„Guten Tag yourself!"
"I can't believe he chained me, dressed up like Dracula. Oh yeah, and actually put me in lederhosen! What a lunatic!"
A involuntary shiver passed through Dean's body and the Impala swayed slightly in his line.
„I don't think I've ever met such a kinky shape-shifter before in my whole life. I mean, shifting into creatures from old horror movies? That's so old-fashioned."
Sam shook his head in disbelief and bit into his big pretzel, spreading salt crumbs all over his seat and the floor.
"Hey, don't ruin my baby, keep your salt to yourself." Dean gave him an angry look and lifted his arm to muffle a short cough into it.
"The pretzels are tasty though. They're so huge, in Texas there are only those small, crispy ones."
He greedily eyed Sam's one and wondered if he would notice if he just had one bite. Before they left he was talking to barmaids instead of stocking up with pretzels. What a pity. Of course Sam noticed his hungry eyes and intuitionally covered his treasure with his giant palm.
"No way, Dude. It's mine."
"Bitch," Dean huffed and scrubbed at his nose with his sleeve. Since they'd left Bavaria it felt somewhat tickly, not stuffy, just really itchy. He didn't know why but he had the presentiment that he could be coming down with something since his throat was also scratching suspiciously.
"Jerk," Sam winked and took a purposely huge bite, chewing contentedly and smiled amused to himself, watching his brother pout.
They drove on a bit and Dean got more and more confused because of all these German traffic signs, they could have also been Japanese. He didn't care. All he knew was that he didn't understand a thing and that he hadn't got an idea how to get to a town called Hamburg, let alone meeting up with Bobby and facing a new case.
To top it all his nose started revolting again. He gave it an annoyed rub with his knuckles. It still felt like thousands of little feathers were tickling the inside, plainly agonizing. The rubbing didn't do any good, he felt the tickling sensation growing bigger and bigger with every breath. He knew it would be hard not to explode all over the steering wheel, so he bit his lip, trying to suppress the feeling.
Fortunately, Sam didn't notice anything at all because he'd drifted off to sleep since he'd finished his pretzel (all by himself!), so Dean risked a sniff and pinched his nose shut, trying to stop the inevitable.
Sure enough he failed and inhaled sharply, bending down as an enormous sneeze ripped out of him, making him moan and gasp for air.
"Heh'GDZSH-uhh"
Startled, Sam awoke from his sleep and turned his head just in time to watch his brother taking another shuddering breath and delivering it into his hand. "Hhh'ESHH-uhhh."
Panicked, Sam grabbed the steering wheel in a quick motion and directed the Impala to the verge. The car stopped and he sighed with relief.
"Dude, you could have killed the both of us!"
His brother had his face buried in the crook of his arm, coughing, even longer and more painful sounding than before and Sam felt sorry for him. It was not like he hadn't noticed the coughing earlier but since he knew that Dean was a terrible sick person he had simply kept his mouth shut, which should spare him a lot of cranky answers. So he just had pretended that he hadn't noticed anything at all. But now he couldn't hide his concern anymore, it was too obvious that Dean wasn't feeling well.
"You okay?" Sam softly touched his arm.
With teary eyes Dean looked up, wiping them with one hand and rasped, "Yeh'm'fine."
He didn't believe him. He looked everything but "fine".
Sam took in his fever flushed cheeks, his sweaty forehead and his pale skin and had another try. "You sure about that?"
Dean gave him a grunt in response.
"Yeah, and now shut your fucking pie hohh…huhh'TZSH-ehh."
Disgusted, he took a look at his hands in which he just had sneezed.
"Ughh…Sabby please tell be you are carryigg sobe girly tissues with you."
Sam couldn't hold back a grin, his brother had snotted all over himself like a three-year-old and was desperately needing his help.
"Don't worry kiddo." He handed him a napkin he had earlier stuffed into the glove box in wise foresight.
After wiping his hands, giving his nose a hard blow and tossing the soaked tissue out of the window, he turned on the engine again.
"Let's go, we got work to do."
Sam's eyes were on him. "Do you even know where to drive?"
Another grunt. "Yeah, Sam. Hamburg's our destination."
Sam involuntary rolled his eyes. "I meant which way we have to take, genius. Have you checked the map?"
Now it was Dean's turn to roll his eyes. "Looking at maps is for losers, we'll find the right way without it, trust me."
Determinedly, Dean pushed the gas pedal and drove the Impala back onto the street, heading in the general direction of the highway.
They were driving about half an hour when the shivering began.
First, it was almost unnoticeable. Here and then a shiver would pass Dean's body, nothing too unusual for a day in autumn. But when he didn't stop shivering and even his lips turned kind of blue, Sam knew that he had to do something if Dean wasn't insightful himself.
When the next gas station appeared in his field of view, he made his brother pull over and stop to get something to eat.
While he fuelled the car, a privilege only he was allowed to do, Sam stepped into the garage, looking for some supplies he knew his brother was going to be in dire need of. Walking along the shelves he picked out a few things, putting them in the shopping bag he took from the entrance. A box of tissues, tea, soup in cans, another box of tissues.
