NO PLACE LIKE HOME
Summary: Post 8x19 "Taxi Driver". While Sam is resting, Dean is nesting - and the older brother decides to do something for his hurting little brother.
Author's note: The idea for this story popped into my head after the radiator in my apartment broke and has resulted in me catching a cold (despite the fact that I'm sleeping with two duvets and a blanket). What better way to get through a cold by writing about Dean and Sam, right? Fine, I admit it – I never need a reason to write about my all-time favorite brothers. Do you ever need a reason to read about them? ;)
Elisa.
_SPN _ SPN _ SPN _ SPN _ SPN _ SPN _ SPN _ SPN _ SPN _ SPN _ SPN _ SPN _ SPN _ SPN _ SPN _
"A house is made of walls and beams; a home is built with love and dreams."
- Origin unknown.
_SPN _ SPN _ SPN _ SPN _ SPN _ SPN _ SPN _ SPN _ SPN _ SPN _ SPN _ SPN _ SPN _ SPN _ SPN _
It was the coughing that woke him up; the harsh, rattling coughs that carried through the heavy walls of the bunker, cut right through the darkness and reached the oldest Winchester brother in his sleep.
"Sammy.." Dean mumbled even before he was fully awake and tore himself out of the lingering dream before blinking his eyes open.
The room around him was dark, which was no surprise really since there were no windows in it, so Dean couldn't be sure if the night had turned to day just yet. He threw the covers aside and got up from his bed, before walking the short distance to the desk to turn on a lamp. As the room lighted up, Dean blinked rapidly a couple of times to give his eyes a chance to get used to the sudden light and then glanced at his wristwatch.
6.12 a.m.
Dean yawned and rubbed sleep out of his eyes before another rattling cough caught his attention and reminded him of the reason why he'd woken up in the first place; he needed to check on his little brother.
Leaving his room behind, the older Winchester brother walked to the room next to his and didn't bother to knock before he opened up the door and stuck his head inside Sam's room. And then he froze – literally froze - because the room was about as warm as taking a dive in the Hudson Bay on a late October day. And Dean should know what that felt like; he'd tried that once when he'd been ten, and Sam had accidentally kicked his new red plastic ball into the water. Bobby, who had been their babysitter that day, had been furious when Dean had returned to the shore – soaking wet and with clattering teeth – but returning the ball had earned him a big hug from his crying little brother so it had all been worth it.
"Dude, what the hell?" Dean exclaimed, stepped into Sam's room and flicked on the lights.
The huddled bundle on the bed, also known as Sam Winchester, groaned his displeasure as the light attacked him and buried his face deeper into his pillow – only to have to move back a second later as coughing assaulted him once again.
"Sam?" Dean asked impatiently but with an edge of concern to his voice when his brother was finally done coughing.
"What?" Sam asked in a tired voice and turned his head a bit to peek at Dean through eyes at half-mast.
"What's up with the temperature in here? It's freezing!" Dean said and knocked a few times on the room's heater. "Broken."
"F-figured." Sam stuttered out and tucked his covers closer around him, sniffling a little.
Dean snapped his head in Sam's direction and closed the distance between them before scanning Sam's pale face with a concerned frown. Ever since completing the second trial, Sam had been weary and – although trying to play it down to unsuccessfully prevent Dean from worrying too much – had been hurting even more than after killing the hellhound. Dean had ordered Sam to take it slow these days so that included no hunting and a lot of bed rest for the younger Winchester brother. What worried Dean more than he cared to admit though was the fact that Sam had agreed to the terms way faster than Dean had expected him to and without a lot of arguments against them. It wasn't Sam Winchester's style to follow orders that easily so that meant that the kid was feeling a lot worse than Dean had first assumed.
"Are you cold?" Dean asked although it was pretty obvious from the way Sam was violently shivering underneath his covers, but Dean still needed Sam to confirm it.
Sam nodded and coughed a little more, and Dean couldn't help but notice the small red stains that covered the younger brother's pillow; Sam was coughing up blood again.
"I just.. need another blanket." Sam croaked out and blearily looked up at his big brother.
"Right." Dean said, knowing another blanket wouldn't be enough to protect his brother from the cold.
Sam closed his eyes as Dean slipped a hand under his bangs to feel his forehead, and Dean then narrowed his eyes a bit since Sam felt a little too warm for his liking.
"Alright, come on." Dean told Sam and began hoisting the younger man up from the bed.
"What are we doing?" Sam groaned in a tired voice as he – still cocooned in the covers of his bed like a caterpillar in its pupa state – was pulled to his feet and nudged towards the door.
"You're sleeping in my room." Dean said, placed a hand on Sam's shoulder and kept it there as he guided Sam towards his room.
"Why?" Sam yawned, looking more like the toddler he'd once been than the man he'd grown up to be – with the covers wrapped around him and his mop of hair sticking out in all directions.
"Because there's heat in my room and I don't want you to catch a cold on top of everything else." Dean said as he pushed open the door to his room and led Sam inside. "Or worse; pneumonia."
