you some soup again," Dean offered, gentled voice not teasing anymore.
Again? He couldn't remember the first time. But he felt both weak with hunger and nauseated at the thought of food, so maybe soup wasn't a bad idea. Sam accepted the plastic container and spoon and struggled to pry open the top. He pulled it back when Dean reached out to help, muttering a probably petulant, "I can do it." And tried not to scowl at his brother's obvious amusement.
It took way more effort than it should've, but he finally got to the contents: tomato soup. With rice in it. Sam had never seen that on a menu; Dean must've ordered it special. He wouldn't want Sam to comment on it, though, so he just dug in to show his appreciation, feeling stupidly loved.
"So." Dean himself was eating some kind of sandwich. Sam had braced for the smell of cooked hamburger, but this was cold cuts of some kind. Probably also a deliberate choice. "I called Naomi."
He was nodding before his brain caught up. "Wait, what?"
"Prayed to her, I guess? I was gonna summon her, but she's on this campaign to make us think she's on our side, so I figured, why not? And damned if she didn't come running."
Sam glared at him. "Dude, you know what she did to Cas—we can't trust her."
"Oh, I didn't." Dean freed a hand from his sandwich to wave it at Sam, showing off the fresh scab on his wrist. "I was ready in case she got frisky. But I had some questions, and who am I gonna ask, Cas?"
That was true; they hadn't seen their friend since he'd killed Samandriel and then vanished. One more reason to mistrust Naomi. "And?" Sam asked warily.
"So, get this: the angels didn't know about that door to Purgatory, either, until Benny and I jumped through it."
Sam took another bite of soup, appreciating the meager warmth it provided. "Okay, that makes sense—that's why they didn't go rescue Cas any earlier."
He didn't miss the quick sidelong glance his brother gave him: rescues from Purgatory were still a sensitive subject between them. But Dean just nodded and quickly went on. "That's not all. You ever wonder why Crowley didn't just talk to a reaper when he was trying to find Purgatory instead of hunting the big game Alphas?"
Sam sat up a little. "Yeah, actually." He'd even discussed it briefly with Bobby—and it felt really good to say that again—but they hadn't come up with anything. "AJ sounds…sounded," because Benny had told him what happened to the reaper, "like reapers went there all the time."
"You're not wrong," Dean said around a large mouthful of sandwich. He never had really bothered about manners with Sam. Not since teaching him manners as a kid. Dean pointed a pickle at him. "But. Reaper order's breaking down just like Heaven and Hell. They only started going rogue not long ago. Used to be they'd die before working for anyone besides, you know, Death."
Sam rested the soup in his lap. A dozen bites in and he'd already reached his limit. "Huh. AJ said he was the one who took Bobby to Hell—I figured that's why he took me to a portal close to where Bobby was locked up. Makes sense that they'd be some kind of subset of demons or angels, or both." He shifted in his seat, but for once, Baby's well-worn interior didn't feel comfortable. "Remember when I ran those tests on the angel sword we have?"
Dean looked at him blankly.
"That lab in Tallahassee," Sam prompted.
Dean's eyebrows rose in a shrug.
Sam sighed. "That lab tech, uh, Mindy, with the tattoos?"
His brother brightened. "Oh, yeah!" His smile spread. "She was…"
"Dean. Upper brain," Sam snapped. "The sword had that weird resonance, remember? Something beyond the natural world—that's why it kills angels and demons."
"Yeah, so?"
"So, I bet that's why it works on reapers, too—they're kinda halfway between Heaven and Hell."
"O-kay…"
"So…" His burst of animation fizzled out, leaving him exhausted. Or just letting him feel his ever-present exhaustion. "I bet that's how AJ died. Before, you needed a ritual like the one Alistair used to kill reapers. Now, even Crowley's got an angel blade."
Dean grimaced as the implications set in. "Oh. Yeah, that's…not so good." He set the remains of his sandwich down.
"No," Sam agreed quietly.
After a few seconds, his brother shook himself out of his funk and offered Sam a bottle of Gatorade. Sam didn't even comment when Dean loosened the lid for him before handing it over. He sipped at it, willing down the roil of his stomach. He'd need his strength for whatever the last trial was.
