Title: Final Push
Fandom: Supernatural
Summary: Season 8. Tag to "Clip Show". Dean tries to help a faltering Sam as they aim for the final trial. (Started this a year or so ago, finally found time to finish it and beat Sam up again.)
"Why are you up and better question, why are you in the kitchen? Your ass is supposed to be in bed with your only destination being the bathroom. And yet here you stand, sort of, in the kitchen, with a freakin' knife in your hand."
Dean snatched the knife from his brother's hand.
"Dean, it's a butter knife and I'm…"
"So help me if you say you are fine, I will punch you in the face."
"I wasn't going to say I'm fine."
"Good. Because you look like death. And that's being generous."
"I was hungry and…"
"I told you to yell for me if you needed something."
"You need sleep, Dean. You've been taking care of me 24/7 since we got home from Sara, which I appreciate, but you're starting to look like a raccoon."
"I am sleeping."
"Twenty minute power naps are not sleeping. I can manage on my own for a time. Go lay dow…"
The sentence never completed. Sam doubled over in pain, dropping his sandwich in the process. Some of the time he was able to deal with the pain. Sucking it down, pushing it away; focusing on anything and everything else. But other times, it knocked him sideways, backwards and every way in between. There was never a warning for the worst of it, and in recent days it was dragging him to his knees.
Dean was there of course. As he'd been for the last week; from the moment they'd returned to the bunker. Right now, he propped Sam onto one of the kitchen chairs and held him there with one arm secured to his shoulder. Sam's head was forward, willing his mind to regain control over his body. It wasn't working. It never worked. Riding it out was the only option and there was no telling how long an episode would last or how bad it would be.
"Can you walk?" Dean asked him gently.
Sam gave a slight shake of his head.
"Okay, you sit then. I'll clean up the mess and make you another sandwich. You need to let me do these things for you, Sam. Until you're better."
With head still down, Sam responded through the agony. "What if I don't get better, Dean? There's one trial left and what if…"
"You will get better."
"How can you say that? You don't know." Now, Sam lifted his head. He wanted…needed…to see his brother's eyes.
"No. I don't know for absolute sure, Sam. I do know that we've beaten the hell out of the odds before. More than once. We can do it again."
Hazel eyes closed into a wave of pain and Sam shook his head once more. "We don't even know what's being done to me inside, much less how to fix it when we're done."
"Doesn't matter. We will figure it out. There's no other option. You're not dyin' on me, Sam. Neither of us is doin' that again. Not without the other. We just…"
The second sandwich was finished. Turkey with a dab of mayo. Easy on the stomach. Dean held it on a plate in front of him only inches away from his kid brother, who questioned, "We just what, Dean?"
"We just have to be patient."
Sam snorted and immediately Dean knew he'd said the wrong thing. 'Be patient.' Right. Sure. Because the agony tearing through Sam every second of every day was something to just kick back and twiddle your thumbs about, right?
"Wrong choice of words, Sam. Sorry. I can't feel what you feel, but I know it's debilitating. If patience was all that was needed, we'd be in the clear. Here."
The plate was offered and Sam accepted with hands that shook lightly. The thing that had led him to the kitchen in the first place, needing to be fed. A starving stomach could never make things better.
"Need anything else? Water?"
No beer. Dean had cut him off the moment they'd gotten home, even though a stray thought pushed around the idea that a drunk Sam might be a less traumatized Sam. Common sense had won out on that one.
"Some crushed ice maybe?"
"You got it, brother."
The ice came in a small plastic cup that looked extra tiny in Sam's hand, but it served its purpose.
"And then back to bed."
"Same for you, Dean."
Prepared for protest, ready to deny his exhaustion, Dean was on the verge of giving Sam the speech about how he had to look out for him. Instead, he relented. He was exhausted. Beyond that really…if there was such a monster. And so far this week, each time Sam was torn into a battle with pain, he did eventually come out of it. Other than be there, there wasn't much Dean could offer to make things better. And if he was dead to the world from lack of rest, he'd be dead to Sam when his brother truly needed him.
He nodded. "You're right. I'll sleep. Keep your phone bedside though. You get into trouble and can't yell for me, use the damn phone. Got it?"
The pain easing some, Sam took a crush of ice into his mouth and smiled awkwardly.
"Got it." He finally offered. Quietly then, and with sincere affection, he said, "And, Dean…thanks."
A simple word, but it covered every single thing that Dean had done for him this week.
A pause, then… "Not much longer, Sammy. We'll put those sons of bitches back where they came from and then it'll be over. Then you'll get better."
Eyes met once more and Sam saw that determination in Dean's that he always saw when someone he cared about was in trouble. His big brother believed in what he was saying. He may not have the slightest clue as to the how and when and all of those pesky details, but for now, that determination was enough to get them from day to day.
Sam eventually finished the sandwich and some of the ice, then accepted Dean's help to return to his room and get settled into bed.
Fiddling with the phone on the nightstand, Dean set it within easy reach. "I mean it, man. You can barely stand, I don't want to see you face-planted on the bathroom floor in an hour because you had to pee and couldn't wait for help to get you from point A to point B. Got it?"
"Yes, Mom." Sam said hoarsely as he lowered his head onto the pillow.
"Promise me, Sam."
"Okay, Dean. I promise."
"Good boy. Now sleep. Think happy thoughts."