"You're such a worrywart." Sam complained.
"And you're an annoying little bitch but you can't win 'em all." Dean retorted before pushing Sam down to sit on the edge of the bed.
"Wait, this is your bed." Sam said and looked at Dean with a confused frown line between his eyes.
"That's quite an observant eye you've got there, Sherlock." The older brother said with sarcasm.
"But where're you gonna sleep then?" Sam asked as he shot his brother a glare for his snappy comment.
"I'm not." Dean answered and tried not to worry too much about how easily he was able to push Sam all the way down on the bed. "I have things to do."
"Wha-.. what things?" Sam asked between a few harsh coughs that distracted him long enough for Dean to tuck him in unnoticed.
"Things you don't need to worry about, little brother - like fixing the heater in your room for instance." Dean said.
"I can fix it myself, Dean." Sam mumbled which was followed by a content sigh as the warmth from Dean's body that still lingered underneath the covers slowly seeped into Sam's cold and aching body.
"You just focus on healing up, alright?" Dean told Sam but got no answer in return. "Sam?"
The older brother smiled fondly as he realized that Sam had drifted off to sleep already - then made sure the covers were covering Sam's entire 6'4" frame properly, before he picked up some clean clothes, turned off the lamp and left the room behind as silently as possible.
Dean walked to the bathroom, flicked on the lights and turned on the shower to give it a bit of time to warm up. The older Winchester brother then placed his hands on the sink and let out a heavy sigh before meeting his own eyes in the reflection of the mirror. It was at times like these when he was all alone – when Sam was asleep or out of sight - that Dean's stoic façade crumbled into pieces. The older brother could clearly see the fear in the reflection of his eyes; the fear of losing his little brother. Again. And maybe for good this time.
Dean let out another sigh – this time a shaky one – and forced the sting of tears back with pure determination. Sam was not gonna die because of these trials that weren't even supposed to have been on him – not on Dean's watch!
"That's right." Dean told his mirror-self with a nod of his head. "Sammy's gonna make it. I'll make sure of it."
_ SPN _
Twenty minutes and a long hot shower later, Dean made himself a steaming cup of coffee in the kitchen of the Batcave (still excited that they'd actually got a real kitchen there), and carried it in one hand and a toolbox in the other one as he returned to Sam's room to look at the broken heater.
The room was still freezing as Dean entered it and an involuntarily shudder ran down his spine while he once again wondered how Sam had even managed to catch some shut-eye in there.
He probably hadn't, Dean realized with a bitter clench of his jaw, and Sam had most likely been too exhausted to even consider doing anything about it.
"Alright, let's see what we've got." Dean muttered, took a sip of his coffee and put the cup on the desk before crouching down in front of the heater.
He tapped it a couple of times first in hopes of it just being some kind of loose connection, but when that wasn't the case, Dean pulled out a screwdriver from the toolbox and began to remove the front cover of the heater. The oldest Winchester brother checked that everything was in their correct positions before making sure that the gas valve wasn't turned off.
"Nope, still on." Dean mumbled and bit his lower lip in concentration. He was very determined on fixing that bloody heater – if he couldn't do anything to help Sam, then he'd be damned if he couldn't at least make sure that the kid didn't have to sleep in a freezing room!
A lot of curse words later, Dean found the cause of the broken heater and let out a cry of triumph when he succeeded in fixing the problem and the heater was once again providing the room with heated air. Dean rubbed his hands together in front of the heater and then leaned back against the side of Sam's bed with a satisfied sigh.
It was as he was sitting there on the floor of Sam's room that Dean happened to look around and noticed how impersonal his little brother's room was compared to his own room. Where Dean had decorated his rooms with weapons, his favorite vinyl records and even a few pictures, Sam's room was completely cleared of anything near and dear to him. The only evidence of the fact that the room was actually in use was Sam's bag that was neatly situated in a corner of the room, and a few books piled up next to the bed.
Dean shook his head with sadness when he realized that the one person he knew who wanted a normal life more than anything else, didn't even know how to make himself at home. Filled with a sudden need to do something nice for Sam, Dean jumped to his feet and started pacing the room while considering how to turn Sam's room into something a little more Sam-like.
"What does Sammy like..?" Dean questioned himself and then snorted when his eyes fell upon the obvious; Sam liked books.
Satisfied with his own idea, Dean left the room to pick up the supplies he needed for it and to look for some of Sam's stuff that could embellish his room.
The older Winchester brother exited the Men of Letters bunker and pinched his eyes a bit when the morning sun hit his face before he walked to the trunk of the Impala and opened it up. Promptly pushing some of the many weapons aside, Dean started looking for any of Sam's belongings - pictures, books, old notes, anything – that he might be able to use. He ended up with a few books that weren't supernatural related, an old notebook with some of Sam's assignments from High School, a few pictures, and Sam's scholarship diploma that Dean was more than a little surprised still existed. Pretty much everything they'd owned back in Lawrence, Kansas, had been ripped away in the fire that had killed their mom, and pretty much everything Sam had owned by the time he had been at Stanford had been ruined by the fire that had killed Jessica as well. Dean realized that there was probably a very good reason why Sam hadn't bothered to personalize his room in the bunker.
