"Deep breaths, baby. Head between your knees." Dean was so used to this process by now he could do it in his sleep, but that didn't make it suck any less. His hand rubbed gently up and down Sam's bent spine, each notch caught by the tips of his fingers.
Sam shook and shuddered, tears slipping from his eyes to crash against the concrete of the sidewalk outside the diner, but the weight of Dean's hand grounded him and over the course of a few minutes it became slightly easier to breathe.
"There you go," Dean soothed. "That's my boy. Doin' so good. Can you tell me what happened?"
It took Sam a little while to actually calm down enough to trust himself to speak without stuttering through every word, but he finally raised his head and let himself fall against Dean's chest with a hitched sigh. "'M sorry," he muttered, one trembling hand dragging itself up to fist into Dean's shirt. "Didn't mean to freak out. I-I just, I accidentally cut my finger on my steak knife when you were in the bathroom, n-not bad, just a little-" He held it up pointedly, displaying the evidence for Dean, "-but I guess I made a s-sound, like it hurt, didn't mean to, j-just kinda slipped, and a waitress heard and sh-she rushed over to me a-and she was crowding me so I s-started p-p-panicking a little, but I was gonna be okay, I was gonna be able to h-hold it off, until she realized s-something was wrong, 'sides my finger, I mean, and sh-sh-she st-started c-calling people over to m-me and then I couldn't b-b-breathe and they were c-closing in on me and I j-j-j-"
"Okay," Dean interrupted, holding Sam tightly against him and rocking him gently from side to side. "Okay, it's okay. You're okay. Talk to me about somethin' else, yeah?" Dean scanned the area around them and his eyes fell on something growing between the cracks of the sidewalk. It looked like clover, but a lighter green, and there were small, yellow flowers blooming around it. "Hey, what's this?" he asked, betting the odds that Sam knew and could use the explanation to distract himself were fairly high.
Sure enough, the corner of Sam's mouth turned up into a small, wavering smile. "That's called oxalis. It's more commonly known as sour clover, though, because you can eat it and it's... it's sour. Kind of self-explanatory."
Dean grinned down at him, shaking his head."Remind me to just flip through your head if I ever need an encyclopedia."
Sam's cheeks flushed a little, and he couldn't help a small, breathy laugh.
Dean wouldn't have traded it for the world. This wasn't great, by any means. Wasn't even good, really. But they were pushing through, one day at a time. And that was enough.