"Like what?"
"I don't know, count sheep or something."
"I tried that yesterday. All the sheep had red eyes, breathed black smoke, and spoke with British accents."
That image shut Dean up for a second, pondering Sam's current state of fever dreams. "Wait…what? Why are you dreaming…wait." A hand reached to Sam's forehead to feel for the unrelenting fever that had been plaguing him for the last month. Tame for the moment, but unfed during the night, it would shoot back up and who knew what type of whacked out dream his brother would succumb to then. Maybe…
"I should stay, Sam. Don't want that fever getting too high. If you've been dreaming about red-eyed demon sheep…"
"S'okay, Dean. I can sleep on my own. Don't need your help."
"The hell you don't. Demon sheep, Sam. Talking. Demon. Sheep. That's not normal or anywhere close to it." The older Winchester ignored Sam's further protests and pulled the nearby chair over to the bedside. "You remember when you were young and Dad and I'd come back from a hunt. You'd be messed up for a few days after. You never slept well those nights. Dad said you'd be fine, but I knew you were scared. Remember what we used to do?"
Sam looked up from the pillow. "You'd make me hot chocolate and we'd stay up watching those stupid infomercials on TV. All night."
"Yeah. Imitating those annoying salespeople and the bullshit customers. 'I lost 50 pounds in a day just by strapping a vibrating belt to my thighs!' We'd come up with ideas about how to use those dumb-ass products to kill monsters on a hunt and you would dare me to buy one and try it next time out."
"Y'almost did."
"Dad caught me puttin' the Amazing Miracle Fat Pills into my bag, remember that? I told him I was gonna mix them with Coke and Pop Rocks, shove it down a monster's throat and see if it would explode."
"Wouldn't've worked."
"Nah, but woulda been fun as hell to try it."
"Exploding carbonated werewolves."
"Lose weight in a hurry that way." Sam's weak smile pained Dean to the core, but he tried to keep the good memory moving forward.
"You remember that third hunt we let you on? The coke can and the poodle?"
"Wasn't a poodle, Dean. It was a German Shepherd and I thought it was a monster, because you had me all freaked out after making me watch Cujo in the motel room, alone, in some backwoods town. Then calling me to come help you and Dad in the woods. You told me I couldn't have a gun or a knife, but you stuck a damn coke can in my hand."
"First time a can of soda has ever been used in a monster hunt, probably. The dog wasn't amused though. You were so freaked, you whacked him in the ass with the can, and he chomped you on the arm with his teeth. Seemed fair. Turned out to not be a monster anyway. Those woods were clean. I think the dog was just scaring the hell outta people."
"I still have the scar from that bite." Sam's eyes fluttered. "Things were simple then."
"Yeah", Dean pulled the chair he was in closer to the bed. "Seems that way now." The remote to Sam's TV located, Dean powered it on and wandered through channels until he stumbled on…"Ha! I didn't think they sold that thing anymore. Flobee. I know you remember that one. That hair cut I gave you?"
"Wasn't a haircut, Dean." Sam's eyes, too tired to open completely, found his brother's before closing again. "Stuck to one side of my head and sucked all the hair off. You made me half bald."
"Huh. Was a good look for you, Sammy. That side-head shaved look was the style for a while. You fit right in with that school you were in at the time. Never could figure out how to use that thing as a weapon though. I think Dad tossed it in dumpster.
"I set it on fire."
"Eh, too bad. Coulda used it on that mop of hair you have up there now."
As Dean smiled, things went quiet and for a moment, he thought Sam had fallen asleep. He flipped past several more infomercials, crappy and not so crappy, before feeling fingers wrapping into his shirt sleeve. Pain etched on Sam's face, eyes closed tight. Dean put the remote down and grasped his brother's hand.
"Easy, Sammy. Try and relax and breathe through it. I'm here."
Clearly, despite Sam's earlier protest, Dean had no plans on leaving his side tonight. If he had to watch every piece of crap infomercial on the air to keep himself awake and there for his little brother, he'd do it. But with every wave of pain, every bought of nausea, every half degree of upward trending fever, Dean felt more and more helpless. He felt more and more terrified that there was no good ending to this path. There was no happily ever after. There was no saving his little brother from whatever these trials were doing to him.
But he stayed and he sat and he nursed and he mothered and he was there. It's all he could do. At this point, it's all he knew how to do. It's what he did best.
Later into the night, after endless infomercials and temptations to buy some of them – after all, who didn't need an automatic egg de-yolker, right? – Dean ran a wet cloth over Sam's face as the fever cycled into high gear again. The eyes fluttered at the coolness and Sam muttered something, one word…unintelligible…at least to most ears.
Dean heard and understood. "Whatever…Bitch. Go back to sleep."
A ghost of a smile floated across Sam's face with Dean's words before contorting once more into pain. It could all end tonight in the shape he was in. And as badly as he felt, he was okay with the thought. Okay with letting go if it came to that. But Dean, in his response, had told him to keep fighting without actually saying the words. So he would. Keep fighting. As long as he was physically able. Or until Dean told him it was okay to stop…or until he told him it was okay to let go.
For now, the familiar hand he felt on his own settled him enough to make the relentless pain tolerable. Enough to calm the worst of his fears for a short time. Enough to know his brother was there at his side and would remain so, as together they made the final push to closing the gates of Hell forever.
The End