_ SPN _
By ten o'clock that day, Dean had put up shelves in Sam's room and filled them up with books, Sam's scholarship diploma, a picture of John and Mary Winchester in front of their old house in Lawrence and even one of a four-year-old Dean holding his little brother in his arms – although Dean had debated himself for a while if that was to cross the line of possible future chick-flick moments.
"What else have you got, Sammy..?" Dean mumbled and started going through Sam's duffel bag to look for more stuff to put up, even if it did mean that he was invading Sam's privacy just a tiny bit.
Aside from his usual collection of plaid shirts and worn jeans, Dean didn't find much of interest. He did, however, stumble across a picture of that Amelia-girl and the dog Sam had hit, which he couldn't for the love of pie remember the name of, but Dean couldn't find it in his heart to do anything else than put the picture back where he'd found it. Surprisingly enough, he also stopped by a picture of himself that, by the looks of it, had been studied a whole lot of times. A lump took form in Dean's throat when he realized that Sam had probably looked at this picture over and over again the year Dean had spent in Purgatory. It hadn't really occurred to the oldest Winchester brother that even though Sam hadn't looked for him, his little brother had never once forgotten about him.
Suddenly needing to continue his search through Sam's duffel bag, Dean cleared his throat and put the picture back in place before rummaging through the bag once more.
It was when Dean unzipped a little hidden room on the inside of the bag that he stopped in his tracks and gaped wide-eyed at what was inside of it. No, it couldn't be…. could it? With shaky hands, Dean grasped a leather core and pulled out the gold pendant that he was sure he'd tossed away all those years ago in the trash can of a motel room and never would be able to see again. Holding the amulet with one hand, Dean let his fingers slide down the worn leather core and caressed the smooth surface of the golden pendant. Dean realized that Sam must have rescued the amulet after Dean had thrown it away and kept it with him ever since then. It hadn't been one of the proudest moments in the life of Dean Winchester and he had regretted that particular moment, where he'd practically given up on Sam, so many times since then – especially in the period of time when Sam had been locked in the cage with Lucifer and Michael.
This time around, Dean couldn't stop the single tear that rolled down his cheek but he quickly wiped it away, abandoned the duffel bag and stuffed the amulet into his back pocket as he heard footsteps approaching in the hallway.
"Dean?" Sam called.
"In here." Dean called back and cleared his throat as the doorknob was pulled down and Sam stuck his head into the room.
"Dean?" Sam asked – his face still pale and his hair more than a little messy.
"Yeah, Sam?" Dean said and watched as Sam stepped all the way into the room.
"Did you fix the…" Sam started but then clamped shut like an oyster when he noticed the change in his room. "Wha-.. What's all this?"
"A surprise." Dean simply stated.
"A surprise.."Sam repeated and let his eyes wander along the shelves Dean had put up, dwelled on the pictures and the scholarship for a few moments before looking at his big brother.
"I.. I don't even know what to say." Sam said in a thick voice. "This is.. just.. Thanks."
"Don't mention it." Dean smiled - the wetness in Sam's eyes not going by unnoticed as he walked towards the door. "I'm gonna go fix us some grub."
Dean had almost made it all the way to the door when he was pulled into a sudden hug from his little brother that nearly threw him off balance.
"Thanks Dean. Really." Sam said before letting go of his big brother.
"Yeah.. Well.." Dean said, not really knowing what to say so instead responding the best way he could come up with; "You better not have messed up the memory foam in my room. My poor mattress isn't used to Gigantor weight."
Sam snorted at Dean's attempt to get out of the awkward situation and shook his head at Dean's smirk as the older brother left the room.
While Sam stayed in his room to take a closer look at the new decoration, Dean walked to his own room and closed the door behind him. He then pulled out the amulet from his back pocket and looked at it again. With everything the brothers had been through, Dean didn't think it would benefit either one of them if he started wearing the necklace again. Too much water had gone under the bridge since then, but the amulet still meant more to Dean that he could ever describe with words because Sam had given it to him.
Dean smiled at the thought of it and placed the amulet so it hung down from the lamp on his desk – right above the picture of him and his mom. Sam would eventually notice it there and Dean would have that talk with his brother when it happened, but for now he wouldn't say anything. The amulet was back where it belonged; it was in Dean's possession and among his greatest treasures and that was the important thing.
"Hey Dean?" Sam's voice called from the hallway.
"Coming!" Dean called back, glanced once more at the amulet and left the room with a smile on his face.
_SPN _ SPN _ SPN _ SPN _ SPN _ SPN _ SPN _ SPN _ SPN _ SPN _ SPN _ SPN _ SPN _ SPN _ SPN _
THE END.
I'm scared now – it's a sensitive subject to write about the Samulet ;)
Reviews are love!
-Elisa.