A/N: Hello, everyone! Sorry I haven't posted in a while. Finals are approaching, and threatening to eat me alive, so I may be in and out for a bit. I wanted to get in at least one more before my procrastination comes back to bite me in the ass, so I decided to go ahead and post this little piece. This is actually based on my own memories and experiences with an asthmatic younger brother—who also happens to be named Sam—as much as my creative manipulation of the Winchesters. Enjoy, and please review.
The ceiling is weird and lumpy, done in that style they call "popcorn" but reminding him instead of the beige, colorless ambiguity of oatmeal. There's a water spot—he measures it from his position lying flat—about two and a half hand lengths to his left. The spot is vaguely shaped like Sam's head when he hasn't had a hair cut in a while, or maybe a potato, it's hard to tell.
The room they're in now is a double, but the bed farthest from the door lies empty. Because Dad hasn't been heard from in eight days, and Sam…Sam is right beside him.
The lights are off, because headaches sometimes accompany the aftermath of one of Sam's episodes, but the blackout curtains aren't drawn and the afternoon sun filters through the gauzy, thinner layer. It's a soft light, and the way it touches the almost-curly waves of Sam's hair and the pale curve of his cheek makes him look younger than his fifteen years.
This was a bad one, as bad as they get before Dean throws Dad's rules to hell and they hightail it to the nearest hospital. Sam's eyes are closed, lashes clumped into damp triangles with rare, recently quelled tears—because Sam knows from experience that crying makes it more difficult for him to inhale the medicine he needs to breathe. The mask sits over Sam's nose and mouth, plastic fogged—thank God—with the warmth of his brother's breath and condensation from the mist of medicine. An elastic band loops over Sam's ears and around his head, holding the mask in place and making his hair stick up funny on one side.
The nebulizer administering the medicine sits heavily on Dean's chest, because the outlet in the wall is on his side of the bed, and because he won't have anything between him and Sam right now.
One would think, with all the years he's dealt with this, it would get easier.
He remembers the chaos from just seven minutes ago. He'd picked Sam up from school a couple hours ago, and dropped onto the bed for a quick power nap before his shift later tonight. Sam had turned the TV on low and taken a seat at the table to start on his homework. Then, he'd woken to the frantic, shaking of Sam's hand on his shoulder, the desperate, painful gasps of his brother trying to pull air into uncooperative lungs. With practiced, grim efficiency, he'd pulled Sam to sit on the bed, grabbing the nebulizer from the first aid duffel, because the whistling in Sam's chest indicated this was beyond just the help of a couple puffs on the inhaler.
Every time this happens he's fervently grateful that Dad had bought the cursed machine a year or so back, when they'd stayed in the south and the pollens had aggravated Sam's lungs, rattling his body with deep, harsh coughs. Because it's not enough that Sam's suffered severe asthma since early childhood, now he has to develop allergies on top of that.
So here they are, Sam curled towards Dean, the mask obscuring the lower half of his face. Dean lies on his back, head turned to his brother, fingers clutched around one bony wrist. The kid has recently shot up—about time, too—leaving him a scant three inches short of Dean's height, so that when they lay like this their bodies line up nearly evenly.
He feels something brush the hand circling Sam's wrist and flicks his eyes down. The pencil Sam had been using on his algebra lies clenched and forgotten in his right hand, so tight that the knuckles have gone white. Dean shifts carefully, lifting the machine from his chest and rolling so that he lies on his right side, facing Sam, and the nebulizer sits behind him, just brushing his back. He reaches down, wrapping both hands around Sam's one and massaging until the stiff fingers loosen and the pencil rolls away, unheeded.
When he glances up Sam's eyes are open, weary and unfocused, but no longer wide with panic. No, the panic has passed, but the shame he finds there is somehow worse.
Fresh tears well on Sam's already wet eyelashes, teetering precariously before they spill and gravity pulls them into the soft hair just above his left ear.
"Hey, now," Dean admonishes. His voice is still gravelly from sleep, hoarse and strange against the loud drone of the nebulizer.
He swipes a thumb under each of Sam's eyes, smearing away new tears.
"None of that. Calm down, Sammy. Don't make it harder."
Sam's breath hitches once, and Dean strokes gentle circles on the boy's chest. Sam nods and attempts to slow his respiration.
Glassy hazel eyes meet his again. "'s jus' 'm sorry. 'm s-sorry, Dean."
It hurts him, to hear those words. Because Sam shouldn't feel guilty and ashamed for not being able to breathe, for God's sake. And he is so incredibly angry, because no matter how hard he tries this is one thing that he cannot take from Sam's thin shoulders. This is Sam's burden, for better or for worse, and it kills Dean to be so helpless. It's not something he's good at.
"Not your fault, Sammy," he says fiercely "It's not ever your fault."
Sam huffs behind the mask, and beneath the whir of the machine Dean makes out "for crying."
He rolls his eyes; because of course Sam is concerned with his dignity when his body is quitting on him.
Dean pulls Sam's hand—the one still trapped in his own—up so they both see the barest tinge of blue in the nail beds. It's fading with the oxygen Sam draws into his lungs, but still visible.
"I'll give you a pass on this one, huh?"
Sam nods, eager to forget the fact that he is still a child, still needs his brother to take care of him occasionally.
But that's okay. Dean doesn't mind.
Sam's eyelids flutter, the severity of the attack leaving him exhausted. Dean sympathizes, but it's barely five and there's supper to be made. There will be no shift at the 24-hour diner tonight, the call made three minutes into Sam's breathing treatment, just after that horrible whistling sound of his inhalations stopped.
The treatment is almost done now, the machine starting to sputter as it runs out of liquid to dispense. Sam hasn't yet reached that limp, boneless state that means he's dead to the world, but he's getting close. Dean needs to get up. Now that he's not going to work there's laundry and supper and maybe a hushed, angry call to Dad and…
He gets halfway to standing before a gangly hand attaches itself to his forearm with a surprisingly strong grip.
Sam's eyes are open, tired but clear. "What?" he asks.
"I'm just going to get some things done," Dean says. A change in sound signals that the nebulizer is done, and Dean carefully lifts the mask up and over Sam's head, replacing the machine in the bag and smoothing the weird baby-duckling-hair Sam has going on right now. "How ya feel, kid?"
"Been better." Sam's voice is rough, but he doesn't seem to struggle for breath.
"You and me both." Dean needs to move, but the kid's hand is still clamped on his arm. "Whaddaya feel like eating? Anything sound good?"
"Grilled cheese," It's halfway to a question, but Dean nods because it's a good choice, and he won't have to run to the grocery store today at least.
Sam's grip doesn't loosen.
"Can wait 'til later," he mutters, tugging at Dean's arm. And Dean doesn't protest, because the fallout of an episode like this can affect Sam in a number of ways, and a clingy Sam is not the worst of his options.
He stretches, fingers snagging the comforter off the other bed—because obviously Dad isn't going to need it today—and dragging it across both of them as he settles beside Sam. He rolls onto his stomach, throwing a careful arm over Sam's stomach, but not his chest. Sam shifts closer, hair brushing Dean's jaw and chin digging not quite comfortably into Dean's shoulder. His socked feet tangle in Dean's jeans, still somehow freezing through the thick cotton.
"Nap time it is," Dean murmurs contentedly.
Sam sighs, heavy and deep, and goes completely lax along the line of Dean's body.
And with that freshly unburdened exhalation, Dean feels the renewed relief of the first full breath reaching the bottom of his own lungs.
With the familiar weight of his brother in his arms, he takes the easy slide into sleep.