Then he was reminded by his rumbling stomach that they hadn't had dinner yet. He turned on his heel and looked around to find something suitable. Indeed, there was a cooling shelf filled with lots of sandwiches and so on. He chose a tuna- and a ham-sandwich for Dean and a cheese sandwich and a little salad for himself. When he headed for the register, he saw Dean entering the gas station, so he changed his way and followed him unobtrusively. He did a good job, Dean wasn't aware that his brother was watching him all the time as he thumbed through some porn magazine, grumbling "They don't even have busty-asian-beauties-magazines." Then he opened another porn magazine and whistled in appreciation. "Ohh la la, hello there! God, blond girls are pretty."
Suddenly, Sam put his hand on his brother's shoulder, making him jump and gave him a grin. "Dude, you are incurable, you know that?"
Dean chuckled and wanted to follow his brother to the register, but froze right in front of the candy section instead and stared at the different sweets he found there. Gummibears, Milka-chocolate, Ferrero-Kuesschen, Jelly Beans, chocolate-cookies, …
He wasn't able to think anymore. It was like paradise.
Sam watched his brother drooling and laughed to himself. Sometimes Dean really was like a three-year-old. There were only about two people more in the gas station, causing the red haired girl on the register to yawn and tap on the table with her fingers.
"Hi." Sam broke the silence and gave her a smile.
"Hallo." The girl smiled back and pulled a strand of hair behind her ear as she kept on talking to him.
"Schreckliches Wetter draußen, findest du nicht?"
Sam eyed her confusedly and gave an embarrassed smile,
"Ahm…I'm sorry, I don't speak any German. We're just rambling by."
The girl laughed and answered him in English.
"No problem, I also speak English. Uh, I was just saying that the weather's awful. Where are you guys from?"
Her English wasn't perfect and she had a hint of accent in it, but Sam didn't mind. "Yeah, that's true…Oh, we're from Texas. Actually we're just here to uhm…go hunting with an old friend." The girl rose her eyebrows. "Oh really? What are you usually hunting?" Sam stuttered, "Uhm, deer and… wild boar."
"Cool, my father is also a hunter. Usually he sticks to deer."
Sam and the girl kept on chatting as a sound attracted their attention.
"Hehh…goddammit…Hehhh…'DGTSHH-uhh."
Both of them turned their heads to Dean who was wiping at his nose with his sleeve, fighting with another sneeze. "Hihhh'GZSHSH."
"My brother even managed to catch a cold." He pointed at the cold supplies he just had bought
"What?" Dean croaked and gave him the stink eye before launching into a harsh coughing fit.
"Wouldn't admit it of course."
The hacking went on.
"Poor guy, his cough sounds pretty bad. Does he take anything for it?"
The girl's eyes focused on Sam now.
"Uhm. I don't think so. He won't take medicine unless it tastes like sweets. He's pretty …special." Sam shrugged apologetically.
The girl disappeared behind the counter and looked for something. After a few seconds she held a bag of sweets out to him.
"What's that?" Sam inched closer and inspected the sweets.
"They're quite popular here in Germany, they're called "Rachen-Drachen", which simply means "Throat-Dragons". They have the same effect as normal cough drops, but they are shaped like little dragons, and they taste quite nice! Maybe they will work for your brother?"
Sam was speechless. He'd never seen something like this before, and he was quite stunned.
"I though so. Just keep them, and take care of your brother,"
She winked and handed him the bag of sweets, smiling knowingly.
"Thank you a lot!" Sam couldn't believe his luck and gave her a sweet smile as a way of showing his gratitude. Quickly he stored the stuff he bought in a plastic bag before Dean could see them and go cranky.
He had just put the last thing into the bag as Dean appeared next to him, his nose slightly redder than before, packed with lots of sweets.
He dropped them on the assembly line and gave Sam a content grin.
"Dude, I think I'm in heaven. Look at all those sweets!"
The girl giggled, "I'm glad you enjoy yourself here."
"Danke schoen!" Dean flirted, trying to impress her with his German.
"Oh, you speak German?" The girl wanted to know.
"Ein kleines bisschen. Ich habe es gelernt als ich mit meinem Vater jagen war." (= A little bit. I've learned it while I was hunting with my Dad.)
„Wow, that's cool!"
Sam gave his brother bitchface #17, which stood for "How come you speak German?"
The girl smiled as Dean passed her a scribbled note with his telephone number. "You gonna call me? Maybe I'll stay in Germany a little longehhh…ehhh…Hehh'RGSHH-uhh."
Dean dipped his head down in the crook of his elbow and let loose another sneeze. "Hihh'TSHH-ehh. Uhh god, pardon me."
He looked apologetically at her and she just giggled "Gesundheit!"
"Thanks," Dean rasped and cleared his throat.
"A pretty bad cold you got there. You should let your brother take care of you." Dean's mood darkened. "No way, honey. I'm a big boy, I can take care of myself."
She shrugged and smiled at him again.
"Well, we gotta go. We've still got a lot of miles before us. Our friend is expecting us," Sam interrupted Dean's conversation with the girl abruptly and tugged at his sleeve.
"Yeah, yeah. I'm coming," Dean grumbled and followed his brother.
While they exited Dean secretly turned around and gestured the girl to phone him. She smiled in return and waved him good-bye.