"We goin' to Kevin's?" he murmured, head leaning back into the seat. Comfortable or no, just having woken from a nap or no, he felt about thirty seconds from sleep.
"Yeah. The little twerp's still not answering my calls. I think he thinks I'm Crowley."
Sam huffed, eyes at half-mast. "Naw, your Scottish accent's lousy."
"Bite me, Laddie," Dean said in a really lousy Scottish accent.
Sam's mouth twitched, but he was too far gone to actually laugh. He felt Dean tug the bottle out of his hand, then move around a little before a blanket was tossed over Sam. He might've even felt a hand brush against the side of his neck, but by then he was asleep and he'd never be sure.
00000
Funny how fast, after more than thirty years of not having a home, Dean had gotten used to having one.
"C'mon, Sasquatch," he coaxed as he tugged on Sam's arm. The kid had slept most of the day and was still more asleep than awake as Dean manhandled him into the back seat. Probably wouldn't remember this later, either, which maybe made it a little more okay that Dean was climbing in with him.
He longed to be in the bunker. Not just because of his awesome memory foam mattress with its plenty of room and the big-screen TV and the condiments selection in the kitchen he'd finally collected to his taste. He just felt safer there. Felt Sam was safer there. And right now, there was nothing more Dean would've liked than to tuck Sam into bed in his own safe, cheerless little room.
"Just…would you…" He grunted as he tried to arrange massive limbs so they all fit on the seat. He'd toyed before with making the front bench seat reclinable during one of his retrofits of the Impala, so they could have one big "bed" instead of two narrow seats, but they were usually fine sleeping one in the back and one up front. Now, with Sam spread out all over the back bench, Dean was wishing he had the option. Something to think about…later. "Okay, just…lift up…" Son of a bitch, it was like moving a rag doll.
He finally had his brother more or less curled up on his side on the seat, a blanket for a pillow and another tucked around him. Suddenly feeling the fatigue of the last few days, Dean dragged the door shut behind them and dropped heavily onto the floor next to Sam's head. It wasn't the most comfortable position, but the door behind his back was padded and he could sort of stretch his legs out, and it was far from the first time he'd slept sitting up. This would work. Wouldn't make for the best night's rest, but he'd know if Sam decided to take a walk again, or if his fever went higher than it already was, or if he needed Dean in any way. Because if this was all he could do now, be Sam's support system while Sam did the Trials on his own, then Dean would be the best friggin' support Sam could ever need.
Sam shifted in his sleep, coughing deeply before sighing and settling again.
Dean wiped the flecks of blood from his brother's lips with the blade of one hand and swallowed a sigh of his own. "I should be the one doing this," he whispered to Sam.
Sam slept on, hot and restless.
"I didn't want you to have to go back to Hell. And, man, I never wanted you to see Purgatory."
He'd seen the guilt in Sam's eyes when he got back. They didn't talk about it anymore, Dean moving on, Sam feeling…whatever he felt. But Dean had glimpsed the unspoken remorse.
"I know you feel bad about Benny, but just…don't. He and I were close, yeah, but…I gave him up for you, and I'd do it again, even if I'd known he wasn't coming back. You got that? I forgive you. All water under the bridge, or over the dam, or freakin' wherever, as long as you get through this."
Sam coughed again, ending on a wordless groan as his head tipped forward against Dean's shoulder. He could feel the heat of Sam's skin through two layers of clothing.
Dean breathed out slowly. He probably should've gotten some Tylenol into the guy before they got comfy for the night. But unless his fever really spiked, this would have to do, because Dean wasn't moving again anytime soon.
He huffed wordlessly at the scene they made: wedged together in the back of the car as he spilled his heart to a sleeping Sam like some teenage girl in a bad movie. Parked under a tree by a field, the only people for miles around. Just the two of them, as always. As it had been, he could see now, even when Dad was alive.
"I'm gonna get you through this," Dean murmured, before letting his eyes slide shut. He reached blindly to pull the blanket higher around Sam, and finally dozed off as Sam's shivers died down and they could both relax.
00000
"…gonna get you through this…," Sam heard through the haze of sleep. And dream or reality, the hope and determination of it let him settle into the warmth and rest.
The End