JUST A COUGH, SAMMY
Chapter 2
Sam reflects on where the nightmare started ...
Please forgive me for once again indulging my 'sleeping Dean' fetish in this chapter. I abdicate all responsibility for this - I blame the opening scene of 'Phantom Traveller' ...
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Sam could remember almost exactly when the whole sorry episode started. It was at a salt and burn in a flea bitten little town whose name escaped him, a few miles down the freeway from Arkansas, about three months ago.
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They really ought to had named Murphy's Law, 'Winchester's Law', because anything that could go wrong on that night really did go wrong; the spirit pummelled seven bells out of both brothers in the graveyard, rain hammered down on them the whole time and by the time they trudged their weary, bruised and soaking way back to the impala which they had parked outside the rear gates, it soon became clear that she had been broken into.
Their jackets had been rifled, so no funding meant no motel. Cue a cold, damp and extremely uncomfortable night spent hunkered down in the Impala with the February chill whistling through the broken window.
By morning, the cold and damp had taken its toll; both Winchesters were miserable, shivering, stiff, and ached all over. They were ravenously hungry, but no money meant no breakfast.
Fishing around in his duffel, Sam found a Granola bar. He broke it in half, and passed the bigger half to Dean, who took it ingraciously, muttering about it tasting like it had been picked up off of a stable floor. Fretting over his poor damaged baby (not his freezing cold, hungry brother), and with a coffee-less day looming, Dean's mood hovered somewhere between royally pissed-off and murderous.
Then things started to look up; they managed to sneak, unseen, into the local sports club and enjoy a warm shower, a shave and an opportunity to freshen up there. As a result, they looked and felt vaguely more human when they went out to face the world.
Thankfully, the one thing that they hadn't lost was Dean's ability to play pool and wrap the local low-life round his little finger; he spent a lucrative evening in the town's bar, plying his skill, while Sam sat in the Impala and filled in a fistful of fraudulent credit card applications.
By the end of the evening, Dean had enough notes in his sticky mitt to be able to book a hotel room for the next couple of nights, order in a pizza and even to think about getting started on his baby's broken window.
The motel room, although lavishly unappealing, was one of the most beautiful sights either of them had ever seen. After a cramped, freezing night in the Impala and a cold, thirsty and hungry day spent wandering the streets, although the bar's beer was like gnats pee, the beds were lumpy, the shower was feeble and the pizza didn't have enough cheese on it, they were both in heaven.
Then Winchester's law reared it's head again …
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The following morning saw the two men conked out in bed; pitiful sniffs, coughs and groans filled the room.
Sam rolled over onto his back, sending red hot pain skewering between his temples, he sneezed twice, and in the absence of a tissue, ended up with a snail trail along the back of his hand. His throat felt like a blast furnace, and the effort of standing upright, going for a pee, finding some tissue and trudging back to bed more or less wiped him out for the rest of the day.
Dean wasn't faring much better. He lay on his left side, afraid his face might cave in if he turned on his back. He knew it was always a sign that things were bad if he snored; he knew things were even worse if he snored while he was wide awake. Irritated by the constant dripping of his nose, he also attempted a stagger to the bathroom, trying to ignore his spinning head, burning throat and the crushing weight on his chest.
And so, the next three days passed in a blur of fitful sleeping, headaches, sneezing, coughing, snotty tissues, aching limbs, Tylenol, throat lozenges, and croaky, wheezing, slightly delirious conversations revolving around exactly what Dean was going to do to the scumbag who broke into the Impala if he caught up with him.
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After the third day, Sam felt well enough to move around. He felt desperately tired and wrung out like an old dishrag. He was still coughing and sniffling, but he definitely felt over the worst of it.
He surveyed the room and cringed. A mess of screwed up tissues, lozenge wrappers, empty tablet packs and discarded sweat-soaked T shirts covered the floor.
Sam did a double take when he glanced at the other bed. His brother lay face down on the bed snoring softly and hugging his pillow; the covers had been kicked off the bed, and with his left knee bent under him, Sam was confronted with the sight of his brother's boxer-clad ass staring him in the face.
Sam smiled and resisted the urge to slap it.
Dean was the untidiest, most fidgety sleeper Sam had ever known. He had been like it as a child and it was a trait he had never come close to growing out of. He was in sleep as in wakefulness, a throbbing bundle of nervous energy, and Sam marvelled at some of the positions he managed to fidget his way into during his so-called rest.
Smiling about the spectacle before him, Sam headed towards the bathroom, the thought of a good refreshing shower too attractive to ignore. He turned and studied his reflection in the mirror.
"Ugh!"
Lank hair was slicked greasily to his head, his gaunt, pale face was adorned by three days stubble, watery hazel eyes stared back at him … he looked away, it was just too horrible.
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Half an hour later, showered, shaved and generally freshened up, Sam stepped out of the bathroom back into the bedroom and gagged as he was hit by the smell of three days confined illness; a pungent cocktail of menthol rub and stale sweat.
In the midst of the miasma, Dean was stirring stiffly in his bed, "S'mmy" he croaked, staring around himself vacantly, "whassa time? His voice sounded like he had been gargling with razor blades.
Sam headed over and sat on the side of his bed. "It's Wednesday, dude!"
Dean rubbed his chest, gave a spluttering, breathless cough and stared at Sam. "Feel like crap S'mmy …"
Sam reached out to feel his brother's forehead and had his hand slapped away.
"You look like crap too bro'" he smiled at the pasty, gaunt face.
Dean moved to sit up, but was promptly pushed gently back down into the bed, "why don't you just rest?" Sam smiled at his brother's blank face as he pulled the sheets back up over him, "we've got nowhere to go, and you know how these…"
Dean glared, "if the words, 'you know how these things always affect you worse than me' come out of your mouth, I will hurt you!" He tried to look stern and authoritarian, but the whole effect was ruined by a spectacular sneeze and a wheezy coughing fit.
Sam wiped the spit off of his face, and rubbed his brother's back as the coughing subsided; "you don't scare me!" He grinned, "now rest up - stinky!"
Dean stared at him, then turned and sniffed his armpit. He cringed …
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It would be another few days before both brothers felt fit to move on, a few more until they were fit to return to the hunt …
… but Sam still had his doubts.
tbc